Bryn rolled the silver coin over his knuckles, waiting for the man to respond.

  He looked at the coin and simply shrugged. “You could offer me my weight in gold, but it wouldn’t change my answer. Never met the guy before. Him and some girl came in here and bought a wagon from me they said used to be theirs, then they leave out of here. Never said a word of where they was going.”

  “Shame,” Bryn said, flipping the coin smoothly in his pocket.

  Jayde gave a snarl of contempt. “Think he’s lying?”

  Bryn turned and patted the woman on the shoulder. “Not every merchant shakes their customers down for every piece of information they can glean from them.” He turned back to the old man and gave a shallow bow. “You’ve been most helpful. I bid you a good day sir.”

  They exited out of the warehouse and into the noon sun, hurrying towards the inn where they had left Farlin and Rex. Bryn had suspected the blacksmith might prove of some use in asking around while Rex would probably only manage to eat and drink everything in the town.

  “I still don’t like that you invited that damn blacksmith along,” Jayde huffed. “Moment his wife started screaming he jumped in asking us to stop. That’s nothing but weakness.”

  Bryn gave a small chuckle. “Ah sweet sister. What you saw is love and a man who is absolutely riddled with religious guilt.”

  “Love is weakness.”

  Bryn shook his head. “To some, love is pure and eternal. For others, such as yourself, love is a few coins changing hands and a wrestling match on a dirty pile of straw. You couldn’t possibly understand him.”

  She curled her lip in annoyance. “I suppose you do?”

  He nodded to her. “I understand people like him. A man who blindly dedicates his life to the worship of gods he truly knows nothing about, in a backwoods town, brought up to believe anything like magic is evil. A dumb yokel with no view of the outside world seeks out a cure for something that isn’t an affliction.”

  Jayde shrugged her shoulders. “And the fool doesn’t have a clue that we sold his kids to the Red Suns.”

  “Contract states that we are to interrogate his wife, retrieve his wayward children and take them to where they can be taken care of. If he didn’t read or understand the terms of the deal, then that would certainly be on him.” Bryn held a finger up to accentuate his point. “And a Van-Gelden always honors the contract.”

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  She rolled her eyes. “As if I haven’t heard that enough already. So what if he changes his mind about shipping off the brats like he did his wife?”

  “Always honor the contract,” Bryn said again. “Nothing in the terms states that he needs to be alive and we’ve already been paid.”

  Jayde finally smiled, a rare and strange thing to behold. Even Bryn felt somewhat unnerved by it, but he let the matter settle as there was some sort of commotion in front of them at the Inn now. A crowd of people were gathered around something, but it was hard to tell from where they were at.

  The smile faded. “What now?”

  “Perhaps if you’d be so kind as to make us a path to the front of the crowd, we might find out.”

  Jayde pushed everyone to the side, men, women, or children. Only one person dared speak out and he learned a very hard and painful lesson of just how violent she could be. Soon they were at the front of the mob surrounding two beleaguered men sitting on some steps.

  “Look, we don’t know what happened. We just saw that everyone in Pickett’s Mine had died.”

  Jayde yelled to Bryn over the crowd, “Nothing that matters to us.”

  The crowd began to disperse, running to spread their rumors like a wildfire throughout the town. It made it much easier to get to the two men, though they looked as if the only thing they wanted was some time to rest.

  “Not so fast,” he told her. He got closer to the man and knelt down to eye level. “Sir, please. I’ve got family travelling and I’m desperate to catch up. Perhaps you’ve seen them. A man and woman traveling with two older children in a wagon.”

  The other man overhearing the plea shook his head. “Didn’t see a woman, but there was a man with two kids we passed by only last night.”

  Bryn nodded excitedly. “That’s most likely them. She’s always been shy around strangers. Are they far?”

  The first man shook his head. “Not really. We’d have been here sooner but the horses damn near collapsed on us for pushing them too hard. Had to stop for a few hours.”

  Bryn got all the information he needed and turned back to his companion, a look of seriousness on his face. “Go get Rex and the blacksmith. We’ve got to get moving.”

  Jayde looked at him sourly. “What’s the hurry? We’ve barely had time to rest since we’d arrived.”

  He pulled her aside and out of earshot. “These two idiots just announced to everyone that an entire town was now free for the taking. Every two bit thief and grave robber is going to rush out there to claim it for themselves. If we hurry, we may be able to find where our quarry is heading before these dull bumpkins trample over the tracks.”

  He watched her scurry off into the inn to fetch their companions. If luck was actually on their side, they just might be able to pull off this job and it would not take much longer than they’d originally expected. They at least knew where the final destination was, but if those kids made it to Algerton it would be much more difficult to get them out.

  “A Van-Gelden always honors the contract," he mumbled and shook his head. “Even if we’ll probably regret doing so.”