Lost Ones-Veil 3 Read Online Free PDF Page A

shoulder this morning, Coyote. It told me that perhaps soon a story would become reality. It might be that my son will soon have far more men and women to lead into battle than he could ever imagine.”
    “You’re saying the Bascombes are alive? That the Wayfarer means to free them?”
    Miss Tsing raised an eyebrow. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
    Coyote nodded once out of respect. “My thanks, but not just now.”
    The door swung shut behind her. Coyote turned and left the patio. On the promenade he passed Ovid and his growing militia as they began a series of exercises. But he had no interest in causing mischief for Ovid Tsing at the moment.
    Swiftly, he scrambled back up the ladder to the trolls’ balcony and then climbed a rope, swinging himself up onto the suspension bridge. He raced across, fleet as ever. On the other side, he moved from ladder to catwalk to the wooden struts holding up a little house that jutted out from the sheer cliff face of the western wall of the gorge.
    Coyote slipped through an open window. The place had been his since shortly after he’d arrived in Twillig’s Gorge, won in a card game from an aging demigod and his satyr mate. They’d left the Gorge not long after. The blustering demigod had been an arrogant prick, and few seemed to miss him.
    There were only four small rooms, including the kitchen, but at the rear of the little hanging house, Coyote had found a door, and beyond the door was a tunnel that led to a cavernous hollow that must have been excavated at the time the Gorge had first been settled. If the candles and blood spatters were any indication, it had once been used for worship. Black soot from burnt sacrifices painted the rock walls.
    But that had been long ago. Now it was a den. There were new candles back there. As Coyote slipped through the door into the tunnel, he could see the flickering of yellow light on the walls. Inside the cavern, there were far more shadows than the candle flames could dispel. Darkness shimmered with the dancing light. He smelled food—the fish he’d brought the night before, most of it uneaten—and sighed.
    On the floor of the cavern lay a huddled figure, sprawled on blankets and reading by candlelight. Reading was all she seemed to want to do these days. He understood that. Coyote rarely felt guilt, but on those few occasions it had been easier to slip into other worlds than to live in his own.
    “You’ve got to eat,” he told her.
    In the candlelight, Kitsune’s jade eyes gleamed brightly and her coppery fur flickered like fire. Her silken black hair framed her face and he caught his breath. They had never been lovers, always more like squabbling siblings. And tricksters could never trust one another when lust entered the picture. But her beauty was enough to make even his deceitful heart ache.
    “I ate,” she replied without looking up.
    “More than that.”
    She sniffed and ignored him.
    Coyote sat beside her and reached out to push the book down, forcing her to look at him. “I’ll be the last one, cousin, who ever calls you to task for hiding from things you don’t want to face. But it isn’t like you.”
    Anger flared in those jade eyes. Her jaw clenched and unclenched and then she softened. Fury—at herself, at Oliver Bascombe, and at the world—smoldered until it became sorrow. “You know what I did. I betrayed them. I betrayed him.”
    “You’re a trickster.”
    “It’s different. I’d made a vow. A bond.”
    “If you’d stayed behind, you’d have been killed, or Ty’Lis would have you in his dungeon, too,” Coyote reminded her.
    Kitsune lifted her book and began to read again—or at least make a show of it.
    “Is that why you’re hiding here?”
    The fox woman ignored him.
    Coyote stood up and brushed off the seat of his pants.
    “Wayland Smith visited Virginia Tsing today.”
    Kitsune flinched, then looked at him over the top of the book. “
Only
Virginia Tsing?”
    “So it seems. But if you