The Drowned Tomb (The Changeling Series Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

afraid that shall have to wait. For now,” a cool voice said from behind them. Robin whirled, feeling his face turn crimson with embarrassment.
    His elderly Aunt Irene, a slender, dignified spire of a woman, was standing at the top of the great stairs. She looked mildly amused. But only very mildly.
    “Your presence is required, my nephew, down by the lake,” she said.
    “The lake?” Robin asked, surprised, as Aunt Irene descended the staircase in a stately manner and a swish of softly rustling silks. “But … I thought the lake was beyond Erlking’s boundaries?”
    Erlking, he knew, came with certain boons and bonuses. Robin, and anyone else, was safe from intentional harm within its limits.
    His aunt nodded. “Yes, it is. That is quite correct. I am glad to see your memory is intact. But you will be quite safe at this time. There is someone waiting to meet you there now. Your faun was supposed to give you the message almost half an hour ago.” She glanced around at the three of them gathered in the hall. “I assume, from your presence here, that this did not happen.”
    Robin, Henry, and Karya all exchanged blank looks. None of them had seen Woad, Erlking’s blue-skinned resident faun, all morning.
    “Evidently, he was waylaid by his own impulses,” Aunt Irene continued. “I have noticed his vendetta against the indigenous squirrel population of Erlking’s grounds has reached new and bloody heights of late.”
    The three children exchanged glances once again. Woad hated squirrels.
    “No matter. If you set off now, you can still be at the lake in good time,” his aunt said. It was a firm command, artfully phrased as a light observation, which was her usual manner.
    “Let’s go then,” said Henry brightly, rubbing his hands together and clearly happy at the thought of finally getting a dip in the cool water after all, but Irene shook her head.
    “Just Robin if you please,” she said firmly. “Henry and Karya, the two of you remain here. I daresay you will manage to annoy my housekeeper perfectly adequately without my nephew’s help.”
    Robin and Henry managed to look sheepish. Karya indicated her notes sprawled before her on the tabletop. “I don’t really have time to entertain Henry,” the girl said loftily. “I haven’t made much more progress on this I’m afraid. I have a name … I think, or several variations of one, and I’m close to confirming whether the writer is male or female … I think female … but that’s all.” She looked apologetic. “It’s such a rare dialect. I’ve been working on it solidly.”
    “Excellent work,” Irene said, coming around the two boys to stand at Karya’s shoulder. She raised her half-moon spectacles from where they rested on a chain around her neck and peered down at the paper. “It may be a long and arduous task that I have set you, Karya, but I cannot stress how imperative it is that this be translated correctly, even if it takes both of us months on end.” She seemed to have almost forgotten that Robin and Henry were there.
    “Umm, Aunt Irene?” Robin said. He was loath to distract the imperious woman from her engrossment with Karya’s scribblings.
    “Yes, Robin?” his aunt replied without looking around, a tiny frown line on her forehead as she roamed over the young girl’s findings.
    “It’s just … you didn’t say… who exactly am I going to be meeting at the lake?”
    Irene glanced back at him, her pale blue eyes filled with what looked like cool amusement. “Why, your new tutor of course. Now run along.”

 
    A NEW ENGAGEMENT
     
    Robin’s curiosity was almost overwhelming by the time he had crossed the long sloping meadow behind Erlking’s hill, the grass wavering in the heat haze. He made his way under the cool foliage of the woods, tramping along the dusty path which led down to the lake. A new tutor, he thought, warily.
    Passing out of the long, winding tree-lined path, he headed back out into the baking heat and