30. Whatever it is, find it!

Chapter 30: Whatever it is, find it.

They went back to the children's home the next morning, sun still low and orange over the overgrown yard, and this time Finn spotted them from halfway across the field and came sprinting, arms already wide before he'd even reached the gate.

"You came back! I told Nora you'd come back, she said you wouldn't, I told her."

"I never said that," Nora called, jogging up behind him, arms crossed as always.

"You totally said that."

"I said maybe not, that's different."

Eto crouched without a word and let Finn scramble up onto his shoulders like he was furniture built for exactly that purpose, and within a minute two more kids had gathered, tugging at his arms, one small girl climbing halfway up his back before he hooked an arm under her and swung her around, and the yard filled fast with shrieking laughter.

"Careful, careful, he's not a jungle gym," Nora kept saying, chasing after Finn as he clambered higher, though nobody was listening to her, least of all Eto, who seemed, for the first time since Mikaela had known him, to actually be enjoying himself.

While the kids climbed him like he was a piece of the landscape, Mikaela drifted toward the corner of the yard where Bram was crouched over a patch of weeds, muttering to himself as he yanked them out by the roots.

"Morning," she said.

He glanced up, eyes sharp under heavy brows. "You came back. Most don't."

"We wanted to check in." She crouched beside him, keeping her voice low. "That thing you said, last time. About something eating sound. What did you mean by that?"

His hands stilled in the dirt. "You believe me."

"I'm starting to."

He studied her a long moment, then leaned in, voice dropping to barely more than breath. "It's her. Lyra. Wasn't like this before she came. Kids were fine, loud, running around, driving us all half mad the way kids do. Then she showed up, sweet as honey, and the ones she got closest to, the ones she fussed over most, they went quiet first. One by one. You watch, you'll see it. She picks her favorites and then they stop talking."

"That's a big claim."

"I've lived in this building sixty years, girl. I buried three caretakers who worked here before her. I know what quiet looks like when it's natural and I know what it looks like when something's been at it." He went back to yanking weeds, hands trembling now, whether from age or something else she couldn't tell. "You understand me?"

"I understand you."

He didn't say anything else after that, and she left him to his weeds, glancing back once to see Eto being dragged by three separate children toward the hen house, roaring in mock outrage as Finn tried to climb his arm like a tree.

It was Elara who separated him from the children not long after, a soft hand on his forearm, murmured words that even Mikaela, watching from across the yard, couldn't quite catch. Eto followed the old woman without hesitation, ducking under a low doorway into a quiet side room away from the noise.

"You're wondering why I speak to you alone," Elara said, in Keth, her accent thick but the words clean, and something in Eto's shoulders went still with surprise. "I've lived a long time, dear. Long enough to pick up a few tongues along the way."

He didn't answer, just watched her, waiting.

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"I don't want to worry the children. I don't want to worry Kael, he already carries too much on those young shoulders. But I am worried, Eto. Deeply worried." She lowered herself into a chair with a soft groan, folding her hands in her lap. "Lyra came to us eight months ago. Good references, good manner with the children. And then, slowly, the ones she loves best have started going quiet. I've watched it happen three times now. I don't want to believe it of her. But I can't ignore what I've seen with my own eyes."

"You want," he said, slow, "investigate her."

"I can't ask the city. They won't come, not for us, not for children nobody with coin cares about. But you." Her eyes, pale and rheumy, held his without flinching. "You could look. Quietly. Without her knowing."

He nodded once.

"Thank you," she said, and reached up to pat his arm, gentle as a grandmother might, and something in the gesture sat strange and heavy in his chest.

Mikaela and Eto found each other again near the gate, and they'd barely made it two streets from the home when a familiar voice called out from a doorway.

"There you are." Kaplan fell into step beside them, hands in his pockets. "How's it going. The investigation."

"Can't say much yet," Mikaela said. "But you were right. Something's wrong there. We're working on it."

Kaplan's jaw eased, some tension in it Mikaela hadn't noticed until it left. "Good. That's good. Whatever it is, find it. And thank you." He nodded once, sincere in a way that surprised her, and peeled off down a side street without another word.

By the time they reached the inn the sun had dropped low, and something in the common room felt different the moment they stepped through the door, patrons glancing up and then away fast, conversations dying mid sentence.

Eto felt it too, jaw tight, and didn't linger, heading straight up the stairs without a word.

Mikaela lingered instead, catching Erik's eye at the bar.

"Can we talk?" she asked. "About last night."

Erik's hands kept moving on the counter he was wiping, though there was nothing left to wipe. "Nothing to talk about."

"Erik. The banshee. Whatever it was that threw him through the window, people in this room knew something last night, I saw it on their faces."

His eyes flicked up, sharp for half a second, before the door swung open behind her and a voice cut in.

"So the banshee's the talk of the town now, huh."

Freya crossed to the bar, tossing her cloak over a stool, and Mikaela turned, offering a small smile.

"Freya. Long time."

"Mikaela." Freya returned it, easy. "Heard you had some excitement last night."

"You could say that."

"A few knights came in this morning, said the same thing happened to them two nights back, out on patrol near the eastern wall. Something screamed at them, no shape to it, no sound like anything they'd heard before, and after, they all said it felt like their life had been sucked clean out of them. Legs wouldn't hold them up. But they were fine again a few hours later. Just tired."

Erik's hand had gone still on the counter. "It's nothing," he said quickly. "Mikaela's just being nosy, like she always is."

Mikaela forced a laugh, thin. "That's, yeah. That's me. Anyway, I should get back, Eto is probably fuming up there." She was already moving toward the stairs before anyone could stop her.

Freya watched her go, brow furrowed. "Did she just say Eto?"

"Yeah." Erik picked the rag back up. "That's the Keth I told you about last night."

"A Keth named Eto." Freya said it slow, turning the name over like it might mean something.

"Do you know him or something?" Erik asked.

"No," she said, too fast, and didn't move from her stool, though something in her wanted badly to. A Keth who barely spoke. She thought of a forest, of a man who'd saved from something that should have killed her, of the few words he'd managed in his language after weeks of nothing but grunts. It couldn't be. It was a coincidence, had to be a coincidence, Torak was a big city and Keth were rare but not that rare, no.

She didn't go upstairs. Her legs simply wouldn't carry her there, and she sat with her drink instead, staring at nothing.

Upstairs, the window had been fixed, fresh wood pale against the older frame around it. Eto sat cross legged on the bed, eyes closed, a low hum coming from somewhere in his chest, steady and strange. He'd already eaten. Only her portion sat untouched on the table.

Mikaela ate quietly, watching him hum, saying nothing. He'd only slept properly their first night in this room. Every night since, he'd sat on the bed for hours. Ever since Gwen flashed her cleavage to him. Three days now. She was glad he was resting in some fashion, even if she didn't understand what this was.

The knock came sharp against the door, three raps, and her whole body went cold.

Was it happening again.

Eto's eyes snapped open, sparks of electricity flickering bright in them for half a second before fading, and he was on his feet before she'd even set down her cup, fists closing slow, a low crackle of pressure building audible in the air around his knuckles.

"Get behind," he said.

She scrambled up, moving fast to press herself against his back, fingers curling into the leather of his vest.

He crossed to the door and pulled it open.

Lyra stood in the hallway, eyes wide and red with tears, hands twisted together in front of her.

"Please," she said. "We need your help to kill the banshee."