Flightless Afternoon by Nelson Vanessa

Author:Nelson, Vanessa
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-06-19T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Oh, that’s it!” Thea grabbed up the papers from her desk, including the ones Sutter had left for her, and headed for the door, almost colliding with Niath as he tried to come in.

“What is it?” he asked, taking a step back to let her out of the room.

“I think I’ve seen a pattern of sorts. Maybe. Come on. What did you learn?” she asked, striding along the corridor to Sutter’s office.

The office was empty, but she could see Ware’s office door was open, and the pair of them were inside, so she kept walking.

“It can wait,” Niath said, following her.

She arrived in Ware’s office embarrassingly out of breath from the short distance along the corridor.

“You’ve found something?” Sutter asked, turning towards her as she came into the room.

Thea did not answer at once, distracted not only by the presence of Reardon in the Captain’s office, but by the map that the three men had been studying. It covered most of one wall, showing the current extent of the Archon’s empire, with pins and coloured ribbon stuck into the surface at various points.

After a brief look at the map, Thea realised that Ware and Sutter had been tracing the other Ageless and Ageless-born deaths that seemed to be similar to Lucan and Rheged’s.

“Yes,” she said, realising that the others were waiting for her to speak. “There’s a pattern of sorts. I think,” she said, doubting herself.

“Tell us,” Ware prompted.

She hesitated, heat rising up her neck. He and Sutter had been studying the papers far longer than she had. Her half-formed theory might be nonsense. Still, they were waiting, so she stumbled into speech.

“I realised that there’s a progression. I mean, not a good one. The earliest deaths we have reports for were the Ageless-born. The first ones were just dressed in each other’s clothes, and left to be found near the other’s homes.”

“What?” Reardon asked, attention sharpening. “The first deaths were Ageless-born?”

“Commander, I think if we let Thea speak, you’ll get answers,” Ware suggested.

To Thea’s surprise, Reardon scowled, folded his arms across his chest, but stayed quiet, nodding at her to continue.

Thea put the papers down on the edge of Ware’s desk, rifling through them. “Here. This is the oldest one. Two Ageless-born, who did not seem to know each other. They were killed in Hartcourt. Here.” Thea pointed to the appropriate pin on the map. “Then there was another pair of Ageless-born. Taken apart,” she said, and had to pause for a moment to let her stomach settle. “Thank you for the meat-free lunch, sir,” she said to Sutter as an aside.

“It was nothing. I don’t think I’ll be wanting meat again for a while,” Sutter said.

“No,” Thea agreed. “Where was I? Two Ageless-born taken apart.” She pulled the appropriate report from the pile and set it beside the first one, then pointed to the place on the map. “There’s a gap after that. The first two were a year apart. The next report we have is two years later.

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