“Then what it is?”

He took a breath and met my gaze. “Not all the magicians are missing. A few of them are in hiding.”

20

VALEK

A storm brewed over the Sunset Ocean, and Valek had a day and a half to prepare. His theory about the Storm Thieves being the crew of the Starfish, which was reported lost at sea, meant they’d use this incoming storm to cover their approach to land. But many questions still remained. Which town did they plan to target? Would they use a dock or send a skiff to a beach? And then there was a good chance they wouldn’t arrive at all. It’d been three weeks since their last break-in.

Valek returned to the apartment on Cannery Road after supper. Endre snored in the bedroom and Annika worked at the inn. Valek reviewed the information gathered and the list of stolen items. Ignoring the jewelry and money, he concentrated on the others. He considered the basics—food, water, shelter.

Endre had said living on a boat would be difficult. If he assumed they’d found a place to live—a cove hidden in the cliffs, perhaps—then the Storm Thieves had enough supplies to build a couple structures. That covered shelter.

Fresh water was too essential to steal, so Valek figured their location had access to a stream or river that flowed toward the ocean. He checked the map of the coast and discovered that all of the rivers that emptied into the ocean had towns built around them. Which made sense for shipping supplies up the river to cities inland.

He considered the cliffs in MD-1. Would fresh water run under the cliffs and not be marked on the map? Possible. And no one would notice a settlement that was inaccessible by land. However, during the fishing season, they’d be visible to the fleet. Unless they used camouflage. And that would explain the fifty gallons of gray and green paint stolen from Krillow. The hidden cove moved to the top of Valek’s suspected location list.

As for food, the Storm Thieves had stolen basics like grain, rice, corn, flour, sugar, but they also took seeds and gardening supplies, which meant they planned to plant crops. No way a cove could sustain plants, unless it was huge. A sandy-rocky soil covered most of the coast, and farmable land started about ten miles inland. So much for the cove idea.

Valek tapped the map with a finger. He chased a memory of a conversation with one of the Stormdancers. Something about islands out in the Jade Sea... They were too small for a settlement because of the unpredictable storms. What if the Storm Thieves built their base on an island in the Sunset Ocean? With their magician keeping the storms at bay, they’d be safe. And no one would suspect they lived there.

Excited, Valek scanned the coastal map. Dozens of small islands were marked on the chart. It’d take seasons to check them all, and news would undoubtedly spread about the search, alerting the Storm Thieves, who could use a storm to keep the searchers from reaching their island. Plus they could have discovered an uncharted island. Deflated, Valek leaned back in the chair. Finding the island would be impossible.

He returned to the list of stolen items. What was missing? What did they need to sustain a settlement? Medical supplies had been taken from an infirmary in Coral Caye, casks of ale missing from a tavern in Lattice Beach, pots and glassware from a inn in Draggan and—

Valek shot to his feet. He flipped through the information Endre and Annika had collected, looking for the report on damages sustained during the storm thefts. Once he found it, he scanned the pages. A henhouse had collapsed during one storm and all the chickens had escaped. During another, a gate blew open and a dozen sheep had run away and had presumably drowned. Four milking cows had disappeared when a storm had knocked down a wall of a barn. What if these animals had been stolen instead? That meant the Storm Thieves still needed beef.

Once again Valek consulted the map. Where was the closest steer farm to the coast? He located one about three miles south of Gandrel and approximately a half mile inland. Gotcha!

When Annika returned and Endre woke up for his night shift, Valek ran his theory by them, seeking flaws in his logic.

“Those cliff coves aren’t big enough for livestock and crops,” Endre said.

“Are you sure there aren’t any missing steers listed in the reports?” Annika asked.

“I checked all the information twice,” Valek said. “But I’ll read through the ones in the security office again tonight, and tomorrow I’ll see what the locals have to say about the islands.”

“You think they’ll strike tomorrow night?” Endre asked him.

“If not tomorrow, then during the next storm. The Stormers need to have all their supplies before the fishing season starts in twelve days. We need to be in position regardless.”

Valek spent another late night in the security office’s conference room. With his theory in mind, he scanned the incident reports looking for anything that would dispute his logic. Finding nothing, he returned to the inn for a few hours’ sleep before reporting to the dock to join the repair crew.

The waves no longer lined up like rolling pins. Instead, they titled to the right.

“The worst part of the storm’s gonna miss us,” Joey said.

“Heading north, right?” Valek asked, tying a knot. Disappointment slowed his movements. More time spent away from Yelena.

“Yup. But the one right behind it might blow over us.”

Valek paused. “Two close together? Is that usual?”

Joey cracked his knuckles. “Yup. They’re called twins. We get them from time to time. They either follow the same path, hitting the same place one right after the other—those we call identical—or they diverge and go separate ways.”