The boy looked stricken. “No one knows. She disappeared from her house right after you were locked up in that storeroom. I went to look for her to ask if she could help you. Tasha said I should. But she wasn’t there. The house was all torn apart and there was blood…”

He trailed off, unable to finish. “It was pretty bad.”

Phryne stayed silent for a moment, fighting to keep her emotions in check. She was terrified now for her grandmother, no longer simply worried about what might happen, but devastated by what obviously had. Isoeld’s threats hadn’t been idle ones; she had gone after Mistral Belloruus.

She shifted her gaze to Xac once more. “I have to go to her house. I have to see for myself. Can we do that?”

“What? Tonight?” Xac was horrified. “But it’s almost morning, Phryne! People will be waking up! You’ll be seen!”

“I know the risks. But no one knows I’ve escaped yet, Xac. By morning, they will be looking for me. If I go now, maybe we can get to my grandmother’s and back again before it’s light.”

She paused. “You don’t have to go with me. You’ve done more than enough. This is too dangerous. You stay here. I’ll go alone.”

“You stay here, I’ll go alone,” he mimicked. “Why would you say that? I’m not afraid! Don’t treat me like a child. If you go, I go.”

She almost laughed at his efforts to sound tough and grown up. But that would have been a mistake, and she knew it. “All right,” she said, “you win. We both go.”

He gave a small yelp and was out the door and on his way down the stairs almost before she had finished speaking.

THEY WALKED BACK through the sleeping city, taking a more direct route this time because Xac was anxious to get this ill-advised visit over and done with and told her they would forgo the safer, but more circuitous route.

“Can’t chance being caught out in the light once the sun comes up,” he declared. “If something happens to you now, Tasha will skin me alive!”

“I wouldn’t want that,” she said, managing to keep a straight face.

“You know why they wanted you out of there, don’t you?” He kept his voice low, talking rapidly as they walked. “Tasha and Tenerife? Why it was so important to free you?”

She shook her head. “You mean besides giving me a chance to prove I’m innocent of what I’m accused?”