Casket of Souls

couldn’t see you at all. As soon as you opened that bottle you were surrounded by a cloud of thick mist.”
    “Mika was the spirit of the child who owned the marble, wasn’t he?” said Alec.
    Thero nodded, feeling unaccountably sad.
    But Elsbet looked hopeful. “You told him his way home. Do you think he went back to his body?”
    “I hope so. But he could just as easily be dead now. Or perhaps he was dead already and that’s why he was in the bottle. I’m sorry, but it could be any of those.”
    “But he
could
be alive,” Kari insisted. “This may be our only chance for Illia, if she’s been put into one of those bottles.”
    Thero looked to Seregil. “He said he lives in Yew Lane. Do you know where that is?”
    “Not far from here. It’s a short street, near the Ring wall. And a decent area, too. He’s less likely to have been left to die in some alleyway. Let’s hope his mother heard about the sick ones being moved to the Ring and kept him secret at home.”
    “Good. He said he lives in a house with a green-and-yellow door. Do you think you could find it? I’d like to see what happened to him, if possible.”
    Seregil looked out the window. “It will be dawn soon. You should wait until then, so you don’t scare them to death knocking them up out of bed. In the meantime, I think we should have a look around the Crane. It’s our best chance to find the place empty; no actor will be up this early.”
    “What about the contents of the bottles?” asked Micum.
    Thero cast another spell on the bottle he still held. “The magic is gone from this one, I think.”
    He emptied the contents into the other silver cup. The marble fell to the bottom with a small
plink
. He sniffed theliquid, but there was nothing of note about it. He dipped the tip of his little finger in it and licked it. Nothing, just plain, stale water. He picked up the marble and got a fleeting impression of a small boy with sandy hair falling across his forehead into his eyes. And there was a hint of something else, something surprising that he thought he recognized.
    “Anything?” asked Alec.
    “A glimpse of what he looks like. I’ll know him if I see him. Now for our friends the rats.”
    He carefully opened the grate in the top of the trap and set the first cup inside. The rats sniffed it curiously for a moment, then one of them put its paws up on the rim and lapped at the liquid. After the first few drops it fell on its side, shuddering violently.
    “It is poison,” murmured Micum.
    But as they watched the rat calmed and scampered around the confines of the trap, apparently no worse for wear. The other two drank from the cup, but the liquid seemed to have no effect at all on them.
    Thero reached in and picked the first rat up by the tail, then grasped it by the scruff so it couldn’t bite. The same strange magic he’d felt on Atre and Brader emanated from the rat in powerful waves. It was unmistakable.
    “I believe this elixir is meant to be ingested.”
    “But why?” asked Elsbet.
    Thero put the rat back into the trap with the others and looked at the little lock of hair floating in the bowl, then at the marble from the other bottle. “If both bottles held souls of the children who gave him these items, then the one holding Mika, which was without the central symbol, must be made differently, allowing the soul to escape. The symbol on the other may trap the soul in the water.”
    “You mean you just fed the soul of some poor child to a rat?” Elsbet exclaimed in horror.
    “Perhaps,” Thero replied, none too happy at the thought.
    “So Atre and Brader must get some benefit from eating souls,” Seregil said with disgust.
    “The question is, what benefit?” wondered Alec.
    “At this point I don’t give a damn about that, only how tostop him doing the same to Illia!” Micum gritted out. “We have to find the bottle containing Illia’s soul before he—” He broke off and put an arm around Kari as she began to cry.
    Leaving Micum behind to rest—or more likely, fret—Seregil went to the Crane with Thero and Alec. As he’d expected, the theater was deserted. They found their way in through a poorly secured side door but even with the help of Thero’s spell, they found nothing magical inside.
    The welcoming fragrances of bacon and tea greeted them at the inn. Ema was making breakfast, though the house was empty except for them.
    “You should eat,” Thero told the others.
    “I’m not hungry,”