"Not if he was serious about the ransom. He knows better." Still her voice had a nervous edge. She kept her eyes downward, looking for anything else they might have missed on the ground.

Marcello squinted at the rain as it hit the mud, and found himself gravitating closer to the girl, until his arm was around her. "We should have told Cormac to use this as an excuse to make your mother call off the rain," he said bitterly. "Hell. I don't see anything else...which way..."

"I don't e'en see the patrol." She curled in closer to him, cold despite the layers. "You're going to catch ill out here. Damn it all, Mother!" she called up at the clouds. "Aye, you're disappointed, everyone knows it, now can you just stop?"

It didn't have the same effect as it had on the Red Morning. Niabheara suddenly went stiff and chilled. "They had better not be scheming this together," she said slowly. "If she thinks I won't have her shaken down too, just because she's my mother--"

He raised an eyebrow. "You think they might be?" he asked worriedly. "I thought they didn't even like each other! I..." He tugged at his ear. "You'd think she would have been quieter about it-- no, they can't be working together," he said. "If they were, it would have been better-planned."

"Well she's certainly not helping us." She pulled herself together, sparing no further glances at the lightning. "Gather up her things. We'll mount up and find the patrol. Then tell Mother to stop this. And then you tell her to if she doesn't want me bloody well holding her culpable, she can do that scanning thing that she does and lead us to one or both of them."

Marcello suddenly looked relieved. He rubbed his forehead, looking around again, and bundled up Miranda's things. "I...maybe you ought to go back, and I'll...in case...I don't want something to happen to her because we...on account of stalling."

"No," she said firmly. "Not alone you won't. Patrol's better for a broad search than just we two." She caught the pony's head and held it still, then gave Marcello a pleading look. "You'd risk us losing the both of you."

Marcello bit his lower lip. "She's my sister," he said, helplessly, but stepped toward the pony regardless, looking daunted again.

"And you are my love." She held out a hand to him. "And we'll get her back. Trust me."

He took her hand, then hugged her tightly. "Can we go a few days without a kidnapping?" he asked miserably.