"Nothing?" he demands of Ewar, without preamble, taking the stairs at a speed that forces even the well-trained Arum to hurry in keeping up with him.

"Not a trace, my Lord. Do you-"

Martel quells his rising annoyance the best he can - which is, as it turns out, fairly effectively well. At least as far as outward appearance goes. "I'm going to see for myself. Inform my wife, and try not to start with me in the process."

Ewar, who radiates perfect innocence and certainly absolutely no tendencies towards 'starting' anything with Martel, regards his lord evenly. "Just as you say, sir. Should I tell her when to expect you back?"

Martel hears the prompt in it and sighs internally. "No. But I can hardly imagine it'll take me such a terribly long time to find all of nothing. Do excuse me." He pretends not to notice the look he's getting, here, and if Ewar sighs or rolls his eyes, he at least does it out of Martel's earshot and sight.

Of course, he isn't concerned. He's annoyed that someone he's paid for a job has up and vanished in the midst of it, leaving no apparent trace - he hasn't seen Severus here in what's rapidly becoming weeks, and none of the usual methods of communication are doing him any good. Or anyone else. It won't take him long to find nothing at all - Severus's own home is too well-warded for Martel to do anything truly effective but sort of glare at it from a distance, even if he goes there - but he does so dislike idleness. He dislikes it even more when people he ought to be able to find aren't where he ought to be able to find them.

He catches his cloak as Ewar tosses it to him before he leaves, swearing silently about the bloody unreliable bloody nexus and its fucking denizens.

prompt: five minutes in the life [260]
word count: 320