《Cold Fire (Spiritwalker #2)》


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    Creole


    Part of this story takes place in the Antilles, the Caribbean, which has developed within a very different history from the one that shaped our own world. For that reason I decided to create my own creole rather than attempt (badly) to replicate any of the various historical or modern Caribbean dialects or patois.


    With the heroic assistance of Dr. Fragano Ledgister and additional advice from Katharine Kerr, I instituted specific linguistic rules common to creoles and applied them with a few nods toward the languages that would have been part of Expedition¡¯s creole, most importantly Taino but secondarily Latin and Bambara. Obviously because I write and think in English I did also borrow heavily from elements of modern creoles as well. Insofar as the three levels of creole (as per Mervyn Alleyne¡¯s definition of a hierolect, mesolect, and basilect in Jamaican English) used in this book sound reasonable to the reader, it is due to the generous advice I received. Any faults and flaws are my own.


    Our Caribbean, by the way, has an astonishing and marvelous literary and musical tradition so extensive there is not room here to even begin to discuss it, but I would urge you to explore it on your own.


    1


    It was a cursed long and struggling walk hauling two heavy carpetbags stuffed with books across the city of Adurnam. That it was night helped only because the darkness hid us. The bitter cold turned our hands to ice even through gloves. A dusting of new snow crunched beneath our boots. My half brother Rory ranged ahead, on the watch for militia patrols.


    The prince¡¯s curfew had emptied the streets. In a normal year every intersection would have been lit with a fire in honor of the winter solstice. Inns and taverns would have remained open all night, awash with ale and free oatcakes. But after the riots that had wracked the city, people and businesses had locked their doors and shuttered their windows. It was so quiet I could hear my cousin Beatrice¡¯s breathing as she trudged along beside me with a bag across her shoulders.


    ¡°Cat, are we almost there?¡± she asked.


    ¡°I¡¯ll carry both bags,¡± I offered, even though the one I carried felt like a bag of bricks.


    ¡°It¡¯s not the weight. It¡¯s the dark.¡±


    The night was hardest on her. Clouds covered the sky, and we avoided the few main thoroughfares that had gaslight and kept to side streets where it was darkest. With a curfew in force and people fearful they would run out of oil and candles, few night-watch lanterns burned on porches. Both Rory and I could see abnormally well in the dark. That was one of the reasons my family called me Cat instead of Catherine. We led the way, while Bee had the more difficult task: She had to trust us.


    Rory loped back. ¡°Patrol coming.¡±


    We shrank into the shadow of an alcove. I set down my bag and slipped my ghost-sword from its loop on my outer skirt. It looked like a black cane, but at night I could twist its hilt and draw a sword. I waited, poised to strike. Rory tensed like a big cat about to spring. Bee sucked in and held a breath. Ahead, a troop of mounted men clattered toward the nearest intersection.


    Rory sniffed, then licked his lips. ¡°I hear other people, too. I smell iron and that nasty stuff you call blackpowder.¡±


    In the house nearest us, a shutter shifted as someone inside peeked out. I closed my eyes, tasting the air and listening with senses far sharper than Bee¡¯s. The wind carried the clop of hooves but also a hiss of men whispering, the click of a boot heel on stone, the lick of flame and the sting of burning.


    ¡°Stay here,¡± I whispered, shoving the heavy bag into Rory¡¯s arms. They obeyed.


    In the interstices between our world and the spirit world lie threads of magic that bind the worlds together. I drew the threads as shadow around me to conceal myself from ordinary sight. Staying close alongside the buildings, I skulked forward. In the intersection, no one moved, but I heard the jingle of harness grow louder as the soldiers approached. Movement stirred in an alley to my right. A tiny flame flared, lighting the shape of a mustachioed mouth and the gleaming barrel of a gun. After a hissed whisper, the flame was snuffed out.


    I stepped back against the wall of the building at the corner just as the first rank of turbaned mage House soldiers rode into view. Sparks flowered. At least ten sharp gunfire reports echoed down the houses. Horses snorted and shied. Two soldiers crumpled forward. One tumbled from his horse. His boot caught in the stirrup, and the panicked horse dragged him sideways. A volley of crossbow bolts loosed by the mounted soldiers clattered against the buildings on either side of the alley. A glass window shattered, and bolts thunked into wood shutters.


    ¡°They¡¯re bad shots!¡± shouted a man from the alley. ¡°We¡¯ve got them, lads! Fire!¡±

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    But instead of loud reports, the only sound was a series of deadened clicks.


    The mage troop swept forward as a seam of icy white light ripped across the air as if an unseen blade cut through the night to penetrate to daylight behind. A bright, cold fire bubbled out from the rift. The light moved as if pushed, spheres like lamps probing the alley and the stone faces of the buildings to reveal thirty or more men in hiding. The hiding men desperately tried to shoot, but their shiny new rifles simply failed to fire. The presence of an extremely powerful cold mage had killed their combustion.


    With my back pressed against the stone, I willed myself to be nothing more than stone, nothing to see except what anyone would expect to see looking at an old, grubby, smoke-stained wall. Even so I dared not move, though I knew cold mages could not see through my concealing threads of shadow. A man dressed not in armor but in flowing robes rode forward from the back of the troop. His was an imposingly dignified figure with his graying black hair plaited into many tiny braids and his black face drawn down in an angry frown. I knew him: He was the mansa, the most powerful cold mage in Four Moons House and therefore its master.


    In that knife¡¯s-edge moment before the men in the alley broke and ran, the mansa lifted a hand as he addressed a comment to his companion, a middle-aged blond Celt dressed in the uniform of the prince¡¯s militia. ¡°They are smuggling in rifles despite the ban on new technology. Just as we suspected.¡±


    The temperature dropped so precipitously that my eyes stung and my ears popped as the pressure changed. With a whispering groan, metal strained. Men screamed as the iron stocks of their rifles twisted and, with a sound more terrifying than that of any musket or rifle shot, shattered as easily as if they were glass. Many writhed on the ground, torn and bloodied by the shrapnel. A few staggered away down the alley, trying to escape.


    ¡°Capture them all!¡± shouted the militia captain in a braying tenor.


    ¡°I want any who survive,¡± said the mansa, studying the scene with a brow smoothed by his easy victory.


    ¡°You mean to execute them?¡±


    ¡°No. I mean to bind these rebellious plebeians into clientage. They, and their kinfolk, and their descendants will all be bound to serve Four Moons House. To execute them will merely inflame their kinfolk to further rebellion. But if these discontented men drag their households into servitude with them, that will breed resentment among their own kin for their folly in fighting against the natural order and losing what freedom they have. With your permission, of course. They¡¯re your subjects.¡±


    ¡°A wise course of action. That will make the radical agitators think twice.¡±


    Blessed Tanit! His companion was the prince of Tarrant himself, the very man who ruled the principality centered around the city of Adurnam, on the Solent River, in northwestern Europa.


    Really, I could think of no man I wanted to meet less than these two. As the soldiers mopped up the scene and the mansa and the prince sat in perfect amity at the center of the intersection, chatting about some man¡¯s thwarted marriage prospects, I edged backward until I felt it safe to remove myself from the wall and hurry back to the alcove where Bee and Rory waited. I shoved in between them, trembling.


    ¡°What happened?¡± Bee whispered. ¡°I heard shots. And then screams.¡±


    ¡°We have to backtrack. The mansa and the prince are with those soldiers.¡±


    ¡°Are they hunting for us? Does the mansa know we escaped?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think so. He said nothing of it. I still think his people won¡¯t discover we¡¯re gone until morning. Give me a moment.¡± I shut my eyes, the better to envision the map of Adurnam I carried in my head, with its winding streets, secluded alleys, and dangerous warrens.


    ¡°You¡¯re shaking,¡± said Bee, putting an arm around me.


    ¡°Men just died. And it was a shock to see the mansa again. By law Four Moons House owns me. He has a legal right to recapture me. And if he catches us, he will find a way to own you, too.¡±


    ¡°I think we should go now while they¡¯re busy eating the wounded and dying,¡± said Rory.


    Bee stiffened. ¡°You imbecile, we don¡¯t eat people¡ª¡±


    ¡°Hush. Rory¡¯s right.¡± I stroked his arm, because he liked that, and he gave a rumbling sigh. ¡°We need to go while they¡¯re busy mopping up. I¡¯ve got a better route. We¡¯ll creep back to Old Temple and go along the river. We¡¯ll be hard to follow if we cut through the goblin market.¡±


    I slipped my cane back into its loop and picked up the bag. We crept back down the street as quickly as we could, but no scouts rode our way. If anyone inside the shuttered houses noted our passing, they called no alarm. Eventually we relaxed a little.

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    ¡°Do you think these lawyers and radicals will really take us in?¡± Bee asked.


    ¡°We have to hope they will, Bee. I don¡¯t know where else we can go otherwise.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m very cold, Cat,¡± said Rory. ¡°I just want a warm fire and a nap.¡±


    ¡°Are there fires that aren¡¯t warm?¡± muttered Bee as she strode along. Clearly, fear and anxiety had wound her tight. Even with our greater height and longer strides, Rory and I had trouble keeping up. ¡°Winters that aren¡¯t cold?¡±


    ¡°Men who don¡¯t fall in love with your magnificent beauty at first sight?¡± I added, knowing she could not resist the bait.


    I felt her grin by the way she struck a counterblow. ¡°Why, dearest, I don¡¯t think I¡¯m the one who got fallen in love with at first sight.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t need reminding about that!¡±


    ¡°What? Didn¡¯t you like him a little in the end? Aesthetically, he is very handsome, despite the impressively arrogant personality. And you are the one who kissed him, after all.¡±


    Fortunately, the night covered my blush. ¡°I really don¡¯t know what to think about him, Bee. And furthermore, I am not interested in having this conversation right now or possibly ever.¡±


    ¡°Hush! You two are so loud.¡±


    Because Rory was right, we kept walking and stopped talking, but the exchange had restored Bee¡¯s usual bloody-minded cheerfulness. She even dawdled in the long promenade of the goblin market, examining the stalls of knives. By the time the cocks crowed, we had staggered onto Enterprise Road, where all kinds of foreigners, radicals, technologists, and solicitors lived. Unlike in the other districts of Adurnam, every street and even the humblest lanes in this neighborhood were lit by gas lamps. Their glow illuminated the predawn traffic of men and trolls coming out of and going into coffeehouses and unlocking offices. A few cowled goblins hurried away to burrow into their daylight dens. A woman opening up a shop paused to watch Rory saunter past, for he had the kind of self-satisfied grace that attracted the eye, and he knew it and liked it.


    ¡°Stop smiling at people! You¡¯ll draw attention to us!¡± I muttered.


    ¡°I see men looking at Bee, and even at you,¡± he retorted. ¡°Why shouldn¡¯t I get looks, too?¡±


    Fortunately I spotted Fox Close, a lane tucked away between a tavern and a coffeehouse. By the time we turned down the lane and reached the law offices, dawn had come and the gaslights were being shuttered for the day. We halted on the stoop to look up at a newly painted sign. Pin-perfect orange letters shone against a feathery brown backdrop: GODWIK AND CLUTCH.


    Who would ever have thought that two dutiful daughters raised in a quiet Kena¡¯ani merchant household would throw themselves on the mercy of trolls and radicals?


    ¡°I hope this works,¡± Bee muttered as we dropped the bags on the steps.


    I plied the knocker. As we waited, I untangled my cane where it had gotten caught in a fold in my skirts.


    The door opened. A troll stared at us. It was hard to know whether trolls looked more like birds or lizards. They stood tall and lanky on hind legs in a way that made me think of human-sized upright lizards, yet what looked like scales was a covering of tiny feathers. The way this one cocked his head first to one side and then to the other to get a good look at us with each eye also reminded me of a bird. He wore a jacket in the human style, and its drab brown cloth set off a truly spectacular scarlet-blue-and-black crest of feathers that ran from his upper spine to the crown of his head.


    ¡°May the day find you at peace,¡± I said hastily. ¡°My name is Catherine Hassi Barahal. This is my cousin Beatrice. And my brother Roderic. We¡¯re here to see Chartji. The solicitor.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re that one. Chartji warned me: ¡®Let her in quickly shall she come standing at the door.¡¯¡± He hopped back, startling Rory and Bee. Seeing the two bags and their brass clasps, he bent forward to look more closely first at the clasps and then at my cane as if he could see the sword hidden beneath the magic that concealed it in daylight. ¡°Oo! Things! Shiny things!¡±


    A male voice came from inside.


    ¡°Who¡¯s at the door, Caith?¡± A strikingly attractive man stepped into view, wiping his hands on a grimy cloth. Seeing us, he grinned most enchantingly, as if his day had just become utterly delightful. ¡°Catherine! And your charming cousin Beatrice. And another companion, I see.¡±


    ¡°My brother, Roderic.¡±


    ¡°Well met, indeed! Did you tell them to come in, Caith? Please, step inside at once and close the door.¡± He nodded at Rory as we hustled in. ¡°I¡¯m Brennan.¡±

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    As we walked down the main passage, he explained the young troll Caith¡¯s complicated kinship relationship to the solicitor Chartji. He showed us into what had once been the sitting room. There we found Maester Godwik seated at a desk with pen in hand.


    The old troll looked up at once, his vivid black-and-green crest raising and spreading as he saw me. ¡°The Hassi Barahal in her mantle! What an exceptionally pleasant surprise. Let me crow on the rocks at sunrise! And this¡­the cousin, I presume. And¡­¡± He studied Rory, who looked like an ordinary young man with golden, innocent eyes and thick black hair twisted into a single long braid. ¡°Interesting. I¡¯ve not seen one like you before. Well met. Please enter our nest.¡±


    There was one other person in the room, a bespectacled woman sorting among the pieces of a shattered printing press. She looked up, so surprised at Godwik¡¯s words that it was obvious she hadn¡¯t noticed us come in. Yet her smile seemed genuine. ¡°Catherine!¡±


    Brennan set our bags down in the room as the solicitor Chartji walked in behind him. Because Chartji was female, her scale-like feathers were as drab as Caith¡¯s jacket, and the feathers of her crest were only one color, a bright yellow. She was carrying a bowl of water cupped in one ink-stained three-fingered hand. ¡°I thought you might come! Drink first. That¡¯s the proper way. Then we¡¯ll talk.¡±


    Their manner was so very encouraging that I began to allow myself to hope we had made the right decision to come here. As we passed around the bowl, each taking a sip of water in the traditional Mande custom of welcome, a knock rattled the door. Caith pattered away down the hall. I heard the door open.


    After a pause, Caith called out, ¡°Brennan! There¡¯s a rat here who says you¡¯re expecting a messenger. He says a rising light marks the dawn of a new world.¡±


    Brennan said sharply, ¡°Get him in fast and shut the door!¡±


    We all spilled into the hallway, me with my hand on my cane. If the others were armed, I could not see their weapons. I nodded to Rory, and he went partway up the stairs to get the advantage of height. Three armed men surged through the open door and into the entryway like soldiers clearing a path for their captain. I recognized them, for I had met them on the road not ten days earlier. All three were foreigners, and one was actually a woman dressed as a man. She stepped back outside, and a moment later a middle-aged man walked up the steps and came in.


    He was tall and imposing, with brawny shoulders, black hair streaked with silver, and the features of a person born of mixed Iberian, West African Mande, and Roman ancestry. In other words, he had a prominent hook nose and a face long and broad and bold enough to carry it off. He wore a shabby wool greatcoat and a faded tricornered hat rather the worse for wear. Although he had the bearing of a man accustomed to wielding weapons, he wore none except the expectation that he was in command.


    His gaze fastened immediately on the petite, bespectacled woman even though, of all of us standing in the entryway, she certainly looked the least physically imposing. ¡°Professora Kehinde Nayo Kuti, I presume,¡± he said.


    They eyed each other like dogs trying to decide whether they¡¯ll have to fight over a bone.


    ¡°I expected you would send an ambassador to open talks between our organizations,¡± she said.


    ¡°I am my own ambassador. As I must be, in these troubled times.¡±


    Blessed Tanit! I had first met this man on the road, where he had been traveling in the guise of a working man named Big Leon. I could not imagine how I had ever thought him merely a retired soldier no different from any other man who has survived an old war.


    ¡°You walked into Adurnam alone except for three soldiers?¡± Brennan was saying. ¡°With all the mage Houses and every prince in northwestern Europa hunting for you? That seems rash!¡±


    ¡°And irrational,¡± added Kehinde in a calmer voice. ¡°We could turn you over to the prince of Tarrant for a significant reward.¡±


    In disguise as Big Leon the humble carter¡¯s cousin, he had hidden the crackling strength of his gaze and the coiled power of his presence. No longer. ¡°But you won¡¯t. For you see, I am never alone. The hopes and ambitions of too many people are carried on my back.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re Camjiata,¡± I said.


    The man born Leonnorios Aemilius Keita had earned the name Camjiata, lion of war, by leading armies to victory. Everyone knew the Iberian Monster believed it was his destiny to unite the fractious principalities, dukedoms, city-states, and backward tribes of Europa into one glorious empire. He had tried once, and he had almost succeeded.


    ¡°Of course I am Camjiata. Who else would I be? At last, after the patient work of many years and many hands, I am free.¡±

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    Chartji stepped forward, offering the bowl of water.


    He doffed his hat and drank it all in one gulp. ¡°And now we have business to do and no time to wait.¡±


    ¡°Did you come looking for me?¡± asked Bee. I could not tell if she was terrified, or exhilarated, or making ready to punch him in the face, but she had her sketchbook open to a page where she had at some point in the last few months drawn a picture of him standing exactly where he was now, in front of the closed door in the entryway of these law offices. ¡°Did she tell you how to find me? Your wife, I mean? The one who walked the dreams of dragons?¡±


    ¡°Yes. It was the final thing Helene said to me before they killed her. She told me that the eldest daughter of the Hassi Barahal clan would learn to walk the dreams of dragons. Find her, she said, because you will need her, as you have needed me.¡± He lifted a hand in the classic orator¡¯s gesture used by the Romans in their ancient empire. It was simply impossible not to stare at him if he wanted you to do so, as he did now. ¡°Helene said that the eldest Hassi Barahal daughter would lead me to Tara Bell¡¯s child.¡±


    ¡°B-but I¡¯m Tara Bell¡¯s child,¡± I choked out, for I felt my heart had lodged in my throat.


    ¡°Of course you are. You could be no one else but who you are. So must we all be, even Helene, who knew that the gift of dreaming would be the curse that brought death to her.¡±


    I alone heard Bee whisper, ¡°Death??¡± as she went pale.


    He had gone on. ¡°Even at the end, the gift compelled her to speak. Those were the very last words I ever heard her say. She said, ¡®Where the hand of fortune branches, Tara Bell¡¯s child must choose, and the road of war will be washed by the tide.¡¯¡±


    I was not too stunned by these portentous words to miss the way Kehinde glanced at Brennan, or the way he gave a shrug in reply as his gaze flicked toward Bee.


    ¡°A fanciful turn of phrase,¡± said Kehinde to the general, ¡°but as I have a pragmatical turn of mind, can you tell me what you think it means?¡±


    A longcase clock standing beside the coat rack ticked with each swing of its pendulum. A carriage rattled past outside. Camjiata watched until we were all looking at him and waiting for him to speak. He smiled softly, as if our compliance amused him.


    ¡°Why, the depths of the words are easily sounded. She meant that Tara Bell¡¯s child will choose a path that will change the course of the war.¡±


    The gazes of seven humans and three trolls left his face and fixed on me.


    ¡°Which means you, Catherine Bell Barahal. Because that child is you.¡±


    2


    I am not a young woman who craves attention. Unlike my beloved cousin Beatrice, who is my dearest and most trusted friend in all the world, I make no effort to bring myself to the notice of all and sundry in the most forceful and spectacular way imaginable. I have the sort of character that prefers the shadows where it can bide quietly or, as Bee might say, sneak about without being caught.


    So I did not at all like to find myself with every pair of eyes¡ªexcept of course for my own since that would have been impossible¡ªstaring at me. Words usually come easily to me. But I had seen carnage on the streets. I had been awake all night. I really just wanted to close my eyes and sleep.


    Instead, I stood for a moment as mute and seared as if I had been struck by lightning. Then I got angry.


    ¡°You may believe that because I am Tara Bell¡¯s child that I mean something to you and your schemes and plans. But I came with my cousin to these law offices to get help with our own private legal matters. Not to aid an escaped criminal!¡±


    The door rattled softly at his back. He stepped away as it opened a crack. The woman dressed as a man squeezed in. As everyone relaxed, the general chuckled. His amusement made the air change quality as if holding its breath before the sun¡ªor a storm¡ªbreaks through.


    ¡°Some call me a criminal, while others call me the Liberator,¡± he said in the rich Iberian lilt he had not lost despite thirteen years confined on an island prison. ¡°Like you, I came to these law offices on an entirely different matter. I truly did not expect to meet you here, Catherine.¡± He nodded to acknowledge Bee. ¡°Nor did I expect to meet your cousin, the young woman who walks the path of dreams. Not so soon, and not in Adurnam. And yet, why not here? Why not now? That we meet here and now merely reminds me that destiny directs our paths. We cannot escape what we are.¡±


    ¡°That may be, but we can escape those who try to imprison us.¡±


    ¡°Have I said anything that makes you think I am trying to make you my prisoner?¡±

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    ¡°You must forgive me if I don¡¯t seem very trusting right now. For the last two months, I¡¯ve been running from people who want to kill me. My cousin and I just escaped from house arrest. So I don¡¯t see how I can really trust you.¡±


    ¡°If we are both being hunted, doesn¡¯t it make sense for us to become allies?¡±


    ¡°Allies in what?¡± I demanded. ¡°Isn¡¯t your war over? Didn¡¯t you lose? Weren¡¯t your armies dispersed, and your allies punished? Didn¡¯t your enemies in the Second Alliance march home satisfied with their victory and your imprisonment?¡±


    I wasn¡¯t sure how a man of his infamy would parry such a reckless attack, but he merely smiled drily. ¡°A worthy salvo. It reminds me of the prickly unanswerable questions I would hear from your father Daniel when we were young. The struggle for liberation is never over as long as the old order crushes those who seek freedom. I intend to reform the laws of Europa and free the population from the oppressive rule of princes and cold mages. You could do worse than to join my army, as your mother did.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re not your soldiers,¡± I said as I glanced at the woman who stood beside him.


    A black-haired foreigner, she wore a man¡¯s jacket and trousers. A falcata, a short sword in the Iberian style, rode low on a belt loop at her left hip. Her eyes had the epicanthic fold of a person whose birth or ancestry rested in the mysterious lands of the Far East, but the most striking thing about her was the ragged two-tined white scar that forked across her right cheek. Was she one of his famous Amazon Corps, as my mother had been?


    ¡°Just because my mother was an officer in your army doesn¡¯t mean I am under any obligation to you,¡± I added.


    ¡°You are mistaken if you believe nothing binds me to you.¡±


    Snow poured down my back could not have made me more cold. A horrible premonition seized me, together with a throat-clawing curiosity. I had to know. ¡°What do you mean? You¡¯re not going to claim to be¡­¡±


    ¡°Oh, la!¡± Bee pressed the back of a hand to her forehead in a gesture worthy of the cheap sort of theater. ¡°I am overcome by these confrontations and alarums! All these revelations and unexpected meetings are simply too much. If I do not sit down this instant, I shall collapse.¡± She had perfected a throbbing quaver with which to soften the listening heart, but her voice retained an edge of determination that suggested her collapse would be accompanied by a tantrum no sane person wished to endure. When she grasped my elbow, her grip was like the clamp of a trap. From the cutting look she gave me, I could tell she wanted to have words with me.


    The general touched a hand to his heart. ¡°I am at your disposal, Professora Kuti. With you, I assume, is the legendary Brennan Tour¨¦ Du. Tales of his daring exploits reached even my lonely prison cell. I have been assured your connections are legion, your intellects first-rate, and your commitment to the cause of justice and reason unparalleled.¡±


    Although Kehinde appeared to be nothing more than a petite woman with a quiet demeanor and an enthusiasm for technological puzzles, she met the general look for look. ¡°You will understand that our chief concern is to assure ourselves of your dedication to the cause of justice and reason.¡±


    He nodded. ¡°Alliances can only be formed where trust is assured.¡±


    ¡°Let me then defer to our host, Maester Godwik.¡±


    Godwik raised his feathered crest of black and green. ¡°It is our custom to offer a chance to wash, drink, and eat before any negotiation commences.¡±


    The general laughed. ¡°As I well recall. The first of your kind I ever met were gunrunners. It took a cursed long time to get down to business though we were in the midst of a battle waged over a hill. I would be honored to wash, drink, and eat with you, Maester Godwik.¡±


    All three trolls showed teeth in an expression that mimicked a human smile. Given that they had fearsome teeth bristling in predatory snouts, the effect was more unsettling than reassuring.


    ¡°Caith,¡± said the old troll, ¡°please go join the watch at the corner.¡±


    Caith whistled an answer and went out the front door, accompanied by Brennan and the older foreign soldier. The younger soldier took up guard at the front door. By the way he kept glancing at Bee and then away, it was obvious he was taken with her voluptuous figure and magnificent beauty.


    Maester Godwik gestured to Bee, Rory, and me. ¡°We have not yet greeted you properly either, my young friends. Await us in the kitchen, if you will. General, this way.¡±


    Along the right wall were two staircases, one of which ascended to the first floor above us while the other, tucked beneath it, descended to a half basement. Godwik limped down the basement stairs while Chartji went upstairs past Rory. After a glance at Rory, the Amazon followed Godwik downstairs, the general and Kehinde at her heels.

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    ¡°Look at those knives!¡± whispered Bee admiringly, still clutching my arm.


    The young foreigner had unbuttoned his greatcoat. Beneath, he wore a harness of knives buckled over a quilted jacket of dull twilight blue. A belt strapped around his hips braced a pair of illegal pistols. He had straight black hair not unlike my own, and a brown complexion that resembled Rory¡¯s. The cast of his features, his wide cheekbones and high forehead, gave him the look of a man far from the house where he had been born and none too impressed by the place he found himself now. He met Bee¡¯s bold stare with a challenging one of his own.


    ¡°You¡¯re not of Mande or Celtic or even Roman ancestry,¡± I said. ¡°Where are you from?¡±


    He measured me up and down and without replying looked back to Bee.


    She lifted her chin in imperious dismissal of his rudeness. ¡°Rory, bring the bags.¡±


    She tugged me toward the stairs, but when we were halfway down to the basement, alone on the dim stairwell, she yanked me to a halt. ¡°Cat! You were about to ask Camjiata if he was the man who sired you! In front of everyone. Don¡¯t you remember anything we were taught at home?¡±


    ¡°I know! I don¡¯t know what came over me. I forgot myself in the heat of the moment. I just couldn¡¯t help but think that since he knew my parents, he might know who it was.¡±


    ¡°Of course you want to know. But if Rory doesn¡¯t even know who your and his sire is, why would the general?¡±


    ¡°My mother might have told him.¡±


    ¡°Your mother Tara Bell? Do you know the only words I remember her ever saying to us? ¡®Tell no one. Not ever.¡¯ I doubt she told him anything, even if she was under his command. Also, you definitely shouldn¡¯t have mentioned we were under house arrest.¡±


    ¡°I know!¡± I agreed grumpily. ¡°But the radicals already know we¡¯re trying to escape the mages. And since Camjiata knows what you are, he¡¯s surely guessed the mage Houses want you.¡±


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter what he would guess. Tell no one.¡±


    ¡°Keep silence,¡± I echoed, a phrase that had been drilled into us by Bee¡¯s mother and father.


    ¡°That would be too much to ask from you, I agree!¡± she exclaimed, but then she hugged me. ¡°I know you¡¯re tired, Cat. You¡¯ve traveled so far and learned such shocking things, not to mention escaping certain death and saving me from what would have been an exceptionally unpleasant marriage. So babble nonsense, which you do so well, and leave me to negotiate.¡±


    ¡°I can keep silent!¡±


    She laughed, and we clattered down the rest of the steps and along a narrow passageway past an empty bedchamber, a pantry, and a scullery. At the end of the passageway, a half flight of steps led up to a back door. We turned into the kitchen. A cast-iron range was fixed under the stone arch of an old fireplace. Its burning coal soaked the kitchen in heat.


    I set my black cane across the big kitchen table. A cutting board and knife sat atop the work-scarred surface next to a heap of parsnips, a bowl of dry oats, a pot of freshly churned butter, and an empty copper roasting pan. Bee set her sketchbook on the corner of the table, then dragged off her hat, gloves, and winter coat and threw them over the back of a chair. She crossed to the long paned window set high in the wall and got up on a stool to look out into the back. Being taller, I could see out the high window without using a stool; the view looked over the backyard, a long, narrow court enclosed by high walls and paved in flagstones. There was a cistern, a pump, a stone bench dusted with snow, and a carriage house abutting the high back wall next to a closed gate. Godwik was leading Camjiata, the Amazon, and Kehinde across the back court to a peculiar little building. It reminded me of a domed nest because it looked as if it had been constructed from feathers and sticks and wreathed with ribbons and wire from which hung mirrors, glass, and bright shiny things. A solitary crow perched on the jutting center post.


    Bee sighed gustily, shoulders heaving, as she hopped down. ¡°Oh, Cat! I thought by coming here we would have a chance to rest and decide what to do next at our leisure. Instead, it¡¯s as if we¡¯re caught by a tempest at sea. We¡¯re blown hither and yon without ceasing by the gods¡¯ anger.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think the gods have anything to do with this. I think it¡¯s all these cursed people who won¡¯t leave us alone who are the problem. Why did I think lawyers and radicals would be a safe harbor? Is there anyone we can trust?¡±


    On the ground floor above, footfalls made the floorboards creak. The front door opened and closed, and someone descended the basement stairs. Bee grabbed the knife off the table. I picked up my cane.

 Page 8

    ¡°Here you are.¡± Brennan entered the kitchen with that impossibly friendly smile, which I could not help but return even as I flushed, lowering my cane. An important and glamorous radical who traveled across Europa to foment revolution could not be interested in a callow young female like myself. Even if he was carrying our carpetbags. ¡°What¡¯s in these?¡± he asked with a laugh.


    ¡°Gold bricks,¡± said Bee, at the same time as I said, ¡°Pig iron.¡±


    ¡°I would have said books, but what do I know?¡± He set down the bags by the door and indicated the window with a lift of his chin. ¡°No need for knives. Godwik could eat the general if he really wanted to. Even at his age.¡±


    Bee snickered. I clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle a laugh.


    Rory sauntered into the kitchen. His slender build made his strength easy to underestimate until he leaped for the kill. ¡°So nice and warm! At last! A nap by a proper fire.¡±


    ¡°I wondered where you¡¯d got to,¡± I said. ¡°Bee meant you to carry those bags.¡±


    He blinked innocently. ¡°Did she?¡± He sank down onto the bench, picked up a parsnip, sniffed at it, and with a disdainful grimace set it back down. With a sigh, he stretched the length of the bench in a boneless sprawl whose languor I admired in large part because I knew that at the slightest sign of trouble he could spring up and attack.


    The heat was making me sweat, so I shrugged off my coat and draped it over Bee¡¯s. In the backyard only the Amazon was visible, standing beside the closed gate. A clock stood atop the cupboard. Its ticking punctuated the silence as Brennan considered his work-hardened hands.


    ¡°I come from the north, as I think you recall, Catherine,¡± he said, ¡°from a mining village in Celtic Brigantia. A few days¡¯ walk from the village where I grew up, you come to the ice shelf. The ice rises from the land like a cliff. When the sun shines, you can see the ice face from miles away. It blinds because it is so sharp and bright. Professora Kuti and Maester Godwik can tell you all about the color, texture, weight, height, volume, and consistency of ice. But because I grew up so near the ice, among hunters as well as miners, I can tell you that the ice is alive. Not as you and I are alive. It¡¯s not a creature or a person. But it lives, although I couldn¡¯t tell you how or why.¡±


    ¡°A fascinating tale, but what has it to do with us?¡± I said. Yet I could tell by Bee¡¯s frowning expression that he had caught her interest, although I could not be sure whether it was his story that intrigued her or his looks, his air of worldly experience, and the likelihood he had bested more than one man in more than one nasty fight.


    ¡°When I was a small boy, my grandmother told me about a girl who was one of her age-mates. In my grandmother¡¯s youth, the ice reached all the way to Embers Ridge, where we now light the bonfire on Hallows¡¯ Eve. One year at midsummer the girl walked out on the hunt with her older brothers. When they reached the ice, she stood all day as if dazzled. When the sun set, she woke. She told them she had seen visions¡ªdreams¡ªin the face of the ice. They went home to consult with the village djeli and the elders. But what happened was this: The things she saw in the face of the ice came true in the year that followed.¡±


    Bee inhaled sharply.


    Brennan¡¯s gaze settled on her. ¡°She married, but birthed no children. For five summers more, she walked north every solstice to the ice and walked home after and told the elders what she had seen. No one spoke a single word outside of the village of what she did. They knew better than to draw attention to a gift which is also a curse. Do you know what happened to her?¡±


    The clock ticked ticked ticked.


    ¡°She died on Hallows¡¯ Night,¡± said Bee in a voice as hard as an oracle¡¯s.


    He had the look of a man who has seen things some might call the stuff of nightmares. ¡°The authorities at the prince of Brigantia¡¯s court were told she had drowned. In fact she was torn to pieces on Hallows¡¯ Night in the forecourt of the temple of the hunters Diana Sanen and her son Antlered Kontron. Her severed head was found in the village well.¡±


    He paused. We said nothing. What was there to say?


    ¡°She had been pursued and killed by the Wild Hunt. As the Thrice-Praised poet Bran Cof sang, ¡®No creature can escape the Hunt, no man outrun its teeth.¡¯¡±


    The clock ticked over the new hour. Its chime so startled me that I flinched.


    Brennan paced to the window. The Amazon had wrestled open the heavy bar that secured the back gate. A red-haired man in an old coat slipped inside the yard from the alley behind, and the Amazon went out. As Brennan turned to address us, the red-haired man barred the gate.

 Page 9

    ¡°It is well known,¡± Brennan continued, ¡°that before he took the name Camjiata, Captain Leonnorios Aemilius Keita married Helene Cond¨¦ Vahalis. She was the daughter of a powerful mage House, although she was a cold mage of only negligible power. But it was rumored she walked the future in oracular dreams. People said the young general¡¯s victories were achieved because he knew how to interpret her dreams to his benefit. Camjiata just implied that you, Beatrice, are one of those young women¡ªand they are always young¡ªwho has discovered she walks the path of dreams. It seems obvious the general wants you because he thinks your dreams can give him an advantage in war. Meanwhile, obviously the mansa of Four Moons House wants you to keep you away from the general, since it was the mages and the Romans who defeated Camjiata the first time. Yet it seems to me, if you are such a woman, then mage Houses, princes, Romans, and even escaped generals are not the worst threat you face.¡±


    3


    Brennan looked out the window again, watching as the red-haired man traversed the length of the yard while kicking up the snow that dusted the paving stones.


    ¡°Excuse me.¡± He flashed one of his spectacular smiles and went out. We heard him go up the back steps and open the back door. Gray light gleamed through the paned windows. The peculiar hut glittered as if polished gems lay hidden in its layers. A crow still perched atop the center pole. Brennan intercepted the stranger with a friendly gesture and a smile.


    ¡°At least,¡± said Bee in a low voice, ¡°the awful news was delivered by the handsomest man I¡¯ve ever met.¡±


    ¡°Bee!¡±


    ¡°How do you suppose he got the appellation Du? Brennan Tour¨¦ Du. Du means ¡®black-haired.¡¯ Yet he¡¯s enchantingly fair-haired.¡±


    I clucked my tongue to show I was not so susceptible, even though I was. ¡°He¡¯s positively ancient. Over thirty, anyway. That¡¯s even older than your handsome admirer Legate Amadou Barry. Or have you forgotten him?¡±


    She fixed me with the smoldering gaze that caused young men to fall catastrophically in love with her, professors to quake, shopkeepers to hasten forward to serve her, and young women our age to wish they could be like her, so proud and queenly. Then she dabbed away a tear. ¡°Please! Amadou Barry offered me an intolerable insult! As if I had asked for it!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not to blame for the proposal Amadou Barry made to you, Bee.¡±


    ¡°I know.¡± She blushed and looked away as if ashamed. ¡°But before that I told him things I shouldn¡¯t have, because I thought he genuinely loved me. I thought I could trust him.¡±


    I frowned as I leaned on the table, pinning her gaze with my own. ¡°Bee, you were alone and frightened and scared. You did nothing wrong. And I¡¯m sure he was very persuasive. Until that unpleasant moment when he offered to make you his mistress.¡±


    ¡°As if it were the best thing I could ever hope for!¡± She made stabbing motions with the knife. ¡°This! For him!¡±


    ¡°Sadly, men are the least of our problems right now.¡± I grabbed Rory¡¯s ankle. ¡°What do you know about Hallows¡¯ Night? Murdered victims? The face of the ice? The Wild Hunt?¡±


    His penetrating gold gaze was as opaque as a cat¡¯s. ¡°I know I¡¯m hungry.¡±


    ¡°Do you not know, or are you not telling?¡±


    ¡°Hallows¡¯ Night? Murders? The face of the ice? I don¡¯t know what those things are.¡±


    Because he looked exactly like a young man, it was easy to forget what he truly was and that he didn¡¯t belong here. ¡°Fair enough. I believe you. What do you know about the Wild Hunt?¡±


    ¡°I eat flesh. The Wild Hunt drinks blood. Even my mother trembles, for when the horn sounds, she would make us all hide. But everyone knows no one can truly hide, not if yours is the scent they pursue. I never saw them in all my life, but I have heard the hunt pass by while I cowered.¡±


    Bee weighed the knife in her left hand as she considered the parsnips. ¡°We thought we need only escape the combined forces of the mage Houses and the local prince. Now I¡¯m warned I was born all unknowingly with a terrible gift of dreaming that will result in my being dismembered.¡±


    ¡°That knife is so sharp I can taste its edge.¡± Rory rolled up to his feet as Bee glared at the hapless parsnips. ¡°Upset people shouldn¡¯t wave knives around.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t ask you!¡±


    He rubbed his eyes with the back of a wrist, the gesture very like that of a big cat, lazy and graceful and a trifle out of sorts. ¡°They never do ask me, although they ought to,¡± he said with a contemptuous sniff. He stepped out into the passage.

 Page 10

    ¡°It¡¯s just hard to imagine he really is a saber-toothed cat,¡± whispered Bee.


    ¡°I heard that!¡±


    ¡°Then don¡¯t eavesdrop!¡± Bee called after him.


    He padded up the main stairs toward the front entryway.


    I went to the door, but the low passageway was empty, so I crossed back to the table. ¡°That was certainly a disturbing story, but you must admit, Bee, we don¡¯t know if it is true. Maybe Brennan was trying to frighten us into cooperating with them.¡±


    She shook her head as she set a parsnip onto the cutting board. ¡°Then he¡¯d do better to ask why he and his comrades first met you while you were traveling in the company of a cold mage, when everyone knows cold mages are the enemies of Camjiata. Maybe he thinks we came here to spy on the radicals for the mage Houses.¡±


    ¡°It would be just as easy to say that Camjiata and the Hassi Barahal house set me to spy on the mages.¡±


    ¡°I wish that¡¯s what Papa and Mama had meant to do with you. Sent you to spy on Four Moons House, I mean. I could forgive them for that.¡± She pulled a hand over her thick black curls and pulled them back as if to tie them in a tail, a gesture I knew meant she was troubled and nervous. ¡°What I find so puzzling is why the general would walk into the city of Adurnam. He knows the ruling prince here is his sworn enemy. Doesn¡¯t he fear he¡¯ll be recaptured? How does he hope to get out of here without being caught?¡±


    ¡°All I know is the last place we want to be is in the same house as the most wanted man in Europa. Could you put that thing down before you stab me with it?¡±


    She skewered me with a gaze that would have felled stout oxen, had they been unfortunate enough to cross her path. ¡°I am a Hassi Barahal. I never put down the knife!¡±


    I began to smile, but something in the tense way she began slicing the parsnip into even roundels killed my words.


    She finally looked up with a crookedly trembling smile. ¡°I don¡¯t want to die like that.¡±


    ¡°Oh, Bee.¡± I hugged her despite the knife.


    In the silence, a lamp hanging from a hook on the wall by the door hissed patiently as it consumed oil. The back door opened. I released her and grabbed my cane. She raised the knife. The red-haired man appeared in the kitchen door, cheeks ruddy from the cold. Seen close, he was younger and better-looking than I had thought, especially when he grinned to greet us.


    ¡°Salvete,¡± he said as he edged around the chamber, sticking close to the wide cupboard with pots, pans, and unchipped crockery set in neat display on its open shelves. One might almost think him leery of coming too close, although I could not fathom what might disturb him about two perfectly well-mannered young women, even if one was grasping a large kitchen knife and the other what must appear to be a polished black cane, the kind of ridiculous accessory carried by young men of wealth who were more concerned with fashion than utility.


    ¡°Peace to you,¡± said Bee. ¡°Are you with the general?¡±


    He reached the stove and held his gloved hands over it with a grateful sigh. ¡°Whew! I just can¡¯t get used to this cursed cold.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not from the north?¡± Bee asked.


    He looked pointedly at her knife. She set to work on another parsnip.


    ¡°I was born northwest of here, in fact. But I¡¯ve been living as a maku in the city of Expedition for the last ten years. I¡¯m Drake, by the way. James Drake.¡±


    ¡°I am Beatrice Hassi Barahal,¡± Bee said with her best queenly grandeur, ¡°and this is my best beloved cousin¡±¡ªshe hesitated¡ª¡°Catherine Bell Barahal.¡±


    He offered a formal bowing courtesy, gaze shifting from her to me and back again. His eyes were so blue they were like a sizzle of bright hot light. ¡°I must always be at the service of such remarkably pretty young women.¡±


    Self-consciously, I smoothed my hands over the waist of my rumpled jacket and my well-worn and somewhat grimy riding skirt. I wasn¡¯t used to such brazen compliments.


    Bee¡¯s stony demeanor cracked, and she responded with a smile that made his eyes widen. ¡°But you must tell us more,¡± she said. ¡°Expedition is in the Amerikes. How exotic!¡±


    ¡°Between North and South Amerike in the Sea of Antilles, to be exact, where the Taino and their fire mages rule. The winters aren¡¯t cold there. Not like here, where cold mages rule beside princes and every soul lives under the shadow of the ice.¡± His fine blue gaze skimmed the length of my cane. ¡°I can¡¯t figure how a girl like you would be carrying cold steel. You¡¯re not a cold mage.¡±


    ¡°Are you one?¡± I demanded.

 Page 11

    He chuckled. ¡°I don¡¯t bite, so no need to guard against me.¡± His words were accented with the musicality of a western Celtic dialect overlaid with flat vowels that hinted at foreign lands.


    Despite his pleasing grin, I burned with an acrid, suspicious question. ¡°How do you know this is cold steel?¡±


    ¡°Maybe someone told me.¡± His chuckle suggested he would say nothing more.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t answer my question,¡± said Bee. ¡°Are you with the general?¡±


    Drake glanced out the window. ¡°Ask him yourself, for here he comes.¡±


    Camjiata and Kehinde crossed the yard to the back door. I did not see Godwik or Brennan. Upstairs a door closed, and footsteps paced the length of the house. I heard the professora speaking to the general as they came down the passage.


    ¡°¡ªBut the airship was destroyed. It is certain a cold mage devised the sabotage.¡±


    ¡°So I was informed yesterday when I entered the city,¡± the general replied. ¡°A shame. It would have made for a spectacular departure from Adurnam.¡±


    ¡°To think of destroying such a remarkable and beautiful object, both in design and concept! A new means of crossing the ocean between Europa and the Amerikes! Such antipathy toward invention and technology lies beyond my understanding. Such people ought not to hold power over the lives of others. But without the airship, how will you cross the ocean?¡±


    They came into the kitchen, Kehinde blowing on bare hands to warm them.


    ¡°I¡¯ve already set a new plan in motion,¡± Camjiata said as he walked to the table. He picked up Bee¡¯s sketchbook before she or I realized he meant to so brazenly invade her private things.


    ¡°Unexpected,¡± he said as he flipped through the pages, many of which bore sketches of good-looking young men. ¡°Yet as a way to record hopes and dreams, it¡¯s quite as useful as words.¡±


    Bee looked first as if all blood had drained from her face. Then she flushed in an exceedingly dangerous way that only ever presaged her rare but explosive blasts of volcanic temper. Just before she blew, Rory glided back into the room exactly as if he¡¯d felt a warning rumble. He slipped up next to her and draped an arm over her shoulders in a way that made it look as though he were both soothing her and stopping her from stabbing the general.


    Without looking up, Camjiata spoke in a coolly amused voice that made me think he knew exactly the effect his intrusion into her sketchbook was having on her. ¡°Patience, and I¡¯ll explain. The women who walk the dreams of dragons walk the path of dreams each in a unique way. Helene heard words of tangled poetry. I learned to unravel her words to reveal meetings and crossing points yet to come. For you see, she who can read the book of the future can wield her knowledge of the future as a kind of sword, one with an edge sharper even than cold steel.¡±


    ¡°Such a gift is a curse,¡± I said hoarsely.


    He studied the page that contained the sketch of him standing in the entryway. Bee had drawn it days, or weeks, or months ago. ¡°Maybe it is. But the women who walk the path of dreams have no choice about what they are. Do you know how my beloved wife died?¡± He turned another page. His brows furrowed as he considered lines that seemed to depict nothing more than a bench set against a wall under a flowering vine.


    ¡°On Hallows¡¯ Night dismembered?¡± Bee choked out.


    Rory tightened his arm around her.


    The general glanced at her, and then at me, and last at James Drake, who had gone back to warming his hands over the stove. He lifted his chin. ¡°Go on, James.¡±


    Drake¡¯s lips curled down. For an instant I thought he was going to refuse a direct order, but instead he left the kitchen and went upstairs.


    Camjiata smiled at a charming sketch of fanciful clock-faced owl. He closed the book and straightened, his gaze like a spear piercing Bee. ¡°Helene had gone to visit her family. She was a cold mage out of Crescent House, far in the north. I did not go with her. I had administrative duties that needed my attention, a legal code to shepherd into the world. We were both taken by surprise, I suppose, or perhaps we had begun to think we could not be taken by surprise because she walked the path of dreams. On that Hallows¡¯ Night, a storm demolished Crescent House¡¯s entire estate. All that was left in the morning were splinters, shattered stones, and faceless corpses. The main hall lay untouched but sheathed as in a glove of unmelting ice. As for Helene, her body was left on the steps of the main hall. Her limbs had been torn off. And she was decapitated. Her head was found at the bottom of a well that went dry that very night.¡±


    I shuddered. Outside, blown bits of icy snow pattered against the thick glass in a rising wind.

 Page 12

    ¡°What do you want?¡± whispered Bee.


    ¡°What matters,¡± said Camjiata, ¡°is what you want, Beatrice.¡±


    It wasn¡¯t just fear that was making me feel cold. It was actually getting colder. The cozy glamour of the fire wavered. The red glow began to shrink, and pieces of coal to settle. The fire flickered and all at once gave a weary gasp of defeat. Ash puffed and sank.


    Rory sniffed. ¡°That¡¯s magic,¡± he said.


    ¡°Oh, no,¡± whispered Bee.


    Only the presence of a powerful cold mage could suck the life out of a fire from a distance. As on an inhaled breath, the house tensed to silence, as if waiting. The ghostly hilt of my sword stung like nettles against my skin as cold magic whispered down its hidden blade. A preemptory knock rapped so loudly on the front door that the walls vibrated.


    Kehinde stepped to the kitchen door and looked into the passageway. ¡°Come with me, General. We have a bolt-hole.¡±


    ¡°Grab your coat and mine, and go out the back with Rory,¡± I said to Bee, for she was the one the cold mages wanted. ¡°We¡¯ll meet at that inn where we slept before.¡±


    Camjiata paused at the threshold, so unruffled by this emergency I admired his calm. ¡°What do you mean to do against cold mages? For I recognize their touch.¡±


    I pushed past him and headed for the stairs. ¡°I¡¯m Tara Bell¡¯s child, aren¡¯t I? The Amazon¡¯s daughter. I have a sword, so I mean to fight them.¡±


    4


    I found James Drake at the front door instead of the nameless young foreigner. Drake¡¯s lips were tilted up in a funny kind of smile, giving him the look of a man who is expecting a gift or a slap. He set a gloved hand on the latch but snatched it back.


    ¡°It¡¯s like ice!¡± he hissed.


    My sword¡¯s hilt waxed cold against my palm. Had the cold mages found us missing and already tracked us down? Or had they discovered Camjiata was in Adurnam and come for him?


    ¡°Stand back.¡± Gritting his teeth against the latch¡¯s cold burn, Drake opened the front door.


    Seen past him, a man stood on the stoop, cane in hand.


    ¡°These are the offices of Godwik and Clutch, lawyers,¡± said Drake, as though to a simpleton. ¡°Callers are admitted only by appointment.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it redundant to inform me that these are the offices of Godwik and Clutch, lawyers,¡± said the man with the cane, ¡°when the sign out front informs me both in word and in picture of that very fact? Naturally I do have an appointment with the solicitor named Chartji. Otherwise you can be sure I would not have ventured into a neighborhood like this one for legal aid.¡±


    Some men have the unfortunate propensity to look exceptionally well in the clothing they wear, and the effect must therefore be amplified when they dress with full attention to the most fashionable styles, the best tailors, and the most expensive fabric. In fact, he wore a greatcoat of an exceedingly fine cut, magnificently adorned by five layered shoulder capes rather than the practical one or the fashionable three. Its wool was dyed with patterned lines and sigils that reminded me of the clothing the hunters of his village wore when out in the bush. Altogether, the coat was one worn to be noticed and admired.


    It was also unbuttoned, as if the ferocious cold did not bother him at all. Beneath he wore a dash jacket tailored to flatter a well-built, slender frame and falling in loose cutaway folds from hips to knees. The fabric¡¯s violently bright red-and-gold chain pattern made me blink. How any man could wear cloth that staggeringly vivid and not look ridiculous I could not fathom. Yet there he was, him and his annoyingly handsome face. I should have known.


    ¡°My very question,¡± said Drake with a cutting smile. ¡°What is a cold mage doing in this neighborhood? A mage of your ilk must despise the scalding technology of combustion. He must regard with contempt the clever contraptions and schemes made by trolls and goblins in their busy workshops. Which rise all around you, in all their industrious vigor.¡±


    I expected sparks to fly. The two men, as they say, stared daggers.


    ¡°So polite of you to inform me of what I must despise.¡± The man on the stoop examined Drake as he might a man who has the bad taste to dress in provincial fashion when venturing into the city. ¡°But unnecessary, since I¡¯ve found I can make such judgments for myself.¡±


    Drake¡¯s free hand curled into a fist. A tremor kissed the air, expanding like the unseen pressure of a hand or an invisible dragon¡¯s sigh. I tasted smoke. A ripple swirled as shimmering heat across the threshold.


    ¡°Stop that!¡± The cold mage raised a hand as if brushing away a fluttering moth. The pressure and heat ceased so abruptly I coughed.

 Page 13

    He looked past Drake and saw me. Wincing back as if he¡¯d been struck, he lost his footing and staggered down a step before catching himself. His surprise gave me hope. Maybe Four Moons House and the mansa had not yet tracked us down.


    He jumped back up to the door, his gaze fixed on me the way a hammer seeks a nail.


    The cold magic pulsing from him coursed down my sword¡¯s hidden blade. If I twisted my draw just right, I could pull a blade into this world out of the spirit world where it currently resided. Not that cold steel would avail me much against Andevai Diarisso Haranwy, the very cold mage who had destroyed the famous airship. I was surprised the incognito guards Camjiata had posted on the lane had not raised the alarm, but then again, you could not identify a cold mage by looks. He might be any particularly well-dressed young man born to a family of high status and notable wealth. They could not have known he¡¯d been born to neither but risen to both.


    ¡°You¡¯ll have to return another time, Magister.¡± Drake started to close the door.


    The man I was obliged to call my husband thrust out an arm and, with the tip of his cane, halted the door¡¯s swing. He pushed inside, closed the door, and on the entry mat paused to stamp snow off his polished boots and tap the dusting of snow off his hat.


    ¡°I have an appointment with the solicitor Chartji,¡± he said as he set hat, cane, and gloves on a side table. ¡°You cannot deny me entrance.¡±


    With his lips pressed together and his dark gaze mocking, he surveyed Drake with the disdain that came so easily to him. Drake¡¯s clothes were indeed undistinguished, although practical and sturdy, but in any other company a man with Drake¡¯s striking eyes and attractive face might expect his looks and smile to render his clothing invisible. In this company, he just looked drab.


    As the gazes of the two men met, Drake¡¯s blue eyes seemed to blaze. My lips stung as with the bite of a kiln¡¯s heat. My lungs felt choked by unseen smoke and ash. My skin crawled as if licked by invisible tongues of fire. I gasped, sure the air was about to burst into flame.


    A chill descended as decisively as a curtain falls at the end of an act. The burning taste of fire was utterly extinguished. Ice brushed my lips like a cold kiss, but it was only sensation, not actual frozen water.


    Andevai uncurled a fisted hand as if he were carefully releasing a captured bird. ¡°You¡¯re strong, but not nearly strong enough.¡± He spoke in a bitingly arrogant tone whose sheer cool vainglory would have been sufficient to bestir a herd of calmly grazing elephants into a maddened, city-flattening stampede. ¡°It¡¯s a bit dangerous, don¡¯t you think? Playing with fire?¡±


    Drake¡¯s grin popped, but he looked furious, not amused. He took a step toward me. With narrowed eyes, Andevai placed himself between me and Drake. Then he met my wary gaze.


    I had last seen him two days before. He had not changed. His hair was cut close against his black head, and his beard and mustache were trimmed very short and with absolute perfection, no doubt to encourage young women to look at him. The less said about his beautiful brown eyes, the better. Especially when I recalled the unkind and even cruel things he had said to me when we had first been thrown together, when he had dragged me against my will from the only home I had ever known.


    His voice was soft now, emotion tightly controlled. ¡°I suppose your presence here means you have managed yet another escape, Catherine.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t tell you anything. Your allegiance lies with Four Moons House.¡±


    He regarded me coolly enough that I felt obliged to admire his composure, considering the things he had said at our last meeting.


    ¡°Considering the things that were said at our last meeting,¡± he said, as if his thoughts aligned with mine, ¡°it may surprise you to hear that my arrival here has nothing to do with you.¡±


    ¡°Considering the things that were said?!¡± I muttered, for it was hard to know what to say to a man when, the last time you saw him, you had shared a potent kiss. But I found words. ¡°Every mage House has advocates trained in the law who can argue cases in the law courts. What use can you possibly have for Chartji¡¯s services?¡±


    ¡°A question I might ask you.¡±


    ¡°You might, but my answer would be the same as yours.¡±


    He flashed a smile of such astounding sweetness and humor¡ªas if he appreciated my wit!¡ªthat it would have been easier for me if my heart had simply stopped and I had dropped dead. I had not known the man could smile like that.


    His smile vanished and he said in a serious tone, ¡°Perhaps you¡¯d best sit down, Catherine. Are you going to faint?¡±

 Page 14

    ¡°I never faint,¡± I said hoarsely. ¡°I¡¯m just tired from all the escaping my cousin and I have had to do.¡±


    ¡°You never answered her question, Magister.¡± The spark in Drake¡¯s tone made my neck tingle as with a warning. ¡°Why on Earth would a magister visit the offices of an ordinary solicitor who is also a troll? Have you lost something you want back?¡±


    It was clearly a wild guess, but Andevai swung around as fast as if he¡¯d been ridiculed. When his gaze met Drake¡¯s, such a flare of mutual dislike flashed between them that it felt as if all the air had been sucked from the entryway. The history of the world begins in ice, and it will end in ice. So sing the Celtic bards and Mande djeliw of the north. The Roman historians, on the other hand, claimed that fire will consume us in the end.


    Ice, or fire? As the two men faced down, I had a sudden and terrible premonition I was about to find out.


    A trill, like speech, slid down from the stairs to interrupt the end of the world. Chartji descended from the first floor with the odd hitching walk typical of her kind. She reached the entry and stuck out a hand in the manner of the radicals. ¡°Magister. Here you are.¡±


    Andevai shrugged as if letting anger roll off him. Then he turned, taking her hand in his without the least sign that he, the scion of an influential and wealthy mage House, found this style of greeting plebeian. ¡°My thanks for remembering our earlier meeting and agreeing to my request for an appointment.¡±


    She was taller than he was, with the wide-set eyes and feathered ruff typical of trolls. When she opened her snout in imitation of a smile, her sharp teeth certainly presented a threat, but her greeting was pleasant enough and her speech so human that its precision sounded peculiar.


    ¡°Well met, Magister. I admit, I was not sure you would venture to this district, where lies so much technology to disturb you. I am pleased you did so. If you will follow me to my office, we can discuss your business.¡±


    Drake said, ¡°What business might that be?¡±


    She bared teeth at Drake, bobbed her head at me, and gestured to Andevai. ¡°We guarantee privacy for all who seek our services.¡± Opening the nearest door, she indicated he should precede her into the office.


    He hesitated. ¡°Will you be here afterward, Catherine?¡± he said in a low voice.


    This was one answer I could honestly give. ¡°Until Four Moons House gives up all attempt to claim my cousin Beatrice, I can have nothing to do with any mage House or magister.¡±


    He stiffened. ¡°Of course. I admire you for standing loyal to your family above all.¡±


    He sketched an ambivalent gesture, halfway between greeting and leaving, before he crossed into the office. Chartji shut the door behind them. With my exceptionally good hearing, I heard the rustle of curtains being dragged open inside.


    ¡°How do you know this arrogant cold mage?¡± asked Drake.


    ¡°The tale is quite a labyrinth of intrigue,¡± I said, wishing he would leave me alone so I could eavesdrop.


    ¡°Phoenician spies must be quite at home with labyrinths of intrigue.¡± Yet he smiled to take the sting out of the words.


    When in doubt, we¡¯d been taught to distract through misdirection. ¡°We call ourselves Kena¡¯ani, not Phoenician. Phoenician is a Greek word, and it¡¯s the one the Romans called us.¡±


    He chuckled. ¡°I¡¯ll remember that, Maestressa. I make it a point never to trust a cold mage. I hope you don¡¯t think it might be possible to do so.¡± His eyes had the strange quality of seeming vivid in the dim entryway. He watched me, waiting for an answer.


    I did not want to speak, but I kept wondering if Camjiata¡¯s armed attendants might decide to attack Andevai. ¡°I¡¯m very sure the cold mage doesn¡¯t know the general is here. I don¡¯t know what his business is, but it¡¯s not about Camjiata.¡±


    ¡°Your insight interests me, Maestressa,¡± he said with a smile meant to flatter, and indeed I blushed, because I was not accustomed to flattery. ¡°Nevertheless, I¡¯ll need to go report the cold mage¡¯s arrival.¡±


    He went downstairs.


    I sidled to the office door and leaned against it. First I tightly furled my senses, blocking out sounds, sights, and smells around me. Then I reached to the threads of magic that permeate all things, the insubstantial threads that can¡¯t be seen or touched in any common way. My awareness crept on those threads into the office.


    Andevai was talking. ¡°¡­If the principle of rei vindicatio were turned on its head. What if people bound by clientage could say they want to reclaim ownership of themselves? Is it possible?¡±

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    ¡°Rei vindicatio means to take possession of something you already own. Such a ruling would turn on the legal status of those people bound by clientage.¡± Chartji spoke in her eerily perfect diction and accent. ¡°Is clientage legally equivalent to slavery? If they do not possess their own persons in any legal way, then there is nothing to reclaim. Unless the law declares slavery to be illegal, as the law does among my people. So it is difficult for me to say if it is possible here. I will need to make a thorough examination of the law codes and the rulings of jurists. I will need to interview bards and djeliw, because they keep the oldest laws in their memories. I know of no such case being brought before the princely court in the principality of Tarrant. In Expedition, the law is handled quite differently. Just a moment¡­¡±


    I was straining so hard to hear that when the door exhaled away from my face I stumbled forward into the office. The way the troll pulled back her muzzle was not unfriendly, but it was distinctly unnerving to stare down those predator¡¯s teeth. The crest of yellow feathers raised.


    ¡°When I assure people that I offer private meetings, I must be able to fulfill that promise.¡±


    I am sure my face turned as scarlet as if I had been painted. ¡°My apologies.¡±


    Andevai was seated on a settee by the desk. ¡°You may as well let her stay, solicitor. There¡¯s something she needs to hear.¡±


    ¡°I thought you said this appointment had nothing to do with me,¡± I retorted.


    Chartji shut the door. Because I was not about to join Andevai on the settee, I remained standing. Chartji waited beside me. Fox Close lay quiet but for the noise of a coal man shoveling coke into the coal chute and the rumble of a wheelbarrow being pushed along the lane.


    ¡°Your chin is bruised,¡± Andevai said, touching his own chin.


    I clasped my hands behind my back. ¡°It was slammed into the floor when you fought that cold magic duel in the factory.¡± I did not add: against your own master, the mansa, to stop him from killing me.


    ¡°Ah.¡± He seemed stymied and uncomfortable. ¡°My apologies.¡±


    ¡°Since you saved my life, I¡¯m sure you need not apologize.¡±


    With a wince as at a sour taste, he firmly said nothing and looked at me as if daring me to talk. Silence swelled like a bubble expanding to fill the chamber. I looked around. One wall was lined with bookshelves stuffed full of leather-bound volumes shelved in a hodgepodge, some upright and some lying flat. An elaborate map of the world, printed on fabric and tacked up askew, covered part of another wall. The troll¡¯s desk looked like a bird¡¯s nest in the way books, papers, nibs, and a number of odd-looking notched sticks were woven together into a mess that made my hands itch to tidy up. Most strangely, the fire was still burning.


    Andevai rose. ¡°Obviously you are wondering why I am here, Catherine. The main reason is business of my own, as I said, none of your concern.¡±


    ¡°Rei vindicatio is none of my concern? When you arrived at my aunt and uncle¡¯s house two months ago, you invoked rei vindicatio to reclaim ownership of the eldest Hassi Barahal daughter. Four Moons House had forced the Barahals to sign a contract giving that daughter to the mages, but she had been allowed to remain in the possession of her family all the while she was growing up because the mages were worried that the presence in the mage House of a girl who walked the dreams of dragons might be dangerous. Isn¡¯t that correct?¡±


    ¡°Why ask me the question when you already know the answer?¡±


    ¡°Just to hear you say it.¡± I was shocked at how snide my tone was, but I could not control the surging tide of my emotions: He had thought he had to kill me, yet he had saved my life; I had escaped him and then kissed him. I could not make sense of him.


    His lips thinned. I knew some cutting retort was coming. He had a habit of trying to cover his emotions with expressions of scorn. ¡°Yes, I invoked rei vindicatio. But I married the wrong woman, didn¡¯t I? Instead of marrying your cousin, I married you.¡±


    His gaze was too sharp. I decided I would rather look at the ceiling, which was painted blue and flecked with curiously vibrant representations of clouds.


    He went on, his voice clipped. ¡°So I have asked Solicitor Chartji if she knows of any legal way to undo the chain of binding which was sealed on our marriage.¡±


    His comment shocked me back to earth. ¡°There is no way to undo a magical chain. No way, short of death.¡± The word stung like a mouthful of salt.


    ¡°So we are told. But that does not mean it has never been undone before. Or cannot be undone by other means.¡±


    ¡°Such a matter lies a very long way out of my field of expertise,¡± said Chartji. ¡°However, it would be interesting to look into as a legal technicality. I can promise nothing. Nor can I figure in what manner of legal court you could adjudicate such a case. However, I can investigate and report back on what I find, if that is what you want.¡±

 Page 16

    ¡°Do you want to be released from our marriage, Catherine?¡± His stare challenged me.


    ¡°May I speak bluntly?¡± I asked.


    ¡°When did you ever not?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯d be surprised how many times I bit my tongue!¡±


    ¡°If you¡¯d done so, I would think I would have seen more blood.¡±


    ¡°One drop was enough,¡± I said.


    With an intake of breath, he stiffened, looking like a man who has no idea how he came to be standing in a place so far beneath his consequence. ¡°There is no answer to that.¡±


    How was it he kept putting me on the defensive? ¡°You misunderstand me. All I meant was, are you willing to hear what I have to say in front of another person?¡±


    Chartji¡¯s crest rose slightly.


    ¡°I do not fear her censure, if that is what you think. Anything said here won¡¯t be repeated.¡±


    ¡°I was trying to be thoughtful,¡± I said. ¡°I meant only to spare your feelings.¡±


    ¡°Please do not begin concerning yourself about my feelings now.¡±


    ¡°Was there a time before this I would have had some reason to be concerned for your feelings? Perhaps after I was forced to marry you and you treated me with cruelty instead of kindness? Or perhaps when I was running for my life after you were commanded to kill me?¡±


    The troll¡¯s faint whistle shivered the air. I fisted my hands, waiting for Andevai to cut me down to size.


    He shut his eyes, then opened them to look right at me, his voice tight and his tone rigidly formal. ¡°I regret the high-handed way I behaved toward you on that journey almost as much as I regret not immediately rejecting the mansa¡¯s command to kill you. But my regrets do not change the past. So say what you must, Catherine. I am not afraid to hear it.¡±


    My heart was hammering so hard I was dizzy. I brushed the back of a hand across my forehead and took a breath to steady myself. ¡°You belong to Four Moons House. Legally, you belong to them. You had to marry me because you were ordered to do it. Once I was forced to marry you, I belonged to them, too, through the djeli¡¯s binding that contracted me to you. You knew that¡¯s what would happen. So in a way I think it was an attempt at kindness for you to think that you and I¡ªthat you thought I was¡ª¡± Heat seared my cheeks. I could not go on.


    ¡°Acquit me of kindness, Catherine. I meant what I said.¡±


    I certainly could not forget what he had said: ¡°When I saw you coming down the stairs that evening, it was as if I were seeing the other half of my soul descending to greet me.¡±


    I gulped in air and got words past an obstruction. ¡°Even if you believe that now, to Four Moons House I will never be anything except the mistake you made that lost them the person they wanted. The burden of protecting me from their indifference and spite will eventually wear away whatever affection you may currently believe you hold for me.¡±


    ¡°I wish you would speak for yourself, Catherine, and stop telling me what I do and do not believe and how I will and will not act.¡±


    ¡°Then I¡¯ll speak for myself.¡± Because my hands were shaking, I clasped them together again. ¡°I can¡¯t live in Four Moons House as an unwanted creature whom everyone will scorn. And I know you said I could live in your family¡¯s village, but I wouldn¡¯t know how to live there. I¡¯d be so out of place. Above all else, I know better than to chance what may happen tomorrow on a transitory passion felt today.¡±


    I had to stop.


    He said nothing. Yes, he was physically handsome, and attractive in some other intangible way. After those first disastrous days, he had made an effort to help me. His kiss had certainly pleased me in a most startling manner. But I did not love him. How could I? I didn¡¯t even know him. And whatever he might think, he did not truly know me. He only believed he did.


    ¡°I am sure it is to your credit that you tried to soften the blow,¡± I went on.


    ¡°Soften the blow??¡± His eyes flared.


    Had I been wiser, I would have stopped, because the fire in the hearth flickered.


    No one had ever accused me of being wise.


    ¡°You were commanded to marry a woman against both your own will and hers. So you concocted a honeyed fable in your heart to make an unpleasant duty palatable. Just as you weave illusions out of light, you wove an illusion about us. One soul cleaved into two halves and then like destiny reunited¡ª¡±


    The fire whuffed out with a puff of ash. A glimmer of ice crackled across the heavy iron circulating stove.


    ¡°Are you quite through insulting me?¡± he demanded.


    Chartji¡¯s crest was fully raised. I felt she was making ready to act precipitously in case someone lost his temper and brought down the house.

 Page 17

    ¡°It¡¯s not meant as an insult!¡±


    ¡°Implying I don¡¯t know my own mind is not an insult?¡± His jaw was clenched, his eyes had narrowed, and I heard a whispery groan of iron under strain. Yes. He was very angry.


    ¡°That¡¯s not how I meant it. You didn¡¯t kill me when you had the chance. You aided me when you could. You defied the mansa by telling him you would stop anyone who tried to kill me. So I thank you for that. But Bee and I have our own problems. A husband is one complication too many.¡± My hands were squeezed so tightly my shoulders ached. I untangled my fingers and separated my hands. ¡°I¡¯ll make no objection if a way can be found to dissolve the marriage. Let you go your way, and me mine. It¡¯s for the best.¡±


    ¡°So be it.¡± His gaze flashed up, and if there was a murderous piercing spear in those fine brown eyes I am sure he did not mean it literally. Perhaps he was finally reconsidering the wisdom of believing he had fallen in love at first sight. People could convince themselves of anything.


    ¡°Will that be all, then?¡± Chartji said to me.


    ¡°Yes.¡± I was barely able to croak out the word. Over here, it seemed terribly hot, although the rest of the chamber shivered with cold.


    ¡°If you will.¡± She indicated the door. ¡°The magister and I aren¡¯t finished.¡±


    I let her usher me out, and as I turned back to see if Andevai had watched me go, she closed the door in my face.


    5


    Let him go his way, and me mine. Our lives led down different paths. I was well rid of him and the way he was contemptuous one moment, a proud cold mage from the top of his well-groomed head to the tips of his gloriously polished boots, and then the next might be mistaken for a staidly polite and provincially traditional¡ªif unusually good-looking¡ªvillage lad who was trying too hard to fit into a world where he was not welcome but could not be turned away.


    Impatient with these niggling thoughts which like bad-mannered visitors simply would not leave, I ran downstairs. That idiot Bee had not left, although she had put on her coat. Seeing me, she opened her mouth, perhaps to comment on the way my eyes were red from unshed tears or that I had been parading around in my unkempt bodice and skirts like an overworked scullery maid. Then she closed her mouth and instead handed me my riding jacket. Rory was lounging by the fire as might a cat sunning itself on a rock.


    We were not alone.


    Kehinde sat in a chair opposite Bee, holding a parsnip. Brennan leaned against the wall beside the door, so perfectly at ease it took a moment to realize how quickly he could block the door. The contrast between them was striking. He was muscular, blond, and white-skinned, with the look of a man used to waiting until he had to explode into action. Small-framed, she was fidgety, touching each unsliced parsnip as if her hands needed something to do while her mind worked; her skin was black, and she wore her long black hair in locks.


    ¡°We need to talk.¡± She pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her nose.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t say anything to him about the general being here!¡±


    ¡°Sit, please.¡± Kehinde spoke without force or anger. I sank onto the bench, all energy drained. ¡°Why did you come? To seek our help to return to the Hassi Barahal motherhouse in Gadir?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± said Bee, with a glance at me. I let her talk. ¡°We¡¯re not returning there.¡±


    ¡°Why not? They are your community. What are we, if we have no community and no family?¡±


    ¡°¡®We¡¯ are left to fend for ourselves,¡± said Bee. ¡°Let me just say that our family betrayed us and we no longer trust them. We hoped to find refuge with radicals. We thought you of all people would understand why we don¡¯t want to be bound into clientage, practically legal slavery, to a mage House or a prince¡¯s court¡­or some patrician household from Rome.¡± Her voice fell to a whisper, but she recovered. ¡°We can be useful to the cause. We are not without skills.¡±


    ¡°The Hassi Barahal house is known to be employed in the business of selling information,¡± said Kehinde. ¡°You might be spying on us. After all, after you came, the cold mage arrived.¡±


    I was getting annoyed. ¡°Turn that around! Why would Chartji make an appointment for a cold mage to come to your office at the same time the most wanted man in Europe is to be here?¡±


    Brennan laughed. ¡°An unfortunate case of bad timing, and close calls. Rather exciting, don¡¯t you think?¡±


    ¡°For you it will always be a game, Du,¡± said Kehinde, measuring him with a frown. ¡°The more you skate onto the thin ice, as you say here in the north, the better you like it.¡±

 Page 18

    He shook his head, watching her closely. ¡°Oh, no, Professora, you know it is not a game to me. Risks must be taken if we mean to get what we want.¡± He flashed his enchanting smile at Bee, and then at me. ¡°I think the girls are a risk worth taking.¡±


    ¡°Maybe we¡¯re the ones who should be asking if we can trust you,¡± said Bee. ¡°Like Cat said, you¡¯re the ones meeting with the general. And the cold mage!¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s got us at knife¡¯s point there,¡± said Brennan, still looking amused.


    Bee¡¯s brow furrowed and her gaze darkened as if storm clouds had swept down. We were in for a blow. ¡°It¡¯s easy for you to laugh. You¡¯re a man. Maybe you¡¯re entirely legally free, or maybe your northern village is entangled in some kind of clientage to a mage House. I don¡¯t know. But you, Professora, surely you as a legal scholar will understand our situation. Even though my cousin and I are twenty and legally adults, the Hassi Barahal elders in Gadir can dispose of us however they wish simply because we are female and unmarried.¡± She flashed me a glance to remind me to keep my mouth closed about the unfortunate fact that I was already married. As if I wanted to brag about it! ¡°So you can see that radicals who speak of overturning an oppressive legal code might interest us.¡±


    ¡°I understand perfectly.¡± Kehinde glanced at Brennan. To my surprise, he looked away, biting his lower lip. She toyed with the ends of several of her locks. ¡°We dispute the arbitrary distribution of power and wealth, which is claimed as the natural order, but which is in fact not natural at all but rather artificially created and sustained by ancient privileges. Of which marriage is one. Yet we still have a problem. It appears you are being pursued by the same mage Houses and princes who wish to capture the general. Until Camjiata leaves Adurnam, you cannot stay here.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re turning us away,¡± said Bee wearily.


    ¡°Not at all. I have been formulating an idea that our organization might have a use for two young women trained by the Hassi Barahal clan. Godwik agrees with me. Indeed, Maester Godwik finds you to be of the greatest interest. I consider his judgments to be based on sound reason.¡±


    ¡°Unlike mine,¡± murmured Brennan.


    She did not by so much as a flicker of the eye indicate she had heard this. ¡°It was odd to hear the general say his wife had had a vision that he would meet a Hassi Barahal daughter who, as he declaimed so poetically, will walk the path of dreams. And then of course there was the oracle about Tara Bell¡¯s child. Such oracles being clouded and obscure exactly so that any outcome can be acclaimed as the prophetic one.¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t discount such words,¡± said Brennan. ¡°But I am no city-raised sophisticate. I¡¯m just a miner¡¯s son who has seen too much death.¡±


    ¡°When people die in troubling and violent ways, we seek a story to explain it, however far-fetched.¡± She raised a hand to forestall Brennan¡¯s retort. ¡°That forces exist in the world which we cannot account for is manifestly true. Through observation and experience, scholars seek to describe the natural world and plumb its depths. I have for years been in correspondence with a well-regarded scholar who lives in Adurnam. I have now had the chance to speak with him in person, and I find him every bit as impressive as his letters indicated. He will shelter you until such time as it is safe for you to join us. You must ask to share a shot of whiskey with Bran Cof¡ª¡±


    ¡°Everyone knows the poet Bran Cof is long dead,¡± said Bee. ¡°If you can call that death, when your head is stuck on a pedestal and everyone is waiting for you to speak.¡±


    ¡°I like that whiskey stuff?!¡± said Rory, sitting up.


    Kehinde eyed him as if trying to decide whether his insouciance was an act that disguised a razor-sharp mind and will, or if he was exactly as he seemed. ¡°The name is a code to show you are part of our organization.¡±


    ¡°Wait,¡± I said. ¡°Why Bran Cof?? Where do you mean to send us?¡±


    ¡°There is an academy in Adurnam. Its headmaster will shelter you.¡±


    Bee slanted a glance at me, and I scratched my left ear, and Rory stood to stretch with an exaggerated yawn, because he understood we were speaking with gestures, warning each other and him. Bee and I had attended the academy for over two years. We knew the headmaster well. We had trusted him. When Bee had stayed behind in Adurnam after her parents and family fled on a ship bound for Gadir, she had gone to him for shelter. And he had turned her over to the custody of Amadou Barry, whose home had been a gilded cage that dazzled Bee until the legate made his insulting proposal, offering to make Bee his mistress. But Kehinde and Brennan didn¡¯t need to know any of that.

 Page 19

    I took a step back to leave the stage to Bee. With her black curls, rosy lips, and big brown eyes, she looked entirely adorable and innocent and trusting. ¡°It is so generous of you to take an interest in us. But you know the risks we face. The factions hunting us. Why help us?¡±


    Kehinde extended a hand, and to my shock Bee handed her the knife. The professor used the tip to investigate the ranks of sliced parsnips. ¡°It is quite remarkable how evenly they are each sliced, as if each cut were measured beforehand by something other than your eye. Unless you find an isolated barbaric village, perhaps in the wilds of Brigantia¡±¡ªshe glanced at Brennan¡ª¡°you must see you have entered the conflict whether you wish to or not. If it is true your dreams reflect a cryptic vision of the future¡ªand I assure you I will need evidence¡ªthen you will never be let alone. Never. I am no different than anyone. I can think of ways to employ your gift to benefit the cause I cherish. But I will only ever approach you as a partner, and you will be free to leave our association at any time. It is your decision.¡± She set down the knife.


    ¡°What about your alliance with the general?¡± I asked.


    Brennan smiled wryly. ¡°Harsh conditions make for odd bedfellows. Our organization has its own reasons for considering an alliance with the general.¡±


    I nodded. ¡°That makes sense. He¡¯s a soldier. You¡¯re only radicals. He must be better able to fend off princes and mages than you are.¡±


    ¡°You will have to decide whether swords and rifles, or words and ideas, are more likely to win the day,¡± said Kehinde.


    ¡°I¡¯m all for swords and rifles,¡± I said.


    ¡°Do not discount the power of words and ideas,¡± she said with a smile I dearly wished I could trust. ¡°Their touch seems soft at first, but you¡¯ll find it can be lasting.¡±


    ¡°Well, then,¡± said Bee. ¡°We¡¯ll take you up on your offer. We¡¯ll leave right away.¡±


    Rory collected the two bags as I pulled on my riding jacket, coat, and gloves.


    ¡°I¡¯ll arrange for someone to escort you across the city who knows the backstreets to keep you out of sight of the militia,¡± said Brennan. ¡°And may I ask, what is in the bags?¡±


    My father¡¯s journals, our sewing baskets, some clothes and diverse small necessities. What coin we had was sewn into Bee¡¯s gown, with a few coins tucked into my sleeve. He had such a charming smile, but I hardened my heart against confiding even such innocuous information.


    ¡°Our things,¡± I said.


    Kehinde rose. ¡°I¡¯ll come to the academy when it is safe for you to return. It would be best to go out the front so it looks as if you came for an appointment and left. If you¡¯ll excuse me, I must prepare for my negotiations with the general.¡± She shook hands with Bee and me.


    ¡°Rory,¡± I said.


    He stared at me with those golden, innocent eyes. ¡°What am I supposed to do?¡±


    ¡°Shake hands. It¡¯s the custom, among radicals.¡±


    He set down the bags and shook hands with Kehinde. She left.


    With a lazy grin, Rory gripped Brennan¡¯s hand a bit too hard and a bit too long. I felt a shift in the temper of the air as Brennan took his measure, like coiling up rope in readiness to snap it out.


    Bee said, ¡°Rory, stop that.¡±


    With a put-upon sigh, he let go, leaving Brennan to shake our hands.


    He leaned toward me¡ªtoo close, for I flushed¡ªand murmured, ¡°Is he really your brother?¡±


    After all, I just could not resist. I daringly drifted close enough for my lips to brush the tips of his hair as I whispered, ¡°What confuses you is he¡¯s really a saber-toothed cat who followed me home from the spirit world.¡±


    I expected him to laugh, but instead he pulled back and gave first a very searching look at Rory and then, less comfortably, a long and intent look at me.


    ¡°Well,¡± he said, ambivalently, and with his forehead creased thoughtfully, he went out.


    ¡°That was naughty.¡± Bee shut the door so we could have privacy. ¡°Are you smitten?¡±


    ¡°Men like that don¡¯t look at girls like me.¡±


    ¡°I think he likes the professora. It¡¯s almost tempting, isn¡¯t it, to join the cause just to fight near him. Or it would be, if we didn¡¯t now know they are in league with the headmaster! Who handed me over to Amadou Barry. Who is a Roman legate. And the Romans are allied with the mage Houses against Camjiata. Who has come to this house to negotiate with the radicals. It doesn¡¯t even make sense!¡±


    Rory circled back to the stove. ¡°Are we going back out into that awful cold? I¡¯m starving.¡±

 Page 20

    ¡°So am I,¡± I said, ¡°but we¡¯ve got to go.¡±


    ¡°Camjiata knows something about walking the dreams of dragons,¡± mused Bee. ¡°Maybe we should ally ourselves with him.¡±


    ¡°An alliance with him comes with a price.¡±


    ¡°I think he says what he means,¡± said Rory, ¡°and means what he says.¡±


    ¡°Yes, and so does any lunatic.¡± Bee stirred the parsnip slices with the knife. ¡°Alas, all I see right now in my future is dismemberment.¡±


    I crossed to embrace her. ¡°I¡¯ll never let the Wild Hunt take you, Bee. Never!¡±


    She sniffled, and put down the knife to hug me. ¡°I love you, too, Cat.¡±


    I released her. ¡°There is another choice. I don¡¯t know where my mother came from, so there¡¯s no use seeking her kin. But Rory and I have a common sire. Someone Tara and Daniel encountered when they were part of the First Baltic Ice Expedition. The expedition was lost, and the survivors were only found months later. It¡¯s certain that¡¯s when she got pregnant. My sire must be a creature of the spirit world. How else could he impregnate both a human woman from this world and a saber-toothed cat from the spirit world?¡±


    Bee grimaced. ¡°I don¡¯t like the way this conversation is going.¡±


    I smirked. ¡°Oh, come now, Bee. Nothing we saw in anatomy class ever made you blush.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not what I meant, although now that you mention it, how could that be managed? Gracious Melqart, Cat. What an unseemly shade of red you¡¯ve turned!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m going to pour a handful of salt in your porridge for a month, you monster. Don¡¯t distract me. The coachman and footman who conveyed Andevai and me from Adurnam to Four Moons House were not¡­human. The footman was an eru. She addressed me as Cousin before I ever had any idea that Daniel Hassi Barahal was not the male who sired me. I have kinfolk in the spirit world. My kin are obliged to aid me. Isn¡¯t that right, Rory?¡±


    For an instant, his upper lip began to curl back, and I thought he was going to snarl. He spoke instead. ¡°As I am bound, so must those bound to me as kin come to my aid. That is the law.¡±


    ¡°Cat, you think you can call your sire once you are in the spirit world.¡± Bee¡¯s smile had a frightening effect on me: a tingling rush through my body that made me boldly wish to engage in a reckless act. Perhaps being exhausted and feeling cornered made us more reckless than usual. ¡°If he is anything like Rory, he can cross back into this world in the shape of a man. That would bring a new piece into the conflict no one expects. How do we get to the spirit world?¡±


    ¡°When my blood was shed on a crossing stone, I crossed from this world into the spirit world. Once in the spirit world, I crossed back through a different gate. The hunters of Andevai¡¯s village crossed likewise, so I was told. How would you get back, Rory, if you wanted to go?¡±


    ¡°My existence was very boring before you came, Cat. I lazed about, hunted a bit, sunned myself, ate, slept, and rested. I never had any fun. I don¡¯t want to go back, and neither should you.¡±


    ¡°Oh, Rory.¡± I went to the door and put an arm around him. ¡°You¡¯ve asked for nothing. You¡¯re the best brother I could ever have. But our situation here is impossible. We can¡¯t keep running. You don¡¯t have to come with us. We¡¯ll give you money and you can wait with the bags at an inn. We¡¯ll come back, I promise.¡±


    Because he tended to laze about and look as sleek and indolent as any healthy cat, it was easy to forget he was a dangerous predator. He shook off my arm in a way that made Bee grab the knife as if she thought she might have to defend me.


    His voice reverberated like the warning clangor of a bell. ¡°Beware what you call, lest you be devoured by a creature hungrier than you. To drink from the fountain of mortal blood is to drink the essence of power. Every step in the spirit world is a perilous step.¡±


    I did not fear him. He was my brother. I grabbed his hand. ¡°What choice do we have?¡±


    He seemed to get smaller, as if his fur were flattening. ¡°It¡¯s a bad idea.¡±


    ¡°To bring the knife, or not to bring the knife,¡± said Bee, ¡°that is my question.¡± She set a denarius on the table before tucking the knife in her coat. ¡°Where do we go?¡±


    I said, ¡°To the plinth that marks the foundation stone of the first Adurni settlement. Where two ancient paths met, according to the history of the founding of Adurnam. If any place in this city opens on a crossing into the spirit world, that must be it.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, Cat. That part of town is filled with taverns, dogfights, and fatheaded young guildsmen seeking any excuse for a duel.¡±

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    ¡°That sounds promising!¡± said Rory with a cocky grin that made me think he¡¯d already forgotten his frightening words and our bad idea.


    I fastened my cane to its loop and buttoned my coat as Rory picked up the bags. A saber-toothed cat, cold steel, and dreams that revealed the future. That would have to be enough. As we headed up the stairs, Bee began to hum under her breath the famous aria ¡°When He Is Laid in Earth¡± from the recently staged opera The Dido and Aeneas, in which the queen of Qart Hadast, after defeating the Roman prince who sought to subdue her rule through marriage, presides over his funeral procession.


    The Amazon waited in the entryway, shoulders against the door and arms crossed. ¡°So here yee is,¡± she remarked in an odd accent. ¡°Already, the general know yee lot shall leave.¡±


    But instead of blocking our path, she opened the door. A blast of wintry air swirled in, numbing my face and chilling my heart. The history of the world begins in ice, and it will end in ice. So sing the Celtic bards and Mande djeliw of the north whose words tell us where we came from and what ties and obligations bind us. Here, we dare not forget the vast ice sheets and massive glaciers that cover the northern reaches of Europe. In the old tales, the ice is called the abode of the ancestors. Brennan hadn¡¯t mentioned the phrase in his story of gruesome death, but Daniel Hassi Barahal had written it in his journals. I steeled myself, for wasn¡¯t I seeking my ancestors?


    The winter wind stirred the hem of the Amazon¡¯s knee-length jacket. She wore a soldier¡¯s boots, kept polished not to a fashionable mirror gleam but with an attention to cleanliness and wear, so they would last longer and support her when she hit rough ground.


    ¡°If yee wait with the door open, then the cold air come in. Make up yee mind. Go, or stay.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not going to try to stop us?¡± Bee asked.


    ¡°They who fight with the general, fight of they own will. One thing I shall tell yee before yee walk. If ever any of yeen wish to contact the general, go to the tavern called Buffalo and Lion, in the district called Old Temple. Yee shall say the words ¡®Helene sent me.¡¯ We shall see yee again.¡±


    ¡°Our thanks.¡± Bee touched gloved fingers to her chest like a great lady of the theater about to make an exit. ¡°And yet, farewell.¡±


    She swept out the door and down the steps. Rory took in a breath as if scenting for danger, then followed, swinging the bags as if they weighed nothing. I could not stop myself from looking toward the closed door of Chartji¡¯s office. Whatever went on there between the lawyer and Andevai was no longer my business. I had to leave that part of my life behind.


    Yet I hesitated on the threshold. The clamor of the city assaulted me with the noise of rattling carts, ringing handbells, market-folk calling out their wares, and men crying the morning¡¯s news: The Northgate poet begins fourth day of hunger strike on the prince¡¯s steps! For a moment, I reveled in the sweet familiar sounds, the ones I had grown up with.


    Then, out of nowhere and with no warning, a clangor shook me down to my boots. The sister bells, Brigantia and Faro by the river, rang to life with their alarm: Fire! Fire! Call the watch!


    Doors opened all along Fox Close and people crowded onto their front steps, their breath like white mist in the air as they looked into the sky for the origin of the trouble.


    ¡°The war begin,¡± said the Amazon. ¡°But the princes and the mages don¡¯ know. Not yet. So, gal. Go, or stay?¡±


    ¡°Cat?¡± Bee¡¯s plaintive voice called from the street. In the house, I heard footsteps, people moving toward doors that were about to be opened.


    ¡°I¡¯m going,¡± I said. And I went.


    6


    ¡°A good morning to you, Maestressas and Maester.¡± A young man with dusty blond hair and a freckled white face stood beside an empty coal cart. ¡°Is all well with you?¡±


    ¡°I have no trouble, thanks to my power as a woman,¡± I replied in the traditional way, and received a scathing look from Bee for my pains. ¡°And you, Maester? Is all well with your family?¡±


    ¡°We have peace, thanks to my mother who raised me,¡± he said with a grin. ¡°Though I wonder at the bells. I hope the fire¡¯s not around here.¡±


    He looked down Fox Close toward Enterprise Road. With the bells tolling the alarm, the streets of Adurnam had turned, like the snowmelt-fed streams of late spring, into foaming rivers full with a raging flow of people hurrying to get somewhere else. I didn¡¯t relish making our way halfway across Adurnam in this tumult.


    ¡°Are you from this district?¡± I asked.


    He made a flourish with his cap. ¡°That I am. And my ancestors before me. Eurig is my name. Brennan Du asked me to get you across the city.¡±

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    I exchanged a glance with Bee. We would have to lose him, but not too soon. A shame, for he seemed nice enough. ¡°Our thanks. We can¡¯t give our names. My apologies.¡±


    ¡°I understand. This way.¡±


    He picked up the handles of the cart and began pushing not toward Enterprise Road but deeper into the narrow lane of Fox Close. We walked alongside as he talked. ¡°We¡¯ll take Ticking Lane through the Lower Warrens. They¡¯re perfectly safe despite the name. Most of the old buildings here have been knocked down and rebuilt. And there¡¯s gaslight everywhere in this district. We used to be nothing more than a fishing village. Now we¡¯re quite the most modern district in Adurnam, thanks to the trolls and the radicals.¡±


    ¡°How did you become a radical?¡± Bee asked.


    ¡°As the Northgate poet says, it¡¯s no crime to think men have natural rights that ought not to be trampled on by ancient privileges.¡±


    ¡°Just men? Or women, too?¡± asked Bee with her most dangerously pretty smile.


    He blinked, taken aback by this thrust. ¡°Nature has suited women for a different role than that given to men.¡±


    ¡°Like Professora Kuti?¡± Bee demanded.


    ¡°Cat!¡± Rory nudged me with a bag. ¡°I smell a lot of horses nearby.¡±


    Angry shouts of protest rang from Enterprise Road: ¡°The dogs are come to bite us with their teeth of steel.¡± ¡°We need step aside for no man!¡± ¡°Which will it be, lads? Freedom or fetters?¡±


    A whip cracked. A man screamed. A column of mounted soldiers swept into sight around the corner where Fox Close met Enterprise Road. About half wore tabards marked with the four moons of full, half, crescent, and new: turbaned mage House troops, leading a spare horse. The rest wore the uniforms of the Tarrant militia except for a half dozen in red-and-gold hip-length capes, the mark of Rome¡¯s ambassadorial cavalry. Pedestrians stumbled back to the stoops and railings.


    ¡°Keep walking,¡± said Eurig. ¡°Don¡¯t look back.¡±


    ¡°Eurig,¡± I said, ¡°did the ancient village here have a crossroads?¡±


    ¡°What? The Fiddler¡¯s Stone down by Old Cross Gate? The fishermen would bring their catch up from the shore and trade it to the folk who came over from the Roman camp. That was a long time ago.¡± He glanced over his shoulder. ¡°Let¡¯s move faster. Just don¡¯t run.¡±


    I looked back. The soldiers pulled up in front of the law offices of Godwik and Clutch. A man wearing a Roman cape dismounted just as the door opened and Andevai appeared on the steps. The rigid set of his shoulders betrayed his annoyance, and made me think he really had come to consult with Chartji on a matter so private he hadn¡¯t told the mansa. From the steps, as if drawn by my foolish stare, Andevai looked our way down Fox Close. I saw him see me.


    Quite deliberately, he strode down the steps, mounted, and turned toward Enterprise Road.


    ¡°He¡¯s leading them away from us!¡± I said.


    ¡°Just keep walking,¡± said Eurig.


    ¡°Cat!¡± Bee was breathless. ¡°Didn¡¯t you recognize him?¡±


    ¡°Andevai? Of course I recognized¡ª¡±


    ¡°It was Amadou Barry, with the Roman guard.¡±


    Eurig turned his cart into a lane lined with craftsmen¡¯s shops. Behind one window, clockwork toy horses and dogs clattered along a display counter. Behind another, four women sat at a table, filing and polishing tiny gears.


    Rory, lagging behind, ran to catch up. ¡°They¡¯re coming back. That Lord Marius is with them now. He must have told them to turn around.¡±


    Eurig whistled shrilly. Five shops down, a burly man wearing an apron streaked with grease stepped out onto the lane. He nodded, and we hurried past him into a large room where persons bent over an alembic from whose unstoppered rim rose a misty thread. An acrid smell made my eyes water. Rory sneezed. From behind a curtain came the sound of hollow clapping.


    ¡°Up on the roof and over to the troll nest,¡± said the aproned man. ¡°They¡¯re all out at the steamworks, and I¡¯ve got their permission. I¡¯ll put your cart out back. Lads, get your masks on.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s that awful smell?¡± Bee asked.


    ¡°A scent to keep the prince¡¯s hounds at bay, Maestressa,¡± he said. ¡°You won¡¯t be able to come back down, but they won¡¯t be able to come in.¡± He dragged aside the curtain to reveal stairs.


    A handbell rang three times. We climbed the stairs to the first floor in pace to the odd clapping noise. Workbenches filled the first-floor chamber, strewn with glass pipes, gleaming gears, and a discarded tartan cap. A dozen workers were grumbling as they reached under their benches for cloth masks. Scars mottled their ashen faces. The second floor was crammed with crates, and the third with neat rows of cots. A stair-step ladder led to a long, low attic with a dormer window and more cots.

 Page 23

    I pressed a hand over my nose. My eyes were really beginning to sting.


    Rory was staggering. ¡°Poison!¡± he choked out.


    ¡°Move,¡± said Eurig. ¡°The fumes will kill us.¡±


    I pulled down the latch and opened the window. The winter air hit like a blast. A crow sat on the peak of the roof opposite. I was so sure it was watching me that I could not move.


    Bee pushed past me and out the window. Shaking myself, I followed. We chivvied to the right around the chimneys and out of sight of the lane. Across a warren of roofs, it was possible to see the river embankments and docks crowded with vessels. A massive flock of crows wheeled in the sky.


    ¡°Look!¡± Bee¡¯s fingers tightened painfully on my arm.


    A fire blazed on the wide pewter expanse of the Solent River.


    Greasy smoke billowed. Ripples of heat rolled upward against a dawn sky made dank and low by clouds. A hulk anchored beyond the docks was burning with fiery abandon.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that a prison ship, Cat? All those people chained in the holds must be trapped.¡±


    Rory crawled into sight, wheezing. Eurig slouched after, dragging the bags.


    Upriver, a sloop flying the prince of Tarrant¡¯s ensign flowed into view. The deck was covered with uniformed men, some in clusters around the guns, others with swords, pikes, and crossbows ready to board.


    Eurig shaded his eyes. ¡°They mean to sink the hulk. Follow me.¡±


    Bee released my hand. ¡°They¡¯ll let the prisoners burn? Or drown?¡±


    He cast her a disgusted look. ¡°Of course they will. That¡¯s the plague ship.¡±


    ¡°A plague ship?¡± I stared at him. ¡°What plague?¡±


    ¡°The salt plague.¡±


    ¡°The salt plague never left West Africa. It can¡¯t cross water or survive the desert.¡±


    He laughed in a coarse way that made me blush with shame. ¡°Of course it can cross water. In a ship. That¡¯s how our noble prince keeps agitators in line. There¡¯s a cage of salters on that hulk. A political prisoner gets put in that cage, and he will get bit. The plague will infest his blood, and he will become a salter just like the others. He¡¯ll crave salt and blood as his mind and body rot.¡±


    Bee¡¯s fingers closed over my forearm, grip tightening as Eurig took a step closer.


    By the tension in his shoulders and the cant of his head, he meant us to feel intimidated. ¡°My sweet lasses, there is no cure for the salt plague. And every person who is bit gets infested and becomes a salter in their turn. It would be better to be dead. So don¡¯t wonder why we send those salters to rest at the bottom of the tide where they can¡¯t bite us. Scarred Hades! Get down!¡±


    A corner of Ticking Lane was visible between two chimneys. Horsemen rode past. We ducked, then crawled to where a sloped plank gave access to a higher roof. We climbed up, but once there, Rory vomited a vile spew that, horribly, had the slimy remains of feathers in it.


    ¡°Just¡­need¡­moment¡­rest,¡± he murmured, sinking to hands and knees.


    ¡°You¡¯re turning green,¡± said Bee as I covered my mouth and nose with a hand. ¡°You scout ahead. I¡¯ll stay with Rory and the bags.¡±


    Wincing with distaste, Eurig was eager to lead the way over the uneven rooftop with its chimney pots, then up steps to a wide ledge boasting a decorative wrought-iron bench, as if people sat up here. We looked over the rebuilt warrens. Trolls in pairs and threes, never singly, hurried through interconnected lanes and alleys, intermixed with men and women carrying goods on their heads or backs. One of the trolls cocked its feather-crested head, spotting us but moving on. Two bright-plumaged trolls leaned out an attic window several houses down, looking toward the conflagration. A woman hanging out washing had paused to stare at the disaster out on the water.


    A voice from an unseen watcher cried out: ¡°Militia in the warrens! Bloody Romans, too. And mage House soldiers! Quick, lads, stow the rifles.¡±


    ¡°Get down!¡± snapped Eurig. ¡°Anyone might see you.¡±


    I stepped behind a chimney as he tugged open a trapdoor. We descended steep steps through an attic crammed with crates, baskets, and sealed ceramic jars. The floor below had no walls, only support pillars. Mirrors fragmented me into a hundred pieces: etched mirrors, hand mirrors, bronze mirrors, mercury mirrors, all hanging from the beams or propped on racks or braced on stands. Among them, displayed on a maze of shelving, lay gleaming objects of every shape and size: polished gold bracelets, bowls of metal gears, glass pipettes sealed over liquid mercury, steel blades, a flintlock rifle recently oiled. The shadow threads that bind the world seemed to have caught in the maze, tangling through my head. A discordant melody echoed faintly through the maze, the disharmony making my temples pound.

 Page 24

    I rubbed my aching eyes. ¡°What is this place? A thieves¡¯ den?¡±


    ¡°Careful where you step! Trolls are the most amiable creatures imaginable. Unless you take or break something that belongs to them. Come on.¡±


    We ducked under mirrors, sidestepped a column of pewter candlesticks, and traversed a labyrinth woven of wire. The path doubled back, dead-ended, and once rewound us back the way we had come. The mirrored reflections made my vision throb. I feared that if I brushed anything, the entire collection would crash down. Dizzied, I leaned on the banister as I descended.


    The second floor had three doors standing open to bedchambers. We had reached the first-floor landing when a thunder of hooves rattled the entryway on the ground floor below us.


    A shout: ¡°That roof, there. Yes, this building. I saw someone up there, my lord.¡±


    ¡°The door is locked, my lord captain.¡±


    ¡°Break it down.¡±


    ¡°Camlodus¡¯s Balls! It¡¯s the militia.¡± Eurig turned. ¡°Go up and hide. I¡¯ll divert them.¡±


    I knew better than to argue. I raced upstairs just as the front door was smashed open and soldiers exploded into the house. The maze seemed a bad bet for hiding, so I bolted into one of the second-floor bedchambers. The room looked as though a whirlwind had hit it, clothing scattered in heaps across six high square frames with mattresses, which looked like more like nests than beds. The bright patterned fabrics gave the beds a patchwork feel: here a gold-and-green floral extravagance that might have been a barrister¡¯s robe suitable for law court, there a ruffed dash jacket sewn out of a cotton printed with orange bars, blue scallops, and elongated rose-colored spectacles winged with peacock feathers whose eyes watched me.


    ¡°Stop!¡± cried a martial voice.


    On the landing below, Eurig replied, ¡°Here, now, my lord captain, Your Mightiness. What gives you leave to come barging in here?¡±


    ¡°I might ask what gives you leave to speak so disrespectfully to a man who holds both kinship to the prince, and a sword,¡± said a stentorian tenor. I recognized the voice of Lord Marius, whom I had first met at a ruined fort on a hill northeast of Adurnam, not more than a week before. Then, laughter had lightened his voice. Now, he blared.


    ¡°The prince of Tarrant?¡± retorted Eurig. ¡°The man whose honor drains away drop by drop each day the Northgate poet refuses to eat? Our voices will be heard.¡±


    ¡°In the law courts, at least. What brings you to an empty troll¡¯s nest?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re partners in a consortium with my employer.¡±


    ¡°I do believe you are lying. Are you angling for a ride on the plague ship, man?¡±


    ¡°Do you mean the one that¡¯s sinking right now? So will injustice founder.¡±


    ¡°Arrest him,¡± said Lord Marius. ¡°Search the premises.¡±


    Threads of magic are woven through every part of the world because our world and the spirit world that lies athwart our own are intertwined. As footfalls approached the door, I drew the house¡¯s shadows around me like a cloak and hid myself. Two men walked into the chamber. One was Lord Marius, a tall, lean Celt with a thick mustache, a clean-shaven chin, and short hair stiffened into lime-whitened spikes. His gaze swept the chamber with a smile of amusement brushing his lips, as Bee¡¯s pencil might coax into life the humor of a man who prefers to laugh. He did not see me.


    With him walked his brother by marriage, the young Roman legate Amadou Barry, whose father was both Roman patrician and West African prince and whose mother had been born into a noble Malian lineage. His Roman ambassadorial cape and the cut of his old-fashioned uniform certainly flattered him, although he had a frown on his handsome face.


    ¡°I admire his bravado,¡± Lord Marius was saying. ¡°But I¡¯ll have to have him fined for disrespect. I can¡¯t challenge a laborer to a duel.¡±


    ¡°You Celts argue too much over fine points of honor. This seems like a chase after a wild goose, as you say up here in the north.¡± His gaze flowed right past me as he scanned the room. ¡°Jupiter Magnus! Have you ever seen such a mess?¡±


    Lord Marius had a hearty laugh. ¡°Perhaps it merely belongs to a mind whose idea of tidiness isn¡¯t the same as ours. It¡¯s no worse than your sister¡¯s dressing room.¡±


    Amadou Barry halted three steps into the room. I eased back to the bed on which lay the peacock jacket. ¡°Sissy was ever so. I¡¯m amazed by the resourcefulness of those two girls.¡±


    ¡°Everyone has underestimated them, that is sure. Not least you, Amadou. Were you just that sure she would accept the¡ªah¡ªposition as your mistress?¡±

 Page 25

    ¡°I am a prince and a legate. Her family is impoverished and not respectable. She can¡¯t ever hope to receive a better offer.¡±


    Unless it was an offer to throttle him. As if a fire had been laid in the hearth and lit, my temperature rose.


    ¡°Quite so. I¡¯m surprised to hear a Phoenician refused a lucrative contract¡ª¡± Lord Marius broke off, gaze tightening. ¡°Did you see something?¡±


    Calm. I had to remain calm.


    ¡°In Beatrice? Faithful Venus, Marius! Even you must see something in her. She is the most delectable¡ª¡±


    ¡°If I have to hear you praise her shining eyes and cherry lips one more time, I will have one of my men shoot me to put myself out of my misery.¡±


    ¡°She will not sigh when I am dead,¡± said Amadou.


    ¡°Nor will she lie with you for gold, it seems, which is the next line in the famous poem by the Thrice-Praised poet Bran Cof.¡±


    Amadou sighed. ¡°I misplayed my hand. I was too accommodating.¡±


    Lord Marius paced the chamber, passing an arm¡¯s length from where I stood with my buttocks crushed against the high metal frame of the bed, holding my breath. ¡°Women are hard to please. I could have sworn I saw a flicker of movement. Must have been the light.¡±


    ¡°How do we know the girls are anywhere near this district? Much less in this house?¡±


    ¡°The mansa specifically told me to follow the cold mage. We¡¯re not to trust him. If he says to go left, then we go right.¡±


    ¡°Ah, so that¡¯s why you turned this way when he wanted to ride back to Enterprise Road.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right. Then one of my soldiers saw the cold mage see someone up on this roof, and my man thought it was a female, so here we are.¡± Lord Marius paced to the door and glanced into the hall. He gestured to someone before turning back. ¡°You know, Amadou, whatever you think about your Beatrice¡¯s raven-black ringlets and bonny curves, this business of hunting down girls makes me uneasy. It¡¯s beneath us. Meanwhile, that commoner in the hall is right, curse him. The Northgate poet sits on the steps of my cousin¡¯s court. Each day the poet does not eat, he heaps more shame on my clan¡¯s honor. I fear we are not getting out of this without a bloodbath.¡±


    ¡°The plebes will mob and riot. It¡¯s in their breeding. We¡¯ve known that in Rome for centuries. The sooner the militia drives the rabble off the streets, the better for all. If more blood were spilled, there¡¯d be less trouble.¡±


    ¡°Do you suppose so?¡± drawled a far-too-familiar voice. ¡°I would think a timely hailstorm would drive people inside without causing undue harm.¡±


    Andevai walked into the bedchamber. I could not call his expression a smile.


    ¡°That¡¯s an interesting thought, Magister,¡± said Marius. ¡°Can you manage such a storm?¡±


    Andevai¡¯s cool vanished like frost under the sun. ¡°Of course I can!¡±


    ¡°I meant no offense, Magister. It would be a cursed sight better way to restore order than cutting people down. In my experience as a soldier¡­¡±


    Gaze straying from Lord Marius to the bright disorder of clothing and fabric strewn across the beds, Andevai saw me.


    He saw me.


    Lord Marius had broken off. ¡°Magister? What¡¯s wrong?¡±


    Andevai blinked. ¡°I was¡­just¡­stunned¡­¡± His gaze flickered to the bed. ¡°That jacket. Orange bars. Blue scallops. Peacock-winged spectacles. And a ruff?! Quite stunning. You would have to really¡­wear colors¡­and lace¡­to pull that off in a jacket.¡±


    ¡°Yes, you would have to,¡± said Lord Marius with a laugh, glancing toward me¡ªat the jacket¡ªand back at Andevai. The look he gave the man I had to call my husband was so frankly appreciative that I blushed. ¡°You¡¯re quite the decorative specimen yourself.¡±


    ¡°My thanks,¡± said Andevai in the most absentminded manner imaginable. I blinked so hard I thought he must surely hear me warn him with my eyes to stop staring at me.


    Amadou Barry sighed in the manner of a man wanting to change the subject. ¡°Speaking of shooting oneself. Do we search the roof??¡±


    ¡°What say you, Magister?¡± Marius¡¯s amused and avid gaze remained fixed on Andevai.


    ¡°I say nothing,¡± said Andevai, glaring right at me in the most shockingly idiotic way.


    ¡°We were told you could lead us to the girl you wed.¡±


    Andevai looked sharply away and appeared to be searching walls and ceiling for any remnant of good taste. ¡°Is that what you were told? I wonder if this is meant to be a tailor¡¯s shop, or if they only raided one and got all the pieces mixed up.¡±

 Page 26

    Amadou Barry whistled. ¡°You didn¡¯t come to this district to get information on where she fled?¡±


    ¡°I was on my own business.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not going to give her up, are you, wherever she¡¯s gone?¡± said Marius. ¡°Good for you. I liked her. That girl has spine and courage.¡±


    ¡°We should check the roof,¡± said Amadou.


    Andevai¡¯s gaze skipped back to me.


    I widened my eyes and mouthed, broadly, ¡°Yes. Say yes.¡±


    ¡°Ye-es,¡± he said slowly, brow crinkling with a question.


    ¡°Yes?¡± said Lord Marius with a surprised glance at Amadou.


    I lifted my chin and mouthed, ¡°Say yes. Say go up on the roof.¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± said Andevai more decisively. ¡°By all means, go up on the roof.¡± Then, with what was even for him an excess of haughty pride, he turned his glare onto a startled Lord Marius. ¡°Are we going up? The soldiers told me they found a troll¡¯s maze. Whatever that is. I¡¯d like to see.¡±


    The captain raised a hand as if catching a tossed ball. ¡°A troll¡¯s maze! We¡¯re leaving.¡±


    Amadou glanced at Andevai. ¡°They could have come over the roof.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s a goblin workshop locked up for the day on one side. On the other, they¡¯re poisoning themselves with arsenic or some such. I don¡¯t see how the girls could have gotten in here before us. And I¡¯m not risking a troll¡¯s maze. One foot wrong and the whole thing will crash down. Then we¡¯ll be years haggling in court for damages. Trolls love haggling in court. Amadou, I suspect you¡¯re right: This detour is a chase after a wild goose. Let¡¯s go. They¡¯re out there somewhere. I promised the mansa I would recover them and return them to him.¡±


    Lord Marius went out. Amadou Barry followed.


    Andevai crossed to the bed and picked up the jacket, holding it high so it swept along my left side. ¡°Now I understand how you were able to get out of Four Moons House without being seen,¡± he whispered. ¡°What magic conceals you? None I¡¯ve ever heard of.¡±


    ¡°Listen! The mansa told them not to trust you. If you say left, then they¡¯ll go right.¡±


    Anger flashed in the flare of his eyes. ¡°Is that so?¡±


    ¡°They were following you, to try to find us.¡±


    ¡°Were they, now?¡± His gaze narrowed as he contemplated an object, personage, or situation that annoyed him very much.


    ¡°Magister?¡± Amadou Barry stepped halfway back into the room. ¡°Is something amiss?¡±


    ¡°I just can¡¯t keep my eyes off it,¡± said Andevai, gaze skating above the collar of the jacket as his eyes met mine. ¡°There¡¯s so much about its tailoring I don¡¯t comprehend. But it doesn¡¯t truly belong to me, so I fear I must leave it behind. Although you never know. I haven¡¯t given up on gaining something so very close to my heart.¡±


    My cheeks were so on fire that I was amazed the legate could not see me.


    Amadou Barry appeared startled by Andevai¡¯s passionate words. ¡°It¡¯s a bit¡­over-complicated for my taste. We¡¯re leaving now, Magister.¡±


    ¡°My thanks for the warning,¡± Andevai said, his gaze on me.


    He tossed the jacket over the other clothes and turned away. At the door, he paused with a hand on the frame. I tensed, waiting for him to glance over his shoulder one last time.


    A deep heavy boom shuddered the house.


    ¡°By Teutates!¡± cried one of the men, ¡°they¡¯re firing cannon on the river!¡±


    Without looking back, Andevai walked out.


    ¡°Bring the prisoner,¡± said Lord Marius from the passage.


    I heard Andevai. ¡°By the way, Legate, how did you come to seek me out at the law offices?¡±


    They clattered out, taking Amadou¡¯s answer with them, and leaving me with a cold wind rising up through the shattered door and the jangling tinkling off-key chime from the chamber upstairs.


    7


    The jacket Andevai had held glared at me accusingly through its rose-colored spectacles with their peacock wings. I haven¡¯t given up. I was standing there, as congealed as cold porridge, when Bee appeared in the doorway, radiant with alarm.


    ¡°Cat! We heard raised voices. What happened?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know whether to be annoyed or flattered.¡±


    Rory slouched into sight beyond the threshold, hauling the two bags. ¡°I feel like a half-dead antelope my mother has just dragged in for dinner.¡±


    I hastened to his side. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. Let me take one.¡±


    ¡°Never again peahens. I¡¯m off feathers forever.¡± He dipped his head to touch his cheek to mine. ¡°You¡¯re all right, though. So I¡¯m better already. What happened to our guide?¡±

 Page 27

    I hugged him. ¡°Eurig sacrificed himself for us. We can¡¯t risk going back to the law offices to warn them. We¡¯ve got to find this Fiddler¡¯s Stone at Old Cross Gate.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a bad idea,¡± said Rory.


    ¡°Did Andevai betray us?¡± Bee asked.


    ¡°Quite the opposite. He¡¯s the one drawing them off. The mansa is having him followed.¡±


    ¡°He seems strangely loyal to you, in an exceedingly peculiar sort of way.¡± She paused, examining my stiffening expression. ¡°I won¡¯t tease, Cat. Let¡¯s go.¡±


    In the wake of the militia¡¯s passage, the lanes had emptied. We crept out a maze of back alleys that let onto the crowds of Enterprise Road, east of Fox Close. Women hauled baskets and pots balanced atop their heads. One gray-haired woman staggered along beneath a whole sheep, which was quite dead, all light gone from its eyes. The third person I asked told us to head east. I led with the cane, Rory hauled the bags, and Bee took the rear guard with the knife in her pocket and a small knit bag in which she kept her sketchbook and pencils slung over her back.


    A band of young males swaggered past. They bellowed in perfect four-part harmony a song about the misadventures of an ¡°ass¡± who was not a donkey but the prince of Tarrant. We reached an open area where five roads met. A line of carts and wagons loaded with casks, sacks, and open crates of unfinished hats had locked to a complete halt. The singing youths blocked the intersection. Arms linked defiantly, they began singing a familiar melody. Its usual lyrics, about a lass abandoned by a worthless lover, had been replaced by the challenging political phrases of the Northgate poet: A rising light marks the dawn of a new world.


    I grabbed the sleeve of a passing costermonger. ¡°Maester! Where¡¯s Old Cross Gate?¡±


    ¡°Why, this is it! Trouble brewing. You don¡¯t want to be caught in this.¡± He shoved on, using his cart to part the crowd.


    I stepped in front of a pair of women with baskets on their heads. ¡°Where can I find the Fiddler¡¯s Stone?¡± I cried.


    ¡°An ill-starred day to be looking in the stone for the image of your future husband, lass,¡± said the elder. ¡°But it¡¯s past the arch and then in the little court to the right.¡±


    It took us a moment to spot an arch in an unimposing old wall to our left. The opening was barely high and wide enough for a wagon. We fought through the crowd and slipped through it onto a side street lined with dilapidated old houses ripe for the transforming dreams of architects. A tiny lane pitted with ruts and filthy with crusty and yellowed snow took us to a little crossing where three alleys met. The Fiddler¡¯s Stone was a squat granite monolith listing over like a drunk. The surrounding buildings were dank. Excrement had frozen in mounds alongside broken steps that led to ramshackle doors. All the windows were boarded up. But a wreath of frozen flowers draped the stone¡¯s peak like a flaking crown.


    Rory licked his lips. ¡°I smell summer.¡±


    ¡°Give me the knife, Bee.¡± I pulled off my right glove, set the blade to my little finger, and sliced. The skin creased and reddened, but no blood appeared.


    Bee snickered. ¡°Do you want me to do it?¡±


    ¡°No! You¡¯ll hack off the whole finger just to be sure.¡±


    ¡°Give me that.¡± She pulled off her own glove, took the knife, and neatly opened a delicate cut on her palm.


    ¡°Let your blood fall on the stone,¡± I said.


    Warmth stung on my own hand as a bead of blood oozed red down my finger. All at once, I tasted summer on the wind.


    ¡°Like this?¡± Bee held her hand above the stone. Her blood dripped onto the grimy surface.


    ¡°Cross now! Hurry, Bee.¡±


    Bee slammed into the stone.


    ¡°Ouch!¡± said Rory.


    Bee took three steps back and tried again, as if sheer force of will could force rock to open. She thudded into stone, then cursed with pain.


    My drop of blood slipped. A stain appeared on the stone and was absorbed. A roll of distant thunder whispered. A crow fluttered down to land atop the stone. The earth sank beneath my feet as stone and soil melted away.


    ¡°Cat¡¯s going through,¡± said Rory.


    ¡°Not unless I go with her!¡± Bee dragged me stumbling back as Rory snarled and that cursed crow cawed like a captain alerting its troops.


    ¡°This won¡¯t work,¡± said Bee. ¡°That hurt.¡±


    ¡°Bee can¡¯t cross,¡± said Rory, ¡°but you will, Cat. Your blood opened the gate.¡±


    Heaving, I dropped to my knees into a crackling carpet of snow. Nothing came up. My finger smarted. My tongue burned, and I swallowed blood.

 Page 28

    ¡°Someone is peeking at us through the boarded-up door,¡± said Bee. ¡°I don¡¯t like this place. And that crow looks like it¡¯s hoping to peck out our eyes.¡±


    Recovering from the wash of weakness, I groped along the wall with Bee in the lead and Rory behind. Unearthly voices rushed and mumbled in my ears as if I stood with one foot in the spirit world. A magnificent stallion cantered out of the wall, muscles rippling along a coat more brown than bay, and then it was gone. A saber-toothed cat lolled in our path, huge jaws widening in a startled yawn as she saw me, and then she was gone. A winged woman emerged from the coal haze that smeared the sky, her skin as black as pitch and yet glowing as with hidden embers, and then she was gone. A leaf trailed across my cheek with a glistening line of dew.


    A shining face, masked and unkindly, filled the alley like a towering cliff of ice ready to calve and bury me. Chill fingers closed on my heart until I couldn¡¯t think or breathe.


    ¡°Cat?¡± Bee¡¯s fingers closed over my hand.


    Then it was gone, and the voices fell silent. I sagged against Bee, and she held me up.


    ¡°There¡¯s blood on your lip,¡± she said hoarsely.


    I licked it off, its tang as bitter as seawater.


    We staggered out to the old arched gate just as a company of soldiers rode up the lane.


    ¡°Beatrice! You¡¯ll not escape me this time!¡±


    Legate Amadou Barry reined up beside us, accompanied by a dozen Roman guardsmen in swirling red-and-gold capes and carrying burnished round shields more decorative than useful. Amadou bent from the saddle with the ease of a man accustomed to horseback and reached for Bee, meaning to sweep her up. She leaped back, the kitchen knife flashing as she took a swipe at him.


    ¡°I¡¯m not yours to take!¡± she cried.


    ¡°You must get out of here! A riot¡¯s about to break out. It isn¡¯t safe.¡±


    ¡°Safer here than in a golden cage.¡±


    ¡°Beatrice, you have no idea of the cruelties of the world. I will protect you.¡±


    ¡°Legate, you have no idea of how condescending you sound. I¡¯m not interested in your kind of protection.¡±


    Had I ever thought him a diffident and humble young man? He was not even arrogant. He was simply a man of such exalted rank that he existed above considerations like arrogance and humility. He grabbed Bee¡¯s wrist and twisted until she dropped the knife. ¡°You¡¯re coming with me.¡±


    Rory leaped. He slammed into Amadou, and Bee jerked free as both men went tumbling to the ground. Guardsmen converged. A sword flashed down at my brother¡¯s head. I parried with my cane as Rory rolled away. A cane made of wood would have been riven by steel, but the soldier¡¯s blade shivered to a dead stop with a ringing shringgg. Rory jumped to his feet, yanked the rider¡¯s leg out of the stirrup, and heaved him off the other side.


    Bee grabbed the knife and sliced the bridle of Amadou¡¯s mount. The harness slipped. We retreated toward the gate as Amadou Barry got to his feet, his expression so blank I wondered if he had actually lost his temper. The bridle was a loss.


    On the other side of the gate, the crack of firearms split the air, punctuated by furious howls and the stiffly barked commands of a military captain: ¡°Turn! Make formation!¡± More reports answered, sharp and short. The Roman guardsmen looked startled. Those were not muskets.


    ¡°Rifles!¡± shouted a male voice from afar. ¡°Fire again, lads! We¡¯ve got the muscle now! They¡¯re only got swords and pistols!¡±


    From the militia, in answer: ¡°Charge!?¡±


    ¡°Run!¡± I cried.


    We pelted up the lane away from the old gate. The roar of a full-fledged battle crashed over us. People squeezed through the archway, disrupting the Roman guardsmen as they tried to assemble around their legate. With swords drawn and crossbows leveled, the men drew into a tight formation. Bricks flew from the crowd. The curve of the lane took us out of sight.


    ¡°Blessed Tanit!¡± cried Bee, near tears, ¡°let him not be harmed! Oh, how hateful he was!¡±


    ¡°I wish you would make up your mind!¡± The noise of a district ablaze with fighting echoed around us, as if every lane, alley, and dank alcove had gone up in flames. ¡°He¡¯s not at all what I first thought he was.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s why it makes me so angry!¡± She looked ready to carve her anger into one of the houses we passed. ¡°I thought I could trust him, but I can¡¯t!¡±


    A deep vibration knifed through my body. The somber bass of the bell dedicated in the temple of Ma Bellona, he who is valiant at the ford, cried across the city. The authoritative tenor of the bell dedicated in the temple of Komo Vulcanus, who keeps his secrets, answered. The sister bells joined, followed by the droll bass of Esus-at-the-Crossing and Sweet Sissy¡¯s laughing alto. Last and most unexpectedly, because it was so rare, the raw contralto of the queen of bells, the matron of plenty and protection who guarded the shrine of Juno Lennaya, filled the air with a din that shook houses. Through the voice of its bells, Adurnam had joined in the conflagration.

 Page 29

    We pressed on. The cursed lane tossed us straight back into the churning chaos of a street as wide as Enterprise Road. Its pavement was lined with the newest gaslight fixtures, although half of the glass shades had been shattered. The sheer mass of people surging along the street brought us up short. Everyone was shouting and cursing, the buzzing of voices like a nest of angry bees.


    Rory used the bags to batter a way through the crowd. We plowed in his wake.


    ¡°Watch it!¡± A man threatened me with a cane. My blow broke it in half, and he fell back.


    As we reached another intersection locked with wagons and carts, thunder rumbled.


    Rory cocked his head. ¡°That¡¯s not horses.¡±


    Bee pointed to a shop whose sign bore a clock-faced owl. ¡°There! We have to go in there.¡±


    We reached the awning. Bee opened the door and went in with Rory. An icy taste ground through the gritty flavor of coal smoke. My ears popped as the air changed. My sword¡¯s hilt burned. I shut the door hard behind us, shop bell jangling.


    The man at the counter had silver hair, spectacles, and a shop full of ticking clocks, no two of which showed the same time. He set down calipers.


    ¡°Maester,¡± I said, ¡°begging your pardon for the intrusion, but if you have shutters, I recommend you close your shop now. A storm¡¯s coming.¡±


    ¡°Maester Napata, they¡¯re here,¡± he called, not to us. ¡°Just as you said they¡¯d be.¡±


    A howl of wind shook the windows. Hail pummeled the streets like the peppershot of muskets. People scattered, seeking shelter anywhere they could. The shop door burst open and a dozen weathered toughs in patched laborers¡¯ coats staggered in. One had a bloody nose, which he was staunching with a crumpled handbill. Another held a hand over his ear. A third brandished a brick, cursing magisters and princes in equal measure. They fell silent as a young man stepped out past a curtain.


    The man¡¯s uncanny blanched features might have been those of a ghost called from the miserable gloom of Sheol. Then he saw Bee, and he blushed, easy to see because he was an albino. He was no ghost. He served the headmaster of the academy.


    What on Earth was the headmaster¡¯s loyal dog, as we had always called him, doing here?


    ¡°If the head of the poet Bran Cof once spoke to you,¡± said the young man, his words burred by a foreigner¡¯s accent, ¡°please to come with me now. The Thrice-Praised poet spoke to the headmaster at dawn.¡±


    ¡°Blessed Tanit!¡± muttered Bee, looking at me. She remembered as well as I did the day we had sneaked through the headmaster¡¯s office and heard an uncanny voice say the words ¡°Rei vindicatio¡± as if to warn us. Mere hours later, Andevai had showed up at her parents¡¯ house to use those same words to claim legal ownership of the eldest Hassi Barahal daughter.


    The men huddled by the door murmured to each other at this mention of the famous head of the poet Bran Cof.


    ¡°What said the head of the poet?¡± demanded the man with the brick.


    The headmaster¡¯s assistant ignored everyone except Bee. ¡°The head of the poet Bran Cof said he had a message for Tara Bell¡¯s child. He said to meet you here.¡±


    I was glad he was looking at Bee, so he didn¡¯t see me shudder.


    ¡°Last time, the headmaster turned me over to the Romans,¡± said Bee. ¡°How can I know he won¡¯t do so again?¡±


    ¡°That was a mistake.¡± He gazed at Bee in the way a well-trained but hungry dog stares at a bone out of its reach, for he was yet another young male who had fallen in love with her beauty during our time as students at the academy. ¡°On his honor and dignity, he will not allow it to happen again. If you wish to hear, come with me.¡± He vanished behind the curtain.


    ¡°He smells clean of lies,¡± said Rory.


    The man with the injured nose straightened out the bloody handbill. ¡°You think these two is the ones mentioned for the reward?¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± said the man with a hand on his ear. ¡°The head of the poet Bran Cof speaks at last, did you say? Did he recite a poem to the just cause of our discontent? Or pronounce on the legal principle of men being allowed to vote for a tribune to represent us on the prince¡¯s council?¡±


    The other man scanned the print. ¡°This says the prince of Tarrant offers a reward for the recovery of two Phoenician girls. They belong to one of the mage Houses.¡±


    ¡°Why should we hand girls over to the cursed mages?¡± said the man with the brick.


    ¡°It¡¯s a cursed lot of money, enough to split twelve ways and still make us all rich.¡±


    Outside, the street lay empty except for Roman guardsmen trotting up the streets using their round shields to shelter their heads from the pounding hail. In a moment, Legate Amadou might look in the windows and see us. The man with the bloody nose put his red-stained fingers on the latch and opened the door.

 Page 30

    ¡°Over here!¡± he shouted.


    ¡°Go,¡± I said.


    The clockmaker flipped up the counter. Rory went first, Bee after, and me at the rear.


    ¡°Thank you,¡± I said to the clockmaker, and I shouldered past the heavy swags. Ahead, the hem of Bee¡¯s skirt snaked along the plank floor under a second curtain and then too many more curtains to count. It was like chasing a serpent¡¯s tail through baffles down a hallway. An oily smell made my lips pucker. I collided with Bee as the last curtain¡¯s weighted hem slapped down behind me.


    We stood in a chamber quite black except where flashes of luminescence flared and died like levers rising and lowering. Taps and creaks and rasps played out as if they were slowly winding down. There fell a last flare of movement. Then the dark poured like pitch over my eyes. The chamber¡¯s air lay heavy with the rancid scent of old oil and a tang of char. My ghost-sword, which outside had flared in response to the cold magic of the storm, hung inert in my hand. A ripple of soft barks, snaps, clicks, and pops spread within the room: goblin chatter.


    ¡°Gracious Melqart,¡± breathed Bee. ¡°We¡¯ve stumbled into a goblin¡¯s den. This must be one of those illicit daytime workshops the prince¡¯s inspectors are always searching for.¡±


    ¡°Cat,¡± said Rory in an aggrieved and alarmed tone, ¡°many small fingers are touching me.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯ll just guide you to the stairs,¡± said the headmaster¡¯s assistant from the darkness. ¡°They don¡¯t want you in here any more than you want to be here.¡±


    Fingers tapped up my arms to my shoulders and around my back, as if measuring me for a new riding jacket. Like most people, I knew little about goblins except that sunlight burned them, they hid themselves beneath masks and robes even under starlight, and they were shaped much like humans. They sold their wares at night markets, and their workshops were legally required to close during the day. Which meant we were standing in a place where we could all be arrested.


    A voice as brittle as winter grass spoke on my left side as a hand traced my arm. ¡°One stinks of dragons. One smells of the summer sun. This one is bound between the worlds, like her sword. There is a price.¡±


    ¡°You and I have already agreed on the price,¡± said the headmaster¡¯s assistant. When you could not see his skin, he sounded like an ordinary man, calm but displeased.


    ¡°For these three, it is not enough.¡±


    Bee and I had, on a few occasions, bargained with masked and veiled goblin merchants at one of the night markets. ¡°What do you want?¡± I asked.


    ¡°To call on you, spiritwalker, one time, at need.¡±


    ¡°Cat,¡± whispered Bee warningly. ¡°Be prudent.¡±


    ¡°Done,¡± I said, for, unlike Bee, I could hear very faintly a commotion in the shop, maybe even the sound of a clock falling and shattering. The soldiers had arrived.


    ¡°Ah,¡± rippled down the Stygian depths of the chamber.


    ¡°That was rash,¡± said the headmaster¡¯s assistant.


    ¡°It¡¯s her other name,¡± said Bee.


    ¡°There¡¯s trouble in the shop,¡± I said.


    ¡°We know.¡± The goblin¡¯s cool grasp encircled my wrist. ¡°This way.¡±


    We were led to stairs. The foul breath of the undercity was exhaled in our faces. Into the noxious sewer we descended step by greasy step. The air was like a wet blanket full of rot pressed against my face. That slurping endless sigh was the sound made by oozing sludge. I could see nothing, but a channel yawned to my left like the mouth of a charnel god, or at least his outhouse.


    Rory said, ¡°Euw! Is this where the dogs bide?¡±


    ¡°Quiet!¡± murmured the headmaster¡¯s assistant from ahead of us. ¡°From this point forward, you must not speak. If we¡¯re discovered, we will die, and the goblins who guide us will lose ownership of their breath.¡± He did not explain, and we dared not ask lest we break silence.


    Descending, we left behind the sewage¡¯s reek. Where the stairs ended, we continued in pitch-darkness along a tunnel whose pavement was smoother than any Adurnam street. The touch that guided me never pinched or slackened. The road ran straight and true, punctuated by alcoves and archways sensed as spaces of air rank with a charred scent like the ashes of a dead fire. At intervals I heard gears ticking over steadily. We would walk close and yet closer to the sound and then a gap would open to right or left with a tickle of warmth and a pressure like wind confined by a veil. With a swallow, I would pop my ears, and as we moved on, the ticking would fade.


    Goblins were so legendarily ingenious that I had always doubted the impressive tales told of them could be true: Could they really breathe life into stone and metal? But these deep, smooth paths mined beneath the city made me wonder if it might be true. What had I bound myself into? What did goblins who worked in an illegal daylight workshop want? What was ¡°ownership of breath¡±?

 Page 31

    The beat of a tick-tock measure brushed my ears. To our left, a glow limned a vaulted chamber. Its depths lay smothered in darkness, but seen through arches, the front of the chamber gleamed with a milky luminescence. Creatures were lined up in ranks whose columns vanished away into the gloom beyond the aura of light. At first glance, I thought them soldiers at parade rest. But as my steps faltered and I stared, I realized they were not breathing and not human. Their slender limbs and torsos were speckled as if they were stone. Their faces were human in having lips, noses, and ears, but the hollows where they should have had eyes glistened with patches like wet velvet. Most wore sleeveless tunics woven of a fabric that might have been thread spun from fog. In the shadow-drenched depths, unseen sleepers inhaled and exhaled.


    My guide hissed faintly. I looked at it. It was almost as tall as Bee, golden in color, lithe as a dancer, and not remotely human in expression, having no eyes to mark its heart and soul. Beyond it stood Bee, Rory, and their guides, but the headmaster¡¯s assistant led the way without a guide. How could he see in blackness so complete it blinded me?


    An emphatic thud sounded from the back of the chamber. A ticking ratcheted up with a groan of air as of steam being released. Mist like a cloud of fireflies chased along a murky shadow. Gears whirred. A head slewed around, and claws like edged blades winked in the pale light.


    The goblin whispered, ¡°Run.¡±


    We ran. For the first twenty steps, I thought the gods were with us, Blessed Tanit offering sanctuary beneath her hand, Gracious Melqart a shield, Ba¡¯al a harbor against the storm. I looked back over my shoulder.


    A creature stalked out from the arches. It looked like a troll skeleton knitted out of gears and metal bars. Its head swayed as it turned to look back the way we had come, into the black pit of the far passage. If it just looked that way a moment longer we might escape into darkness.


    With a dip of its head and a menace of teeth, it swung around and bounded after us with weighty tick-tock steps. A hiss of steam sprayed from its gaping mouth.


    Rory stepped past me and heaved a bag at it. The bag slammed into its shoulder and knocked the creature sideways. It jolted to a stop against the wall, groaned and shook, the head rearing back before it lowered again to seek us. Rory kept spinning all the way around and with the extra force gained released the second bag. It sailed across the gap and smashed into the head. The creature toppled, hitting the wall hard, then staggered the other way, hit the opposite wall, and tumbled down. A spark spiraled up and winked out. Gears whirred busily as the creature strove to right itself.


    The cursed creature was not getting my father¡¯s precious journals.


    ¡°Cat!¡± cried Bee as I bolted past Rory.


    ¡°Go! I¡¯ll follow!¡±


    I grabbed the closest bag. Metal claws closed around the ankle of my boot. I dropped the bag on the elbow joint. The weight slammed the arm into the floor. But it was already shifting to dislodge the obstacle. The head reared up, metal jaws gaping. Teeth gleamed. A red heart of fire pulsed deep down in that throat, as if making ready to scorch me.


    From far above, linked as by an intangible chain threaded through the earth, cold magic¡ªAndevai¡¯s storm¡ªflared down the length of my sword. The hilt flowered; I twisted it free, and thrust the slim blade down that yawning gullet.


    Combustion died. The creature sagged on a final stuttering tock tunk tick.


    My heart lurched as if under a pounding of fierce hail, and my gaze hazed as a pulse not my own roared in my ears: ¡°Catherine!?¡±


    I was hallucinating Andevai¡¯s voice. I sheathed my sword, grabbed both bags, and ran blindly after the others. My head was reeling and I am sure I could not have told anyone my name or indeed anything except that I was not giving up the bags, not even to death.


    ¡°Cat! This way!¡±


    I followed Bee¡¯s voice past a series of curtains whose fabric slithered like woven metal. As the last one slipped down my back, my leading boot stubbed a step.


    ¡°Now we owe you a debt for saving us,¡± said a goblin, hidden behind the last baffle. ¡°Your price is paid.¡± I could not tell if it was grateful or disappointed.


    ¡°I¡¯ll take them up from here,¡± said the headmaster¡¯s assistant. ¡°You¡¯d best scatter before your lords come looking for the trouble we¡¯ve caused.¡±


    I heard the rustle of the baffles as the goblins slipped back into their underworld so quickly I didn¡¯t have a chance to thank them or ask them a question or even to think. Startled by the sound of footfalls, I set down the bags and drew my sword. A young man with a long black braid dangling over his shoulder like a rope took the bags from beside me. After a moment, I realized it was Rory, and there was light enough for me to see. They were already climbing. I followed.

 Page 32

    Up! The steps went on forever. My air came in bursts. Did I hear ticking? What if there were other creatures stalking after us? What was that thing?


    The headmaster¡¯s assistant glanced back.


    ¡°Your sword is glowing,¡± he said in a low voice.


    The light came from my blade. Its harsh glow revealed him clearly. He hadn¡¯t the creamy-white complexion of the northern Celts, although he was very pale. He had broad Avar cheekbones and the epicanthic fold at the eyes commonly seen among people who lived in the vast lands east of the Pale. It was his white hair that was most startling. It had been cut in an awkward approximation of the short local Celtic style, swept back over his ears. His fashionable indigo dash jacket was too strong a hue for him. The backs of his bare hands bore tattoos, like faded blue ink, of a curling design that might have been vines, or serpents. It reminded me of the old Roman saying: Beware the serpent in the east.


    ¡°Bee does stink of dragons,¡± said Rory, pausing on the steps, ¡°and so does he. It wasn¡¯t a good idea to come with him.¡±


    ¡°I do not stink,¡± said Bee, ¡°and you will apologize at once to Maester Napata. It¡¯s very rude to tell people they stink.¡±


    ¡°Even if they do?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s sorry for being rude, and I¡¯m sorry he was rude to you,¡± she said as she halted two steps below the headmaster¡¯s assistant. He had the expression of a man used to hearing people whispering about his looks, and not in the way Andevai was likely accustomed to admiring sidelong glances directed his way.


    ¡°If you are sorry, that is enough.¡± Having made this bold statement, he hastened up the stairs as if his own courage were about to bite him.


    ¡°Really, this isn¡¯t the time for you two to fight so childishly,¡± I said as I climbed past them. Rory looked offended and Bee surprisingly chastened. ¡°Maester Napata, what was that thing? What kind of agreement do you have with these goblins? How do you know about these tunnels?¡±


    ¡°I am not the one who can answer your questions,¡± he said. ¡°The men in the clockmaker¡¯s shop will not have much trouble tracing us if they wish to alert the militia. Hurry.¡±


    We climbed with my sword as our candle, but the gleam on its blade faded as a pallor of natural light seeped in from an unknown source, turning darkness to gloom. We emerged into a musty vaulted chamber.


    ¡°Just give me a moment to catch my breath.¡± I leaned against the stone wall, coughing.


    Rory set down a bag and put a comforting hand on my shoulder. ¡°I smell bones and ashes.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re in a tomb,¡± said Bee, looking around.


    Alcoves sheltered votive statues, dusty jars sealed with painted lids, and hammered metal plaques recording names and clans. Two stelae guarded the space. One was cracked through and listing. The second was carved on one side with the sigil of Tanit¡ªa triangle capped by a small circle and straight arms¡ªand on the other with a bull, a lion, and a crescent moon sheltering a sun.


    I ran a hand down the length of my now ordinary black cane. ¡°What was that thing?¡±


    Bee glanced nervously toward the darkness that hid the stairs, but we heard no ticking. ¡°It looked like someone built a clockwork automaton in the shape of a troll¡¯s skeleton, powered by steam. Do you suppose goblins really are that ingenious?¡±


    ¡°I killed its combustion with my sword just as it was about to breathe scalding steam over me,¡± I whispered. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have been able to do that. It felt like I pulled Andevai¡¯s cold magic through the blade.¡±


    Bee frowned as she touched my cheek with the back of a hand. ¡°I hope you don¡¯t expect me to explain what just happened. I must say, dearest, our lives were a great deal quieter before that awful night when my parents handed you over to Four Moons House.¡±


    Maester Napata beckoned. ¡°Maestressas. This way. Please to hurry.¡±


    He led us up steps. The air grew wintry as we breached the surface through a marble tombhouse. We staggered blinking into what seemed a fierce brightness of day. Overhead, the sky was rent with blue. The storm had passed on, although cold soaked through our coats. Hailstones littered the ground. The city¡¯s growl rose from beyond high walls.


    Rory looked around with a bemused expression. ¡°So many little stone houses. What people live here?¡±


    ¡°Only the dead,¡± said Bee.


    ¡°Do dead people live? I thought if they were dead, they did not live. It¡¯s very confusing.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s the tophet,¡± I said. The walls had been reinforced with a spiked chain along the top to keep out vandals, treasure-seekers, and mischief-makers.

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    ¡°What is a tophet?¡± asked Rory.


    ¡°Every Kena¡¯ani child who died untimely in the first eighteen hundred years of the Kena¡¯ani settlement in Adurnam was interred in this cemetery,¡± I explained.


    ¡°The remains of infants were placed here in dedication to the gods.¡± Bee sank onto a moss-covered stone bench as if exhausted. ¡°But it was closed when my papa was a child, forty years ago. There were riots in the city after rumors spread that the Phoenicians were sacrificing children on Hallows¡¯ Night and mixing their blood with wine and bread to keep away the Wild Hunt. Here in the tophet.¡± She sighed. ¡°Just give me a moment. My legs are shaking.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think blood and wine would taste well together,¡± said Rory. ¡°Why drink that?¡±


    ¡°It wasn¡¯t true, you imbecile,¡± she snapped. ¡°It was a pernicious lie!¡±


    A gust of wind stirred my hair, like an unwanted premonition. ¡°Bee, why did you notice the sign on that clockmaker¡¯s shop?¡±


    ¡°The clock-faced owl? I saw it in a dream. I sketched it. When I saw it today, I knew we had to go there.¡± Her gaze, on me, looked so weary and worn that I wanted to tell her it would be all right, but I knew such words would be a lie. When I did not reply, she shook her head as if shaking off her fears and offered a teasing smile. ¡°By the way, Cat, I saw a man¡¯s face in the Fiddler¡¯s Stone.¡±


    ¡°Who?¡± I demanded, remembering the woman who had told us girls went there to see the faces of their future husbands in the stone.


    ¡°Knives,¡± she said cryptically, mouth creasing down as if she was herself not sure.


    Footsteps crunched on gravel. I should have heard sooner. A figure appeared where the gravel path hooked around a gaudy monument which was crested by a weathered representation of the lashing, intertwined sea monsters known as the Taninim.


    ¡°So here they are, the Hassi Barahal cousins.¡± Leaning on a cane and accompanied by his assistant, the revered headmaster of the academy Bee and I had attended regarded us with an expression whose depths I could not fathom. Even though I knew he had sent his assistant to find us, I stared at his regal features, seamed face, and silver hair as surprised as if I had been cast adrift on a wave-tossed sea to confront the toothy maw of a sea wolf.


    With a snarl of rage, Rory dropped the bags. In a blur of gold too bright to be fully seen, he melted from man into huge, deadly saber-toothed cat, and sprang at the headmaster.


    8


    I threw myself into Rory¡¯s line of attack.


    Even as I was twisting, bracing myself to slam into him, the air distorted. An undulation of intense heat sucked the cold as into a vast shimmering furnace. A scaly beast gleaming of polished copper shuddered across the sky: eyes like burning emeralds, claws the length of my arms, wings that spanned the tophet wall to wall. Its jaw gaped to swallow him and us and all the city and then the world and finally all of existence.


    I smashed into the cat¡¯s massive fore-flank. I did not stop Rory, but we were both carried far enough sideways that he landed out of reach of the headmaster with me draped over his rippling shoulders. I leaped back and whacked him on the neck with my cane.


    ¡°Stop! Rory! Stop!¡±


    The big cat cringed and dropped to a crouch. Its pelt shone with a pulse of light, and smeared into a black-haired young man.


    ¡°Let go of me!¡± cried Bee in a tone I recognized as exasperated rather than alarmed.


    Stepping between Rory and the headmaster, I turned. The headmaster¡¯s assistant had a hand on her arm, and was in the act of pulling her out of the way. He released her at once.


    The headmaster looked as he had always looked: He was a tall, elderly black man of noble Kushite ancestry, a princely scholar of the most cultured and civilized of peoples, a man who was always calm. Why had I never noticed the fulgent green glamour of his eyes?


    ¡°Who are you?¡± Bee demanded.


    Remnants of clothes hung like rags on Rory¡¯s body. Even half naked, he appeared predatory. ¡°I have to kill him, Cat. Surely you understand!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m beginning to think I understand much less than I ever thought I did!¡± I cried.


    ¡°And that wasn¡¯t much,¡± muttered Bee, as if she could not help herself.


    Had the light changed? The headmaster¡¯s eyes were a pleasant, ordinary brown, not green at all. ¡°Begging your pardon, Maester,¡± I said politely, ¡°but if I am not mistaken, something rather strange just happened.¡±


    ¡°Indeed it did,¡± he agreed with the careworn smile of a man who has seen everything and has yet to be surprised. ¡°Your young companion turned into a rather large cat and then back into a man. Certainly an unexpected occurrence. He must be cold. May I offer my coat?¡±

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    ¡°No!¡± snarled Rory. I pressed the cane across his chest to check him.


    ¡°Kemal,¡± said the headmaster to his assistant. ¡°If you will.¡±


    The assistant took off his coat and gloves. Bee brought them to Rory.


    I said, ¡°Put them on.¡±


    He obeyed, although by the curl of his lip I could tell he was affronted.


    ¡°Why do you think you have to kill him, Rory?¡± I asked, digging for patience.


    His tone suggested he was completely disgusted with my callous disregard for his needs. ¡°He¡¯s one of the enemy!¡±


    I could tell from Bee¡¯s busy, bitten expression that she was thinking as wildly and desperately as a runaway coach careens over rugged ground.


    ¡°Are you a cold mage, Maester?¡± she asked. ¡°Perhaps an un-Housed cold mage, making your own way in the world? Hiding your power?¡±


    ¡°I am no cold mage. But I invite you to return to the academy, where I will serve hot tea and we may conduct this conversation in decent warmth.¡±


    Bee delivered her reply with queenly obstinacy. ¡°I mean no offense, Maester, but the last time I took refuge with you, you handed me over to Legate Amadou Barry. I became little better than a prisoner in his exalted house, and I must say¡ª¡± Her cheeks flamed, and she thought twice about what she must say.


    He nodded. ¡°You have my deepest apologies, Maestressa. I was mistaken in believing the Barry house was a suitable refuge for you. The offer of a cup of hot tea comes without price. On my honor as a Napata, I will not reveal your presence in the academy to anyone. No one will know except me, and my servants, who are bound to me.¡±


    ¡°I have to kill him,¡± said Rory. ¡°Let me go, Cat.¡±


    ¡°No.¡± I kept the cane pressed to his torso, its hidden cold steel a leash on his straining form. ¡°Maester, will you explain to us what we just saw? If that was not magic, then I surely have no idea what to call it. My cousin and I have had enough of being lied to, betrayed, and kept in ignorance.¡±


    His grave smile made me ashamed of the impetuosity of my speech, and I lowered my gaze so as not to seem to be staring directly at him in a disrespectful way. ¡°These are hard matters, Maestressa, as you correctly comprehend. Did the head of the poet Bran Cof speak to you two months ago?¡±


    Tell no one. I bit my lip. Bee fisted her hands.


    ¡°By your expressions, Maestressas, I will take that for a yes. A pity I was not informed at the time. Although I suppose when two young women are waiting in my office, perhaps with a purloined book in their keeping, they may prefer to keep silence rather than be subjected to questions. Might we go? My old bones feel the cold deeply. I note also your companion has bare feet now that his shoes have torn off.¡±


    Rory said, as if he had decided he would have more success with being reasonable, ¡°Just let me kill him, Cat. It will only take a moment.¡± He tensed, readying to spring.


    A tongue of fire licked the wintry cold. The air pulled at me as if I were being drawn into the maw of a fiery furnace. Green flickered in the headmaster¡¯s eyes, but his expression remained impassive as he examined Rory as if seeking beneath the skin to the cat beneath. I had a heart-squeezingly strong premonition¡ªnothing magical about it¡ªthat our young, healthy, strong Roderic and the old, frail, fragile-looking headmaster were not remotely evenly matched. With the cane, I pushed Rory behind me. He was trembling, although I could not have said whether with anger, fear, or sheer shaking eagerness to pounce.


    Bee¡¯s delicate little hand caught hold of my wrist, tightening as I imagined the coils of a snake might crush the ribs of a larger animal. ¡°Cat, we have to hear what the head of the poet Bran Cof has to say.¡±


    ¡°Ah! Ow! Yes! You go ahead. I¡¯ll come after with Rory.¡±


    She released my wrist and swept a courtesy to the headmaster as I tried to shake the pain out of my wrist while still holding Rory in check.


    ¡°Maester,¡± she said, ¡°we will accompany you out of respect for your age and lineage. But it is likely the Roman legate and his minions are already on their way to the academy.¡±


    ¡°Then there is no time to waste, Maestressa. I give you my word I will not be party to your being taken prisoner by Romans, mage Houses, or princes.¡±


    ¡°Very well.¡± She nodded at me before accompanying them down the path.


    A cold breeze chased up from the east, the last breath of the hailstorm Andevai had called to quell the crowds. It was better than muskets and swords as a weapon against people out on the streets, forcing them to flee inside. But the weakest and most desperate huddling in alleys or unheated hovels would expire in the deadly cold. Yet winter killed the weak anyway, didn¡¯t it?

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    I cautiously drew back my cane. ¡°Rory, explain yourself.¡±


    ¡°I have to kill him.¡±


    ¡°Those seem to be the only words you know any more. How can that respected and honored old man be ¡®the enemy¡¯?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s not a man! That body is just the clothes he¡¯s wearing.¡±


    I sat down hard on the bench, my heart knocking about my chest as if it had come loose from its moorings: wings, claws, heat. I covered my face with my gloved hands, and realized how horribly cold my flesh had become. ¡°What do you think he is?¡± I said through my fingers.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think. I know. He¡¯s a serpent. A dragon.¡± He paced around the bench. ¡°These stupid words you use aren¡¯t the right ones! He is one of the enemy who encircles the world and traps us. You¡¯ve seen what happens when the dreams of the mothers of his kind catch us unawares. Where I live it¡¯s not like it is here in the Deathlands, where their dreams don¡¯t reach. You can walk abroad day and night without fear of being caught and changed. They have always been and always will be the enemy.¡±


    ¡°Rory, sit down, your pacing is making me dizzy.¡± But it was his words that made my head reel. ¡°How can he be a dragon?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯ll eat me first. He¡¯s much bigger and stronger. But I have to try.¡± If he¡¯d had a tail, he would have lashed it. ¡°Because he must want to eat you, too.¡±


    ¡°I have attended the academy for over three years. He could have eaten me at any time. Why wait until now, when he couldn¡¯t have expected to see me again?¡±


    ¡°Dragons are cunning and patient and never strike until you least expect it.¡±


    ¡°I least expected it all these years. He¡¯s no threat to us.¡±


    ¡°You just can¡¯t see it! I can¡¯t let you go to his lair.¡±


    ¡°This is not your decision!¡± Watching his bare feet tread the freezing ground made me wince. My lips were so stiff I could scarcely form words. I had to move, or I would die, too. I leaped up and grabbed his arm. ¡°You¡¯ll die of cold if you don¡¯t get shoes and clothes! I couldn¡¯t bear to lose you. But I have to go to the academy to hear the message.¡±


    ¡°Maybe he won¡¯t eat Bee,¡± he admitted sullenly. ¡°She does stink of dragons, like they licked her when she was sleeping and she just doesn¡¯t know. I didn¡¯t say anything about it, because she¡¯s right, it is rude to say so, and I could tell neither of you knew or suspected.¡±


    I embraced him, petting his arms and back until he relaxed a tiny bit. ¡°Rory, how about this? You will go right now to the Old Temple District, to the inn called the Buffalo and Lion.¡±


    ¡°¡®Helene sent me.¡¯¡±


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s what you say when you get there. Right now I¡¯m thinking Camjiata¡¯s the only person we can trust to be interested in us purely for his own selfish reasons. That makes it easier to negotiate. You¡¯ll keep the bags with you. Don¡¯t lose them! You know how precious my father¡¯s journals are to me.¡±


    ¡°Cat, you and I don¡¯t know who our sire is.¡±


    ¡°I meant, my father who raised me, not the male who sired us. Bee and I will join you after we hear the poet¡¯s message. We can¡¯t stay at the academy anyway, so we won¡¯t be far behind you. Then you can tell me everything you know about dragons.¡±


    ¡°I just told you everything I know,¡± he said indignantly. ¡°Do you think I¡¯m keeping secrets from you?¡±


    I searched his face. Was he really my half brother? His eyes and hair were so very like mine, and yet he was not human but a wild creature, nothing tame. Yet I trusted him with my life. ¡°No, I don¡¯t think you¡¯re keeping secrets. But it has to be this way. Promise!¡±


    As if the words were forced out of him, he muttered, ¡°I promise.¡±


    I released him. ¡°Ask on the street for Old Temple, and then the inn. Tell people the militia roughed you up during the riot. They¡¯ll help you. Use your charm.¡±


    ¡°Oh!¡± he said, distracted by the thought of using his charm. ¡°I am cold and hungry and thirsty. I could use some petting, too.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t need to hear about that kind of petting.¡± I wiggled fingers into the hem of my jacket¡¯s sleeve, fished out the last of my coins, and pressed them into his hand. ¡°Buy yourself clothes and shoes, but try them on first, then haggle over the price, and make sure you get correct change.¡±


    We ran down the path together. Kemal waited at the tophet gate.


    ¡°Tell me, Maester,¡± I said as he chained and locked the gate, ¡°did the headmaster save you from the Wild Hunt?¡±

 Page 36

    His hand paused as he was turning the key. He did not look at me. ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°How?¡±


    He slung the key, on its chain, over his neck. ¡°It is not my place to speak of it.¡±


    ¡°Is he a dragon?¡±


    As if goaded beyond measure, he met my gaze. ¡°The headmaster of the academy is a man.¡±


    ¡°One just like you?¡± I demanded, for I sensed a riddle in his words.


    His smile twisted scornfully, which startled me, for I had thought him a passive young person. ¡°In the empire of the Avar, every albino child like me¡±¡ªhe touched fingers to his pale cheek¡ª¡°belongs to the emperor. It is a crime punishable by death to hide such a child from the imperial governors. So I would answer you, ¡®No.¡¯ He is not a man just like me.¡±


    ¡°I take it that is all I am to hear on the matter.¡±


    So returned the diffident exterior, like a shell covering vulnerable flesh. ¡°My apologies, Maestressa.¡± He inclined his head with a polite bob of his shoulders and followed his master.


    Bee and the headmaster were making their way slowly up the hill, the old man leaning on his cane and she with a hand beneath his elbow quite oblivious to his desire to eat either of us. Rory watched the headmaster¡¯s back with a hooded gaze that did nothing to hide his wish to pounce.


    ¡°You promised,¡± I said.


    ¡°Yes, I promised.¡±


    I gave him simple directions based on the bell towers and the high plinth that marked the site of the ancient village founded by Adurni Celts. I kissed him on either cheek, to seal our agreement, and waited at the tophet gate as he walked away down the main thoroughfare, lugging the bags. The wide avenue with its shops remained deserted, everyone in hiding.


    I watched until he walked out of sight. Then I hurried up the hill, catching the others as they passed the old Kena¡¯ani temple complex that was the original structure built on Academy Hill centuries ago. All that remained of the old complex was the walled sanctuary dedicated to Blessed Tanit and a grove of votive columns in commemoration of the holy trees felled during the Long Winter of 1572 to 1585. The gate into the sanctuary stood open. Within, a man wearing a heavy coat swept the porch of the priests¡¯ house.


    ¡°The gate is always open,¡± the headmaster was saying to Bee, ¡°due to an agreement made during the Long Winter, when the priests kept the gates open to provide warmth and sustenance to the destitute. It was that, or have the entire complex be burned down.¡±


    ¡°But it was destroyed anyway,¡± said Bee.


    ¡°Much of Adurnam burned at that time. Do you know what saved the city?¡±


    ¡°I do,¡± I said. ¡°The arrival of the refugees from the empire of Mali. Certain of the refugees had secret magical knowledge, and they found common cause with the Celtic drua. From that union sprang the cold mages. With the rise of the cold mages, the Long Winter was vanquished. Or at least, that is the story we learned at the academy, Maester.¡±


    ¡°So it is. It makes you wonder, does it not? Is there some link between cold magic and the more clement weather of our time? For according to history and the evidence of old Roman ruins found north of Ebora in the uninhabitable Barrens, the climate was less clement, and the ice more advanced, two thousand years ago. What causes these changes?¡±


    ¡°There were no cold mages in the times of the Romans,¡± said Bee. ¡°Were there?¡±


    ¡°Not as we know them, no. Ah, here we are.¡±


    His chief steward waited on the front steps of the academy entrance.


    ¡°Owain,¡± said the headmaster as he paused at the top of the steps to catch his breath, ¡°the academy remains closed to all callers for the day. Admit no one.¡±


    ¡°As you command, Your Excellency.¡±


    A cascading boom cracked outside. Whoever was shooting off muskets and field cannon was nowhere near the hailstorm. The hum rising off the city reminded me of maddened bees being smoked out of their hive. I hurried after Bee and the headmaster, who had already crossed the wide entry hall.


    Surrounded by buildings, the central court lay quiet under its glass roof. No one was around. Midwinter festival wreaths of mistletoe and pine withered atop a trellis arch. The trellis covered the grated shaft of an ancient sacrificial well. A hundred years ago, a now-famous labyrinth had been laid out as a paved walkway spiraling around the well, ringed by stone benches.


    I followed the others upstairs to the headmaster¡¯s office. The circulating stove set into the hearth gave off glorious warmth.


    ¡°Please,¡± said the headmaster. Bee and I took off our coats and draped them over the back of a red leather chair. His assistant closed the door and took the headmaster¡¯s coat.

 Page 37

    The headmaster¡¯s office had the odd quality of seeming larger than it was because mirrors hung on the backs of the doors. I saw everything twice: the wall of windows, the ranks of bookshelves reaching from floor to the crown moldings, the wide table with paper and books covering its entire surface, and the severed head of the poet and legal scholar Bran Cof atop a pedestal. The headmaster was watching me in one of the mirrors. I could see things in mirrors that others could not, threads of magic like the fine lines of spiders¡¯ webs. In the mirror, he looked like a perfectly ordinary old man. No threads of cold magic wove around his form as they did around Andevai. No vast winged shape billowed from his slender frame. He looked as solid as the furniture.


    ¡°Natural historians speculate that mirrors reflect the binding threads of energy that run between this world and the unseen spirit world,¡± he remarked, as if he had divined my thoughts. ¡°Do you suppose that is true, Maestressa Barahal?¡±


    I glanced down at my scuffed and muddy boots. The ends of the laces had been chewed up as by hungry mice. The longcase clock ticked like the pacing of ethereal feet.


    ¡°My apologies, but we don¡¯t have time for speculation,¡± said Bee. She walked to the corner where the head of the poet Bran Cof rested like a stone bust. I broke into a prickling sweat. I could not bear the thought of those eyelids snapping open, yet I could not look away no matter how much I wanted to. ¡°When did the head speak? What did he say?¡±


    The headmaster smiled enigmatically. ¡°The very questions I meant to ask you. It was at dawn. I was seated here at my desk reading aloud, as is my habit. This day it happened to be a monograph on the salt plague which I recently received from one of my correspondents at the University of Expedition. Perhaps the same words will waken him again.¡± He glanced at a printed pamphlet lying open on his desk. ¡°¡®According to report, if a human is bitten by a ghoul, the onset of the disease is so swift and implacable that the victim will become morbid in less than seven days. However, if a human is bitten by a plague-ridden human, there are three distinct and slower stages through which the disease progresses, although the disease remains invariably fatal.¡¯¡±


    The head remained fixed. Bloodless lips kept their disapproving pinch. The lime-whitened spikes of his hair and the luxuriant droop of his mustache made his features look younger than what the heavy crow¡¯s-feet radiating out from his deep-set eyes told of years and trials. Three scars like ritual marks formed a column beneath his right ear. Maybe the head was just stone after all.


    Maybe it was all a mistake.


    ¡°If you have something to say, Bran Cof, speak now.¡± Bee¡¯s voice rang above the whispering crackle of the fire burning in the circulating stove. ¡°My cousin and I cannot wait forever.¡±


    ¡°Bee!¡± I cautioned.


    ¡°And furthermore,¡± she continued in the tone of an Immortal Fury who has just remembered an ancient slight and means to pursue vengeance to the ends of the Earth, ¡°if you are really bound between this world and the spirit world as it is said poets and sorcerers and djeliw and bards can be¡ªwhich I admit seems quite unpleasant, for wouldn¡¯t it be rather like being forced to stand in a doorway all the time, neither going nor coming? Anyway, if you are so bound, then I wish you would not be so coy about it. I know you are a very famous legal scholar, one of the Three Even-Handed Jurists of the old Brigantes Confederation, so I would hope you would show us consideration now we are come before you, at your request. Yes, I am aware we are required to defer to poets, whose words reveal the world in ways we who are not poets could not otherwise see. And your fame as one of the Three Silver Tongues of the western Celts is naturally enough to awe and impress humble students like ourselves. But I must say, the constant references to women as roses with thorns seems a bit much. Men torment women far more than women torment men.¡±


    Did the sun escape a cloudy veil outside? A gleam shuddered within the reflecting angles of the mirrors like the spark of fireflies. A cowl of silvery light writhed around the head of the poet Bran Cof. Color washed the pallor of his face. There crawled beneath his skin a straining like insects swarming or a trapped prisoner trying to claw its way out.


    She rolled blithely on. ¡°I can¡¯t endure these constant protestations about the chains women bind on men. In truth, the chains all bind women at the feet of men.¡±


    His eyes opened, corpse-still one moment and full of ire the next.


    ¡°Bold Taranis spare me from the complaints of virgins!¡± His voice was resonant, as lovely as a caress, even in anger. ¡°Especially ones whose black hair is a snare to entwine the helpless and whose dark eyes provoke the tenderhearted to grief. How I despise the beauty of women!¡±

 Page 38

    ¡°Only because you feel entitled to something you have no natural right to possess!¡±


    ¡°Your words dance like sun across ice, but their cruelty is sharper than the winter wind. You must be aware that whatever I might wish for in the Three Matters of Desire has long since been severed from me. You stand there, out of my reach.¡± He looked younger when he was angry. As the cut of his lips softened, he seemed to age. ¡°A kinder woman would kiss me.¡±


    ¡°A kinder woman might well! I am not she. Anyhow, Your Honor, the last man I kissed died soon after.¡±


    His gaze took her in from head to toe. ¡°That I can well believe! An axe may be forged with all the cunning of a master smith. It may be decorated with the skill that draws the unwary eye as a lure coaxes a hapless trout. But an axe¡¯s purpose is to sever the living heart of trees. Why are you here if not to persecute me with the promise of the sweet pleasure I can never again taste?¡±


    ¡°We were told you have a message.¡±


    ¡°You are not the one I bear a message for.¡±


    ¡°Perhaps my dearest cousin Cat is.¡±


    His gaze did not waver from her bright face but something very unsettling happened in his eyes. It was as if his gaze turned inward.


    ¡°Yes, yes, you¡¯ve interrupted me,¡± he said irritably, yet with an edge of fear. He was speaking to someone we could not see. ¡°Of course you may speak. How am I to stop you?¡±


    His eyes rolled back in their sockets until they showed only white. Shadows¡ªnot from this room¡ªsettled a curling pattern of insubstantial tattoos across his skin. His craggy features remained the same, but Bran Cof was no longer the personage looking out from those wintry eyes. The gaze studied Bee, then caught on the headmaster with a narrowing like a bow bent but not released. An arrow stabbed my heart. Maybe I gasped. Maybe I moved, shaking with apprehension. Maybe I made no sound and no movement and it did not matter.


    Because the head of the poet Bran Cof looked at me. White ice eyes without pupil or iris fixed on me. My chest felt as hollow as if a killing claw had just torn out my beating heart to suckle dry its rich red blood.


    The mouth spoke with a sharp, deadly voice.


    ¡°So after all, Tara Bell¡¯s child survived and grew, as I had hoped. Your blood spilled on the crossing stone woke the bond between us. As I am bound, so must those bound to me as kin come to my aid. That is the law. Come to me, Tara Bell¡¯s child. Now.¡±


    9


    ¡°Who are you?¡± Sheer rushing terror propelled me three steps back.


    Bran Cof??¡¯s eyes rolled down, the return of blue as startling as a sweep of piercing blue sky seen after days of snow. For all he was a cantankerous old lecher, his gaze had a keen intelligence that made me uneasy, for he knew things he wasn¡¯t telling. ¡°What message did my lips speak?¡±


    I took another step back, thinking fast. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you, if you¡¯ll answer a legal question.¡±


    ¡°Ah. A bargain. Done.¡±


    Surprised, I took another step back to steady myself. ¡°I want to know if there is any way to unbind a marriage sealed by a magical chain of binding.¡±


    ¡°Yes. Your turn.¡±


    ¡°I mean, besides death!¡± Why must my voice tremble so?


    ¡°Your turn.¡±


    Curse him! ¡°You said, ¡®As I am bound, so must those bound to me as kin come to my aid. That is the law. Come to me, Tara Bell¡¯s child. Now.¡¯¡±


    ¡°Bad fortune for you, lass. In pity, I offer this: Only death can unchain a chained marriage. But there is one other way.¡± He attempted a coaxing smile that made him look grotesque. ¡°I can tell you. But a poet has his price. A kiss from you, the girl whose eyes are amber, whose lips are the red of berries, a promise both succulent and sweet.¡±


    I cringed away.


    His smile broadened lasciviously. ¡°I will have the kiss that already softens your mouth. You are waiting for a man to claim its honey.¡±


    I flushed with utter, obliterating embarrassment.


    He chuckled, enjoying my consternation. ¡°He must be young and very handsome.¡±


    I choked.


    Bee said, ¡°I¡¯ll kiss him for you, Cat. I have experience kissing lecherous old men as well as young and very handsome ones.¡±


    ¡°You will not!¡± His bushy eyebrows shot up, and the corners of his lips spiked down. ¡°I will have no kiss from you, serpent!¡±


    ¡°How can you stop me, stuck there on your pedestal?¡± She took a step toward him as I took one back. ¡°I may kiss you however and whenever I please! I¡¯ll suck all the life from you¡ªsuch as you have life¡ªand keep it for myself?!¡±

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    He squinched his eyes and lips shut, and I thought the head would harden back to its slumbering stone state without ever answering my question. Yet still the veins on his neck throbbed as with anger¡­and how could that happen, since he had no heart?


    ¡°I¡¯ll be gentle.¡± Bee took another step toward him.


    To my amazement he laughed with an unexpected flowering of charm. ¡°Alas for the men trapped by her love! Alas for the men set free! She is the axe that has laid waste to the proud forest. Where she treads, desolation follows.¡±


    ¡°Enough!¡± I cried. ¡°I¡¯ll kiss you, if you¡¯ll just answer my question.¡±


    His eyebrows rose to a peak. ¡°I was not finished declaiming! It is always so. The young lack manners, and the women like crows cannot stopper up their chatter!¡±


    Imagine all this time I had been in awe of the famous head of the poet Bran Cof?!


    Bee offered a mocking grimace. ¡°It¡¯s me, or no one. Anyway, Cat, I don¡¯t think he knows. All those stories about how he mastered the Three Paths to Judgment. How his tongue silenced birds and humbled princes. He isn¡¯t really a legal scholar. He¡¯s probably just an old drunk.¡±


    ¡°Shame, girl! I¡¯ll have you know there are three forms of marriage commonly recognized in the courts of the north. How the Romans and Phoenicians do things is a different matter, but I¡¯ll come to that afterward. A flower marriage flourishes while the bloom is still on it and dies when it withers. It may bloom for a month, a season, or a year, depending on the verbal agreement between the two parties involved. A contract marriage is a business arrangement signed in the law court between two houses, clans, or lineages. A chained marriage is a binding marriage sealed by arcane keys known only to the wise, to the drua and the bards, and it draws a chain of binding magic around the couple. When there is a question of possible treachery, or a treaty or other obligation at stake, it binds the couple so there need be no concern among those who arranged the marriage that another party will default or there be trouble later. Thus, the only way out of such a binding marriage is the death of one of the parties involved. But do not forget that without consummation, there is no marriage. Has the young man had sex with you yet?¡±


    The headmaster had politely turned his attention to the monograph. The assistant stared at the motion of pendulum and weights behind the glass door of the longcase clock, a blush curdling his white complexion.


    Bee said, ¡°Cat, you look like a fish. Close your mouth.¡±


    ¡°A year and a day. If the marriage is not consummated, and there is no prenuptial agreement for an extension due to a known and forced separation of the two parties, then after a year and a day, it is no marriage. Does no one teach the law these days?¡±


    All blood and breath drained from me. A year and a day. I could be unbound from the marriage. Released from its chain. I sagged back, to find myself at the door.


    Bee glanced toward me, then back at the head of the poet Bran Cof. ¡°Who spoke through your mouth?¡± she demanded.


    The head of the poet Bran Cof flinched.


    My pulse thudded in my ears. My hands curled to fists, nails biting into my palms. ¡°You know who it is!¡± I said.


    Blessed Tanit! He wasn¡¯t going to answer! But then he did.


    ¡°He is my tormenter.¡± An ember of sympathy lit in his face, brief and not bright. ¡°And soon, Tara Bell¡¯s child, he will be yours as well.¡±


    ¡°Answer her!¡± cried Bee.


    ¡°My lips are bound. Of what passes on the other side, I cannot speak¡ª¡± Then he was gone. Features as rigid as if carved from stone faced us in petrified silence.


    ¡°Oh!¡± said Bee. ¡°What happened?¡±


    The headmaster murmured, ¡°So. That explains her.¡±


    An overwhelming compulsion to get out of the chamber took hold of me.


    ¡°My apologies, Maester,¡± I said as I forced down the latch and pushed open the door. ¡°My heart is so disturbed. I¡¯ll just go pace out the labyrinth. They say it calms people down.¡±


    ¡°Take Beatrice with you,¡± said the headmaster kindly. ¡°You really mustn¡¯t go alone.¡±


    ¡°That explains her what?¡± said Bee to him, and turned. ¡°Cat, where are you going?¡±


    ¡°I have to go to the labyrinth. I don¡¯t want to. But I just can¡¯t stop.¡± I was amazed by how calm my voice sounded as I stepped into the hallway even though I did not want to.


    Hoofbeats rumbled on the street. Three shrill whistles pierced the peace of the academy halls. Orders were shouted in a ringing tenor: Lord Marius had arrived. ¡°In here!¡±

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    Bee grabbed our coats. I dashed to the stairs and ran down to the glass-roofed central courtyard, Bee behind me. ¡°Cat! Stop!¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t! It¡¯s like I¡¯m being dragged by the throat.¡± I wasn¡¯t frightened, just numb. Something horrible was about to happen, and I wouldn¡¯t be able to stop it.


    In the courtyard, benches ringed the outermost paving stones of the labyrinth walk. Four fountains anchored the four compass points, each surmounted by one of the beasts who symbolized the four quarters of the year: the bull, the saber-toothed cat, the horse, and the serpent.


    ¡°There she is!¡± Lord Marius¡¯s battle-honed tenor filled the space as he and his soldiers appeared in the arch that led to the entry hall. ¡°Catherine Barahal! Beatrice Barahal! Surrender yourselves. You are under arrest at the order of the prince of Tarrant and the senate of Rome.¡±


    I sprinted for the nearest bench as soldiers ran after us, some circling wide in order to cut off all roads of escape. Patches of snow like lichen mottled the roof. The sky was dark with fresh storm clouds, flaking a lazy trickle of snow.


    Lord Marius shouted, ¡°We won¡¯t harm you. I give you my word. It¡¯s for your own good.¡±


    ¡°So reassuring!¡± yelled Bee from behind me.


    A crow landed on the glass roof, and beside it five and then ten more. The din they made caused men to look up. A crack shattered the roof. Shards sprayed; men ducked and retreated. I leaped a stone bench and found my feet on the beginning stone of the labyrinth walk: This was not a maze but a winding walkway built to hone meditation and to help minds focus. When my cane touched the stone, the path blazed with the breath of the ice. My cane flowered into cold steel.


    ¡°Halt!¡± A soldier overtook me.


    I thrust. Surprised, he parried, but it was clear he was hesitant to press for fear of hurting me. I drove him back ruthlessly. He slammed into the bench, tripped, and hit his head. Lay still. I whispered a prayer to Blessed Tanit: Let me not have killed him.


    More converged on me, too many to fight off. I raced inward on the labyrinth walk, my boots crackling on broken glass from the roof. The soldiers followed like wolves in pursuit, both they and I forced to stay on the path now that a glamour pulsed through it.


    A crow flew past so close I ducked. Black wings filled the air. Their caws deafened me. The roof cracked again, more glass showering down. On the blast of frigid air, yet more crows poured through the shattered roof to mob the soldiers. The courtyard became a smear of darkness, men flailing with swords and cursing, crows tearing with beaks and swiping with talons. Many voices clamored as the mobbing crows drove the soldiers back, but only one word had hooked me: Now.


    ¡°Cat!¡±


    ¡°Bee! Don¡¯t follow me!¡± Slipping on shards, I cursed, trying to turn to go back, but my body lunged forward.


    ¡°Never! I¡¯ll never abandon you!¡±


    As the path spiraled in toward the grated well, my sword grew so bright and cold I thought its touch would sear my palm. If I let go, I might break free, but I could not uncurl my fingers.


    ¡°You can¡¯t escape!¡± Lord Marius¡¯s voice sounded as far away as the distant explosion of musket fire. Or were those the cracks of illegal rifles?


    ¡°The war begin.¡± So the Amazon had said. Had Camjiata¡¯s agents set the prison hulk on fire? Had he coordinated his arrival in Adurnam with the Northgate poet¡¯s hunger strike? Who had smuggled rifles into the city? Was it all just a coincidence?


    What had the headmaster meant? That explains her.


    I staggered to a halt beside the ornamental trellis. The grated opening of the well yawned at the toes of my boots, a round, stone-lined pit like a mouth waiting to swallow me. In ancient days, so the story went, the Adurni Celts had cast living sacrifices into this well. The iron grate that covered the maw had hinges and a lock, but the lock was missing. Shaking, I heaved open the heavy iron bars.


    O Goddess, protect me, for I am your faithful daughter.


    The hand of summer reached up from the well to choke me. It was fetid and rotting, and I could no more resist it than I could resist breathing. On that breeze I heard the exhalations of the dying and tasted the power of the blood that had sanctified the ground centuries ago.


    ¡°I won¡¯t go,¡± I whispered. ¡°You can¡¯t make me go.¡±


    Instinct¡ªor Barahal training¡ªtugged my head around. A huge crow plummeted down. That cursed crow had been following us for days. It beat the air before my face, and for an instant we stared, eye to eye. It had the same intelligence I did: thinking, planning, doing.


    I shrieked as it stabbed at me with its bill. I connected my sword¡¯s hilt to its body, felt bones give way and crunch. Another crow was on me, stabbing as I wildly swung blade and arm, and then a third and a fourth. I twisted, dropping to one knee, and still they came.

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    A crow stabbed me above the right eye with its beak.


    Just like that, they all flew off.


    No pain, only pressure. My eye clouded with warm liquid. Drops of blood scattered with a hissing like a nest of disturbed serpents. The stone rim crumbled away beneath my boots.


    ¡°Blessed Tanit, spare me!¡± I pried the hilt of my sword into the ground but could get no purchase as I slipped. The spirit world was dragging me in.


    ¡°Cat! Grab my hand!¡± Bee¡¯s strong hand gripped mine.


    The stone rim steamed away like mist under the sun, and we fell.


    We plummeted, me beneath and she tumbling after. How deep was it? At midday, in summer, one could see the still surface of water glimmering far below.


    I tangled with Bee¡¯s arms and the billow of her skirt.


    Water split beneath my back. My head went under, and then solid earth slammed me to a halt. Choking, drowning, I came up gulping and spitting beside her. We sat chest deep in the slimy muck at the bottom of the well. My sword gleamed faintly; no brown muck adhered to its length. A withered bundle of herbs floated on the surface half wrapped in a satin ribbon: someone¡¯s recent offering. Far above, the opening narrowed to a round eye as if the day stared down on us. The ragged splinters of the glass roof shuddered in a wind we could not feel down here.


    A crow peered over, its eyes like twin eddies of black night swallowing all that is light and ease and hope. Satisfied, it took wing, flapping away.


    My hand groped for purchase in the sludge. My fingers slid across coins and fixed on a sloped, smooth object. Feeling along its length, I realized it was a bone. With a curse, I let go and tried to slither away, but I could not get my feet under me. Foul matter smeared my clothes and matted in my hair. The odor was like chewing on a hank of moldering cloth.


    ¡°Cat,¡± said Bee in an oddly faint voice, ¡°I feel strange, like the well¡­is swallowing me.¡±


    Dread cut like knives. I grasped her wrist and pulled, but she was receding as in the current of a river in flood.


    Panic ripped through me. I was going to lose her, as I had lost my parents when they had drowned in the Rhenus River. She would be torn out of my grasp and I would never see her again. I fixed my other hand around hers and dragged for all I was worth.


    ¡°Help!¡± I cried, to no one. To anyone. ¡°Help us!¡±


    ¡°Beatrice! Catherine Barahal!¡± Faces appeared at the mouth of the well, so far above they might as well have been in Rome. With the daylight behind them, it was difficult to make out their features, but I recognized the voices of Lord Marius and Legate Amadou Barry.


    The legate shouted. ¡°Is anyone down there? Call if you¡¯re there!¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re here! We¡¯re here!¡± But they couldn¡¯t hear me.


    ¡°You don¡¯t suppose they¡¯ve drowned?¡± said Lord Marius. ¡°What a stink! I can¡¯t see or hear a cursed thing down there. It might as well be tar.¡±


    ¡°Get the magister. He¡¯ll be able to see if they¡¯re down there.¡±


    ¡°We can¡¯t trust him. His own master told me so. He¡¯ll try to help the girls escape. He¡¯s got the power to do it. You felt the force of that storm. Bold Taranis! If I had a regiment of such mages, I¡¯d never lose a battle.¡±


    ¡°God of Lightning, Marius! Listen to yourself. If the girls die it won¡¯t matter either way, will it? Isn¡¯t there rope? We¡¯ll lower down one of the soldiers to look for them.¡±


    ¡°Cat!¡± Bee¡¯s voice came as from the other side of a river, calling across a turbulent channel.


    Her hand, trembling in mine, turned to sand.


    My fingers closed on grains dribbling away.


    She was gone.


    Gone.


    I had lost her.


    My thoughts shattered. I could not see or hear or think.


    Then I heard Andevai¡¯s voice, shaken and hoarse. ¡°It¡¯s worse than I thought. I feel the wind of the spirit world. This is a crossing place, and it is open. Why haven¡¯t you gone down already? Get me rope! Hurry! Catherine, speak to me.¡±


    ¡°I lost Bee.¡± My voice was scarcely more than a whimper. It was all the breath I had.


    ¡°I hear you, Catherine. I¡¯m coming. Hold on.¡± His voice changed timbre as he turned his head away. ¡°Cat¡¯s down there, but she¡¯s fading.¡±


    Lord Marius¡¯s voice was sharp. ¡°Is she dying?¡±


    ¡°No. She¡¯s fading into the spirit world. It shouldn¡¯t be possible for humans to pass from this world into the spirit world except at the cross-quarter days.¡±


    ¡°Are these the cold mages¡¯ secrets? That they can move at will between this world and the abode of the ancestors? The ancient poets spoke of spiritwalkers. I never thought it was true.¡±

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    ¡°I¡¯m tied in. Lower me down. Catherine, hold on!¡±


    His body appeared as a shadow, covering half the lit circle. I felt, as on my own body, skin parting beneath a slicing edge of glass as he cut himself. Blood¡¯s hot stinging scent drenched me as in a waterfall. Did a cold mage¡¯s blood have more power than that of an ordinary person? On the threshold between this world and the other side, the force of his blood swelled and surged like the ocean tide, for it was the essence of life in the undiluted form of salt and iron. I suddenly understood why I had not crossed. My blood had opened the path, but the stinking spew of muck we¡¯d fallen into had coated my skin, sealing away my blood.


    A rope¡¯s end spun down before my face. It bobbed, bounced, swayed. Clumps of dirt peppered the muck around me like grapeshot, loosened from the slime-dried stone shaft.


    ¡°Catherine! I¡¯m almost down. Hang on.¡±


    ¡°I have to follow Bee. I can¡¯t lose her, too.¡±


    I scoured away the mud above my eye. Pain burned where my fingers gouged out the clogged wound. Liquid pushed, trickled, and then streamed down my face.


    His voice rang closer now, almost on me. Astonished. ¡°You¡¯re all light!¡±


    A rich fat drop of my blood struck the slime in which I floundered.


    ¡°I¡¯m here! Grab my hand, Catherine.¡±


    His fingers brushed my hair, but his touch was as insubstantial as mist.


    His next words came as from the far side of the world. ¡°The gate¡¯s closing. I can¡¯t grasp you. And I can¡¯t cross. Catherine, I will find a way. I promise you, I¡¯ll find you¡ª¡±


    I fell through.


    10


    Into a river whose rushing waters tumbled me over and dragged me under. Skirts tangling in my legs, I pulled upward but my hands could not break the flashing surface. I sank into my past.


    I am six years old and the water closes over my nose and mouth as my mother¡¯s strong hand slips from mine. The furious current wrenches her away.


    My lungs were empty. I was drowning. The current dragged me toward a shadow that resolved into a vast maw rimmed with razor teeth. The spirit world was going to devour me.


    Fingers with a grip like death fastened around my wrist. I thrashed.


    ¡°Cat! Don¡¯t fight me!¡±


    Bee¡¯s voice! I went limp as she pulled. Then my mouth was above the water. I retched as air hit my lungs. The current tried to drag me back down. In panic I lunged upward through the shallows, shoving aside the body that was in my way and scrambling until solid ground met me. I collapsed, face pressed against a hot skin of stones.


    ¡°There¡¯s thanks for you!¡± Bee sprawled on the rocky shore, water purling around her.


    I heaved up a spew of sour-salty water. My whole body spasmed. ¡°I thought¡­I was going to¡­lose you¡­just like my papa and mama¡­¡± I coughed out frantic sobs.


    ¡°There, now, Cat. There, now.¡± The warmth of her hand on my back soothed me.


    Heat baked down on my hatless head. Wind murmured in leaves. Insects buzzed. A tremulous peace calmed my galloping heart. I hadn¡¯t lost her. I hadn¡¯t lost her. I hadn¡¯t lost her.


    I rose. We had floundered to shore on a rocky island trimmed with a sandbar. The sleepy horizon smelled of the sea. A wide, estuarine river flowed past, alive with a flashing presence. A feminine face with skin the blue-green of turquoise breached the surface. Eyes like stones tracked us. A slick shoulder streaked with long hair the color of twilight rolled away beneath the water.


    Across the river stood tall trees leafed in summer glory. Far away, a winged creature perched on the blasted tip of a fire-scorched pine. On the far bank sat four wolves looking death in our direction. I was absolutely sure that they looked hungry and we looked delicious.


    Bee tugged on my elbow. ¡°Do you think they can swim across?¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t like to stay and find out.¡±


    The brushy sandbar on which we stood was separated from the other bank by a stagnant, muddy channel. Downstream, where the back channel met the river, the water was covered with algae. A foul substance stirred beneath that green surface in the same way heating water shrugs just before it boils.


    ¡°I guess we have to wade across that slimy-looking mud to get off this island,¡± I said. ¡°Let¡¯s get out of these winter clothes first.¡±


    We stripped off coats, gloves, and petticoats. I peeled off my wool challis riding jacket as well, because it was so hot. We rolled up our gear into separate bundles. She still had the knit bag.


    ¡°At least you saved your sketchbook and the knife,¡± I said, my courage plunging. ¡°I lost¡ª¡±

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    Light winked on steel. Not ten paces away, my sword rocked in the wavelets along the shore. In the spirit world, it appeared as the sword it was rather than disguised as a black cane.


    I pounced and swept it up. The blade flashed as if it had caught the rays of the sun, only there was no sun, nothing but a flare of gold on the horizon. The winged creature on the distant tree opened its wings and launched upward. It was not a bird of prey, as I had thought, but a winged woman, her skin as black as pitch and yet glowing as if she were a smoldering torch of power.


    ¡°Beware! Beware! A dragon is turning in her sleep!¡±


    Did I imagine a voice, or actually hear one?


    The wolves tested the river¡¯s shallows as if they had decided they were indeed hungry enough to try to reach us.


    Bee turned as she slung her bundled gear over her back. ¡°Did you say something, Cat? Oh! Incredible! Your sword washed up!¡± She raised a hand to shade her eyes. ¡°Is the sun rising?¡±


    A line of fire limned the sky. A blast of wind shook the trees like an unseen hand wiping clean the slate on which all is written. What came behind it was sharp and painful and obliterating.


    ¡°It¡¯s the tide of a dragon¡¯s dream,¡± I cried. ¡°Grab hold of me and don¡¯t let go! If we¡¯re swept away, we¡¯ll go together.¡±


    I threw my arms around her in an embrace so tight she grunted in protest. Across the river, the wolves plunged into the current and began swimming across.


    A low bell tone shivered through the world. Its sonorous vibration splintered air from water, stone from fire, flesh from soul, here from there, now from now. The tone like a taut string passed through us as a knife slices parsnips, as a kiss unexpectedly filters through your entire being, as cold magic flows down a sword¡¯s blade, as a choice propels you down a new path whose track you can never retrace once you have set your feet on it.


    My heart, my flesh, my bones, my spirit; all thrummed as if caught within the enveloping thunder of a drumbeat that boomed on and on. Within the hollow rolling sound, the space between the beats, there unfolded a long white shore of glittering sand washed by lapis-blue waters and trimmed by thick vegetation with fanned, fringed leaves and flowers so vivid in their reds and oranges and whites they were almost molten. I felt I was looking through a window onto another shore. Then, like a vase shattering into pieces, the world tipped and parted beneath me. An abyss loomed.


    I did not fall because Bee did not fall. Bee was an immoveable pillar of stone.


    With a howl of rage, a shape writhed out of the channel where the water had run so green. It was far larger than could possibly rest under the surface unless the channel¡¯s depths reached all the way to Cathay. It seemed not so much to unfold as to expand as a balloon expands when air is heated inside it. It spread a net of tentacles. Its maw was rimmed with razor teeth so white they hurt my eyes. This was the creature that had meant to eat me in the river. One huge appendage lashed overhead and snapped down to crush us.


    ¡°Hold on to me!¡± I shouted as I slashed at it with my sword.


    My blade severed the limb. The tentacle fell writhing on the stones, spraying a stinging black ichor that hissed and bubbled across the earth. More appendages lashed over us. The tide of the dream cut through the creature. Its moist hide parted like peeled fruit. Light mottled the body, slithering in and twisting out until my stomach clenched. I shut my eyes, waiting to be smashed.


    The air quieted, and the world grew still. The river flowed deep and dark and wide. The trees stood green and lovely. Bee still held me. We hadn¡¯t moved. Nothing had changed around us.


    Of the monstrous creature, there was no sign. The surface of the back channel was a sheet of glassy calm. Only a single patch of green remained, riming the steep bank, and as I watched, it scuttled along the shore like a little green crab trailing a black spume behind it and missing one claw.


    ¡°The cursed wolves!¡± I released Bee and spun.


    The current streamed undisturbed except for a large leafless branch floating past. Four white birds perched with the most amazing insouciant balance on the uppermost swaying spur of wood. One dove into the water and came up with a gleaming fish in its cruelly hooked beak. The wolves had vanished.


    Bee grabbed my arm. ¡°What happened? What was that?¡±


    I lowered my sword. ¡°That was the tide of a dragon¡¯s dream. That¡¯s what Andevai told me. Any creature caught outside a warded place is washed away and never comes back. But that didn¡¯t happen, did it? I guess he doesn¡¯t know as much as he thinks he does!¡±


    ¡°Do dreams have tides?¡±


    ¡°Dreams can change course suddenly. Once you¡¯re dreaming, you are pulled along without knowing how far into the ocean of dreams you¡¯ll go. That might be like being caught in a tide.¡±

 Page 44

    ¡°I thought walking the dreams of dragons meant sleeping, and waking up to sketch my dreams. I was thinking of it in a¡­metaphorical way, not an actual one. I don¡¯t like it here. And I was never bleeding, so how can I have crossed?¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s get off this island. Then we can talk.¡±


    We splashed across the muddy flats and climbed up a sleepy bank carpeted with a bank of intensely gold flowers like chiming bells. No, the flowers were actually chiming as the wind¡¯s caress made them bob and tinkle.


    ¡°Those flowers are making noise,¡± Bee said in a small voice.


    She struggled up to a patch of ordinary grass and sank down. I sat beside her. It was a beautiful day. The landscape with its splendid trees and golden bank of flowers looked perfect enough to be painted. A searingly blue butterfly fluttered past. My whole body felt as heavy as a sack of sand. I could not have moved if the great general Hanniba¡¯al and a thundering herd of elephants had borne down on us at that moment, although even had they done, I fully expected some horror would materialize out of the soil to flay them to ribbons, crack their bones to pieces, and suck out their marrow.


    ¡°Blessed Tanit,¡± I said in a voice that did not sound like my own, ¡°the spirit world was nothing like this the first time I walked here.¡± I thought of the wolves who had pursued me and the coach as I fled Four Moons House. ¡°Well, I guess it was. We should have listened to Rory. This is not a safe place. Merciful Ba¡¯al. Now he¡¯ll wait at the Buffalo and Lion wondering what became of us! Do you know what he told me after you went off with the headmaster? He said that the headmaster is a serpent. A dragon. That illusion we saw looked exactly the way I imagine a dragon would look. But the headmaster is a man.¡±


    ¡°Cat,¡± whispered Bee.


    ¡°Did you hear the headmaster say those two strange things right before the militia arrived? He said, ¡®That explains her.¡¯ He meant me, like he was watching me all those years in the mirrors trying to figure out what I was. Then he said by all means to take you with me, but that was after I said I was going to the labyrinth. If he knew the labyrinth would lead me to the well, and the well was a crossing into the spirit world, that would mean he wanted you to cross into the spirit world. That he knew you could cross. But your blood didn¡¯t open the Fiddler¡¯s Stone, so how could¡ª¡±


    ¡°Cat.¡± Bee¡¯s fingers clamped so hard on mine they cut off my words. Her voice was a murmur. ¡°Don¡¯t move except to turn your head to your right.¡±


    A thousand pins would not have made the skin along my neck and back prickle more violently. I slowly turned my head.


    A woman sat cross-legged on the bank under the canopy of a massive yew tree whose wide crown and split trunk I had, strangely, not noticed until just now. She simply sat, saying nothing, looking over the river, her hands folded peacefully in her lap. She had the look of the locals who lived in the countryside northeast of Adurnam: tightly curled black hair with a reddish cast, dark brown skin, and brown eyes, features that spoke of Celtic forebears as well as West African ones. It was her ordinariness that made me uneasy. She was dressed in the commonplace, practical summer clothing of the villages: a skirt sewn from bright cloth printed with red and orange paisleys on a butter-yellow fabric and bulky from petticoats beneath, and a high-necked blouse with a kerchief tucked around the collar. The apron she wore over all looked recently laundered, not a stain or a crease. She held a strip of fabric of the same pattern as the skirt. Folding it, she deftly bound it over her hair to create three decorative peaks in the fabric.


    Perhaps I sucked in air too hard.


    She turned. Her eyes widened with the same surprise I had felt a moment before.


    Hers was a face that arrested the gaze. It had a familiar look to it, especially about the eyes, which were deeply lashed and finely formed. I trusted that face at once, although I knew I ought to trust nothing here.


    ¡°Greetings and peace to you, Aunt,¡± I said, for there is never any harm in being polite. ¡°Is all well with you?¡±


    Bee¡¯s hand tightened on mine.


    The woman spoke in a voice I had heard before. ¡°No trouble, through my power as a woman. And you, bride of my grandson? I did not expect to find you so quickly.¡±


    Bee tugged on my hand. ¡°Run.¡±


    ¡°Do I know you?¡± I asked, for I was dumbfounded, although not struck dumb.


    ¡°Before this, one time I and you have met. I am Vai¡¯s grandmother.¡±


    I don¡¯t know how many times I blinked, or how wide my mouth gaped. Bee¡¯s tugging on my arm grew quite insistent, until I realized she intended to rip off my arm if I did not do something.

 Page 45

    ¡°Are you a spirit sent to confuse and tempt me?¡± I asked, and added hastily, ¡°No offense intended. It¡¯s just a question.¡±


    The woman held out a necklace. A locket shone as if sunlight burnished it, although the silvery sky revealed no sun.


    ¡°That¡¯s my locket! With my father¡¯s portrait.¡± I pulled my arm out of Bee¡¯s grasp.


    ¡°Cat!¡± Bee lunged, pinning my hand to the ground. ¡°Don¡¯t you dare take it!¡±


    The locket dangled like deadly fruit from the woman¡¯s hand. ¡°To walk with wisdom and caution in the spirit world is wise,¡± she said. ¡°This amulet Vai tucked in my hand. He gave it to me after he made an offering to the ancestors. He asked me to look for you. He thought this locket might draw me and you together.¡±


    ¡°Who are you?¡± demanded Bee.


    ¡°Do not speak your true name aloud in the bush. The creatures who live here eat names as well as blood. You can call me Fati.¡±


    I twisted out of Bee¡¯s grip, snatched the locket, and opened it. The image of Daniel Hassi Barahal, with his black curls and ironic smile, stared at me. When I touched the locket to my lips, I knew this was my very own locket. I had been forced to trade it to two girls in Four Moons House in exchange for their getting me out through a locked door.


    ¡°How did Vai obtain this?¡± I asked as I slipped it over my head.


    ¡°He did not tell me. He asked me to find you and guide you, for I know a little of the bush. Already I find you on open ground where any spirit animal may eat you.¡± She lifted a scolding finger. ¡°You must stay on the path. Or on warded ground.¡±


    ¡°We were in Adurnam an hour ago,¡± said Bee. ¡°How can he have been at your village? How could he even know we fell into the well? Cat, you need to give that locket back.¡±


    ¡°He came down the well after us, trying to help us, Bee. I haven¡¯t had time to tell you yet.¡± I surveyed the woman for signs of razor teeth or hidden tentacles. This was not the frail old grandmother whose bedside I had attended in the village of Haranwy on Hallows¡¯ Night. Here, in the spirit world, she appeared as a younger woman in the prime of life, old enough to be the age of my mother, had my mother lived, but not so old that she had begun to bend beneath the burden of age. Vai had the same beautiful eyes. ¡°He would have come after us into the spirit world, but because it wasn¡¯t one of the cross-quarter days, he couldn¡¯t cross. It¡¯s so obvious!¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s obvious?¡± demanded Bee.


    ¡°He went home to ask the hunters of his village to hunt for me in the spirit world.¡±


    ¡°His actions you understand perfectly,¡± said his grandmother.


    ¡°It¡¯s what I would do, in his place,¡± I said.


    ¡°Very noble of you, I¡¯m sure, Cat,¡± retorted Bee, ¡°but it must be many days¡¯ ride from Adurnam to his village, so he can¡¯t have gotten there yet.¡±


    ¡°The days pass differently here. An hour here might be a week there. He would have plenty of time to go ask his kinsmen for help. I understand the locket is a talisman. But I don¡¯t understand how you are come here, Grandmother.¡±


    She said nothing. Heat settled over us in a sweltering mantle.


    ¡°You must be dead.¡± My words emerged stiffly.


    Bee sat back with an exhalation.


    Fati looked at me, still saying nothing.


    ¡°He must have found you when you were dying. Because the dead cross over into the spirit world, he asked you to seek me out once you got here. I never thought¡­¡± My fingers curled over the locket. ¡°If you¡¯re here, then my parents are here somewhere as well. I could find them.¡±


    ¡°Maestressa, please forgive our bad manners.¡± Bee shifted forward. ¡°I hope you suffered no pain. I hope we find you at peace. I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    ¡°For what are you sorry?¡± she said with a gentle smile. ¡°The crossing awaits us all.¡±


    Belatedly I lowered my gaze, as one did with elders. I absolutely believed she was who she claimed to be, although I could not explain why. ¡°My apologies, Grandmother. You and the villagers helped me at great risk to yourselves. When I said I wasn¡¯t sure I could trust you, when I was there in your house, I didn¡¯t mean it to be rude.¡±


    ¡°Mmm. Yes. You were rude. But you were frightened, and you are young. We all make mistakes.¡±


    ¡°You are generous to forgive me.¡±


    ¡°Have I forgiven you? I choose to help Vai because he is a very good boy.¡±


    ¡°He wasn¡¯t that good of a boy,¡± I muttered. ¡°He was arrogant, contemptuous, and unkind.¡±

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    ¡°Then he forgot the manners his mother and I taught him.¡± She bent a gaze on me that made me duck my head like a scolded child. ¡°Do you appreciate what he has done? To come so far, against the will of the mansa, is no light choice for him.¡±


    ¡°I appreciate his efforts to make sure Four Moons House doesn¡¯t recapture us. But I can¡¯t believe the mansa would do anything to harm such a powerful young cold mage.¡±


    ¡°I do not believe you comprehend what he risks for you. You think you know what it means to be born into clientage, to be bound by law and custom to serve another, but you do not know.¡±


    ¡°We in the Kena¡¯ani are raised to serve our households,¡± I retorted, not nearly as belligerently as I might have. ¡°As I did, when my aunt and uncle gave me to Four Moons House against my will. They would have given me to whatever cold mage came to collect me. It happened to be him.¡±


    ¡°Do you suppose that was chance? Your destiny was chosen before you were born.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t believe that!¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t either,¡± said Bee stoutly, and loyally. ¡°Although I do have to wonder why I was cursed with this gift of dreaming.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re no help,¡± I muttered with a grimace at Bee.


    Fati gave me a look that made me feel small and petty. ¡°He placed three strands of his hair behind the portrait in the locket, to help you find him. A thread ties you together, because of the binding the djeli wove over you, which is a chain that reaches between worlds. Seek him in your heart, and you will know where he is. But if you have no heart to seek him, then he is the one who will search in vain.¡±


    ¡°Cat didn¡¯t ask to be married to him,¡± said Bee. ¡°I am sure you cherish your grandson. I¡¯m sure he is loyal to his family. But it isn¡¯t fair to scold her as if she had asked for a pretty bauble and then tossed it carelessly away because it didn¡¯t match her gown. She was betrayed by my mother and father, by our entire clan. She shouldn¡¯t be taken to task for something she never asked for.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s all right, Bee,¡± I said, for I couldn¡¯t bear to see his grandmother¡¯s expression harden into disapproval. ¡°My apologies for my sharp tongue, Grandmother. I can¡¯t truly understand what it means for your village to have endured clientage for so many generations. We studied law at the academy, but¡­well¡­it was words in a book. I admit I feel a more personal concern now.¡±


    ¡°You can be sure,¡± said Fati, ¡°that Four Moons House has bound you tightly to him. And he belongs to them, just as my village does. When they wish to make use of you, they will do so.¡±


    ¡°Unless I free myself.¡±


    ¡°Do you think it is so easy to free yourself??¡±


    I glanced at Bee, and held my tongue.


    Fati raised her eyebrows as if she knew we had secrets we weren¡¯t sharing. ¡°Anyway, girls, enough talking. We must seek a path or a warded place.¡± She rose, brushed off her skirts, and walked away from the river.


    Bee and I exchanged a glance.


    ¡°I like her!¡± whispered Bee.


    ¡°The hunters will cross at Imbolc,¡± Fati called over her shoulder. ¡°My grandson plans to be with them.¡±


    ¡°How romantical!¡± said Bee as we hurried after her. ¡°I wish some man would rescue me!¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that what Legate Amadou Barry was trying to do? During the riot? Rescue you?¡±


    ¡°He was trying to capture and cage me,¡± she snapped.


    And wasn¡¯t that what Andevai would end up doing, if he brought me back to Four Moons House? Uneasiness rose in my heart, like a chain being reeled in. The world seemed made of cages. Walking gave me something to do instead of think about chained marriages and forbidding mage Houses and a voice commanding me to come now. We strode through a grassy landscape, skirting thickets of flowering bushes. Tiny translucent unicorns flitted between the blooms, wings flashing like thinnest glass.


    Bee ventured closer. ¡°How pretty!¡±


    They coalesced into a swarm and stung at her. Stumbling away, she batted at the cloud as a haze of scintillant wings engulfed her. I swept my sword back and forth through them until they scattered to settle on the bushes, snorting, with teeth bared.


    ¡°Ah!¡± she said, pressing a hand to her face. ¡°They attacked me!¡±


    Fati said, ¡°Let me see your chin.¡±


    After a pause, Bee lowered her hand. Several bumps swelled redly, but otherwise she appeared unharmed. ¡°Nasty creatures!¡±


    A few took to the air, and I brandished my sword, and they retreated.

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    ¡°Stay beside me,¡± said Fati.


    We walked on. In places, the ground bottomed into swales, thick with white-barked aspens, their round leaves flashing like mirrors. Butterflies and dragonflies winked where pools of water had given birth to thickets of reeds and flowering lilies. Overhead, a pair of crows paced us.


    ¡°Do all the dead bide in the spirit world?¡± I asked. ¡°Could I really find my parents?¡±


    Fati had a long stride. ¡°See this grass around us? You might say it comes from a seed, but a seed alone is nothing. It needs water and soil, and it needs the desire to grow. Without these, no grass can become grass. No thing is only one thing unchanging. Right now I walk in the body in which I walked on the other side. This form remains mine only until the tide of the spirit world reaches me. Then I will change, as all things change. So I cannot know what form your parents have taken, or how they have changed.¡±


    ¡°Vai said that those who are caught in the tide of a dragon¡¯s dream never come back.¡±


    ¡°How can you come back if you have not departed?¡± A smile softened her mouth. ¡°Vai is a very clever and a very obedient and a very hard-working boy, but I am sorry to tell you, Cat, that he does not know everything he thinks he does.¡±


    Bee laughed.


    I said, ¡°But if all the dead people come here after they die, then where are they all?¡±


    ¡°A fish sees the eagle only as a shadow within the water, but the eagle sees the fish for what it is.¡±


    I scratched my bruised chin. ¡°You¡¯re saying we can¡¯t look at things here in the spirit world and assume that what we think we see means what we think we see is what we think it is.¡±


    ¡°Cat, that made no sense at all,¡± said Bee.


    ¡°It made perfect sense! Think of the headmaster! We think we see a man, but maybe he¡¯s the eagle and we¡¯re the fish who only see the eagle¡¯s shadow. Grandmother, do you know anything about dragons?¡±


    ¡°I know a story, a long story. I am no djelimuso to tell it with the proper introductory remarks and blessings. It is the story about how my ancestors the Koumbi Mande came north across the desert out of the Mali Empire to escape the salt plague. So it happens, after many trials, the remnant reached the city of Qart Hadast and did not know where to go next.¡±


    Bee looked at me, and we didn¡¯t mention that Qart Hadast was the city the Barahal family had originally come from, the city the Romans called Carthage.


    ¡°The mansa¡¯s sister Kolonkan was a powerful sorceress. She stood on the shore of the sea with one foot on the sand and one in the water. She saw beneath the waves smoking mountains which the Romans call Vulcan¡¯s Peaks. In the very fire of one of those peaks, a female dragon had coiled in its nest and laid its eggs, and now she slept. Into the creature¡¯s dreams, Kolonkan walked. ¡®Maa, please advise me,¡¯ called Kolonkan. ¡®Where shall my people go?¡¯ The serpent answered, ¡®One of the daughters you will bear will serve me, and your people will go north, to the ice.¡¯¡±


    ¡°How can a dragon nest in a volcano?¡± Bee said. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t the molten fire destroy eggs?¡±


    ¡°My apologies, Grandmother,¡± I said hastily, poking Bee. ¡°We are listening.¡±


    ¡°Mmm.¡± Fati was clearly a woman not accustomed to being interrupted. ¡°The tale goes on. That is the only mention I know of a creature the Romans would call a dragon or serpent.¡±


    We walked a while in silence. Grass swished along our legs. Insects buzzed sleepily without massing in a swarm to afflict us. The cursed crows floated above. A jumble of shapes like boulders came into view on the horizon.


    ¡°Grandmother,¡± I asked at length. ¡°Do you know who my sire is?¡±


    She looked me up and down. ¡°Why would I know that?¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t tell somehow, because you¡¯re an ancestor now?¡±


    She chuckled. ¡°I have no such power. I am newly born into this place. I know nothing more than what I knew before. I would tell you if I knew. A child ought to know its sire. For if you do not know what ropes hold you, then you might as well be a tethered goat. So it seems you and your cousin have undertaken a journey to discover the heart of your own selves.¡±


    ¡°I would like to know what it means to walk the dreams of dragons,¡± said Bee with a look a mule might give its handler. ¡°Did this sorceress Kolonkan¡¯s daughter walk the dreams of dragons? Is that what the story meant?¡±


    ¡°Mmm. This is knowledge that is not mine.¡±


    ¡°Not yours to share? Or you just don¡¯t know?¡±

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    ¡°Bee!¡± I said in an undertone, pinching her arm. ¡°It¡¯s rude to interrupt an elder.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m the one fated to be dismembered and my head thrown into a well! I assure you, Aunt, I do not mean to be rude.¡±


    ¡°Mmm, yes, you are drenched in nyama.¡±


    ¡°What is that? Energy? Heat? Light? Magic?¡±


    ¡°It is the foundation stone. It is a thread. It is that which can be shaped. A potter molds nyama like clay. A blacksmith forges nyama into steel. A hunter must know how to protect himself from the dangerous nyama released when he kills an animal, by adding it to his own. Cold mages manipulate nyama. How any of them do this I do not know, for I do not know their secrets.¡±


    ¡°Cat told me she once met a djeli who called nyama the handle of power. Is that like an axe handle? If you can grip it, then you can wield the axe¡¯s blade?¡±


    ¡°I would not say so. But those who can shape nyama can shape and change the world.¡±


    Bee nodded. ¡°With the right connections to power and a strong will, you can shape and change the world! Like Camjiata did, and means to again.¡±


    ¡°Bee!¡± I whispered, ¡°we¡¯re supposed to listen to elders, not interrupt them!¡±


    ¡°How are we supposed to learn if we don¡¯t ask questions?¡± cried Bee.


    ¡°We are here,¡± said Fati.


    Slump-shouldered sandstone towers rose before us, marking the four corners of a walled town. The eroded walls looked much as a seashore castle built of sand looks after a wave runs over it: melting ruins soon to be obliterated. No dogs barked. No wagons rolled or voices called. Not even the wind moaned. If anything lived in the dusty, deserted ruins, I could not hear it.


    A road as black and slick as obsidian speared away from the half-collapsed main gate. As straight as a Roman military road, it cut through uninhabited countryside toward distant hills. A shadow raced toward us from those hills.


    ¡°The tide comes,¡± said Fati. ¡°Get up on the road, for it is warded ground. Hurry.¡±


    I grabbed Bee¡¯s hand and ran, even though I was suddenly sure that the instant I touched the pavement something terrible and irrevocable would happen. Yet I had to get there. Perhaps that desire was part of the compulsion that had driven me to the well.


    ¡°Aunt, hurry!¡± called Bee over her shoulder.


    ¡°Onto warded ground I cannot cross,¡± said Fati. ¡°You must go forward alone. This is your journey. My path is different.¡±


    The knife of darkness cut over us just as we stumbled up onto the road. Bee flung her arms around me. Fati stood in daylight, surrounded by grass. With me in shadow and her in the bright, I could see clearly how my husband resembled her in the planes of his face, the glow of his complexion, and the clarity of his eyes. A vibration rumbled like drums in the earth. A towering wall of fire washed toward us, scorching the grass to ashes. Fati smiled, lifting her hands in greeting.


    ¡°Blessed Tanit!¡± I breathed. ¡°Grandmother!¡±


    Flames obliterated the scene. The town walls rang like a struck bell as the ripple of fire boomed out around the stone.


    The tide passed. Pale daylight, like dawn, rose on a world utterly changed.


    Fati was gone.


    11


    On either side of the road lay fields. Three-horned antelopes grazed on grass as green as emeralds. Fields tilled in spirals marked patterns on the ground that would, I felt sure, create beautiful images if seen from the sky. Thick-leaved vines of sweet potatoes flourished on a field of dirt mounds, the only crops I recognized. Elsewhere, huge stalks were crowned by flowers whose petals blazed with streamers like orange flame; that is, unless they were really burning. Others wept green tears. A vine strung along posts burst pods into a cloud of butterflies. Small winged creatures with faces like bats swooped down, snapping them up, until the air drifted with shimmering scraps.


    Fati was gone. She might have been anywhere or anything. A stone about half the size of my fist lay on a patch of earth beside the road. I scrambled down.


    ¡°Don¡¯t touch that!¡± said Bee.


    But I did. The stone was waterworn to a smooth finish, deep brown in color, like sard. The veins in its surface flowed like speech against my skin. I felt I knew its voice. ¡°Do you think the tide¡­turned her into this stone?¡±


    ¡°And you thought I was the credulous one?¡±


    ¡°Spirits change, just as the land does.¡± I touched my father¡¯s locket, the familiar ache in my heart, the one that could never be filled. ¡°So after all, maybe I can¡¯t ever find my parents, not if they were caught in the tide.¡±


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t everything be caught in the tide? How could you escape it?¡±

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    ¡°You escape it by sheltering on warded ground, like this road.¡± I closed my fingers over the stone and, ignoring her protest, tucked it into a pocket sewn on the inside hem of my jacket. ¡°Although that doesn¡¯t explain how we escaped being swept away at the river¡ª¡±


    ¡°Cat.¡±


    A sound like the rushing of river water swelled behind us. I turned. Out of the walled town, human-like creatures rose in a tide of dark wings.


    Bee said, ¡°Blessed Tanit protect us!¡±


    A mob circled above us. Their vast wingspans half blotted out the sky. They swept down over us, claws gleaming.


    ¡°Down!¡± I snapped.


    Bee dropped, and I straddled her back, feet braced on either side of her. My sword blazed with an icy light so bright it burned. I slashed and stabbed as they attacked. Where my blade nicked flesh, they shrieked, scattering in all directions.


    ¡°Cat, what are they?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t move.¡± I shifted so my skirts belled over her. ¡°They don¡¯t like my sword.¡±


    The mob resumed its circling above us. One landed out of reach of my blade.


    Tall, broad-shouldered, and powerfully built, she looked much like a human. Her short black hair stuck up in spikes. Her narrow face was as translucently pale as watered-down milk, and she had the stark blue eyes we in the north called ¡°the mark of the ice.¡± A line of purple-blue tattoos like falling feathers spun down the right side of her face and neck. She wore a sleeveless calf-length tunic covered with amulets sewn onto the fabric much as hunters fixed such talismans onto their clothing to protect them in the bush. Her wings certainly amazed me. But it was the third eye in the center of her forehead that riveted my attention.


    ¡°You are an eru,¡± I said, choosing offense over defense. ¡°My greetings to you and your people. May we be at peace rather than at odds. I ask for guest rights, if such can be offered to peaceful strangers who have stumbled here by accident.¡±


    She spoke in a voice like a bell. ¡°You are well come here, Cousin. Our hearth is open to you. All we have is yours. All we are is at your service. But we have to kill the servant of the enemy. That is the law.¡±


    ¡°Cat,¡± Bee whispered from under my skirts, ¡°I think they mean me.¡±


    The eru cried out the same way the great bells of Adurnam cried out the alarm when the city was threatened. ¡°It speaks! Beware!¡±


    I shifted my sword¡¯s angle; the eru took a step back. ¡°She is not my enemy, and therefore she is not yours.¡±


    More eru landed out of my reach, ranging in a circle around us. The tall ones had third eyes as bright as gems. The shorter bore marks on their foreheads like a mass of cloudy veins, and I had the oddest feeling they could see with those blinded, blinkered third eyes onto sights invisible to me. It was very disturbing. Worse, it seemed likely these eru could rip us to pieces in short order with their claws. And how could I predict what damage they could do with their magic, for weren¡¯t eru fabled as the masters of storm and wind?


    ¡°Never mind,¡± I said. ¡°We¡¯ll just go on our way.¡±


    ¡°She must be sacrificed,¡± said the eru who had spoken before. ¡°As a courtesy to you, if it is your wish, we will kill her and eat her at the welcoming feast, all except her head. Her head we will cast in the well to give strength to our water. Out of respect for you, our guest, we will show her this honor.¡±


    Bee¡¯s choked exclamation hit me in a wave of fear. I swept my blade in a slow circle, to mark each eru, ten in all. ¡°I will take as many of you with me as I can, before I let you touch her.¡±


    A melody like words flowed around the circle, then ceased when the first eru raised an arm. ¡°Do you serve her, who is a servant of the enemy?¡±


    ¡°Why do you believe her to be your enemy?¡±


    ¡°Did she not come to seek a serpent¡¯s nest? Do you not feel the enemy turning and turning again? Doesn¡¯t this rising tide aid their servant because it forces us, who would drive her away, to hide within our wards rather than pursue her?¡±


    ¡°I think you are a servant of the night court,¡± I said, remembering the eru who had pretended to be a footman in the service of Four Moons House and what she had told me when we had stopped at Brigands¡¯ Beacon so Andevai could make an offering. ¡°Because servants of the night court have to answer questions with questions.¡±


    She nodded in the manner of an opponent acknowledging a hit. ¡°I am she who speaks for this hearth when the night court commands.¡±


    Black wings fluttered. Out of the sky dropped a crow. No ordinary crow could cause such a reaction among fearsome eru. They took flight in a cacophony of wings until only the speaker remained. With a self-satisfied air, the crow folded its wings and cocked its head to consider me. A smear of dried blood mottled the tip of its scabrous bill. I was sure the blood was mine.

 Page 50

    I could not resist a jabbing feint at the crow, just to make it hop back. I had feelings, too, even if Bee sometimes called me heartless.


    ¡°Don¡¯t think I¡¯ve forgotten you,¡± I said as I touched the clotted wound above my right eye.


    With its third eye, the speaker looked at the crow, and then at me with all three eyes. For an instant, I thought I saw a reflection in her third eye: turning wheels flashing along a road.


    ¡°The master comes,¡± she said. ¡°The enemy¡¯s servant will not escape.¡±


    Bee had shoved her head out from under my skirts. ¡°Look!¡±


    She scrambled up, pointing toward the hills. At first all I noticed was eru fanning out like herders. They were shepherding antelopes toward the town walls, or corralling them within sturdy copses of shimmering trees. Beyond, a blur of fog avalanched down the distant slopes. Claws sharpened in my chest as though a foul beast had burrowed inside me and latched on to my heart.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know what else to do, Bee,¡± I said as the fog grew. ¡°You have to run for it. Take my sword. If I offer it to you freely, you can take it.¡± I held it out.


    Sparks leaped from the blade, and where they struck her hands and arms, a shower of spitting flames poured like a sheath over her limbs. She yelped and snatched back her hand.


    ¡°Cold steel burns the servants of the enemy, so she cannot wield it,¡± remarked the speaker with a cruel smile. But her smile vanished as she looked past me. She knelt.


    How the vehicle had bridged the distance so quickly I did not know. An elegant black coach pulled by four white horses rolled to a stop beside us. The horses had a polished sheen, like pearl. The first pair stamped, hooves striking sparks from the obsidian pavement, while the second pair waited patiently in their traces.


    The coachman was a burly man wearing a perfectly ordinary wool greatcoat. He wore his short blond hair in the lime-whitened spikes traditional to Celtic warriors in the ancient days when the Romans with their land empire and the Phoenicians with their sea trade fought to a standstill, and the barbaric Celts shifted allegiance depending on what benefited them the most. Seeing me, he did not smile, but the corners of his eyes crinkled as with an inward chuckle. He tapped two fingers to his forehead in greeting.


    A figure swung down from the back. I recognized the tall, broad-shouldered eru with skin the color of tar, her third eye ablaze with a sapphire brilliance, her wings a swirl of smoke. Power roiled in her like a storm about to burst free. I stepped between her and Bee as if I could fend off the brunt of the blow. My blade shone like a torch, its hilt turned to ice against my palm.


    ¡°Let it be,¡± said the coachman to the eru. ¡°We are here for Tara Bell¡¯s child, not for the other one.¡±


    She settled back, wingtips fluttering as if a wind spun off them. I swallowed; my ears popped; the wind died.


    ¡°Greetings, Cousin,¡± the eru said. ¡°The master has sent us to fetch you.¡±


    Such a wave of despair washed through me that my strength failed. I stared at the two creatures I had first met in the guise of a humble coachman and a humble footman. Bee grasped my hand. Hers was cold.


    I spoke in pleading whine I did not like but could not help. ¡°We just want to go home.¡±


    The splendor of her third eye sparked rays of light along the surface of the black road. ¡°The master has summoned you.¡±


    ¡°Help her return to the other side, and I¡¯ll give you no trouble,¡± I said desperately.


    The coachman¡¯s lips curved in a wry, weary smile.


    ¡°You will give us no trouble regardless, Cousin,¡± said the eru, not in anger but in sorrow. ¡°You are bound, as we are bound. Get in the coach. Both you and the serpent. We have a long way to travel. The master is not patient.¡±


    ¡°Indeed, he is not,¡± said the coachman with a glance skyward as the crow flew. ¡°We outraced the storm of his anger. Now it is time for you to take shelter.¡±


    Over the hills boiled a black wrath of clouds. In the cloud¡¯s heart, lightning writhed like so many coiling incandescent snakes. Its power hummed in my bones and my blood like a fever. The crow sped toward the storm as if to welcome it.


    A horn wept from the walls as the herding eru chased down the last of their charges, and the kneeling eru broke free and fled.


    My knees were turning to jelly. ¡°Blessed Tanit. If we run, that storm will destroy us. If we go with them, you¡¯ll be killed.¡±


    ¡°One thing at a time,¡± said Bee with astonishing calm as her hand tightened on mine. ¡°Right now, our best chance is the coach.¡±


    The eru opened the door and swung down the steps with the ease of practice. I sheathed my sword, climbed in, and sank onto the forward seat, into the same place I had sat when I traveled in this coach with Andevai.

 Page 51

    Bee sat down opposite, her knees shoved against mine. ¡°Don¡¯t give up hope, Cat.¡±


    The door closed. With a crack of the whip and a shout of ¡°Ha-roo! Ha-roo!¡± the coachman got the horses moving. We turned in a sweep, and the coach lurched as the eru jumped on behind. We picked up speed. No coach in the mortal world ever ran so smoothly and so fast.


    A blast of wind shook the coach. The shaking and shuddering pitched us off our seats. The coach bounced up, thudded down, pitched halfway over, righted itself. Like a ship caught in a typhoon, it rolled and yawed. We clung to each other as the gale roared around us with a howl so loud I saw Bee¡¯s lips moving but could not hear a single word, nothing except the frightful mocking caws of a murder of crows flocking around us as if their flight were the wind.


    Unseen claws squeezed my heart. If I did not obey, the master would crush me.


    Terror, like grief, can make you numb. But when the first edge passes, as the storm gusts on and the coach settles, it can also make you angry. For who wishes to be subject to terror?


    We struggled up to sit. After the battering we had taken, I was grateful the cushions were so soft. We caught our breaths.


    ¡°That puts Papa¡¯s temper tantrums into perspective, does it not?¡± said Bee with a gaunt smile.


    I looked at the two doors, the one to my right which we sat up against, and the other door, closed and shuttered, by which Andevai had sat on the first journey we had made together. He had warned me never to open the other door, but when he had said that, he had meant the door to my right, the one we had just used to enter the coach.


    I grinned. ¡°This coach is a passageway between the worlds. One door leads into the spirit world. But that one leads back to our world. We¡¯ll jump out and run for it.¡±


    I scooted over to the other door. Sliding my sword half out of its sheath, I sliced a stinging, shallow cut in my right hand. I grasped the latch, smeared blood on it, and pushed down.


    The latch bit me.


    I yelped, jerking back my arm. Three tiny puncture wounds in the back of my hand prickled red with my blood. The latch glowered, having acquired a dour, brassy gremlin face as wide as my hand and as thin as a finger. Incisors sparked as if tipped with diamond. A thread of a tongue licked along the brass, and my blood vanished.


    Bee slid her knife from the knit bag and, with all her considerable strength, chopped where the latch was attached to the door. The blade thunked, and bounced off. The force of the blow redounded back up her arm. She cried out, dropping the knife as she doubled over.


    ¡°We¡¯ll see about that!¡± I cried, fully drawing my sword.


    The nasty little gremlin latch-face winced.


    The coach slammed to a stop so abruptly I was thrown back against the seat and Bee thrown forward, narrowly missing my unsheathed blade and banging her knees. The coach rocked violently. The door to the spirit world was flung open to reveal the coachman.


    ¡°Out,¡± he said.


    It wasn¡¯t that he looked angry. He didn¡¯t look angry. It was just that I was suddenly sure he could yank both my arms out of their sockets if I did not obey. Not that he would want to, or would enjoy the act, but that he could.


    Bee¡¯s face was a grimace of pain as she tried to uncurl her fingers. ¡°My hand! My arm!¡±


    ¡°Out.¡±


    We got out. I sheathed my sword as we huddled together at the side of the road. Bee had left the knife behind in the coach but made no attempt to dart back inside to grab it. She could not open or close her left hand. The knit bag sagged at her hip. He got in, and we heard him talking and a soft buzzing voice in reply, but no words I knew, nothing I could understand.


    The eru strolled over. Her two ordinary eyes gazed at me; her third eye narrowed, as at a nastily ugly sight, on Bee.


    ¡°I¡¯m not sorry we¡¯re trying to save my cousin¡¯s life,¡± I said.


    ¡°He is slow to anger,¡± she said in a reflective tone. ¡°But one thing will do it: assaulting his coach or his horses.¡±


    ¡°I thought the coach and horses must belong to the master,¡± I said.


    ¡°No more than he does. No less than he does. No more than my wings belong to the master, and no less than they belong to me.¡±


    He hopped out and regarded us for such a long time with such a steady stare whose emotions I could not possibly guess at¡ªnot anger, not sympathy, not rage, not pity¡ªthat Bee began to snivel, as if she had at last reached the end of her rope.


    He said, ¡°The door into the mortal world is locked.¡±


    ¡°What do you expect from us?¡± I burst out. ¡°You can¡¯t expect us to lie down and give up.¡±

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    He said, ¡°Go sit on warded ground. I¡¯ll make tea.¡±


    He indicated a fire pit ringed by a low inner wall of bricks and an outer circle of marble benches. A fire burned. A lofty tree with red bark and white flowers shaded one side of the pit; there was also a granite pillar and a stone bowl from whose center burbled clear water. Bee and I sat side by side on a bench as the coachman brought over a kettle, filled it at the bowl, and set it across an iron grating over the flames. He carried two full buckets to water his horses. The eru flew ahead, scouting. Passed through the storm, we had reached the hills.


    ¡°It¡¯s a triangle,¡± said Bee.


    ¡°What is?¡± I asked, watching the ease with which the eru flew, her smoky wings skimming the air. I had first seen her in the guise of a male human footman, booted and coated for winter, and it was not so easy to shake that image from my mind to see her as female.


    ¡°The tree, the spring, and the pillar form an equilateral triangle,¡± said Bee. ¡°I wonder if the form creates the ward.¡±


    ¡°I think there has to be a tree, a stone, and water,¡± I said, remembering the djelimuso Lucia Kante¡¯s fire. I had sheltered there, argued with Andevai, and met Rory. I had told her stories from my father¡¯s journals, the price I had to pay so she would tell me how to leave the spirit world.


    Bee massaged her left hand with her right. ¡°Did you see that sneering face on the latch?¡±


    ¡°The one that bit me? Of course I did!¡±


    Around us lay open forest, trees spaced apart and grass and bushes grown thickly in the gaps. Four big animals trotted into view and settled onto their haunches to leer at us. They looked something like what a dog and a cat and a pig would look like if smashed together, with coarse short hair and hind legs shorter than their forelegs. They had the teeth of carnivores and the gazes worn by the coldhearted who have nothing better to do than plot the ruin of all they see. When the coachman looked at them, they ambled out of sight, but I had a feeling they were hiding in a tangle of undergrowth, waiting hungrily.


    Bee pulled her sketchbook out of her bag and paged through it.


    I identified the faces of young men, studies from life, some shaded to fine detail and others a few deft lines that caught an essence. ¡°Maester Lewis. That good-looking Keita lad whose family left for New Jenne. Here¡¯s that laughing bootblack Uncle Jonatan scolded you for flirting with.¡±


    She turned another page without replying.


    I went on, unable to bear her silence. ¡°Now we¡¯re at summer solstice, when the Barry family arrived at the academy. My! Isn¡¯t Legate Amadou Barry pretty? To think all those months we thought him a student at the academy, when instead he was a Roman spy. Do you suppose he was spying only on us? Or are there other pupils from disreputable families worth investigating?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not the only one who has endured an unpleasant romantic interlude, Cat. I won¡¯t hesitate to remind you of yours if you don¡¯t stop teasing me about mine.¡±


    The unyielding rigidity of her tone convinced me to change the subject. ¡°Here¡¯s Cold Fort. With Amadou Barry standing at the gates¡ªnot that I mean anything by mentioning him! Is this from the dream that made you ask him to look for me there?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Last summer I began to realize that sometimes I would dream an ordinary event, like people meeting at a shop or a fruit seller¡¯s wagon overturned at an intersection. Later I would encounter the very thing. Or hear it had happened, like when Banker Pisilco was rude to a troll at the Merchant¡¯s Exchange and the troll had to be restrained from killing him by its companions.¡±


    ¡°I can see that might be disturbing,¡± I said cautiously. ¡°I wish you had told me.¡±


    She wasn¡¯t really listening. ¡°I don¡¯t think walking the dreams of dragons is divination, seeing into the future.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what the mansa thinks it is,¡± I said.


    ¡°I think it¡¯s a way to find things. So the question is, what I am trying to find?¡± Her expression reminded me of the brooding of clouds before a storm. ¡°Did it ever occur to you, Cat, to wonder why we act the way we do?¡±


    ¡°I often wonder why you act the way you do!¡±


    She rolled her eyes, and I was cheered by her brief smile. ¡°You know what I mean. Why should I obey the strictures we¡¯ve always been told must fence in our lives? We must learn the skills appropriate to Hassi Barahal women. We must marry to oblige the family. We must serve the house by bearing children and by carrying out all orders given by the elders. Travel to a new city and spy on a princely household? Very well. Take a position as a governess or factotum and serve the clan that way? Shiffa and Evved are as deep in the family business as my parents are. My parents threw you away to save me because they were told to do so.¡±

 Page 53

    I swallowed a lump in my throat. Bad enough that Uncle Jonatan had betrayed me by handing me over to Four Moons House, but for my beloved Aunt Tilly to have gone along with it was a knife in my heart I could never shake loose.


    ¡°I can¡¯t expect to be like my mother,¡± she went on. ¡°She married where the family told her to marry, to a man she does not love and never expected to love. She has never complained, although she does not always approve of what Papa does and says. For the sake of the clan she gave birth to three daughters¡ª¡±


    ¡°She loves you!¡±


    ¡°Yes, she loves me, and Hanan, and Astraea. And despite everything, she loves you, Cat. That¡¯s why it¡¯s so unpardonable that she betrayed you. But she serves as she was brought up to serve. I can¡¯t. The dreams that bind my life have changed everything for me.¡±


    I took her hand in mine. I had nothing to say. There was nothing to say.


    ¡°So I ask again. Why should I feel bound to strictures that won¡¯t protect me from being torn to pieces by the Wild Hunt and having my head thrown in a well?¡±


    ¡°Bee, that¡¯s such a horrible thought. Why are you blushing like that?¡±


    The rosy glamour creeping into her cheeks brightened. ¡°In ancient days, Kena¡¯ani girls like us could offer their first night to the goddess, at Her temple.¡±


    ¡°Which, if you recall, is why the Romans called us whores.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t care what lies the cursed Romans told! The point is, those girls could give their first night to whomever they wanted. So why shouldn¡¯t I take Amadou Barry as a lover?¡±


    ¡°Bee!¡±


    She skewered me with her gaze. ¡°I might be dead tomorrow!¡± Her fingers brushed across an infatuated portrait of Amadou Barry: the tight curls of his cropped hair, his pretty eyes, the single gold earring, the gracious smile on his lips. ¡°Don¡¯t you wonder, Cat? I saw you kiss him.¡±


    ¡°I did not kiss Amadou Barry! He¡¯s very pretty, but not what I look for in a man. And after the way he spoke to you, I¡¯m surprised you still think of him¡ª¡±


    ¡°You know who I mean! I saw you kiss the cold mage!¡±


    I hated blushing. ¡°Of course I wonder! But if I were to¡­bed Andevai, then I¡¯d belong to Four Moons House. I¡¯d be trapped.¡±


    ¡°He seems very loyal to you. Likely to treat you kindly. You would live well.¡±


    ¡°In a gilded cage? Can you even imagine Rory at Four Moons House? Oh, Bee, I had so hoped we would find shelter with the radicals. I was shocked to my heart when Camjiata showed up and said those troubling things. Honestly, Bee, didn¡¯t you find it creepy that his wife had seen you and me in her dreams?¡±


    ¡°Once I would have.¡± She closed the sketchbook. ¡°Not now. If we can escape from these two, maybe we can track down your sire and he can help us get out of the spirit world.¡±


    ¡°Coming to the spirit world was the worst idea I ever had and I¡¯m grateful to you for not reminding me of how stupid it was! Haven¡¯t you asked yourself yet, who spoke through Bran Cof??¡¯s mouth? Someone who could put me under a compulsion? Someone Bran Cof called ¡®my tormenter¡¯?¡±


    ¡°Bran Cof is obviously not the best judge of character. He compared me to an axe.¡±


    ¡°So did Camjiata¡¯s wife.¡± I drew the sketchbook off her lap and opened it to a picturesque drawing of a summer carpentry yard where half-dressed and well-built men worked. ¡°You were magnificent, Bee.¡±


    ¡°I was, wasn¡¯t I? I couldn¡¯t believe he fell for the old ¡®I don¡¯t think he knows¡¯ trick.¡±


    I laughed, too. ¡°He was an awful old lecher. I wish we knew what the headmaster wants, and who he is! At least I can imagine Rory will survive a while in Adurnam without us. No doubt he already has women arguing over who gets to feed and pet him.¡±


    She chuckled, then snatched the sketchbook off my lap and stuffed it into the bag. ¡°Oh, la! How thirsty I am!¡±


    The coachman approached, carrying four mugs, a tin basket, and a small white ceramic pot in the shape of a boar with a pair of tusks for spouts. He busied himself measuring tea leaves out of the tin basket and into the pot.


    ¡°I suppose it¡¯s difficult to run away from things that fly,¡± Bee said, looking for the eru.


    ¡°I suppose it is,¡± he agreed as he poured water from the kettle into the pot to steep. ¡°Not to mention the four hyenas awaiting you in the bush, if you proved so unwise as to leave warded ground and strike out on your own.¡±


    Bee said, with cool politeness, ¡°Is hyenas what you call them?¡±

 Page 54

    ¡°There are other names. Like most creatures, they don¡¯t always wear the same clothing, but their souls don¡¯t change.¡±


    ¡°Have they been following us?¡± I asked. ¡°We saw four wolves. Then four kingfishers.¡±


    He set down the kettle on stone and covered the pot. ¡°It is certainly possible they are the same souls in different clothing, hunting you.¡±


    ¡°Why do the creatures here attack my cousin?¡± I asked.


    His blue eyes had the remote intensity of the winter sky, but his gaze did not seem unfriendly. ¡°She is the servant of the enemy.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s no answer,¡± retorted Bee. ¡°It doesn¡¯t really explain anything.¡±


    The lines at his eyes crinkled, although his lips did not smile. ¡°It is an answer, but not the one you wish you had. What you do not understand is that I cannot speak as I might wish to speak, because I belong to the one who breathed life into me.¡±


    ¡°You belong to the gods?¡± Bee asked.


    ¡°I belong to the one who owns my breath.¡±


    I nudged Bee. ¡°The headmaster¡¯s assistant said that, about goblins losing their breath.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve seen a goblin!¡± The coachman¡¯s lips parted in almost comical astonishment.


    Bee looked at him, then at me, a question in the lift of her brows.


    ¡°What do you know about goblins?¡± I asked.


    ¡°The goblins are my makers. But it is my master who owns my breath.¡±


    ¡°Your makers!¡± Yet when I thought about the clockwork troll, and the lifelike statues waiting in ranks underground, I wondered if he might be not flesh and blood, even though he looked exactly like a man, but something far stranger.


    ¡°Cat, close your mouth.¡± Bee twisted the strap of the knit bag through her fingers as she addressed him. ¡°The creatures here don¡¯t like dragons because the tides of dragon dreams keep changing this world. They can smell dragons on me because I walk the dreams of dragons in the mortal world. That¡¯s why they call me the servant of the enemy. But I¡¯m not.¡±


    ¡°You cannot escape what you are,¡± he said.


    ¡°What are you?¡± Bee demanded.


    ¡°I am a coachman.¡±


    ¡°You work as a coachman. Surely that is not all you are,¡± she insisted.


    ¡°You may think this part of my body¡±¡ªhe touched his chest¡ª¡°is the only part, because you are confined in a single body. But this is only one part of me. The horses and the coach are the rest of me. So when you take a knife or a sword to my person, naturally I will defend myself.¡±


    As with one thought, Bee and I looked toward the coach and four horses steaming on the road, and then at each other with raised eyebrows, and then back at him.


    ¡°Tea?¡± He poured out four cups. One he took over to the pillar, where he emptied its steeped contents at the base. Returning to the fire, he handed a mug to Bee and one to me.


    Bee found her voice. ¡°Food and drink in the spirit world may pose a risk for us.¡±


    He took the fourth. ¡°This tea will offer no harm to either of you, and may do you some good.¡±


    I cupped hands around the mug¡¯s warmth. ¡°You saved my life once. Can you promise me you will save my cousin¡¯s life, if it comes to that?¡±


    ¡°It is not my intention to see her come to harm. But I cannot promise what I cannot be sure I can deliver. I will do what I can. That is what I promise.¡±


    ¡°Why would you alone of the creatures of the spirit world not wish me to come to harm?¡± asked Bee in a low voice.


    ¡°I was not created in the spirit world.¡± He sipped from his mug as he glanced toward the road. What hands had built that road? ¡°But you may call it kindness, if you wish.¡±


    I crossed to the pillar, spilled a few drops as an offering, and drank the rest. The brew tasted of drowsy summer afternoons adrift in a field of flowers. How tired I was! I lay down on the bench, and as soon as I pillowed my head on my hands, my eyes closed. Bee sighed, trying to say my name.


    The world faded as the drugged tea took hold. We had been betrayed.


    12


    How had I come to find myself standing beside Andevai, on a ship in the middle of the ocean? He was leaning on a railing, looking queasy, his mouth drawn tight. A female hand as black as his own wiped his sweating forehead with a stained kerchief. It had to be a dream, because he was wearing homespun laborer¡¯s trews and an ill-cut wool tunic badly dyed in a squamous nettle green, nothing like the flashy, expensive, fashionable clothes he spent so much effort on wearing decoratively, as Lord Marius had said. How fortunate Bee had not been there to hear Lord Marius¡¯s comment, for certainly no mention of Andevai would then have passed without a reference to decoration. Where had she been that she had not heard? Where was she now?

 Page 55

    ¡°Bee?¡± It was my own voice mumbling. I opened my eyes.


    For an instant, utterly disoriented, I thought myself back in the bedchamber Bee and I had shared in the house on Falle Square. If the bed were as cold as stone and twice as hard.


    No, I no longer had a home. No place was safe.


    Bee slumbered on the next bench, the rise and fall of her chest as steady as a clock¡¯s pendulum. Above, the sky remained a leaden blue-gray color. It might have been an hour or a day we had slept there, and by the creased state of my skirts and the rumpled mess of Bee¡¯s hair, I would have called it closer to a day than an hour.


    We hadn¡¯t been drugged; we had just been exhausted. I felt rested, and absolutely gut-gnawingly starving. I heard murmuring over by the stone bowl, so I let my hearing take wing.


    ¡°I think we should help them,¡± the coachman was saying in a low voice. ¡°The master expects us to bring the little cat. I see no reason we should bring him the other one, too.¡±


    The eru hissed, as at hearing an ill-mannered insult. ¡°The other girl belongs to the enemy.¡±


    ¡°Maybe she has no more choice than we have, beloved. Even so, are we simply to hand her over when we weren¡¯t specifically commanded to? He will plant her in his garden.¡±


    ¡°So he should! You can stand there and know you will not be changed when the tide washes through. She¡¯s no threat to you.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not fair! I may not be changed, but my master owns my breath. My master can unmake me with a word.¡±


    ¡°True enough. I spoke in anger, and I apologize. I cannot be unmade. You cannot be changed. But the master will smell her out sooner or later. He will be angry if he knows she was here and escaped. Even if I agreed, how could it be done so we aren¡¯t punished?¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t servitude a form of punishment? Why should we do one more thing for the masters except what is required and commanded?¡± Passion trembled in the coachman¡¯s voice. ¡°Listen. Water is the gate for her kind. We can say she swam away. The little cat will keep silence. She will not fear the master¡¯s anger.¡±


    Water is the gate! Was that how Bee had crossed? The crawling play of the flames coalesced into sinuous bodies twisting and slithering until I was sure I saw fiery salamanders alive within the flames, whispering Fear the master. Was the fire taunting me, or warning me?


    ¡°Of course she will fear him,¡± hissed the eru. ¡°I fear him and even you fear him. It is impossible not to fear him. The little cat is vulnerable. He will exploit that. How can we trust her to play her part in such a scheme?¡±


    ¡°To give trust is to gain trust. To withhold it until there is no doubt, is not trust. She will defy him, even if she fears him. She¡¯ll do it for the sake of the other one.¡±


    ¡°Maybe it is possible,¡± said the eru, in a tone of great reluctance. ¡°We could travel by the road that leads past the river. We need do nothing, as long as the girls act.¡±


    ¡°I knew you would say so, beloved. I knew you would risk it, if only to defy him.¡±


    One cannot really hear a kiss, but a texture in the air can change, like the charge of a lightning strike. Could the creatures of the spirit world love? Could a personage who had just told us he was part coach-and-four feel desire and affection? I shivered from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, remembering the kiss I had shared with Andevai. I had disliked and even feared him at first, but as I had slowly come to see a different side of him, I¡¯d become curious and perhaps confused, not sure of my feelings for a man who was so handsome and so obviously interested in me.


    A flap and flutter of wings disturbed the silence. A black crow settled on top of the pillar. I made a business of waking, and touched Bee¡¯s head.


    She stirred, yawned copiously, and sat bolt upright. ¡°Cat! The villains! They drugged us!¡±


    I indicated the crow with a lift of my eyes. ¡°Of course they drugged us. They fear you will escape, so they hope to keep us docile. But we¡¯re awake now. We must plot our next plan of action.¡± Keeping my face concealed from the crow, I waggled my eyebrows.


    Without moving her head, she slanted a glance toward the crow. Then she exaggeratedly glanced toward the coachman and eru and spoke in a loud staged whisper. ¡°I would never have drunk that poisoned brew had I known! And yet, what can we poor young females do?¡±


    ¡°Here comes the villain!¡± I declaimed.


    The coachman approached carrying a leather bag. By no sign or blush or hint of perturbation in his face could I detect that he suspected I had overheard his conversation. He pulled out a loaf of bread and a wedge of cheese.

 Page 56

    ¡°How can we know these morsels are not drugged, like that tea you forced us to drink earlier?¡± I asked haughtily.


    He regarded me for one long breath. ¡°From the mortal world. Thereby safe to eat.¡±


    Holding the blade, he offered Bee her knife, hilt first.


    A tremor ran through her, and she thanked him prettily before politely taking it.


    ¡°There is enough to share,¡± she said, holding his gaze.


    He gave her look for look, and for a marvel, she was the first to look away.


    ¡°We are already fed,¡± he said.


    ¡°Can we not eat the food grown in the spirit world?¡± I asked.


    ¡°I would be wary of such delicacies, were I born from the womb of a human mother.¡±


    I wanted to ask how he had been made, but the question seemed rude, and the crow watched. Bee sliced, and we ate as daintily as we could manage being so hungry we might have preferred to bolt our meal as dogs gulp meat.


    ¡°We have still a distance to travel, and a stop to make at the river for you to wash so you can be made presentable for the master.¡± When the coachman looked at me, I knew he knew I had overheard their conversation.


    ¡°I am sure it would be polite for us to wash before meeting the master,¡± I agreed.


    He rinsed out the mugs as we brushed crumbs off our skirts. The coach awaited us. We settled inside, keeping open the shutter that looked onto the spirit world. The eru swung up on the back. As the coach rolled forward, the crow took wing.


    In time, we came to a crossroads. We took the left-hand path, striking out along a ridgeline track from whose height we could see across vales and rises. I leaned out to let the wind blow into my face. I smelled a peppery spice so hot its aroma made my eyes water. I heard plucked strings in a waterfall of notes. I tasted the tears of the dead whose salt was the memory of voices I had not heard for years: My mother and father, conversing in low, loving voices as my child self drifted off to sleep, safe in their arms.


    ¡°Cat!¡± Bee was shaking me. ¡°Wake up! We¡¯ve come to the river.¡±


    I had fallen asleep. My head was swollen with uneasy dreams, but when I patted my hair, everything seemed in order. I hadn¡¯t sprouted cat¡¯s ears or an eru¡¯s wings. I looked out the window and saw a field of black rocks. Beyond the field flowed a wide river as pale as molten pewter. Light glinted over the water and thrust through my eyes to open a shaft of memory: I am six, and I am drowning alongside my parents. Water pours into my mouth.


    ¡°Look!¡± Bee¡¯s shriek jolted me free.


    She pressed open her sketchbook. At the bottom of the page, I saw myself wearing a very irritated expression no doubt because the clothes I wore in the sketch looked like a printed curtain wrapped around my waist topped by an immodestly low-cut blouse of a fabric so gauzy it was almost translucent. Blessed Tanit! As if I would ever dress so indecently! Above, Bee had drawn a field of black rocks. One rock, split in half as if by a bolt of lightning, was circled and had an arrow pointing at it. A river lay behind it and, on the far shore, five mighty ash trees.


    I looked out the window. Five mighty ash trees rose on the other side of the river.


    ¡°Stop!¡± She hammered on the roof of the coach.


    She shoved the sketchbook into the bag as the coach slowed. Before we came to a stop, she flung open the door and leaped out. Knit bag flapping behind her, she dashed into the rocks like a dog let loose in a trash pit.


    The coach lurched to a stop. I jumped out and with sheathed sword in hand ran after her. The rocks were like the oozing remains of a porridge that has congealed into a crusty, jagged blanket. I slipped, caught myself on the nearest rock, and scraped my palm.


    Glancing back, I saw the coachman holding the arm of the eru as if restraining her; her wings were half open. Crows cawed. I heard a buzzing noise, like the whirr of a factory floor. A loud splash disturbed the river. Could Bee really escape the spirit world through water?


    Bee walked in widening circles, picking her way along the rocks with the knife in her hand. Her body stiffened as she saw something. She dropped to her knees and hacked at the ground.


    ¡°Cat, help me!¡± Dirt spat up.


    I hurried over. ¡°What are you doing? Go to the river!¡±


    Ignoring me, she knelt in the cleft of a rock that was split in half. The hollow between the split halves was as wide as my out-stretched arms; rotted debris matted the ground like felted cloth.


    ¡°Help me!¡± She chopped and dug without cease.


    The ground heaved. Fissures splintered the earth like veins swelling and bursting. I grabbed her arm to drag her away, but she shoved the knife at me and began digging with her hands.

 Page 57

    ¡°Something terrible is going happen if I don¡¯t uncover them,¡± she cried.


    Her fingers scraped dirt off a roundish thing that had a coppery shine. Fractured streaks of light chased patterns along its sheeny surface. Beneath the dirt she uncovered ten; no, twenty; no, fifty. Packed tight and deep, the fist-sized smooth objects filled the hollow.


    They were eggs.


    With a faint pop, one of the coppery eggs cracked. A sliver like a shard of broken glass thrust through the gap. Away in the distance rose the howl of an enraged beast. Gingerly, I poked at the egg with the knife and peeled back an inner shell wreathed with tendrils of translucent goo. A pasty mass pulsed vilely inside, a slimy grub the color of mottled vomit and metallic yolk.


    I dropped the knife and raised my hand to smash it.


    ¡°We¡¯ve got to help them get to the river!¡± Bee grabbed the knife and kept digging.


    Horrified by my urge to kill something so small and helpless, I scrambled back to perch on the rock. The grub slithered out of the egg. No bigger than my hand, it had four limbs, a tail, a long beast-like torso, and a deformed back all crinkly like mashed-up paper. It had a snout for a face, with pasty-white strings striping its muzzle and head.


    It was foul, and I hated it.


    It opened its eyes to reveal molten fire, a blaze of blue-white heat. With a shudder, its outer skin hardened and sloughed off as I might shed a coat on going indoors. Beneath shimmered scaly skin as darkly red as the dregs of smoldering coals.


    I could not look away from its eyes. That brilliant, fathomless gaze devoured me.


    I had seen a gaze like this before: an old man sitting in a library with no fire and three dogs sprawled close, basking in the heat he radiated. He had kissed Bee on the forehead and on the lips.


    I had seen jewel eyes like this in the headmaster¡¯s emerald gaze before the spark was subsumed by ordinary brown.


    A shadow fell over us in a flutter of black wings. A crow snatched up the tiny creature and gulped it down in one bite.


    Bee screamed with pure rage, but she did not stop digging. Around her, more eggs cracked. A crow landed beside me, intent on the nearest egg. On the rock opposite, a bold creature with the look of a plump rodent poised; it had a meek, chubby face, but a frightening mad gleam in its little black eyes as it fixed on a hatchling squirming up out of the hollow. It lunged and caught the thing, which spat and hissed in vain as the rodent ripped off its head.


    I jabbed at the crow, which hopped back. Bee dug. The grubs emerged, shed, and crawled. Their sluggish swarm crept toward the river. Predators descended: more crows; a cruel-billed eagle; stinging flies like a cloud of misery that covered the hatchlings with vibrating wings.


    The hatchlings had no voices. They just died.


    But the wind had a voice, a rising chatter and roar. Shadows boiled on the horizon. My heart froze in my chest. The creatures of the spirit world were racing or shambling or flying toward us in their tens and hundreds: proud eru, gracile antelopes, sleek wolves, clumsy six-legged oxen.


    ¡°Bee.¡± I crunched over broken copper shells. ¡°You¡¯ve got to get to the river.¡±


    ¡°I have to save them.¡± Her hands were smeared with the grease and mucus of their rising, and still they writhed upward, on her, across her, for she was oblivious to their blood and slime. ¡°I can¡¯t leave until they¡¯re all dug out.¡±


    ¡°We have to go. Pick up what you can carry in your skirts. I¡¯ll cover your back.¡±


    She gathered up her outer skirt and scooped up what hatchlings she could into the cloth. Then she ran, light on her feet despite the rugged terrain. I cut at crows diving at her head. I swiped my blade through a cloud of glittering-winged creatures that had tiny fox faces and grotesque, elongated limbs like grasshoppers. I stabbed a rat, and shook it free just in time to spear a ghastly huge moth trying to fly away with a hatchling.


    A chuckling rolling laugh surprised me. To my right, the four hyenas loped closer. I thrust at the closest, my blade catching in the loose skin of its neck. It swung its head back and forth, almost jerking me off my feet, but I wrenched my blade free and raced after Bee. I stepped on a hatchling, crushing it, but there were a dozen crawling beside it. Birds dropped, snagging up the morsels. Some ate them; others flew higher and dropped the grubs to smash on the rocks.


    I grabbed up one of the little pathetic creatures, but it bit me with nasty stinging teeth, and I yelped and let go.


    ¡°Cat!¡± Bee splashed into the shallows and opened her skirt.


    Hatchlings spilled, flashing and undulating as they began to swim.


    Fish with bulbous eyes and teeth like thorns rose out of the water to feed. Pikes and golden-red salmon breached the surface. The water churned with their thrashing. Blood ran in threads. Hatchlings she had not helped reached the shore, nosing into the water.

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    I stood with one foot on the bank and one in the water, my blade unsheathed. But with so many hatchlings to feast on, even the hyenas had forgotten us, all except the one I had cut. It looked straight at me with black, intelligent eyes, and gave that unsettling laugh.


    ¡°Bee, you have to swim.¡±


    She did not answer.


    ¡°Bee!¡±


    I spun around. She was gone.


    A hatchling crawled over my boot and into the water. A fish rose up with mouth gaping. I stabbed the cursed fish and flung it high. Its body spun off my blade and hit the water. Following its arc with my gaze, I saw Bee.


    She was under the river, walking through a coruscating whirlpool that had created a tunnel of water leading to a bright net flung deep within the current. Hatchlings swam on all sides of her; many had latched on to her clothes. She should have been drowning yet she walked as if through air. So fixated was she on herding the hatchlings forward that she didn¡¯t even look back for me.


    The last little hatchling launched after her, diving fearlessly into the water.


    I slashed my blade through the water to keep biting fish away from the last one. I waded in past my hips, past my chest, my skirts sodden and dragging, calling Bee¡¯s name, but she could not hear me. Water slopped into my mouth. The current dragged at me, pulling me down. The river wanted to drown me. Panicking, I struggled back toward shore, gasping with fear and swallowing more water.


    White light splintered the horizon. The frenzy of feasting ceased abruptly. A distant vibration, as of a village bell heard across miles of empty countryside, sounded like the toll of death. The feeding eru in the field rose in a battering of wings and headed for the road. Earthbound animals scrambled after.


    ¡°Little cat! Hurry! The tide comes!¡± The coachman called from the road.


    I leaped from rock to rock past the smashed remains of hatchlings and one little grub still working its way toward the river. The coachman stretched out a hand and hauled me up onto the road just as the knife edge of the dream cut over us. I covered my face with my hands, coughing and choking on the memory of the river¡¯s water filling my mouth. I hadn¡¯t been able to follow her.


    As the bell¡¯s long reverberation faded, a rush of sound filled its silence. I looked up to see hundreds of eru rising off the road and flying away. Closer, my eru waited beside the coach-and-four. Blood smeared her mouth. I winced away, and my gaze swept the landscape.


    Only there was no land. We stood on a causeway, surrounded by a wild gray sea. Waves broke over shallows in foaming white caps. Spray stung my face. I saw not one sign of life, nothing except a single black crow fighting the wind, the eru watching me as she wiped blood from her lips, and the coachman checking the traces on the horses.


    My voice trembled. ¡°When the tide came, Bee wasn¡¯t on warded ground. She¡¯ll be changed.¡±


    ¡°Little cat, she who walks the dreams of dragons cannot be altered by their tides,¡± said the eru.


    I thought of how I had clung to Bee when the tide had swept over us at the first river. Other creatures had changed, but she and I had remained as we were.


    ¡°You see why we who live in this world hate such as she,¡± added the eru.


    A wave spilled over the causeway. I pressed against the coach, clinging to the open door. ¡°So she¡¯s crossed back to the mortal world?¡± I said desperately. ¡°I couldn¡¯t follow.¡±


    ¡°You are not as she,¡± said the eru. ¡°What binds her does not bind you.¡±


    ¡°What binds me?¡± I whispered.


    The eru laughed in a way that made me cringe.


    The coachman nodded toward the door. ¡°The master is waiting.¡±


    Bee had escaped. Surely that was all that mattered, the best outcome I could have hoped for. Weary to my bones, my face moist with sea spume and my body battered by a tearing wind rising off the wide, dark sea, I climbed into the coach and sank onto the cushions.


    ¡°What were those grubs she dug up?¡± I asked, looking out at him.


    Without answering, he shut the door, although he left the shutter open. Outside, four gray birds with long beaks swept into view, battling the wind. One dove and snatched a fish out of the water. They flapped to rest on the rocky revetment that shored up the causeway and began pecking life and entrails out of the fish. I looked away, down at the brass latch. Glimmering eyes watched me.


    The coach rocked as the coachman climbed up into the box. As we began to move, the latch spoke in a hissing gremlin voice, its elongated mouth drawn tight in a mocking grin.


    ¡°Dragons. Silly girl. Those that survive will become dragons. Some will breed, and some will nest, and sleep, and dream, and then the tide of their dreams will wash through this country. It can never end until they are all dead. The master is waiting. He is very angry.¡±

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    We rolled on as night poured over the sea and blinded me.


    13


    I did not sleep. I could not sleep. I closed my eyes, but my thoughts tumbled in time to the rhythm of hooves and the rattle of the turning wheels. As the wheel turns, we rise and we fall. So say the Romans, who rose and fell and rose again, even if their second empire was smaller than the first.


    Take Beatrice with you, the headmaster had said. Bee had walked unchanged through the tide of dreaming when everything around her was altered. She had known where to find the nest because her dreams had told her, and she had drawn the landmarks and the actual spot. The hatchlings that survived had crossed back to the mortal world, and through water Bee had shepherded them home.


    I could not rest, and I had no one else to talk to. I looked down at the latch.


    ¡°Is that what it means to walk the dreams of dragons? That you aren¡¯t changed by the tide?¡±


    The gremlin face snickered.


    ¡°You remind me of my young cousin Astraea.¡± I folded my arms on my chest.


    After a long pause, it said, sulkily, ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d like to tell you, but we haven¡¯t been formally introduced. What can I call you?¡±


    ¡°What can you call me? A good question. Names, like blood, can be eaten in this country. Do not spill names lightly. I have no name. What can I call you?¡±


    ¡°You already know my name.¡±


    It added a smirk to its repertory of unpleasant smiles. ¡°True. The cold mage called you Catherine.¡±


    A sudden inquisitive urge overtook me to learn more about the man I¡¯d been forced to marry. ¡°Did the cold mage talk to you?¡±


    Light glinted where its eyes should have been, like lantern light picking up the sheen of polished brass. ¡°Why should he? If he didn¡¯t know I could talk? He doesn¡¯t know as much as he thinks he does.¡±


    ¡°No, so I¡¯ve discovered. What else do you know about him?¡±


    ¡°He weaves threads of magic into images. That was nice. It is a bit boring, you know.¡±


    ¡°Is it? Can¡¯t you see outside?¡±


    It sighed, with a squinched grimace. ¡°No. That¡¯s the other latch. We never talk.¡±


    ¡°Did the cold mage do anything else?¡±


    ¡°Not until you got into the coach. And I must say, except for looking at you a lot when you were asleep, he sat very still, not like you, shifting about and rubbing the cushions and snoring when you sleep.¡±


    ¡°I do not snore!¡±


    ¡°You do! So did the dreamer.¡±


    I realized that every word Bee and I had said, in the privacy of this coach, the gremlin had overheard and could repeat.


    It spoke as gleefully as that little beast Astraea when she had been thwarted of something she wanted and felt her only leverage to sway you was just being mean. ¡°The Wild Hunt knows she exists. Her scent is on me, on you, on these cushions, on the wind. When next the gate opens to the Deathlands, they¡¯ll ride through, hunt her down, and kill her.¡±


    I riposted with an attack. ¡°Are you glad of it?¡±


    ¡°Oh, I don¡¯t care,¡± said the gremlin, mouth flat as if hiding another emotion. ¡°Why should I care? She would have hacked me to pieces.¡±


    ¡°No, because I would have hacked you to pieces first. No offense intended. We just wanted to run away. Can you blame me?¡±


    The gremlin shut its burning eyes and remained silent for so long that I bent closer, my breath visible as a shimmering glamour on its brass face.


    ¡°Remember one thing, little cat.¡± Its voice altered, as if someone else were speaking through its mouth. ¡°You must have his permission to ask questions. Do not ask questions.¡±


    A gust of wind sprinkled salt spray over my face, and I blinked. When I looked again, the latch was just a smooth brass latch. Cautiously, I touched it, but it did not bite.


    ¡°Hey, there,¡± I whispered.


    It did not answer.


    On we rolled through the restless sea-swept night. Every time a big swell struck the causeway and splashed, I flinched as droplets spattered my face. Yet I could not bring myself to close the shutters, for then I would truly feel I was in a cage.


    Bee had crossed. She would find Rory. They were safe. That belief I clung to.


    On we rolled, and I did not sleep.


    After forever, night lightened to day. The wind-washed sea spread to a horizon so gray it was impossible to tell where the sea ended and the sky began. At first I took the pale shapes rising and falling along the swells for boats, and then I realized they were rafts of ice. I shivered and drew my coat tighter around me as the coach slowed to a halt.


    The horses stamped.

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    A footfall clapped on stone.


    I clambered out because I could not bear to sit inside for one more breath. Better to plunge into the storm than cower to await its blow.


    We had come to the end of the road.


    The causeway ended in a pile of rocks. Breakers boiled at their base. The gray sea was whipped by a stark wind under an iron sky. Islands of ice peaked and troughed as swells passed beneath them. The wind chapped my face, and when I licked my lips to moisten them, I tasted my own blood, for the wind¡¯s icy claws had cut them.


    ¡°Go to your sire,¡± said the coachman. He pointed to a rowboat leashed to a post among the rocks, waves breaking beneath its fragile ribs. ¡°We have brought you as far as we can.¡±


    Once or twice in your life the iron stone of evil tidings passes from its exile in Sheol into that place just under your ribs that makes it hard to breathe. That makes you think you¡¯re going to die, or you¡¯re dead already, or that the bad thing you thought might happen is actually far worse than you had ever dreamed and that even if you wake up, it won¡¯t go away.


    ¡°My sire?¡± I whispered, my mind recoiling.


    All that was out there was cold, deadly water.


    The coachman said, ¡°Remember, he seeks what you fear most so that you come to him most vulnerable. Courage, Cousin.¡±


    ¡°Look for the tower,¡± the eru called.


    My feet moved under the master¡¯s compulsion. My heart squeezed as in a vise, I picked my way over the rocks while fixing my sword into the loop at my hip, tied three times so I wouldn¡¯t lose it. I closed a hand around my locket as I splashed into the pebbled shore break.


    ¡°Blessed Tanit. Father and Mother. Watch over your daughter.¡± What hold did he have over me, the creature who had sired me and yet left me to be raised by others? Why had my mother never spoken of this? Or had she and Daniel been waiting until I was older?


    The water hissed, mocking me. I stuffed the locket beneath coat, jacket, and shift, against my skin. Caught on an incoming swell, the boat slammed into my knees and I sprawled forward into it, facedown in the choke water of the bilge. I inhaled a miasma of foul brine. One of the oars whacked me on the head. I grabbed at it as the boat pitched sideways. Water sloshed in, so cold I could not breathe.


    The boat came loose. It began to tip and spin as the waves brought the prow around. In a moment, I¡¯d be swamped.


    I sucked in air, battled up to the seat, and grabbed the oars. Already, impossibly, the boat had drifted a hundred paces from the pier of stone where the coach-and-four waited. If the tide of a dragon¡¯s dream washed the spirit world now, I would be lost. Changed. Obliterated.


    ¡°Tanit protect me! Melqart grant me wisdom. Ba¡¯al give me strength!¡±


    I set to the oars, working the prow back around. With my back to the swells, I rowed into the sea. The prow lifted and dropped, lifted and dropped, my backside slapping on and off the seat each time. Water slurped in with each plunge.


    I rowed, glancing over my shoulder as I set my sights on a nearby floe of ice that appeared as a sculpted tower. I rowed until my shoulders ached and my back throbbed. I rowed until the causeway was nothing more than a smear on the sea like a smudge of charcoal on one of Bee¡¯s sketches that she had forgotten to erase.


    The rowing kept my body warm and my boots kept my feet mostly dry, but I had begun to lose the feeling in my fingers. I could not think of the watery deeps. Instead, I thought of Bee, dragged away by a call neither of us understood. I thought of Rory, compelled to kill the enemy. I thought of Uncle Jonatan and Aunt Tilly. Of Bee¡¯s sisters, amiable Hanan and annoying little Astraea. Of the charismatic general, Camjiata. I thought of handsome Brennan and thoughtful Kehinde, and of the trolls and their odd charm. Most strangely, I thought of my husband.


    I thought: He would row beside me. He would not have left me here alone.


    I was getting awfully tired of being someone else¡¯s puppet. The salt that stung worst in my eyes was the pressure of angry tears. I was not going to give up now, even in the middle of that which I feared most. A wave crashed over the prow, and the boat sank up to its gunnels. The water embraced me with an icily heart-stopping grip.


    Breathe.


    In and out. That was the first thing. In and out, measured and steady. I fumbled at the buttons of my winter coat and tugged it off just as a wave plowed into my back, flinging me sideways into the merciless sea.


    The ice of the water robbed me of breath. I had no air.


    I dragged an arm free of the water and heaved myself over the gunnel, using the swamped boat to keep me afloat. The waves wrapped my sodden skirts around my legs. The shocking cold made my throat close and my chest tighten, and I was sure I would pass out. But I bit at the inside of my mouth until the pain brought me reeling back.

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    Breathe.


    Kicking my way around to the stern, I pushed the boat toward the ice floe. As my legs grew inert and my heart grew numb, the shadow of the ice covered me. The boat nudged onto a shelf.


    Gasping, spitting, retching, I crawled out. I had no feeling in my hands and little strength in my limbs, yet by fixing fingers onto knobs of pitted ice, I pulled myself out of the deadly water.


    For a while, an eternity, I lay on the ice like a suffocating fish.


    A whisper of warmth pulsed against my skin where the locket pressed between my breasts. It aroused me from my stupor. I took in a breath, salt water fouling my mouth. Shaking, I rose. I checked my sword, the loop twisted so tight my frozen fingers could not untangle it. The locket¡¯s throbbing heat fed strength to me as I stared across the shelf toward a vertical fissure in the ice. The fissure led into blackness.


    Really, what choice had I?


    ¡°Brave enough for my purpose,¡± said a male voice, smooth and cold. I saw no one, not a single sign of life. ¡°Come, Daughter. I will look on you now.¡±


    ¡°I hate you,¡± I whispered to the empty ice.


    He laughed, as if my squeak of outrage amused him. As if he could hear everything. And maybe he could, for would it not explain me?


    Maybe that would teach me to keep my mouth shut and not speak when I ought to be silent.


    My legs were as heavy as logs as I stumped into the fissure. If he hadn¡¯t killed me by now, he might actually wish to see what manner of creature he had sired on Tara Bell. A warm breeze stirred the passage. A bell tolled three times, the vibration passing right through my flesh. I felt as if my soul were being rung to check its temper, as a person might flick a finger against a finely wrought glass vessel to see how pure the sound is.


    Light bloomed to reveal an arch made out of two massive ivory tusks. The tusks were carved with crows and hounds and saber-toothed cats and an eru, and with the image of a girl no more than six years of age. She had long, straight hair and held a sheathed sword far too big for her.


    The girl was me.


    My body began to prickle and stab as sensation returned. I stumbled under the arch, which vanished, leaving me in a blast of humid air so fetid I hid my face behind my hands. The smell faded, and the light sharpened.


    I lowered my hands.


    To find myself and see myself in a maze of mirrors, reflected over and over again. Blessed Tanit! I was a mess! My complexion looked as lifeless as the underbelly of a dead fish; my hair clumped in knots and tangles to my hips; my clothes wrung around my body.


    ¡°Find me,¡± his voice said. ¡°One is a gate, not a true mirror. Walk through it, and I will answer three questions.¡±


    I turned, seeing myself turn over and over, I and I and I, each one of me alike. My thoughts lurched sluggishly as I blinked, trying to signal myself as I had blinked at Andevai in the troll¡¯s nest. Why did I think of the troll¡¯s nest? Of course: The upper floor had formed a maze of mirrors.


    What was it Andevai had said that time in the carriage when he had thought I was asleep? He had been weaving illusions. He had woven my face in light.


    ¡°The light and shadow must reflect and darken consistent with the conditions of light at the time of the illusion.¡±


    I had it: In every mirror except one I saw my reflection. My jacket¡¯s buttons were sewn on the left so when I drew my sword it would not hang up in the cloth. I looked for the one image of me with the buttons on the image left not the mirror left.


    When I found her, I walked into myself. Heat cut through me to banish the chill that numbed my bones. My steps sank into a thick pile of lush rug, and I halted.


    I was the candle that lit the chamber, for its depths were shadow as layered as draped cloth dyed black. At four points equidistant around me, as if at the four points of the compass, loomed four monstrous toads with belligerent stances. Their skin had the yellow-green color of fouled mucus. They did not move, nor did they blink, if toads even blinked. The only way I could tell they were alive was by the pulsing beat in their throats.


    A personage sat cross-legged on the back of a turtle. He was clothed in amulets, or perhaps his body was covered in an illusion woven to appear as a shimmering fabric. He had long straight beautiful jet-black hair just like mine and Rory¡¯s. The skin of his bare arms had the same coppery burnished-bronze shade as Rory¡¯s. His face was hidden behind a mask like a sheet of ice. His eyes had neither colored iris nor black pupil, only fathomless light.


    He regarded me in silence, masked and unkindly. On a perch next to him sat that evil crow, watching me with its evil black eyes, and I understood that what it saw, he saw, because he had bound it to his will.

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    I tried to marshal my thoughts, but I could not keep the accusation from popping out.


    ¡°Would you have let me drown?¡±


    ¡°You must be both clever and strong. Otherwise you are of no use to me. That is one.¡±


    ¡°What manner of creature are you, that you can breed with a saber-toothed cat and a human woman, and no doubt other females besides?¡±


    ¡°I am the Master of the Wild Hunt. That is two.¡±


    His words hit as a blow. I sank to my knees as the truth poured over me.


    My sire was the Master of the Wild Hunt, before whose spears even cold mages were powerless.


    Had Tara Bell known? Blessed Tanit! Of course she had known!


    ¡°Did you kill my parents?¡± I whispered.


    ¡°Yes. That is your third. Now, Tara Bell¡¯s child, I will ask you three questions.¡±


    ¡°Even though it wasn¡¯t Hallows¡¯ Night, you found a way to kill them,¡± I cried. ¡°It was your voice that said ¡®Daughter,¡¯ not my father¡¯s. It was your arms that pulled me out of the Rhenus River while leaving them to drown. You killed them, and saved me.¡±


    ¡°Your destiny was chosen before you were born because I made you. Tara Bell promised to bring the child to me, but she disobeyed me. So I punished her.¡±


    ¡°I hate you.¡±


    As if hate blazed, the chamber grew brighter. The shadows retreated to reveal a seething mass of creatures ringing the edge of what I now realized was a vast cavern whose walls were ice. Everywhere frozen within the transparent ice I saw hunters caught in motion: sleek hounds striped in gray and gold; hulking dire wolves; scowling hyenas; carrion crows; big spotted cats; men with dog faces and four paws instead of hands and feet; creatures half moth and half woman with soft gray wings and wicked sharp teeth; a cloud of wasps; slumbering snakes in coils and layers; furred spiders with faceted eyes; owls; and rank upon rank of bats with folded-up wings. Did they sleep, or were they suspended by the power of the ice?


    ¡°You can¡¯t hate me because you do not know me nor do you know anything of me.¡± His voice¡¯s timbre was limned with an indifference so supreme it was like asking the sun what it thought of you and receiving no answer. ¡°You are a mortal creature bound and ruled by the tides and currents of the Deathlands. The tide that surges through you, you name as hate because you have no other way to describe it. But you need not remain bound and ruled by the tides that govern other creatures. How do you cross between the worlds?¡±


    His question compelled my answer. ¡°With my blood.¡±


    ¡°In the Deathlands, in what ways can you weave the threads that bind the worlds?¡±


    ¡°I can see in the dark. I can hear exceptionally well. I can conceal myself.¡±


    ¡°What is your name?¡±


    I gritted my teeth in stubborn resistance, sinking to sit on my heels as I pressed my right hand to the locket. Its heartening pulse rose and fell like my father¡¯s breathing when as a young child I had sat on his lap as he told me stories. I grasped my sword¡¯s hilt and thought of my mother. With my elbow I brushed the hem of my jacket, feeling the stone I had picked up from the road. I remembered what Vai¡¯s grandmother had told me: Names are power.


    I pressed my lips together. Keep silence. Tell no one.


    ¡°Do not defy me. You do not have the strength. What is your name??¡±


    Despite my struggle to keep them closed, my lips parted. For all my life I had been told to call myself Catherine Hassi Barahal. Yet the name his command called forth was the name Camjiata had given me, the name that linked me to the mother who bore me and the father who had chosen to raise me. ¡°Catherine Bell Barahal.¡±


    A black fleck like ash flickered in those blank bright eyes. ¡°Now your name is mine, and you are mine. You are both my offspring and my servant, obedient to me because you are part of me, bone of my bone and blood of my blood. I will tell you this one thing, Catherine Bell Barahal. I admired your mother. Tara Bell was a female strong of will, with the strength of iron, and with the heart to accept fear but not succumb to it. You are like her. What I did not understand until later was that she harbored a reckless disobedience deep in her heart. But I now understand better how chains bind the vulnerable. In the end, she agreed to all I demanded because she was a slave to the threads that bound her to other creatures.¡±


    I thought of my mother, tall and strong, a loyal Amazon in Camjiata¡¯s army, sworn to celibacy. On an expedition to explore the Baltic Ice Sheet, under the light of the aurora borealis, she had debated with Daniel Hassi Barahal, using words as a form of flirtation, maybe even courtship.

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    To honor her, I stood. ¡°No one knows what happened during that expedition, just that most of them died and a very few survived. I can only think of one way to interpret what you¡¯ve just said. You trapped them somehow, on the ice, maybe even in the spirit world. She agreed to have sexual congress with you to save the lives of the others. She did it to save my father¡¯s life, because she loved him.¡±


    ¡°That male did not father you.¡±


    ¡°He fathered me in every way that counts. You only sired me.¡± My voice rasped with unshed tears, thinking of what my mother had agreed to, and how she must have loved me anyway and risked her life and everything she knew to make a life for me. Had Daniel known? Or had she borne this secret alone, hoping the hunter might forget both her and the child? I would never know.


    ¡°That you are as you are is a gift that comes from me only. You must be what I made you to be. Forged like cold steel out of many layers, you are strong, resilient, and able to adapt in a moment¡¯s reaction.¡±


    ¡°What do you want from me?¡±


    He extended an arm. The crow hopped from its perch to tighten its claws over the bronzed muscles of his forearm. I thought the tips of those claws drew blood, but because of the way the crow¡¯s shadow¡ªthe only shadow my light could not dispel¡ª fell across his body, I could not be certain.


    ¡°I want you to spy for me, Daughter.¡±


    I am not a young woman who craves attention or draws notice to herself through dramatic gestures or heedless bravado. But I admit it. I laughed.


    ¡°To spy for you! That would be no hardship for a person of my background and training. But I¡¯m sure there¡¯s a hook in the bargain that is about to catch in my lip.¡±


    ¡°You may address me as ¡®Your Serenity,¡¯ or ¡®my prince.¡¯ Or as ¡®Father.¡¯¡±


    ¡°Are you mocking me?¡± I demanded.


    ¡°No, I am suggesting it would be both prudent and wise for you to show respect for your master and procreator.¡±


    ¡°I have never been told I am prudent or wise. But I suppose I could address you as ¡®Sire.¡¯¡±


    He betrayed no reaction to my impertinent words and sardonic tone. But the turtle came alive, head easing out from the shell as its eyes opened to look toward me with an unfathomable gaze. My sire tapped it on the head, and it withdrew again. He clapped his hands twice.


    Ice smoked over between two of the toads. Within an alcove, a stout man who had no head sat upright on a bench. Two dripping-wet women clothed only in long hair the oil-brown color of seaweed pressed to either side of him. The headless man lurched up, shedding the females leeched to him. With the shuffling gait of a blind man in a strange room, he carried over a tray with two glasses on it. He paused in front of me, and I took a step back, for I had a sudden fear that he might grope me, and I was sure I would scream if he did. He wore a patched tunic with trews beneath, calves bound with cord over soft leather summer boots. Rings adorned his fingers. A buttery-gold torc spanned his neck, whose severed trunk oozed greasily, as if it had never quite healed but could not quite bleed.


    ¡°Drink with me to seal our bargain,¡± said my sire.


    ¡°I dare not drink or eat what is served to me in the spirit world lest some property within trap me further.¡±


    ¡°Take the cup, Catherine Bell Barahal.¡±


    My hand took a cup. It was filled with an amber liquid.


    The headless serving man carried the tray over to my sire, who plucked the other glass from it. The headless man shuffled back over to the bench. The water spirits clutched at him. Their clinging seemed obscene, for while their hair in streaks concealed most of their bodies, what made the display so disturbing was that, beneath his trews, the man was visibly and powerfully aroused. Dear me. Blushing, I looked away to examine the carpets on which I stood, many layers strewn haphazardly across the floor as if to cover a mighty stain seeping upward.


    No, this was not helping at all.


    Mastering myself, I looked toward my sire. By now my clothes were half dry, my skin coated with a sticky salt grime, and my hair lifting away from my neck in knotted tangles as it dried. I was exhausted¡ªthat went without saying although naturally, as Bee would have commented, I would have mentioned it anyway¡ªbut I was no longer frozen and disheartened. He hadn¡¯t smitten me yet.


    ¡°Is that Bran Cof, the poet? The one you torment?¡±


    He sipped at the amber wine as if considering its taste or my faults.


    ¡°Are the creatures who sleep in the ice your slaves? Or do they serve you willingly out of their own natures?¡±


    Despite his silence, I was beginning to get the impression that my bold manner amused him.

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    ¡°Does the Wild Hunt hunt at your pleasure, or for some other purpose?¡±


    ¡°Does no one teach the law these days?¡± he said mockingly. ¡°Let me educate you, little cat. On Hallows¡¯ Night, the Wild Hunt rides into the Deathlands. It culls the spirits of those who will die in the coming year. I am sure you already know the story. The hunt rides on the night of sundering because that is its nature and its purpose.¡±


    I bowed my head, for I remembered the story my father had told me long ago about the Wild Hunt and a young hunter who had sought and found the other half of his soul. I remembered the day I had escaped from Four Moons House, when I¡¯d heard a horn¡¯s call on Hallows¡¯ Eve rising out of the earth like mist and filtering down from the sky like rain. That call had penetrated my bones and my blood and my heart. No one fated to die in the coming year could escape the hunt.


    ¡°But that is not the only reason the Wild Hunt rides. Blood, Daughter. We must have blood. One mortal life feeds the courts for a year. The stronger the blood, the richer the feast.¡±


    ¡°The day court and the night court,¡± I whispered. ¡°That¡¯s what they¡¯re called.¡±


    ¡°All serve the courts,¡± he agreed.


    ¡°The enemy doesn¡¯t serve them.¡±


    Movement stirred in the ice, and I realized I had gone too far. An owl swooped out of the empty air to settle on the perch. Its golden eyes chained me. I fell into the rip current of its gaze.


    I was trapped in the banded, breathing heart of the ice. It was as cold as death and as heavy as the weight of an ice shelf groaning down to crush one fragile human heart. Beneath winter¡¯s aching cold lies a deeper cold that leaches blood and heat into a vessel where stolen sparks can be shaped into more obedient forms.


    ¡°The ice is alive. Not as you and I are alive. It¡¯s not a creature or a person. But it lives, although I couldn¡¯t tell you how or why.¡± The recollection of Brennan Du¡¯s words roused me.


    I had been standing. Now, as if I had been brutally hammered by the power of a cold mage¡¯s anger, I found myself on hands and knees although I had no memory of falling. I had dropped the cup, and it had rolled an arm¡¯s length away.


    I inhaled hard, air hit my lungs, and the dizzy whirling dread subsided.


    Until I looked up to his masked face.


    ¡°The blood of the enemy is poison,¡± he murmured, as if he had once sipped it. ¡°But the enemy found a way to enter our world through mortal hands, through the females who walk the tide of dreams. So must the courts enter the mortal world likewise, through mortal flesh. You will go to a place in the Deathlands that is surrounded by the Taninim, they who rule the seas. You can reach there because of the flesh you wear that you inherited from your mother¡¯s blood and bone.¡±


    Did ¡°surrounded by the Taninim¡± mean an island? Was it possible the Wild Hunt could not reach islands? Or only one particular place? I knew better than to ask such a question directly.


    ¡°Sire, you already have servants who walk in the mortal world. Like the eru and coachman who brought me here. They pretend to serve the mage Houses, but they are really there to spy on the cold mages, aren¡¯t they? To make sure no magister becomes too powerful a threat?¡±


    Had he not been wearing a mask, I would have guessed he smiled, yet it would have been a smile one could not wish to see on a face. ¡°Cold mages serve the courts without knowing they do. They comprehend in an attenuated way the power of the courts and do their best to avoid the Wild Hunt¡¯s notice. They understand that if they spread their net of power too widely or grasp at too much, the courts smell a scent of power, and the Wild Hunt is unleashed to hunt them down.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a clever way to control the power of the cold mages,¡± I agreed with what I hoped was a smile of rueful admiration, preparing my flattery in order to attempt a leading question.


    ¡°Do not play false with me, Daughter. I can smell it.¡±


    To give myself a moment to think, I picked up the cup. It had not lost a single drop of the amber wine. ¡°How shall we communicate while I am in the Deathlands? Can you see through my eyes and speak through my mouth?¡±


    ¡°Ah. You¡¯ve pleased me with a clever question instead of an impertinent one. No. Your mother¡¯s flesh blinds me to you except on Hallows¡¯ Day. I will send my servants if I need to speak with you.¡±


    My heart¡¯s pulse thundered in my ears as a sense of relief flooded me. Well, then. Once I left this hall, he could not oversee or control my actions. Yet perhaps he was hiding a hook. ¡°If that¡¯s so, why send me? Why not send your other servants?¡±

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    ¡°By your service, you shall receive answers. Until then, you will simply obey.¡±


    He raised his cup to his lips, gaze on me; my hand raised my cup to my lips. Without drinking, he lowered his hand; without drinking, I lowered mine. I had to; his will forced me.


    ¡°You take my point,¡± he said. ¡°We have reached a turning in the path. A power stirs in the mortal world. It pours from one vessel into another, and its motion churns and heats and cools the threads that bind the worlds. The courts whisper, for they are troubled. Has a cold mage reached too far and grasped for too much? Does an unknown power rise out of the lair of the enemy? This is your task: Find that power, identify it, and lead me to it, on the coming Hallows¡¯ Night.¡±


    My heart constricted. Or at least, that¡¯s what the tightening sensation in my chest felt like. I touched my chin, where Andevai had cut me with cold steel. I knew what it was to discover, too late, that you have been chosen to be the sacrifice.


    ¡°Why should I betray anyone, when I know it means you¡¯ll kill them?¡± I demanded.


    ¡°On Hallows¡¯ Night, the Wild Hunt will ride, as it does every year. We will cull the spirits of those who will die in the coming year. And we will take the blood of one mortal creature. Why should you find that power, identify it, and lead me to it? Because otherwise I will choose which mortal¡¯s blood we take. My eyes and ears have followed you and your companions, Daughter. I know you walked into the spirit world with a servant of the enemy. She walked in these lands and released a nest. My own servants should not have allowed her to escape, but their actions serve me regardless. You will spy out a fitting sacrifice, one whose blood is rich and strong. Because if you don¡¯t, then on Hallows¡¯ Night the hunt will track the girl you call your cousin until we corner her.¡±


    Dismembered and her head thrown in a well.


    I felt my courage flayed off my skin, an obsidian dagger slicing away filaments of hope.


    Oh, Blessed Tanit. Gracious Melqart. Noble Ba¡¯al. The threat of mage Houses, princes, and Romans hunting her through Adurnam seemed pathetic now. The mansa had been right, hadn¡¯t he? We should have gone with the cold mages, for then none of this would have happened.


    None of this would have happened now. But the Wild Hunt would track her down eventually, if not this year, then the next. It was only a matter of time for Beatrice Hassi Barahal, who walked the dreams of dragons in the unwitting service of the courts¡¯ enemy. No one could stand against the Wild Hunt. No one. Unless the story was true that the headmaster had snatched his assistant from the jaws of the hunt. Yet he had sent Bee into the spirit world, despite its dangers.


    ¡°Let me repeat myself, so you fully understand me.¡± The Master of the Wild Hunt did not need to shout. His voice pierced me to the bone and crushed my heart. ¡°There can only be one sacrifice. And there will be one. That is the law.¡±


    So he settled his chains on me, for there was no one to help us, and no one to trust.


    I¡¯ll do anything to save her.


    Anything.


    Would Bee forgive me when I did?


    ¡°Now we seal our bond with a drink, Daughter. Pick up the glass.¡±


    He drank, and therefore I drank. The liquor tasted of bees and fate, nothing more. I hated it.


    But he was satisfied.


    ¡°You serve me now. I release you to your hunt.¡±


    The crow flapped off his arm and straight for me. As I flung up my arm to fend it off, it raked me above the left ear with its talons. Pain burned along my neck. Blood welled. The crow plunged at me again. I jerked sideways, unable to fix myself on the springy ground made by the carpets. My blood spattered, flecks spraying around me.


    The owl¡¯s eyes spun like time¡¯s hands racing forward. The hall of ice began to blur and distort as if it were melting. The carpets dissolved as the ground gave way beneath my feet.


    I cried out as a warm wave washed over me.


    Then I was drowning in a wild wind-capped sea under a hot bright blue sky.


    14


    I had always been too frightened of water to learn how to swim. Salt water streamed into my nose and mouth, its taste foul and warm. My feet were weighed down by my winter boots, and my legs tangled in my skirts. The salty brine caressed my face.


    It¡¯s all over. Give up. Let go.


    A solid object thumped into my legs. The force of its impact lifted my face above the water. I sucked for air, inhaled more water, and sank. From beneath, I was pushed up again. I breached the surface flailing while being dragged sideways by my skirts.


    My hand scraped across the gray-white flank of an aquatic creature with a massive fin and dead, flat eyes. Its viciously sharp teeth were caught in my petticoats and skirt. Thrashing and mauling, it dragged me along as it tried to get its jaws out of wool and linen.

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    The thought of becoming supper for this monster concentrated my mind wonderfully. I fixed my hand around its fin and hauled myself over its wide body. Part of the skirt ripped free, strips of fabric fluttering like ribbons through the water. My cane caught against its teeth but did not break. I punched its eye. It peeled away more quickly than I could move.


    I floundered toward a curtain of white and green and blue that bobbed above the waves. A drop of blood stained my sleeve. Had it bitten me? Oh, Gracious Melqart, let me not be bleeding to death here in the unkind sea! But then I remembered the crow tearing at me to draw blood to open the gate.


    A shadow circled beneath me in the water.


    My boot scraped a prominence. I braced on the excrescence as the monster streaked toward me with astonishing speed and breathtaking decisiveness. My sword was again a cane, so it was no use. As the cursed monstrous fish drove in with its maw widening, I fisted a hand.


    Look for the opening. Do not flinch.


    I punched its snout. The impact sent me floating back. To stop myself I dug my boots in among the knobs of the underwater shelf. The monster sheared away. I stood with head and chest above the wind-whipped wavelets. Land lay a short swim away through waters more green than blue: a long stretch of white sandy shoreline backed by lushly green trees swaying in a strong wind. Above, the hard bold blue of the heavens spanned existence. Was that the peak of a tower jutting above the trees to the right?


    Two shapes moved out of the trees. Human shapes. People!


    Blessed Tanit! I might be saved if I could just reach land!


    I scanned the waves but spied no gliding predator. Kicking and stroking, I paddled clumsily through the water until my boots touched sand. I did look back then, but saw nothing except a school of fish flashing away. As I walked out of the sea, water streamed from my hair. My skirts and petticoats wrapped in tatters against my legs.


    I dropped to my knees on cool white sand as fine as the sugar we tasted at festival days. The warmth of the wool riding jacket toasted my skin, making heat prickle down my arms and across my back. I fumbled with the buttons and yanked it off. My tightly laced linen bodice and the loose linen shift plastered my body. Sucking in air made me retch. I coughed up seawater and my dreams and hopes and fears until my throat was raw. But I was pretty sure I was going to live.


    Two people limped toward me across the beach, a male in front and a female behind. He wore a dirty sleeveless shirt and loose trousers unraveling at the hems. She had on a patterned skirt tied around her hips and a loose, sleeveless shirt that exposed her brown arms from shoulder to hand, a sight rarely seen in Adurnam except in high summer.


    As the man lurched up, I rose warily and spoke in a friendly way but without cringing.


    ¡°Greetings of the day to you, Maester. Maestressa. Salvete.¡±


    He extended a hand in the radicals¡¯ manner of greeting.


    I reached out in answer, and only then did I think to wonder why his skin had an ashen cast instead of being brown and healthy; only then did I notice the dead, flat shine of his eyes.


    He grabbed my wrist and yanked me toward him.


    The woman screamed.


    And he bit me.


    He bit me.


    I shrieked. I kicked him in the knee hard enough to topple him as I yanked my arm out of his grasp. I freed my cane and began pounding him over the head and shoulders. Yet he kept trying to get up. He grasped for me with my blood on his lips, smacking them together as if I were water and he parched.


    ¡°Let up! Let up, yee!¡± The woman stumbled to a halt out of range of my cane, holding her side as if winded. She was my age, with black hair twisted into locks and dusted with sand.


    I leaped back, cane raised. She crouched beside the man. My blood smeared his hand, and he started licking it.


    From the direction of the barely-seen tower, a high sweet bell tolled over the island like a warning call.


    ¡°He bit me!¡± He had bitten right through the sleeve of my undershift just below my elbow, leaving a tattered edge.


    She jerked her chin sideways, and the spasmed blink of her brown eyes made me recoil. ¡°Reckon yee wait. Dey come quick.¡±


    My blood spotted the sand. When I glanced toward the green-blue sea, I was sure I saw a finned shadow churn the depths. I raised my bitten arm toward my lips.


    She said, ¡°Yee don¡¯ want a touch dat. Let dey behiques suck it. Or yee become he.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t understand you.¡±


    ¡°Where yee hail from, maku?¡±


    She had a firm grip on the man¡¯s ankle. He was sniffing the air and groping toward me, but she was strong enough to hold him down.


    A greasy slime of fear slid right down my spine. ¡°What¡¯s wrong with him?¡±

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    ¡°He a salter.¡±


    ¡°A salter? Like salt plague?¡± I reeled backward. His dead flat eyes skimmed over me, looking not at me but at what lay beneath my skin: my hot, pumping, salt-laden blood. ¡°Are you saying he¡¯s riddled with the salt plague? The salt plague which makes your mind and body rot? The salt plague for which there is no cure?¡±


    ¡°Owo,¡± she said, which meant yes in one of the Mande languages.


    The urge to retch rose so strongly I ran to the shade where vegetation probed the sterile sands. On hands and knees among the stiff-leafed plants I vomited up bile. My arm throbbed as if hot needles had been jabbed into my flesh and were engaged in a frantic dance aided by a swarm of impatient wasps. His flat, mindless gaze, as dull as an imbecile¡¯s and less cunning. His lurching gait. The salt plague ate your body and your brain. There was no cure, no palliative, no hope, only a slow deterioration into living death.


    The thud of footsteps made a counter-rhythm to the fear and pain drumming in my head. Maybe I was going to die, but I wasn¡¯t dead yet. I shoved myself up. Figures swam into my vision.


    ¡°Salve. Salve, Perdita.¡±


    Greetings, lost woman. The formal Latin soothed my ears.


    A person moved toward me with palms outstretched in the sign of peace. ¡°By Jupiter Magnus! It is Catherine Bell Barahal. How in the unholy hells you got here I cannot imagine.¡±


    I brandished my cane. I wasn¡¯t going to get bitten again. ¡°Don¡¯t come closer. I¡¯ll kill you.¡±


    ¡°Catherine Bell Barahal. Look at me. We¡¯ve met before.¡±


    Five people stood in a cunning circle around me, so I couldn¡¯t bolt. Behind, still on the beach with the sun¡¯s glare washing their skin to the color of rotting corpses, the young woman was tugging on the thing that had bit me, trying to drag it away as it strained toward me. Three men and two women faced me. Four of the strangers were foreign. They had thick straight black hair very like my own and they looked a little like Rory but a lot more like someone else entirely: broad across the cheeks with high, flat foreheads and deep-set brown eyes, fit and healthy. In fact, they looked like people, nothing like the lurching man-thing that had bitten me. At least the monster in the water had been terrible in its perfectly awful beauty. Wouldn¡¯t it have been better if it had killed me and I¡¯d bled my life away in the water?


    Blessed Tanit! I was going to die in the most horrible way imaginable.


    My knees gave way. First I was standing and then I was on the ground.


    One of the men crouched beside me, out of range of my cane.


    ¡°Catherine,¡± he said in a quiet voice. ¡°I¡¯m not a salter. Hold out your arm.¡±


    His calm tone convinced me to hold out my arm. A woman upended a vessel. Salt water poured over the wound. I must have yelped, but all I could hear was the pain.


    ¡°You¡¯re faint. Drink this.¡±


    I was dead anyway so if he meant to poison me it would be preferable to die quickly instead of slowly. He handed me a hollowed-out gourd and unsealed its cork. I lifted its rim to my mouth. A sweet liquor with the kick of strong alcohol coursed down my throat. I began to chug it, until one of the women spoke curtly, and the speaker took hold of my undamaged wrist and stayed me.


    ¡°Wait. Let it settle. Then you can have more.¡±


    Its searing after-bite blasted along my throat. Finally he came into focus. He had hair the reddish-gold color commonly seen in western Celtic tribes who had not mixed with Roman legionnaires and the Mande refugees from the empire of Mali.


    ¡°You were with Camjiata,¡± I whispered. ¡°In the law offices.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right. I¡¯m James Drake. You do remember me?¡±


    The liquid churned in my belly. I broke into a sweat. ¡°Was that man a salter who bit me?¡±


    ¡°Stay calm.¡± He spoke to the others. By their voices, it seemed they were haggling.


    ¡°My mind must be rotting already,¡± I cried. ¡°I can¡¯t understand a word you¡¯re saying.¡±


    They came to a grudging consensus. The others moved off, taking the creature and the young woman with them. For some reason, the creature did not attack them.


    ¡°That¡¯s because we¡¯re speaking Taino,¡± he said, turning back to me. ¡°It¡¯s the common language in these parts. Drink up. It¡¯s the local drink. It¡¯s called rum.¡±


    I drained the vessel. The liquor cleansed my mouth; it numbed and dazzled, spiking straight to my head. ¡°Will rum cure me?¡±


    ¡°No. Rum can¡¯t cure the salt plague. The seawater has flooded his saliva away. But I want to wash the bite again. You have to come with me. Please put the sword back in your belt. No need to wave it around.¡±

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    The sight of the jagged tooth marks bruising my forearm and the blood leaking sluggishly along my skin made me clumsy. I fumblingly fastened the cane to its loop. With a hand pressed to my back, he steered me to a sandy path that led into the trees. Birds clamored in a brazen assault on my ears. Where it was bright the sun was a lance piercing my eyes and where it was shadowed the earth was a monstrous presence trying to devour me. I could not get my balance despite my companion¡¯s solicitous hand and respectful silence although I would have liked it better if he had talked to drown out my whirlpooling terror.


    We came to a clearing around a circular pool filled to the brim with water as intensely blue as James Drake¡¯s eyes. Next to the pool rose an unwalled shelter, just a roof thatched with dried fronds that shaded a table and bench. He sat me on the bench and gave me a second gourd of rum.


    ¡°What¡¯s this for if it won¡¯t cure me?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s to numb the pain and the fear. We don¡¯t know each other, Cat Barahal, but you¡¯re going to have to trust me.¡±


    ¡°Why does it matter if I trust you? I¡¯m going to die. There¡¯s no cure, and every bitten person dies.¡± Shaking, I took a long swallow of the rum. It was better than thinking.


    A pot and several baskets hung under the eaves. He took down the pot, filled it with water, and hung it from a tripod. Then he put his hand on the wood beneath it. His lips parted, and flames curled up.


    ¡°You¡¯re a fire mage,¡± I said, intelligently I am sure. I was finding it challenging to put words together because, between the rush of alcohol and fear to my brain, words wriggled away as soon as I had them in sight. ¡°But fire mages all burn up when their fire runs out of control. Unless they learn the secrets of the blacksmiths.¡± I pressed my fingers to my brow, trying to reel in my scattering thoughts lest I start babbling secrets. ¡°That drink went straight to my head.¡±


    He came over, caught my chin with a hand, and looked me over carefully. ¡°My apologies. I¡¯m going to have to ask you to kiss me.¡±


    ¡°Kiss you!¡±


    He offered a rueful smile. ¡°As you so astutely observed, I¡¯m a fire mage. If I press my lips to yours, the contact will allow me to know if the teeth of the salt plague have gotten into your blood.¡±


    ¡°Because you¡¯re a fire mage, you can tell if I¡¯m infested with the salt plague if you kiss me?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right. And if I catch it quickly enough, I might be able to heal you.¡±


    ¡°Heal me!?¡± I sucked in a shocked breath, mouth parted, heart pounding, blood pulsing through my veins and horrible, horrible death spreading through my blood. ¡°Don¡¯t mock me. There¡¯s no cure.¡±


    ¡°In Europa they believe there¡¯s no cure. Here in the Antilles, we know better. Healing is one of the gifts of fire mages. There are certain diseases we can heal by killing them within you before they kill you.¡±


    If he was lying, I was no worse off than before. But what if he was telling the truth!


    I leaned into him, and I kissed him on the mouth. He returned the kiss decisively, his lips warm at first, and then his kiss turned hotter until its heat coursed like sun through my body. I forgot I was dying and felt quite astoundingly alive.


    He released me abruptly.


    Panting, I sank back, hands propped behind me on the bench to hold me up. I was very confounded, warm and tingling all over. The liquor was making my head swim.


    He stared at me as intently as if he saw something odd.


    My bodice had been pulled askew, exposing half of my left breast. Blushing, I straightened the cloth. I could not catch my breath, and there was a part of me that badly wanted to kiss him again, as if his kiss or his magic had roused a slumbering beast within me.


    He carefully eased my torn sleeve back and with a finger traced the bite mark. The jagged wound had gone pink at the edges, with ragged clots of darkening blood and clear oozing plasma. ¡°It broke the skin.¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t you help me?¡± I whispered. I grabbed for the gourd of rum and drained the last of it.


    ¡°I can¡¯t quite tell¡­but if I had your permission to try again¡­¡±


    Why not? The last thing I wanted now was to be alone. When I nodded, he caught me close with another kiss. He was fire, and I burned into the core of me because I was being caressed by tendrils of sweet flame along my skin, and within my skin, and against my lips. Was this fire magic? For as it twined through my body, I wanted nothing more than to run my hands along his back and do more of this kissing; much more; much, much more. He broke off the kiss.


    ¡°Cat! Your claws are out.¡± He grinned. ¡°Desire suits you. You¡¯re all flushed.¡±

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    ¡°I was bitten by a dying man with a rotted mind. Of course I¡¯m flushed!¡± I was sure my bosom was heaving, because I still couldn¡¯t catch my breath. ¡°Can you really heal me? You¡¯re not just saying that to take advantage of me? Offering me one chance to live before I die?¡±


    His gaze narrowed, as if a spark of anger flared in his eyes. Drawing back, he released my arm. ¡°Is that what you think this is? Let me tell you a few things about the salt plague. If a person is bitten by a salter, that person will become infested with what we call the teeth of the ghouls. They¡¯re so tiny they are hidden from sight. At first, the bitten victim is harmless to others. But inside, they¡¯re slowly deteriorating as the infestation grows within their blood. On the day the infestation flowers, they forget everything they ever knew except that they have to drink warm, living blood because their own is dried up. Now they bite. It¡¯s all they live for. It¡¯s all they know. In time, they become like salt, unmoving. Morbid. Worse than dead, for they crave and can never be satisfied, trapped in a pain-wracked, paralyzed body.¡±


    ¡°Stop! Please, stop!¡±


    He softened. Pressing a finger under my chin, he held my gaze. ¡°Cat, you have one chance. You¡¯ve been bitten. But the teeth of the ghouls haven¡¯t yet caught in your blood. If I can burn out all the teeth before they catch and hook in your blood, then you won¡¯t become a salter. But we have to do it right now. It¡¯s like a snake¡¯s venom. I have to burn it out before it¡¯s too late to stop it.¡±


    The water he had set over the fire was boiling. I heard its burbling chatter, and the titter of birds in the trees, and the pulse of the sky like blood in my ears. My head floated as on clouds.


    ¡°Of course I want to be healed! Why are you waiting?¡±


    His lips lifted into a faint smile as he brushed a hand lightly along my shoulder, pulling the fabric of my shift down just enough to expose the curve of a shoulder. Where his fingers touched my skin, desire purred into me. ¡°A fire mage¡¯s healing is called the kiss of life. I have to be much, much closer to manage it. My lips to your lips. My bare skin to your bare skin, all of it. For me to find and burn out all the teeth of the ghouls swimming your blood, there must be no barrier¡ªnone¡ªbetween us. It¡¯s the only way I can heal you.¡±


    I could not think. But oh, Blessed Tanit! I wanted to live.


    So I just said, ¡°Yes.¡±


    15


    I woke with my bitten arm throbbing and my hair in my mouth. Sitting up, I wiped the strands plastered across my cheek off my face so I wasn¡¯t chewing on them. The movement of my arm across my breasts made me realize I was stark naked. My bare skin to your bare skin, all of it.


    Blessed Tanit! I had really done it. And it had been pretty nice.


    By the sour feeling in my stomach and the woozy way the world smiled on me, I was sure that not only had I been drunk but I was still a little drunk.


    Proud Astarte! No wonder Rory behaved the way he did, wanting to be petted all the time!


    I found my cane under the bench. My drawers, shift, bodice, and jacket lay discarded across the table. I sat on the ground on top of the remains of my overskirt and petticoats, spread open like unfurled wings to provide a blanket of a sort. The jagged tears in the fabric made me wonder what manner of teeth could shred tightly-woven wool challis and fine linen quite so spectacularly. I brushed a leaf off my bare hip and flicked an ant off my ankle. Despite the drink, I had a clear memory of how the clothes had come off and the rest of the events had proceeded. And although I was a little sore, I otherwise felt good.


    Some would have said I ought to be shamed, but I could dredge up no shame in my heart. I had done what I needed to do to save my life. Anyway, to whom was I beholden? Andevai and I had already agreed to seek a dissolution. The Hassi Barahals had sacrificed me, and the mage House did not want me nor did I want a marriage I¡¯d been forced into. According to the ancient rites, a young Kena¡¯ani maiden had the right the offer up her first sexual encounter to Bold Astarte in the temple precincts. So be it. I had made the offering that was mine to give.


    ¡°You might want to wash before you dress.¡± James Drake looked up from where he crouched by the cheerful fire and the pot of hot water. I felt a blush creeping out on my skin, and he grinned. It was difficult not to smile back at a good-looking young man who admires you so openly. Especially when you¡¯ve just had sexual congress with him. ¡°Although no need to put on your clothes for my sake. Even half drowned with your hair all in tangles, you¡¯re a remarkably pretty girl.¡±


    ¡°You put on clothes,¡± I said, for he had: He wore trousers with a white shirt hanging loose over it, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His hands were darker than his arms; his torso, for I remembered quite a bit about his torso, had been as pale as cream. ¡°Am I healed?¡±

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    ¡°Do you doubt me?¡± He seemed a little offended. ¡°I washed. You¡¯d best wash, too.¡±


    I pulled on my shift and stepped out from under the shelter to consider the pool. Its sides were so round that the fathomless blue waters seemed like an eye staring heavenward.


    ¡°How deep is this pool?¡± I asked.


    ¡°It¡¯s a sinkhole. Around here, they say it goes down forever, into the subterranean world that is not this world but another world linked to ours.¡±


    I jumped back from the edge. Into the spirit world.


    ¡°You can¡¯t wash there,¡± he added as he pulled a length of wet linen from the pot. He wrung it out as he walked over to me. ¡°The Taino call it a sacred place.¡±


    Trembling, I accepted the blessedly hot, damp rag and washed my face and, more gingerly, the skin around the bite. ¡°Did you really heal me?¡±


    He took my arm and pressed his lips to the bite. A tickle of heat spread through my body.


    Maybe I gasped. Maybe I sighed.


    He released me with a chuckle. ¡°You¡¯re not one bit shy. Alas, I have duties I must return to, or I assure you we¡¯d linger awhile in the shade. However, you fell asleep and I¡¯m in trouble already. They don¡¯t like me because I¡¯m a maku. A foreigner. They despise us foreigners. You¡¯ll see.¡±


    I handed him the cloth. ¡°But did you heal me?¡±


    He took my chin in a hand and met my gaze with a serious one. ¡°No taint of the plague, no teeth of the ghouls, runs in your blood. That¡¯s the truth. Avoid the pens, and don¡¯t get bitten again.¡±


    ¡°What are pens? Where are we?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re on Salt Island. Under Taino law, all salters must be held in quarantine here.¡±


    ¡°Who are the Taino?¡±


    ¡°The Taino are the people who rule this entire region, all the islands of the Antilles. I¡¯ll answer the rest of your questions later at the behica¡¯s table.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s a behica?¡±


    ¡°A fire mage. Like me. I warn you, she¡¯ll want to know how you got here. Don¡¯t tell her anything. She¡¯s an impatient, grasping sort of woman. Like all Taino nobles, she has a great sense of her self-importance. Do me a favor and don¡¯t mention we met in Adurnam. I promise to explain why later. Now I really have to go. Here is Abby. She¡¯ll find you a pagne and a blouse.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s a pagne?¡± I saw the girl from the beach lurching toward us through the trees along the sandy path. I was being abandoned to the care of a stranger. ¡°Can¡¯t I come with you, James?¡±


    With his gear in his arms, he kissed me on the cheek. ¡°We¡¯ll be together later. Call me Drake. Everyone does.¡±


    He set off down the path. Passing the girl, he spoke phrases that sounded like a forgotten tartan of Celtic, Mande, and Latin, the cadences a different music from the melody I was used to.


    The girl limped up. She ventured an awkward smile, as if she wasn¡¯t used to smiling and thought perhaps she had forgotten how. ¡°Yee want a bath and cloth.¡±


    ¡°Is your name Abby?¡±


    ¡°I have dat name Abby. Yee have dat name Cat¡¯reen?¡± A dapple of sunlight through leaves caught on her face to give her dark eyes an odd gleam as she looked down the path to make sure Drake was out of earshot. ¡°Dat maku heal yee?¡±


    ¡°Can he really heal people?¡± I held my breath.


    She wheezed in a breath, as if at a stab of pain, and let it out. ¡°All behiques have dat power. He one, even if he a maku.¡±


    ¡°A maku is a foreigner. A behique or a behica is a fire mage. Is that right?¡±


    She scratched her nose, sorting through my foreign way of speaking. ¡°Dat right. Na.¡± Come.


    She limped away down the path. I drew on my drawers and laced up my bodice, then gathered everything else and hurried after her. It was not, I reasoned, that she was unfriendly. But even the most generous soul might envy a gift of priceless worth granted to a stranger that has, even if by chance, been denied to a friend, if the man on the beach was indeed her friend.


    ¡°Drake told me we¡¯re on Salt Island. In the Sea of Antilles, which is the sea that lies between North and South Amerike. Is that right?¡± She threw a bewildered glance at me, and a knife cut my heart, for I felt I was bullying her without knowing why. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter. How pretty it is here!¡±


    The shadows drew long as we emerged from the trees and walked along a shoreline where vegetation met a sandy white beach. It was really quite beautiful, and it would have been even more beautiful if it had not been so cursedly hot. I was sweating even though dressed only in undergarments that, in Adurnam, would embarrass a prostitute to be seen wearing in a public venue. The path wound up a headland. Birds dove in squalls. A turtle flipped sideways and skimmed away. The water was so clear I could see every stone and fish beneath the surface against shimmering stretches of sand.

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    In my boots, my feet felt swollen. Abby walked barefoot. An iron-gray lizard with a lacy frill and a pouchy throat sunned itself atop a rock, watching me with the grave disinterest of an elder.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to melt,¡± I informed it as I trudged past. ¡°I have never been so hot in my life. How do you stand it?¡±


    It did not blink. Nor did it answer.


    The bell rang as we crested the prow of the headland. I walked in Abby¡¯s wake down into a pretty half-moon bay with a fine curved beach that faced east. A ring of houses set on low stilts formed a circle around a grassy central plaza distinguished by a circular earth platform. North of the plaza lay a long dirt field fenced by straight stone walls on either side. To the west, in the shadow of a forested ridge, sat roofed cages surrounded by an impressively tall iron fence.


    Kitchen gardens stretched between the houses; there a few figures toiled, in no hurry. Beyond, the forest ruled except for several clearings marked by mounds planted with dusty green vines and young fruit trees. A stream sparkled down from the ridge to spill into the bay.


    My thoughts scattered every which way as I slapped down the steep path into the settlement. What would Bee say when I told her? ¡°Really, Cat, did you fall for that tired excuse? ¡®Fornicate with me and you will be healed¡¯? Or was he so irresistible??¡±


    But I smiled anyway. I felt cut loose from my old moorings. I might be frightened, miserable, and overheated, but I was also unbound.


    My smile vanished. Never unbound. My sire¡¯s command was the noose around my neck. His magic had thrown me onto a shore where fire mages dwelled. That was surely no coincidence. Was this why he had wanted me to come to the Sea of Antilles where the Taino ruled? How powerful were these fire mages called behiques? Did the sea hide them from him? Or was it possible that on an island in a hot climate there was no ice from which he could launch his spies?


    Abby halted at the verge of a garden plot and kneaded her feet in newly-turned earth. She took my hand in a sisterly way. ¡°Yee safe now, Cat¡¯reen. No need for such a frown.¡±


    ¡°Are those the pens?¡± I asked, indicating the cages. Their thatched roofs and lattice walls made it difficult to see inside. Figures shifted like animals in stalls.


    She winced, let go of my hand, and began walking. We skirted the central plaza, kicking up sand. Gracious Melqart, but there was sand everywhere in this place! Its grit rubbed my neck. Grains rubbed between my toes.


    Abby led me to one of the round houses. Behind it, tall screens woven of reeds shielded a copper tub, four empty buckets, and soap. We hauled water from the stream to fill the tub, by which time I was sweating so foully I was glad to immerse myself in cold water. I scrubbed my skin, washed my hair, and rinsed myself off with water Abby kept bringing, for she seemed tireless. After I washed my clothes, I hung the clothing over the screens to dry.


    ¡°As I thought, you clean up wonderfully.¡± Drake stepped within the screens, looking me up and down so boldly I was not sure whether to be flattered or shocked. I had never been admired so brazenly before, for men in Adurnam would flirt with women but not maul them with their gaze. Andevai, who had after all claimed to have fallen in love with me at first sight, had certainly stared rudely at me and said things to me in the most arrogant way imaginable, but I could not help but think he would never look me over the way a hungry dog eyes a slab of meat.


    ¡°I would think a man would ask permission first before stepping into a woman¡¯s bathing chamber,¡± I said, lifting my chin. I refused to humiliate myself by trying to cover bits of my body with my hands, especially since he had seen all of me anyway.


    ¡°My apologies. You just can¡¯t know how unexpected this all is for me. You here, like this.¡± A smile played on his lips. ¡°Anyway, out in the Taino kingdom, outside Expedition Territory, young unmarried women commonly go about their daily business wearing little more than you are right now. Here.¡± He tossed me a rolled-up piece of cloth.


    ¡°But I¡¯m naked!¡± I shook out a piece of bright yellow fabric printed with orange and red shell patterns, and wrapped it around my breasts and hips like a shield of modesty. ¡°What am I to do with this? If you¡¯ve sewing scissors and a needle and thread I can fashion a¡ª¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s your pagne. The women of Expedition wear it as a skirt, with a blouse. You definitely need to cover yourself. You¡¯re darker than I am, but the sun can still burn you.¡±


    ¡°Expedition is a famous trading and technological city in the Sea of Antilles. This village can¡¯t be Expedition.¡±


    ¡°As I told you, this is Salt Island. Where salters are quarantined.¡±

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    ¡°How soon can I leave, now that I¡¯m healed?¡±


    He met my gaze and, oddly, looked away. He had a pleasing profile, with a narrow chin and sharp features. He wore a cap to shade his face, but even so his nose and cheeks were freckled from the sun. ¡°We¡¯ll talk later. Abby will bring you supper.¡±


    ¡°No supper at the behica¡¯s table, with you?¡± My voice faltered.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, Cat. I shouldn¡¯t have mentioned that before. You¡¯re not allowed to eat with her and especially you¡¯re not allowed to eat with the cacique¡¯s nephew.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s a cacique?¡±


    ¡°The cacique is the ruler¡ªwe might say king¡ªof the Taino. The Taino have very strict laws. For instance, all fire mages in the Taino kingdom are required to serve periodically on Salt Island. So are any fire mages who live in Expedition Territory.¡±


    ¡°Wait. Does that mean Expedition Territory is part of the Taino kingdom?¡±


    ¡°No. Expedition is a free territory, on the island of Kiskeya. The rest of the island is part of the Taino kingdom. Expedition¡¯s Council requires all local fire mages to serve here for a season every few years. We¡¯re the only people who can live with and guard salters without risk of getting infested with the plague. That¡¯s why I¡¯m here. While we¡¯re on Salt Island, we serve under the command of whichever Taino behique is eldest. In this case, a woman.¡±


    ¡°So behique is male and behica is female.¡±


    ¡°Yes. Listen, Cat, if you run into her, there are a few things you must know. Never speak to her unless she addresses you first. Don¡¯t speak to the cacique¡¯s nephew at all. He is a fire mage newly kindled and thus frightfully dangerous because he can¡¯t control his power. And he¡¯s terribly highborn. He is one of the possible heirs to the cacique¡¯s honorable duho, the seat of power. The throne.¡±


    ¡°That means he could be cacique someday.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right. The old bitch has come here to train him. Bear all that in mind. I¡¯m off to supper. I¡¯ll come by after. That is, if you¡¯re minded to speak to me. The truth is¡±¡ªhis startlingly blue gaze bored into me¡ª¡°you were irresistible beyond any question of healing you.¡±


    I could not resist his smile. ¡°Well, if that¡¯s what you call ¡®speaking.¡¯¡±


    He chuckled. ¡°I never quite expect pretty girls to possess wit as well.¡±


    By the time I had decided I could not tell if he was teasing me or insulting me, he had walked away. Abby stepped into view, watching him go with a frown. But when she turned to see me trying to tie the cloth, she laughed in a delightful way and showed me how to tuck and fix the fabric to make an ankle-length skirt. I pulled on my damp shift as a blouse.


    We stowed tub and buckets in a lean-to. Inside the single room of the house, baskets hung from the rafters and what looked like a pair of fishing nets were strung lengthwise under beams. A bronze pot half filled with water sat in a wire stand, with a pitcher hanging from a hook and a basin tucked beneath. Otherwise, there was no furniture. She unrolled a mat woven from rushes and, after a hesitation, I sat on it.


    ¡°Yee wait. I get food.¡± She went out.


    Waiting, hungry, I brooded with my cane across my crossed legs, fingering my locket. Where was Bee? Had she returned safely to Adurnam? Had she found Rory? Touching the locket made me think of Andevai, who had returned it to me. I still had the sard stone. In a strange way, I felt I was saving it for him, and yet the likelihood I would see him again seemed small. I could not be sure if I was relieved or sad at the thought.


    From nearby, voices erupted into an argument. It took no great acumen to guess it was Drake at odds with the behica and her noble pupil. Fire mages, all. Including one newly kindled. Was the cacique¡¯s nephew the power my sire had spoken of?? Was he, highborn and superior and a foreigner, a man I might hand over in place of Bee without feeling the shame of treachery? Yet fire mages could not become truly powerful, not like cold mages. Wake too much fire, and the fire consumed you.


    I hated my sire all over again. To save Bee, I was going to have to hand someone else over in her place. Just as my aunt and uncle had done, when they had given me to Four Moons House. For the first time, I felt a tremor of sympathy for their dilemma.


    ¡°Cat¡¯reen?¡±


    My eyes flew open. Abby set down a tray.


    ¡°Will you eat with me?¡± I asked, but she lifted her chin to indicate the negative.


    I was ravenous. I choked down four flat grilled rounds that were more cracker than bread. Succulent yams had been baked to perfection with tiny red vegetables whose taste turned my mouth to fire. I gulped down the entire cup of smoky brown liquid, which proved to be a mistake, because it was rum. Slow down, I told myself.

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    All this time, Abby watched me. My hazy memory of my arrival on the beach cleared like clouds parting to reveal the sun. ¡°Are you a fire mage, Abby?¡±


    ¡°Ayi.¡± No.


    ¡°How can you be safe from the salters if you¡¯re not a fire mage?¡±


    Gracious Melqart did not spare me from being a complete ass who could not think before she spoke. There could only be one reason. Quite by instinct, I scooted away from her.


    She looked down, shoulders slumping.


    ¡°Oh, Blessed Tanit,¡± I muttered. ¡°I¡¯m such an idiot. I¡¯m so sorry.¡±


    Lamplight spilled through the door. Drake entered, a lamp in one hand and a gourd bottle in the other. ¡°Is something wrong, Cat?¡±


    ¡°Does Abby have the salt plague?¡±


    Maybe it was the way the lamplight lanced through the room, but for an instant the girl looked like a dead thing, skin the wrong color, lacking the blood that gives life. She sucked in a sob.


    ¡°That was rude,¡± Drake said. ¡°I thought better of you, Cat. Abby¡¯s no danger to you.¡±


    ¡°Cat¡¯reen mean no rudeness,¡± Abby said quickly.


    I clamped my lips tight over excuses. ¡°I was rude and thoughtless. My apologies.¡±


    He hung the lamp from a hook, caught Abby¡¯s arm, and pressed a kiss on her forehead as a father might kiss a child. ¡°Be patient a day longer, Abby.¡±


    ¡°I so scared,¡± she said, and my heart cracked.


    ¡°I gave you my promise, Abby. Now go.¡±


    She shuffled out with the tray. Drake sat down beside me, unsealed the round bottle, and filled my cup with liquor. He drained the cup, then filled it again and offered it to me.


    I gulped it all down, the rum smooth in my throat. ¡°It¡¯s so horrible.¡±


    ¡°More horrible than you know. The salt plague drove out tens of thousands of refugees from the Malian Empire and other parts of West Africa. I¡¯m sure many died as they fled. Most went north to make new lives among Celts and Romans, for the salt plague is rare in Europa. Some say winter kills it. Some in Europa even say the plague was a good thing.¡± He filled the cup with more rum.


    ¡°How could they say that?¡±


    ¡°The salt plague brought the West African Mande and the northwestern Celts together. The mages and sorcerers among the Mande and the Celts found they had a great deal in common, and thus the mage Houses were created. As these cold mages amassed power, they bound more and more villages into clientage until with the power of their magic and the power of the law, they rule like princes.¡±


    I did not want to discuss cold mages, clientage, and the law. ¡°Drake, Abby seemed surprised when that salter bit me. Does that mean he was in the harmless phase before and not yet biting?¡±


    Judging by the upward quirk of his lips and eyebrows, I had surprised him. ¡°Yes. Had you spoken to him yesterday, he would have seemed as normal as you or me except halting in speech and lame. Something kicked him into the active phase. Maybe your blood.¡±


    ¡°I did not!¡± I drained the cup as if the taste could drive out the memory of the bite.


    ¡°I¡¯m not blaming you! It¡¯s unpredictable. The harmless phase, more properly known as the infestation phase, can last days or months or in rare cases years. Yet between one breath and the next, the border is crossed. Poor Abby knows the disease is eating away at her mind and body¡ª¡±


    ¡°Stop!¡± I grabbed the bottle out of his hand and took a slug. I had drunk too much too quickly, but I was exhausted and disoriented and hot. To think of Abby made me sick at heart.


    He took the bottle with a shake of his head. ¡°You have a tender heart.¡±


    ¡°Much good my tears do for her! Why haven¡¯t you healed her?¡±


    ¡°Abby¡¯s family are plantation workers in the cane fields. It took too long to get her to a behique. Her blood was infested before they got there.¡±


    ¡°But if a behique could do nothing, what do you think you could do now?¡±


    Passion makes a man attractive, so the poets say, and he blazed with purpose in a way that seemed attractively admirable. ¡°Something they don¡¯t want me to do.¡±


    ¡°Why would they not want you to save her?¡±


    ¡°Do you know how dangerous fire magic is, Cat? To the fire mage, I mean.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m no fire mage, but I¡¯ve read that fire mages usually are consumed by their own fire.¡± I met his gaze, realizing how close he sat beside me. ¡°Did you risk your life to heal mine?¡±


    He considered me in silence. Then his mouth turned down in a way that sparked my interest. He leaned back onto an elbow. ¡°I suppose I did. I didn¡¯t think about it at the time. Anyway, under Taino law, any person bitten by a salter must be quarantined on Salt Island.¡±

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    ¡°Unless they¡¯re healed. That¡¯s what you told me.¡±


    He poured more rum. ¡°No. Any person bitten by a salter, whether healed or infested. The law dates from the arrival of people from Europa and Africa. It was part of the original treaty that allowed the Malian fleet to set up the independent territory and city of Expedition on the island of Kiskeya. By ruthlessly enforcing the quarantine, the caciques stopped the disease¡ªand other diseases that came with the fleet¡ªfrom spreading as much as they would otherwise have done.¡±


    ¡°Are you telling me I can¡¯t ever leave this island?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m telling you I have plans to get you off this island. You must keep your mouth shut about this conversation and especially about my association with Camjiata. Don¡¯t tell anyone. Be patient, like Abby. When I tell you to act, act immediately, no questions. Can you promise me that?¡±


    ¡°What choice do I have? Drake, what day is it?¡±


    ¡°The second of Augustus. As we Celts say, Lughnasad.¡±


    Seven full months had passed while I had floundered in the spirit world. Lughnasad was one of the cross-quarter days. Was that why I¡¯d been drawn back at just this time?


    ¡°How did you get here, that you don¡¯t know what day it is?¡± he asked.


    With a racing heart and a stab of fear, I suddenly realized I could not answer the question even had I wanted to. ¡°How do you think people commonly arrive in the Antilles?¡±


    He took a swig from the bottle and offered it to me. When I hesitated, he lifted it to my lips. He had a delicate touch, and the rum did calm me. ¡°Come now, Cat. There can be no reason I could have expected to see you ever again, much less on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean from Adurnam.¡±


    I felt like a cornered rat, but I had to say something. ¡°I was kidnapped. I ended up here.¡±


    ¡°Floating in the sea?¡± He laughed. ¡°Did you get thrown off the ship or did you jump?¡±


    ¡°Since I can¡¯t swim and I am terrified of water, why would you think I would jump?¡±


    ¡°Since I don¡¯t know, you have to tell me.¡± He glanced heavenward and then back to me. ¡°That¡¯s why I asked.¡±


    The secret belongs to those who remain silent, as Andevai had once said to me. ¡°It¡¯s too painful. I¡¯m not ready.¡±


    An expression brushed by a glimmer of impatience creased his face and vanished into a gentler smile. ¡°When do you think you might be ready, Cat?¡±


    Sitting in the dark house with him reclining so close beside me made the memory of our sexual congress by the pool very strong. I was adrift and restless, and I just did not want to be alone.


    ¡°Did you think it was nice?¡± I whispered.


    For a few anxious, embarrassed breaths, I wasn¡¯t sure he had understood me.


    ¡°Ah!¡± A warmer smile softened his mouth.


    He leaned in to kiss my lips, his moist with liquor and mine no different. I needed someone to cling to, and anyway it felt so good, even on a mat on a floor.


    16


    ¡°I have to go,¡± he said afterward, rising and pulling on his clothes. ¡°Salters are most active at night.¡± He lit a glass-shuttered candle set on a shelf fixed to the wall by the door. ¡°There are centipedes and scorpions. You¡¯d best sleep in the hammock.¡±


    Then he was gone. I barred the door as I wondered what a hammock was. The gleam offered enough illumination for me to use basin and pitcher to wash myself with water drawn from the big bronze pot. I pulled on my shift and drawers so as to be decently covered. The air inside the chamber was like hot viscous porridge. How could I possibly sleep?


    Fingers scratched at the barred door. Had my heart not been firmly embedded in my chest, it would have slammed back and forth around the room like a rabbit gone wild. After the rabbit calmed down, I picked up my sword and leaned an ear against the door.


    ¡°Who is it?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Abby.¡±


    As my left hand tightened on the hilt, my right crept to my throat. The only sound I could get out was a soft ¡°Gaaah.¡±


    ¡°I not here to bite yee. Mebbe after we chat.¡±


    Horribly, we both started giggling. I fumbled with the bar, set it aside, and opened the door.


    She slipped in. ¡°I don¡¯ have permission to walk out at night. They put we in di pens. Most times dat change come at night.¡±


    ¡°Sit down. Although it¡¯s horribly hot in here.¡±


    She looked surprised. ¡°Think yee so? If yee want, we go up a di roof.¡±


    I laced on my bodice, and she tied the pagne for me. We climbed a rope ladder and settled side by side on a ledge rimmed with a railing. I sat cross-legged with my sword across my thighs. The clouds were breaking up, mottling the sky. Waves soughed on the beach. The sound was restful until you began to wonder if the steady lift and drag of the waves was really the breathing sleep of leviathan.

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    ¡°When were you bit?¡± I asked. ¡°I mean, if you don¡¯t mind speaking of it.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯ mind. Dat bite sit on me thoughts all di time. Di teeth of di ghouls eat me.¡±


    ¡°Are there ghouls here? I thought they only lived beneath the sands in the Sahara Desert.¡±


    ¡°Dey behiques tell dis story. First time, di salt miners in dat place Mali broke open dat ghoul nest. Di ghouls wake and dey bite. Dey left dey teeth in di miners. Dem teeth a go eating all through every person, every man and gal dat wen bitten. One person bite another person and dey ghoul teeth keep eating on and on.¡±


    ¡°Blessed Tanit.¡± I took her hand in mine.


    A howl that like of a beast with its leg caught in a trap rose from behind us, and fell away.


    ¡°What was that?¡± I am sure the hair stood up on the back of my neck.


    ¡°After di teeth eat yee mind, yee don¡¯ have no more thoughts. But mebbe for one moment yee wake up and yee remember and dat make yee scream. Don¡¯ cry, Cat¡¯reen.¡±


    I wiped my cheeks. ¡°It¡¯s so terrible.¡±


    ¡°I mean, yee tears have salt.¡± I felt her lick her lips, as if she wanted to lick my cheeks to taste the salt of my tears but had enough control to restrain herself.


    With an effort, I kept hold of her hand and did not shift away. ¡°If Drake can heal you, why hasn¡¯t he done so already?¡±


    She remained silent for a long time. He had kissed her forehead, so it wasn¡¯t as if he recoiled from touching her. Far out over the sea, a light winked and vanished. Perhaps it was the lamp of the moon shining on the water, for where the clouds shredded away at the zenith, a quarter moon watched. Under its light, Abby¡¯s skin took on a peculiar crystalline gleam, and her eyes showed no irises, only a flat white circle.


    ¡°I don¡¯ like dat dis man Drake decide so quick to make yee he sweet gal.¡±


    ¡°I said yes! He didn¡¯t force me, if that¡¯s what you mean.¡± A certain giddiness, and the rum, still warmed my flesh. Yet a new uneasiness crept like gossipy whispers along my ears. Now that I was no longer terrified and disoriented, it seemed unlikely that the only way for a fire mage to heal someone was to have sexual congress with them. Had I mistaken his words? Because I certainly hadn¡¯t mistaken his intentions. ¡°He told me that to heal me he had to touch my skin with his.¡±


    Startlingly, she laughed. ¡°Di kiss of life. We call it by dat name. But I reckon dat maku give yee di kiss of life and den take a little something more.¡±


    ¡°Bold Astarte!¡± I muttered. A little something more.


    Abby patted my arm. ¡°Dem fire mages reckon dey can take what dey want. So he tell you dat, and den he get you drunk and he take it all. I don¡¯ like it.¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± I whispered. ¡°Was I an idiot?¡±


    ¡°Not a bit like dat, Cat¡¯reen!¡± Her quiet compassion shamed me, for in the midst of her own terror she had opened her heart to feel for me. ¡°If dat man said so to me, right after I got bit, I a done di same as yee for dat chance he heal me. But I don¡¯ like it.¡±


    I leaned against her as I often leaned against Bee, and her smile was all the gift I could ask for.


    Out of the darkness, a male voice spoke.


    ¡°Salve, Perdita.¡±


    Abby hid her face behind crossed hands in an awkward genuflect. I looked over the railing to see two figures standing below. One was a stocky adolescent wearing as ornament a blocky stone collar. The other was a man perhaps ten years older than me with impressively heavy gold armbands on his bare upper arms and a gold pendant around his neck. He was dressed in white cloth draped over his body something in the manner of a Roman toga. He looked oddly familiar, and not just because I thought he was one of the mages I had faced on the beach.


    ¡°I intend to speak with you. I will climb up so we may have privacy.¡± The man spoke in a formal Latin whose antiquated flavor heightened the princely expectation that he was not asking but telling me.


    Abby quivered but did not speak.


    I had faced down the Master of the Wild Hunt with his evil crows, monstrous toads, frozen minions, and masked face. For that matter, I had dealt with Andevai Diarisso Haranwy. I knew how to handle a young man who might be arrogant, vain, and besides that a bit of an ass.


    ¡°We have not been formally introduced. In my country, a proper introduction is necessary before a man and a woman who are in no other way acquainted may speak to each other. But in deference to what I am informed is your exalted station in life, I will certainly agree to speak to you as long as my companion is allowed to climb down and go on her way unmolested and unpunished.¡±

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    Just as different fabrics have different textures, silence can display various qualities. In this case, I was sure that if astonishment were like rain, it would have been pouring sheets.


    Yet he replied in the tone he had used before. ¡°Your conditions prove acceptable, Perdita.¡±


    Abby¡¯s dry lips brushed my cheek, and she clambered down the ladder and tottered off.


    My interlocutor climbed up and crouched beside me. Straight coal-black hair fell loose down his back. His dark eyes smoldered with the suggestion of buried heat. ¡°You have a name.¡±


    ¡°I do have a name. You have a name as well.¡±


    He blinked, as at an unexpected drop of rain in his eye. ¡°I have learned to speak the Europan tongue. Perhaps I speak wrongly and you do not comprehend. Your name I wish to know.¡±


    ¡°In my country, it is usual for people to introduce their names each to the other. So if I say that my name is Catherine Bell Barahal, then you would say, ¡®Greetings¡¯ and afterward you would tell me by what name I can call you.¡±


    ¡°Perdita, it is not possible for you to speak to me as one of my kin. You must address me in the proper way.¡±


    ¡°Because you are a king¡¯s nephew? He is not my king. We have no kings in Europa.¡±


    ¡°But many princes and generals, the histories tell. Perhaps for this reason you fight so much.¡±


    ¡°There is no answer to that! I feel obliged to remind you that you are the one who wanted to talk to me. I mean no offense.¡±


    It seemed he had taken none, for all this time his manner had not changed. He was beginning to seem less like an arrogant and proud man and more like a reserved and formal one. ¡°You speak with bold words. And you carry a cemi with you. Are you of noble birth?¡±


    ¡°What is a cemi?¡±


    ¡°It is that person you hold, who shows her power at night.¡± He indicated the sword.


    ¡°Why do you call it a person?¡±


    ¡°Perhaps you have a different name. Here, we say you are accompanied by one of your ancestors. This person travels with you in the form of a three-pointed blade.¡±


    Even Andevai hadn¡¯t been able to see the sword unless I unsheathed it, but it appeared fire mages could see it at any time. ¡°You see it as a blade?¡±


    ¡°A puzzling question. I see what it is.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean by three-pointed? It has only two, the hilt and the tip.¡±


    ¡°This person has two points in this world, as you say, but a third point in the other world.¡±


    Which was true enough, if you considered the hidden blade the third point. Could a person¡¯s spirit live in cold steel? As some memory of the spirit of Vai¡¯s grandmother might reside in the stone I had picked up, could some part of my mother¡¯s strength reside in the sword? I stroked the hilt, wondering if her spirit walked with me, and it seemed I felt an icy radiance and a trembling sense as of a thin wall that kept me apart from the vast and echoing landscape of the spirit world.


    ¡°I wonder why a maku carries a cemi,¡± he went on. ¡°Also, never have I met and spoken to a woman from across the sea. You are disrespectful, but I think that is just your way. My mother the cacica tells me I will marry a woman from across the sea. Maybe it will be you.¡± He did not speak the words lasciviously. He said it as he might remark that rain clouds presaged rain.


    ¡°I think it unlikely it will be me.¡± Two could play this game. ¡°You call your mother the cacica. Is she queen? I thought your uncle was king.¡±


    ¡°My uncle is very ill. Because of his illness, my mother, who is his sister, rules as cacica.¡±


    ¡°Ah. I understand now. Then I expect a princely clan from Europa will send a princely daughter to seal a princely pact between your two noble houses. That daughter would not be me.¡±


    Yet I eyed him, feeling quite like a vulture as I did so. Was his fire magic enough to attract the Wild Hunt? Could I sacrifice him to save Bee?


    From the foot of the ladder, the stocky adolescent spoke in Taino.


    A glimmer like the breath of a firefly resolved into James Drake and his lamp. Upon finding the door of the house unlocked and unguarded, he came around to the back.


    ¡°Here you are,¡± he said with a frown as he held up the lamp to examine us.


    The prince regarded Drake with a splendid display of indifference.


    Drake¡¯s lamp flared. ¡°What is Prince Caonabo doing here?¡±


    ¡°Why do you think I am obliged to answer for my actions to you?¡± I asked.


    We spoke in the mixed speech common to northwest Europa, not in the formal Latin of the schoolroom, and my face was surely so red that its heat alone might have lit the night. Prince Caonabo glanced at me, then climbed down. He and his companion walked away into the night.

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    ¡°Well,¡± Drake said grudgingly, ¡°it isn¡¯t as if he could be trying to seduce you.¡±


    I thought of Abby¡¯s words. ¡°You would know, I suppose.¡±


    ¡°Dear me, Cat. Have I done anything to provoke such a mean-spirited reply? I only meant that a nephew of the supreme ruler is not in the business of marrying the daughter of an impoverished Phoenician mercenary house. But we have to speak of this later. Where is Abby?¡±


    She would not get into trouble on my account! ¡°Why do you think I know where she is?¡±


    He sighed. ¡°Your insistence on being contrary in every answer is really quite annoying, Cat. A woman who is always contrary is unlikely to please a husband.¡±


    I experienced a sudden and painful revelation that it was important to converse with a man before you became intimate with him, or else never to converse with him afterward. ¡°I am sorry to inform you that not every woman wants a husband.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re very young. And very na?ve.¡±


    I felt my ears turn to steam. ¡°All the better to be taken advantage of??¡±


    The wick flared again, flame licking upward in a flash. Yes, he was definitely angry, and not in a way I found amusing. ¡°Is that what you think? That I took advantage of you?¡±


    I pinched my lips together. I had to accept that Abby was right: I had been bitten, and he had healed me. Anyone would have said yes. He had also promised to get me off this cursed island, on which I was, evidently, meant to be trapped for the rest of my life. I could be caged at the vast estate of Four Moons House in more gilded comfort than this! Best to keep silence.


    He went on. ¡°I saved your life, Cat. At considerable risk to my own! Do you know why Prince Caonabo walks everywhere with his young cousin?¡±


    ¡°How could I know that?¡±


    ¡°A rhetorical question, I assume. Really, Cat. This affectation of showing opposition to everything becomes ridiculous and does not do you any credit for you seem otherwise a sensible girl. Naturally, fire mages are rare. They are so revered among the Taino that even mages born among the naborias¡ªwe would call them the plebeians¡ªare married into the noble clans. Each fire mage is given a catch-fire. The great risk of being a fire mage is that you overextend your power¡ª¡±


    ¡°And burn up,¡± I finished. Yet I had felt his magic not as fire but as tendrils snaking through me, drawing my desire out of its innocent sleep.


    ¡°And burn up. I wish you would not interrupt me.¡±


    ¡°You have no catch-fire?¡±


    ¡°Who would volunteer to be my catch-fire? Would you?¡±


    My fingers tightened on the railing. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t it be an awful way to die?¡±


    ¡°To burn to death? I don¡¯t intend to find out. Anyway, in Expedition Territory, it is forbidden by law for any fire mage to employ or enslave a person as a catch-fire.¡±


    ¡°Is the prince¡¯s catch-fire a slave?¡±


    ¡°No, he is a cousin. That is his family duty. Among the Taino, catch-fires are honored. If they die, as they often do, they become a god¡ªas we might say¡ªand their skull¡ªif a skull is left¡ªis woven into a figure of power which the Taino call a cemi.¡±


    I lowered my gaze to the gleam of my sword. ¡°Prince Caonabo said my sword was a cemi.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s probably why he came to talk to you. If he considers it a cemi, then you carrying it would make you seem a person of consequence, with powerful ancestors.¡±


    ¡°How do you know this is a sword?¡±


    He glanced away as if thinking someone else must have spoken. ¡°Because it is one. Now. Where is Abby?¡±


    The question popped out unbidden. ¡°Why do you think I know?¡±


    Raising the lamp, he frowned as if genuinely puzzled. ¡°Are you angry at me?¡±


    I fisted my hands, suddenly furious at myself. Wouldn¡¯t it be better to be honest about my anger instead of making all these petty retorts and always answering questions with questions?


    The thought stunned me into muteness. Answering questions with questions?


    He sighed, as if my silence was my answer. ¡°I¡¯ll get a hammock for you. It will be cooler to sleep up there, but I warn you, the mosquitoes will feast on you at dawn.¡± He went into the house and emerged with a bundle of netting, which he tossed to me. ¡°There are loops at each end. String it from the hooks in the posts. Draw up the ladder. Salters can¡¯t climb, and Taino princes are too proud to ask for a ladder to be lowered. Although I¡¯m not.¡± He blew me a kiss as he left.


    I strung up the netting. I had a difficult time finding a comfortable position because my sword kept getting caught against my body at awkward angles. Once settled, I stared at the sea as the breeze stirred my shift against my sticky body. My eyelids were sweating.

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    Footsteps paced nearby, wearing a circuit. A man sobbed, ¡°Kill me, kill me before I rot,¡± but no one was listening. No one but me.


    I wrapped my arms around myself, wishing I were not alone. Yet how could I wish Bee or Rory here on this terrible island? I thought of Drake and of Prince Caonabo. I did not think the prince was interested in seduction. I was pretty sure he had simply been curious about my cold steel and my foreign origins. Drake¡¯s motives seemed simpler: He was a man who might die at any moment. He had risked his life to heal me, and evidently he was the kind of man who thought it fair to get something in exchange. I had my life.


    I dozed restlessly, woken once by a resounding splash. I smelled smoke. A smear of light like the flames of a bonfire dusted the ridge. My elbow itched. An annoying buzz whined by my ear. A twisted wail of despair descended into heartbroken sobs. Shuddering, I closed my eyes.


    The sway of the hammock lulled me. The night wind kissed my lips as I clutched the locket.


    A thread of magic draws taut, a path down which I can feel the presence of a bright, proud, and rather arrogant soul whose light is balm to my lonely shadow. A figure remarkably like Andevai turns with a surprised exclamation, speaking in a tone that suggested I had deliberately encouraged this untenable situation. ¡°Catherine? I¡¯m looking for you! Where are you?¡±


    Wasn¡¯t I on Salt Island, wondering how I would save Bee and recover Rory? Had the locket¡¯s touch made me think of Vai because the djeli¡¯s magic bound us through the spirit world? Was I always going to have to answer questions with questions? Yet the first time the eru and I had spoken, hadn¡¯t I asked her, ¡°Isn¡¯t it said the servants of the night court answer questions with questions??¡±


    Drowsily I smiled. The eru was a servant of the Wild Hunt, and now so was I. Drake was wrong. I wasn¡¯t just being annoying. At last I slept and, thankfully, I did not remember my dreams.


    17


    I woke as a rising light marked the dawn, my first in a new world. The curve of the sun¡¯s light flashed as I untangled myself from the netting and stretched. The air was pleasant, not quite cool but not sweat-making either. The sea was utterly gorgeous, so deeply wrought a green-blue color that it reminded me of a vast pulsing jewel. A flock of large birds with ungainly necks and fanned tails wandered out from the trees, searching for breakfast along the verge. The bite mark on my arm was pink, bruised, and sore when I gingerly pressed on it. But it was healing. I murmured a prayer to Blessed Tanit, protector of women.


    After climbing down, I ventured into the brush beyond the stream to relieve myself. Back in the house, I washed, straightened my pagne and bodice, and took an accounting of my worldly possessions: a sword, a locket, a stone, a wool jacket and undervest, boots, and the slaughtered skirts.


    It was time to spy. Wrapped in shadow, I crept up to the biggest house and poured myself up the steps onto the porch as if I were the wind. The door was a curtain, roped aside. Inside, baskets hung from the ceiling. A sloped wooden chair was placed in the center back of the room, its back carved with an animal face. Another door, draped with a curtain, led into a second room whose interior I could not see. Since I guessed this to be Prince Caonabo¡¯s exalted residence, I had no desire to penetrate its secrets.


    The next two houses lay empty except for mouse droppings and chickens squawking as they wandered in and out. In the fourth I found Drake asleep in a hammock, wearing no shirt, his pale torso as smooth as that of a man who labors with pen instead of axe.


    I crept into the next house only to find myself face to face with two Taino women, one young and one old enough to have a lined face and strands of silver in her black hair. Hale and strong, the older woman wore a sleeveless tent of a robe woven from white fabric that covered her to the ankles. Worst, she saw me right through my shadows. Her lips curled up.


    I let the threads fall. ¡°Salvete. I am Catherine Bell Barahal. My apologies. I got lost.¡±


    Her half smile vanished and she surveyed me from top to toe as I bunched my hands into fists. I had forgotten Drake¡¯s warning: Never speak to her unless she addresses you first.


    She grabbed my wrist just as Prince Caonabo entered the house with his doomed young relative tagging cheerfully after him. Without so much as a word, she pushed up my torn sleeve and pressed her lips to the wound. This was the kiss of life. Heat coursed up my veins and spread through my flesh, even to the stirring in my loins. Male or female, what did it matter, really, when the body yearned? As she straightened, still holding my arm, a corner of her lips lifted with unexpected humor and perhaps even sensual interest. Prince Caonabo made a comment in Taino, and the two catch-fires smiled. I snatched my arm out of her grasp, my face burning.

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    She spoke in a slightly hoarse alto. The prince translated. ¡°Your blood does not harbor the teeth of the ghouls.¡±


    ¡°I know,¡± I said as evenly as I could. ¡°James Drake healed me.¡±


    She laughed in a curt way that made me want to sink into the dirt floor. Instead, I stared at the printed fabric of my pagne, sure that the secret architecture of the universe could be discerned in its patterns of shells. When the silence dragged out, I looked up.


    The prince rubbed his forehead with a frown. ¡°The maku did not heal you.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not healed?¡± The room went hot, and my pulse thundered in my ears as I swayed.


    ¡°If a bitten person is brought quickly, then we can burn out the teeth before they infest the blood. But always the touch leaves a remnant. Like the ashes from wood that is burned. You have no ashes, Catherine Bell Barahal. There were never ghoul teeth in you.¡±


    ¡°But how¡­?¡± Words evaporated like mist under the sun.


    ¡°This mystery the behica also wonders at. You were bitten by one of the afflicted ones, that is certain. But there are no ashes and there are no teeth. No one healed you. You had nothing to heal because you are clean.¡±


    ¡°But Drake told me I would die if I didn¡¯t¡ª!¡± Now and again, I had the unfortunate and unpleasant experience of blurting out words I immediately regretted.


    The prince¡¯s brow creased in puzzlement, then lifted in enlightenment. ¡°Did James Drake say that in order to heal you, he and you must mate?¡±


    The behica examined me with an expression blended of pity and disgust, just as offended as my once-beloved Aunt Tilly would have looked had I brazenly informed her I had married and abandoned one man and taken another as a lover. Which some people might say I had.


    I hope I am not a rude person. Bee and I learned good manners and proper deportment, and I am sure I value courtesy. But this was too much. I looked at the blameless catch-fires, then met the old woman¡¯s gaze with a blazing fire of my own.


    ¡°People who throw others to the wolves ought not to judge where they end up running.¡± I turned my back on her, pushed past the prince and the catch-fires, and walked out of the house.


    Blindly, furiously, I strode across the open space until, like a brain-rotted salter, I bumped into the tall iron fence and found myself staring through the narrow gaps between bars into the crystalline white eyes of a man.


    I yelped, leaping back.


    He said nothing. He simply stood with face against the bars shifting ever so slightly as if some hours or days or months ago he had been walking this way and, having fetched up against the bars, did not know how to turn around. For all I knew, he would stand there until a strong rain dissolved him. His gaze had neither soul nor intelligence. He was an empty vessel.


    I caught my heel on the ground, and sat down so hard on my backside that I began to cry. What a fool I was!


    But tears get boring very quickly. I wiped my face on a sleeve and rose. Better to face the truth than run away.


    The high fence ringed an open area of shelters with thatched roofs but no walls. In some, clothed figures dozed in hammocks. Other figures lay on the ground or stood with slack faces and lax limbs staring at nothing. Closer stood actual cages whose prisoners paced and muttered and then, catching sight of me, began to gabble and claw at the bars that confined them. I recognized the man who had bitten me more by the rip in his singlet than by his features, which were smeared with dirt. Red rimmed his mouth; was that my blood? He rocked from one foot to the other, eyes shut, keening and moaning: ¡°Kill me. Kill me before I rot.¡±


    How long did it take them to die? For how long did their minds hang on, screaming, as they slid inexorably into the claws of the plague?


    I saw Abby. Her hair was bound in a head wrap of brown-and-gold cloth. She was running a hand along the bars of an empty cage as if counting in time to the tune she was singing. ¡°On a fine batey, do yee hear, me sissy-o? We want one of they, do yee hear, me sissy-o? Which one do yee want? Do yee hear, me sissy-o?¡±


    ¡°Abby! It¡¯s Cat¡¯reen!¡±


    She looked at me without recognition and walked on.


    I fled back to the house and barred the door. I washed my face and hands once, then twice, and then a third time, but what I had seen and heard would not rinse away. I sank down on the mat and let the exhaustion of despair drag me down into sleep.


    ¡°Cat?¡± James Drake¡¯s voice woke me. ¡°Here¡¯s food and juice. I haven¡¯t seen you all day.¡±


    I opened the door. Drake stood with a half smile on his face and his hair darkened by being sopping wet; his clothes stuck to him; he looked as if he had been swimming. He was not alone.

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    ¡°Abby!¡±


    She smiled awkwardly at me, as a friend might when caught in a situation where you can¡¯t admit you know each other. She held a tray.


    ¡°Go inside,¡± said Drake to her. ¡°Set it down. Then come back outside. That¡¯s right.¡±


    I stepped back as she lurched inside and set down the tray.


    ¡°Pardon, gal. I just set dis down.¡± She again offered that awkward smile and limped out, holding her side, not looking back.


    ¡°She doesn¡¯t know me!¡± I hissed, my voice breaking.


    He gave off an odd scent: almost sweet and with a bite like a spark settling on the tongue. ¡°Cursed bad luck for her. She could slip into the active phase tonight or tomorrow, and then it will be too late to help her. Bastards!¡± He was in the grip of a fever, words rising. ¡°What high and mighty creatures they all are, so proud of their virtue! The truth they will never admit, none of them, is that a fire mage can burn out all the seedlings of the disease, all the teeth, just as long as an infested salter hasn¡¯t yet entered the active phase.¡±


    ¡°But then why don¡¯t they?¡± I cried, thinking of her blank stare.


    ¡°They don¡¯t want to pay the price. Be on the beach by dusk with all your things.¡±


    He left.


    I forced down the griddle bread with its bitter aftertaste, drank the juice, and ate the strips of dried chicken. The gourd bottle still redolent with rum I filled with water and tied to my bundled skirts and boots. I walked to the deserted beach and dabbled my toes in the water. Cool feet make a cool head. Clouds had built up, sliding in from the northeast, and a squall swept through, soaking me to the skin and pounding across the bay in a sudden boil.


    Hair plastered to my body and my clothes utterly sodden, I laughed. I pressed a hand to my breast, the curve of the locket beneath my bodice shaped to the curve of my palm, and I thought:


    Vai.


    Vai? It was as if the cursed man would never stop plaguing me. And yet he had done his best to help me.


    Shadows darkened the sea as the sun lowered west behind the island¡¯s ridge. A shape like a dark cloud floated against the sky in the east. Did a lamp flare over the water? A faint clut-clut-clut like the clatter of factory machinery teased the edge of my hearing, growing louder. The tang of burning wood and oil tingled in my nostrils.


    As twilight poured into night, the sword flowered to life. A crash shivered, felt through the soles of my bare feet. A shout rang out, followed by the clang of an alarm bell. I turned.


    Flames glowered in the pens. Smoke streamed skyward. Someone had set the cages on fire.


    People yelled from the roof of the prince¡¯s house. Were they waving at me? Or trying to attract the attention of the figures moving through the houses? Where had they all come from?


    In the red gloom, the figures swarmed into view, moving toward the beach. I saw them clearly.


    A mob of salters staggered toward me like a pack of rabid dogs.


    Running seemed the stupidest thing to do, trapped as I was against the sea. I drew my sword. The flat white eyes of the salters glinted in its light. The forward edge of a wave shushed up the beach to kiss my toes and slide away again.


    Legate Amadou Barry and his sisters and aunt had escaped the salt plague by boat. I had once mocked his story because I hadn¡¯t understood how salters could reach an island, but I knew now that all you had to do was to be bitten. Invisible teeth would gnaw away at you with no sign of the disease showing until it was too late.


    I ripped off my pagne and wrapped it around my neck to keep it out of the way as I backed into the water. Could the monster that had attacked me in the deeps swim so close? Did it matter? The salters halted at the limit of the waves, and there they licked their teeth and grasped with unwashed hands. The man who had bitten me stood among them, saying, ¡°Kill me, kill me,¡± as he strained to the edge of the salty brine and retreated as foam tickled up the sand.


    A weight knocked into my legs, bumping me sideways. I shrieked as a huge shape surfaced and a round head blinked solemnly beneath my gleaming blade. The world stilled and the wind hushed. For an instant I stood poised between the mortal world and the spirit world, feet in one and head in another and my heart shoved so hard up into my throat I could not breathe.


    It was a cursed turtle. Watching me like a messenger come to remind me that the Master of the Wild Hunt had his spies everywhere: You belong to me, Daughter.


    Or maybe it was just a sea turtle, as surprised as I was.


    From the roof, Prince Caonabo called. ¡°Perdita! Wade to the point! Wait on the rocks!¡±


    An oblong shape blotted out stars and clouds alike. Lamplight flared overhead.

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    ¡°Cat! Don¡¯t come out of the water!¡± Drake shouted, but I could not see him.


    A thread slithered down from the sky to slap the water. It was a rope ladder, lowered as by Ba¡¯al¡¯s heavenly messengers. I stared at it as if it were a serpent sliding close to strike, for its swaying bounce hypnotized me. Two figures scrambled down. The first gripped a lamp¡¯s hook in strong white teeth. As he turned to take in the scene on the dark shore, he spotted me, let go one hand from the ladder, and drew a very impressive knife from a harness crossed on a dark chest.


    I brandished my sword to make sure he knew I had it. I could take a cursed knife, but I wasn¡¯t so sure about taking him, for he had the posture of a man who knew how to fight and kill. Although his willingness to raid a plague island filled with brain-rotted dying people who could easily infest him did not inspire confidence in his intelligence.


    The person above, the one without a lamp held in his mouth, spoke. ¡°Gal! Yee hear me?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m just a lost woman, no threat to you,¡± I cried. ¡°Can you get me out of here?¡±


    ¡°No salter, she.¡± By the voice it was a woman. She seemed to be explaining things to the man with the lamp and the knife, thus giving me even less faith in his wit. ¡°She be in the water, see? Therewise not a salter.¡±


    I kept my guard up although he sheathed the knife and swung around to peer at the beach.


    ¡°Cat! Get on the ship! Go up now!¡± Definitely that was Drake¡¯s impatient voice.


    He pushed down through the salters without fear, dragging Abby. She lurched like a broken toy, sobbing in fear. He led her to the edge of the water. A wave brushed up over her bare feet and she whimpered with a horrible hurt dog sound. The salters backed away from Drake as from poison, but yet they so yearned for my blood that they kept coming back and retreating, all in time to the sough of the waves.


    Drake tugged Abby against him as in an embrace. He ripped away her blouse, uncovering her torso and breasts. The gleam of my sword and the light of the ladder man¡¯s lamp illuminated a suppurating wound gouged into her side. The wound oozed with a slime that glittered like phosphorous. Drake pressed a hand against it, fingers smeared into the oily mess. She cried out, then stilled as abruptly as if he had stabbed her. I yelled a protest and splashed forward to save her.


    A salter grabbed at me. My training snapped me into a lunge, weight and force thrusting the blade¡¯s tip into his shoulder.


    His gaze met mine, unreadable. Blank and dead.


    Cold and hot together, blood racing, I rotated my elbow out and yanked free the blade, able to think only that it hadn¡¯t been a killing blow. The salter dropped at my feet. A wave spilled over the body, and it turned white and began to dissolve like a ridge of salt crumbling away.


    Maybe I screamed in sheer shocked surprise. Someone screamed.


    The salters scattered, stumbling away from me. The two closest to Drake began to croon in a moaning whoop whose rise and fall made my skin crawl. A glow like fireflies winked along their skin until their complexions shone as if they were turning alchemically into burnished gold. Flames licked along their ragged clothing. Sparks spun in their eyes.


    Furious shouts and curses rose from the rooftops.


    A fourth salter limped toward me, his white gaze fixed purposefully on me. He was the one who had bitten me. As he licked his teeth and smacked his lips with the obsession of hunger, he looked me right in the eye with what I knew, like a knife to the gut, was the dregs of the mind that had once dwelt happily in a youthful, healthy body.


    ¡°Kill me. Kill me.¡±


    I thrust. My blade caught him just below the ribs. Then I pulled free.


    He toppled into the sea, and the crystalline remains of what had once been a man hissed away in the swells.


    I fell back as a wave of heat blasted off James Drake. The two glowing salters burned in earnest. A third joined them. Their greasy, bitter smell gagged me.


    A hand caught my arm. I jerked around to stare straight at a muscled and very bare black chest wrapped with knives. Two old, ropy scars drew a starburst pattern over his left shoulder and across his heart. Once, he had taken the worst of a bad knife fight. Or perhaps he was the one who had won.


    ¡°Up! Hurry, Perdita!¡± With a disturbing shriek of a laugh, the woman leaped off the ladder and landed with a resounding splash next to me.


    The burning men weren¡¯t even screaming because the flames were consuming them so quickly. The reek of singed flesh dizzied me. I sheathed and fastened my sword, grabbed a stiff rung, and began to climb. I had to work around the knife man, and as I passed he spread a hand across my backside most invasively. But he merely shoved, with astonishing strength, to help me on my way.

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    Up!


    My mind had shut down. Keep climbing. One foot. The next foot. One hand. The next hand. My shoulders strained and my fingers cramped, so I concentrated on pushing up with my legs. One more, and one more again. Keep climbing.


    Hands grabbed me from above and hauled me up. I half hung over the rim of a huge basket. Below, fire roared through the pens. A figure stood in the flames, not moving. If you were dead already in every way that counted, wouldn¡¯t true death come as a blessing?


    Kill me.


    I collapsed onto a swaying floor, wet, exhausted, and numb.


    18


    Clut-clut-clut.


    The sound penetrated my dulled mind the way Bee¡¯s little sister Astraea¡¯s whining complaints in time pierced even the most heartlessly impervious. Not because you cared, but because you just wanted it to stop.


    The basket pitched. I grasped at the rope railing, clinging as my rescuers hauled in the rest of their catch. First came Abby, then Drake. Was he glowing slightly?


    I shut my eyes. Glittering salt crystals poured onto the sand in the shape of a man¡¯s body, hissing away as the sea dissolved them. I had killed two men. Yet were they still men if their minds and maybe their souls had been eaten?


    As the basket rocked again, I looked up. The knife man and the woman who had laughed swung easily into the basket and rolled up the ladder behind them. Abby was led toward the stern by a young man who had his arm around her. A seventh individual, small and agile, clambered in the rigging to investigate the bloated creature above us. An eighth person fiddling at the stern of the basket worked a crank. As the clut-clut-clut increased its clamor, the creature under which we labored began ponderously to part the currents of air. Heat rose from a metal cylinder like the breath of a dragon, pouring upward into the oblong whale with its thrumming skin.


    We were sailing in an airship.


    A small airship, to be sure, but an airship nonetheless.


    I pulled myself up to see the isle falling away behind us, looking like leviathan at rest in the midst of the slumbering sea. The wind rumbled in my ears. Knife man and the woman who had laughed braced themselves against the basket, examining me. They were kissed by the pearly glamour of a waxing moon now sliding free from clouds.


    Drake settled beside me. ¡°You were slow. You need to do a better job following orders.¡±


    ¡°Yes, certainly I was slow, since it¡¯s every day I have an opportunity to be trapped on an island filled with victims of the salt plague and then be rescued by buccaneers in an airship. No reason to be surprised by any of that!¡±


    The eerie glow around his person had faded, but his blue eyes shimmered. ¡°Please don¡¯t be so annoying.¡±


    I was so angry that I thought maybe the top of my head was going to blow off. And, if we were fortunate, propel the airship faster. ¡°You lied to me!¡±


    ¡°Maku bastard!¡± The man who had had his arm around Abby grabbed Drake¡¯s shoulder, threatening with a hand in a fist. ¡°She mind rotted. Yee promised to heal she!¡±


    Drake¡¯s eyes burned hot blue. ¡°Take your hand off me. Or I¡¯ll burn it off.¡±


    Knife man rocked the basket. Abby¡¯s man stumbled to his knees. Drake caught himself clumsily, bellying against the basket¡¯s rim. I shifted to balance, and the woman who had laughed grinned at me.


    The young man burst into tears. ¡°She me dear good sister. Dey behiques tell we it too late. Den dey take she a Salt Island. But den we hear dat in Expedition der some folk can heal any salter. Dat how I find yee. Now she don¡¯ know she own name. She don¡¯ know me, she own brother.¡±


    ¡°She is healed. There¡¯s no salt plague in her. You have what I could save. And you thank me for the risks I took by assaulting me?¡±


    ¡°God¡¯s blessing for saving she,¡± wept the young man.


    Drake rested a hand on the man¡¯s plaited hair. ¡°What happened to the salter who bit her?¡±


    ¡°We drive dat salter in a pit and we pour salted water over he.¡±


    ¡°That was done well. I would have acted sooner, but if I had, I would have been arrested and imprisoned and she would never have gotten off Salt Island. Go back to her. She needs you.¡±


    With both hands on the guide rope the brother staggered back to where Abby sat as in a stupor at the stern, her hands lax on the untidy mess of her rumpled pagne.


    I shook out and retied my pagne. I was not ready to talk about Abby. ¡°Drake, when did you leave Adurnam? What happened to the general? Why are you here?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m here because Expedition is my home. I was born in the Ordovici territories, but I left home at seventeen. I¡¯ve lived in Expedition Territory for twelve years. Once my business in Adurnam was complete, I sailed back to Expedition.¡±

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    ¡°What was your business in Adurnam?¡±


    ¡°Why, to rescue the general and bring him over the ocean to Expedition.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s in Expedition?¡±


    ¡°At the moment, he is not. He went west to a city called Sharagua to pay his respects to the cacique¡¯s court and person.¡±


    ¡°You didn¡¯t travel with him?¡±


    ¡°In the Taino kingdom, all fire mages serve the cacique. So I¡¯m forbidden from traveling into Taino country. I wouldn¡¯t want to anyway. Their laws are unreasonably strict. They won¡¯t allow me to heal people.¡±


    ¡°Heal people? You burned those salters alive!¡±


    ¡°I used them as catch-fires, that¡¯s true. Was that life, what they suffered? I ended their misery through a quick, merciful death that healed Abby. To burn out all the teeth in someone as far advanced in the disease as she was would have killed me. I think it was a fair trade.¡±


    ¡°So speaks the man who said he could heal me if I would just have sex with him.¡±


    ¡°Cat, you were drunk. You can¡¯t expect to have understood exactly what I meant. Anyway, I thought you knew your own mind. You¡¯re an independent young woman, traveling on your own. And you¡¯re a Phoenician girl.¡±


    I put a hand on my sword¡¯s hilt. ¡°I would be very cautious about what you say next.¡±


    He took a step away from me just as it occurred to me that it might be a mistake to make a fire mage angry. But his voice remained patient. ¡°I meant only that a young woman of your background can do as she wishes. I would never have suggested otherwise had I thought you were under the thumb of a father or brother.¡± He smiled pleasantly. ¡°Or beholden to a husband.¡±


    I could not speak out of sheer choked consternation. My cheeks flamed.


    Then he surprised me. ¡°My sincerest apologies, Cat. I meant no harm, and certainly no disrespect. A remarkably pretty girl like you is hard to resist.¡± He raised both hands in a conciliatory gesture. ¡°I hope we can make peace.¡±


    ¡°Whatever else,¡± I muttered grudgingly, ¡°you did get me off Salt Island.¡±


    ¡°So I did.¡± With a nod, he groped his way by guide rope to the stern, where he began to chat with the sterns-man at his rudder.


    I did not want to drown in my anger, so I went over and knelt beside Abby. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry,¡± I said to her brother.


    ¡°I know yee,¡± she said with that horribly puzzled smile.


    She began to comb through the tangles of my hair with her fingers. I did not want to interrupt something that comforted her, so I settled cross-legged in front of her. Knife man brought over a comb, and Abby worked through my hair, never yanking although the snarls seemed intractable. The woman who had laughed offered me a gourd bottle, and I swallowed a juice that made my eyes water and my mouth sting. Or maybe I was just tired and shaken. With Abby still combing my hair, my eyes fluttered and shut.


    I woke leaning against the side of the basket, my hair a smooth curtain falling over my shoulders to my hips. Abby stood at the prow of the basket with her brother, his arm around her, watching phosphorus dance its glamour on the waves. Staring into their future, which must have seemed very dark. Wasn¡¯t it sometimes better to be dead?


    I shut my eyes rather than look.


    I woke as the air changed, and we bucked like a skittish horse. The clut-clut-clut slowed to a lazy clunk-cluunk-cluuunk. I rose. We drifted over land, a hulking beast of ridges grown with a breathing exhalation of forest. I remembered Bee¡¯s sketches of airships. What had seemed funny then, when she had drawn hapless passengers falling from the basket to deaths far below, seemed indecent now. Easy to joke about a thing you have no experience of and will never suffer.


    Off to our right, firelight dappled a hollow.


    Knife man paid out the ladder, and the woman who had laughed went over with a grace and strength I admired. I grasped Abby¡¯s hand just before she went over, and she smiled at me, and her brother said, ¡°Thank yee, maku,¡± in a way that made me glad she had been saved, even what was left of her. Even in the face of the deaths of others, two of which I had caused. Even so.


    Over they went, climbing away into a life hidden from me. Below, on the ground, a rushlight shivered into life. After some time, it wavered away and vanished. The woman who had laughed swung a leg back over and hopped in. We began to move as knife man hauled the ladder back up.


    A shape dropped beside me, startling me so badly I cried out. The fourth crewman was a petite, white-haired woman with a lined and leathery black face, her eyes hidden behind goggles. Her sleeveless singlet exposed wiry arms, and she wore loose trousers, a harness with four knives, and a bracelet molded in the shape of a running wolf. She said a word whose meaning I could not guess at, and swung back up into the rigging.

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    ¡°Uncommon quiet, this night.¡± The woman who had laughed leaned companionably beside me against the basket¡¯s rim. The land slumbered silent beneath like behemoth asleep. We watched together. I was content not to speak, and she felt no need to chatter. After a while, knife man moved up on my other side.


    ¡°We saw what yee wrought, there on the beach,¡± murmured the woman. ¡°That blade yee carry turned them to salt. They dissolved when salt water washed them. Yon fire mage never saw. Peradventure, yee don¡¯ mean to tell him.¡±


    Under the circumstances, I settled on a truthful answer. ¡°I don¡¯t. Do you plan to tell him?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯s paid for the conveyance, that only. Not for secrets.¡±


    I smiled, for she sounded exactly like my uncle, scion of the Hassi Barahal clan that made its living stealing and selling secrets. ¡°Who are you, if I may ask?¡±


    ¡°Folk hired to do a job,¡± she answered.


    ¡°Yon fire mage is right, yee know,¡± said knife man, the weight of him very noticeable on my other side.


    ¡°About what?¡±


    ¡°It were a kindness to let they salters die.¡± He nodded toward my belt. ¡°No ordinary manner of blade, that one.¡±


    I fixed a hand possessively on the hilt. ¡°Only my hand can wield it.¡±


    He said, ¡°Surely bound to yee. Some manner of cemi.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s just a sword.¡±


    The woman laughed with a kind of wavering howl. It was not a laugh I would soon forget.


    ¡°Have it that way, then, Perdita.¡± Knife man grinned. ¡°Kiskeya is a beauty, is she not?¡±


    ¡°Who is Kiskeya?¡± I asked, pleased I could frame a useful question to move the topic on.


    ¡°Why, Kiskeya is this island. She is the mother of we all.¡±


    The hills plunged in jagged shadows down to the foamy white rim of a beach. The airship skipped and rolled as air currents eddied and battered us from two directions. Then we turned and headed parallel along the coastline. Under the moon¡¯s light, the sea became a dark mirror in which stars were caught. I smelled a flowery fragrance, a heady perfume blown into my face by the night wind. A bird called in a mournful loop. Far in the distance, I saw a shimmering glow as of a city burning night candles.


    ¡°What city is that?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Expedition,¡± said the woman.


    ¡°So this island is part of the Taino kingdom. While Expedition is a free city on this island ruled by mage Houses and princes. But how could a free city have been established here?¡±


    ¡°When the first fleet, that one out of Mali, come across the Atlantic, it come to land here, on the south shore of Kiskeya. The island was then ruled by many caciques, each with he own territory. One of these caciques, named Caonabo, dealt with the fleet¡¯s officers. He gave them territory in exchange for allowing the Taino to trade and ship through they port.¡±


    ¡°And in exchange for the maku not starting a war,¡± said knife man with a sardonic chuckle.


    ¡°Is that where the law about the salt plague comes from? The one that all salters or anyone bitten by a salter have to be quarantined on Salt Island?¡±


    ¡°Yee have it right,¡± she said. ¡°¡¯Tis all written down in the first treaty, that one which established Expedition Territory. But yee¡¯s mistaken in thinking Expedition ruled by princes and mages. A Council rule in Expedition. Why, mages is not even allowed to form professional associations or corporations or guilds in any wise. The Council don¡¯ like mages much. So besides the insult to Taino law for a take yee two gals off Salt Island, Expedition¡¯s wardens shall be after yon fire mage for another reason. Because in Expedition ¡¯tis against the law for a fire mage to use a catch-fire.¡±


    ¡°Will you tell them?¡±


    ¡°Not good for business to tell tales,¡± said knife man.


    ¡°The Taino on Salt Island shall tell them,¡± said the woman. ¡°Yon fire mage shall have some trouble hereafter.¡±


    I could only hope! But their words puzzled me. ¡°Are there truly no cold mages in Expedition?¡±


    ¡°What is a cold mage?¡± asked knife man.


    I was too surprised to answer, but fortunately the woman did.


    ¡°Fire banes,¡± she said.


    ¡°Fire banes? I suppose cold mages could be called fire banes.¡±


    ¡°They who come from Europa speak such stories of fire banes as mighty as hurricanes, but I don¡¯ believe them,¡± remarked knife man. ¡°Yee ever see such power in a fire bane, gal?¡±


    I was really too astonished to answer. In the east, the light had changed yet again, black of night easing to a charcoal pallor. The wind began to soften as dawn crept up the horizon. We were drifting down, sinking closer to the waves and a length of beach.

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    ¡°Why would there be no powerful cold mages here?¡± I asked.


    I could see them better now: He was a big man, broad-shouldered and powerful, with black skin and a shaved head. The ropy scar that patterned his left torso was not the only old wound marking a violent life. Yet the woman who had laughed scared me more. Not that I thought she was about to strangle me to get my sword, but that she surveyed me with a measuring eye, as if wondering if I were a secret she could steal and sell to the highest bidder. She could have walked down Adurnam¡¯s streets without looking the least out of place, with brown skin dusted with freckles from constant sun, reddish-brown kinky hair, brown eyes, full lips, and a thin Celtic nose. But then when she laughed, you would shudder.


    Knife man smiled. ¡°Because ¡¯tis just a story di maku tell. I hear they don¡¯ even have gaslight in they cities in Europa, so they tell this story about cold mages to fill dem shoes.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s true!¡± I retorted indignantly. ¡°In Europa, cold mages can extinguish fires, call down storms of ice and snow, and twist and shatter iron¡ª¡±


    Knife man began to laugh, and he punched me on the shoulder as at a good joke well told. ¡°With dem honest eyes and fierce look, yee almost had me believing, Perdita,¡± he said, grinning. ¡°Until that yee said about iron. That was too much.¡±


    From the rigging shrilled a whistle.


    ¡°Time to go,¡± said the woman.


    ¡°Where are we?¡±


    ¡°Why, we have crossed into Expedition Territory, Perdita. We don¡¯ go into the city. The wardens shall shave off we asses and chop off we hands to decorate the council square. We shall drop yee and yon fire mage at Cow Killer Beach. Yee can find a canoe to take yee along.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s a canoe?¡±


    Knife man punched me again on the shoulder, not quite so lightly this time. When I held my place by sinking into the blow, his grin widened. ¡°Yee a real maku, ja? New come to the Antilles?¡±


    ¡°A foreigner? Isn¡¯t it obvious?¡±


    He was still grinning, but the amusement faded from his eyes, and it took every thread of courage I had not to step back from the edge that cut through his voice. Not only physical scars can mark you. He was a killer, and not one bit sorry to be so. He just happened to like me, and to have been paid. ¡°Remember, Perdita. Yee a pretty gal, and yee healthy and shapely and with that fine fall of hair. Yee brave, and yee strong, and yee have that cemi yee carry. But Heaven¡¯s Breath, gal, yee are but a babe fallen in wild country.¡± He raised a hand, forefinger up to scold me. ¡°Don¡¯ yee go getting drunk around men. What yee think will happen?¡±


    He clucked disapprovingly as he shook his head at me, so like a fussing old uncle that I blushed bright red rather than getting angry.


    ¡°Yee think about it, Perdita,¡± he finished, and he went over to toss out the ladder.


    The woman had a scar along the line of her jaw, so fine it was easy to miss. ¡°Me grandmother was Phoenician-born. No man ever lied to she daughters and lived to speak of it. For the insult, she¡¯d a stick that arseness of a fire mage with a knife in he gut before he knew what hit him. Then twist it and pull his entrails out, to make sure he suffer longer.¡±


    She wasn¡¯t teasing. ¡°Your grandmother was Phoenician-born! What clan?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯ go asking, for I don¡¯ want to have to refuse to tell yee. We¡¯s just folk hired to do a job. One piece of advice. Wear long sleeves until that bite heal.¡±


    ¡°My thanks.¡± I offered a hand in the radical¡¯s manner. With a grin she shook it.


    Knife man slapped me hard on the ass as I went over the side. ¡°Don¡¯ forget what I told yee!¡±


    I climbed down first, Drake coming after. As soon as his feet hit the sand, they drew up the ladder. A hand waved; I waved back as the little airship took a course out to sea.


    ¡°Cat! Come along!¡±


    He was already halfway down the beach, walking toward a ridge beyond which smoke rose. I winkled out my jacket from the bundle.


    ¡°Hurry up!¡± he called.


    ¡°I¡¯m covering the bite with long sleeves.¡± I considered the boots, and decided it was better to walk barefoot on the sand. ¡°Who were they?¡±


    ¡°Criminals of the worst sort. You must keep the bite covered until it heals. Tell no one where you were. I hope to reach Expedition before any word of the incident on Salt Island gets there. I¡¯ve got to sort out what I have to do, and there¡¯s you besides to complicate my situation.¡±


    Dawn rose as we climbed on a sandy path over the ridge and down to a hamlet ringed by garden plots. Smokehouses steamed with the savory aroma of meat being cured.

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    Gracious Melqart! I had forgotten how hungry I was!


    Women walked out of the forest, carrying pots of water on their heads. Round houses circled a raised plaza paved with stone and a long dirt field where children were playing a game with a ball. Except for the cry of brightly plumed birds, the soft wash of waves, the blat of a goat, and the casual morning chatter of folk and chickens going about their daily business, it was too cursed quiet. If anyone saw us, they gave no sign. We might as well have been ghosts.


    ¡°Stay here, Cat,¡± said Drake.


    I waited as he walked to the beach where men were loading baskets and barrels into a pair of long, narrow wooden boats. I watched as he negotiated. The men looked my way, and the bidding got steeper. I knew this dance. They¡¯d be arguing: ¡°Ah, but Maester, you understand that if we add the girl, we¡¯ll have to take out two baskets, and then where¡¯s our profit?¡±


    At length Drake gestured to me, and I walked over, all too aware of the men¡¯s scrutiny.


    ¡°Get into the canoe,¡± Drake said.


    ¡°I hate to mention this, but I¡¯m terribly thirsty.¡±


    ¡°I only paid for passage. Have you any funds at all, Cat?¡±


    ¡°Do you think I wouldn¡¯t offer to pay my own way if I could?¡±


    ¡°I wish you would stop that. A simple ¡®No¡¯ would suffice.¡±


    I thought it wiser to say nothing, so I clambered into the canoe and arranged my bundle to cushion my backside. He sat in front, his back to me. The men paddled with long blades that cut the water. I clutched the gunnels, too paralyzed at being surrounded by water to worry about thirst.


    It was not such a long distance, no more than an hour or three, but my life crawled past my eyes at a creeping baby¡¯s pace and then limped back as an aged crone before we came around a headland. There, spread before us, lay the infamous city of Expedition.


    Buildings stretched along a jetty that ran for at least a mile along the shore. At a river¡¯s mouth, the embankment broke into a harbor where masted ships clustered. Proper city walls rose down by the harbor. Where the river opened onto the sea lay a flat island ringed by six skeletal towers like the points of a prince¡¯s coronet, stately airships moored to two of them. On the eastern side of the river, a pall of drifting smoke darkened the morning sky, streaming in billows into the west on a stout wind. Smokestacks grew like shafts of blackened grain. The distant clatter of engine works and busy machines hammered a faint counterpoint to the wind¡¯s bluster and the slap of swells against the canoe¡¯s hull as we parted the waters.


    Founded by refugees from the Empire of Mali and their Phoenician shipmasters and allies, the population had swelled with the ranks of criminals, indentured servants, unscrupulous merchants, fortune hunters, and the discontented and maladjusted flotsam and jetsam borne across the ocean from Europa and Africa. More recently, so history told, trolls had emigrated south from their homeland to make common cause with like-minded rats, as Chartji would call them. I wondered if there might be an office of Godwik and Clutch I could approach for aid in securing passage back to Adurnam and Bee once I had accomplished my task.


    We passed slim canoes and chubby sailboats, men out fishing who waved to us in a friendly manner that our boatmen returned. We skimmed not toward the river¡¯s mouth and the big wharves where the oceangoing ships lay to harbor but toward a crowded comb of piers farther west. Boats crammed the shore.


    I pressed a hand to my breast, feeling the locket¡¯s warmth like a promise that I would soon find a safe haven. Caught by an inexplicably sharp thrill, I leaned forward. The jetty spread before me in all its magnificently confounding bustle, folk hauling and carrying and bargaining and loitering and tossing out line and drawing in skiffs. The life and light of the place seemed about to break over me like the tide of a dragon¡¯s dream.


    We bumped up against a pier. The steersman offered a gap-toothed leer as I scrambled out with my bundle and my cane. My bare feet slipped on fish guts and less savory spume. I gritted my teeth and plowed on.


    ¡°Come along, Cat,¡± said Drake over his shoulder as he strode down the long wooden pier.


    Men working on or lounging in canoes and skiffs looked up as he passed, expressions incurious or passively hostile; then they would see me, and a wolfish kind of grin would flash as they took a good look along me from my head to my toes. My pagne had plastered itself down the length of my thighs. I regretted leaving my jacket unbuttoned, because my shift and bodice were still damp enough to cling. I crossed my arms over my chest.


    ¡°Fished a river siren out of the water, did yee?¡± called one young man to the men in the canoe. ¡°Look at that hair!¡±

 Page 87

    Men within earshot all agreed, quite vocally and with a great deal of amusement, about my cursed hair. I could not imagine why I had not braided it back.


    I had no trouble keeping track of Drake in the press of bodies, for his red-gold shock of hair stood out like fire. Men stepped out of his way, not making a scene of it, but it was clear Drake need not ask for passage. They knew what he was. And he was glad they knew.


    We stepped onto a vastly wide, stone-paved avenue slimed with a thin layer of mud and oil churned by sun and yesterday¡¯s rain and the constant trammeling of the exceptional amount of traffic coming and going. A high-wheeled cart driven by a bored-looking man and drawn by a hairy but quite small mammoth¡ªif that was not a contradiction in terms¡ªtrundled past as I stared gape-mouthed. A four-winged bird feathered in bright colors reminiscent of a troll¡¯s crest glided overhead, a white tube clutched in its fore-talons. Four soldiers casually carrying rifles over their shoulders strolled along the jetty, now and again pausing to speak to young men as if recruiting.


    Two men uniformed in red tabards hurried along the avenue, each carrying a long staff and wearing a stiff black cap. Drake dropped at once into a crouch, head bent to conceal his face. He fiddled with his sandals as if he had caught a pebble until the men walked out of sight past a company of women who were striding along with laden baskets on their heads.


    ¡°Come along, Cat.¡± He rose and began walking east, in their wake, toward the distant city walls.


    I caught his wrist and pulled him to a stop.


    ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± I pointed to a wide dusty open work area set off behind a low fence and rimmed with long thatch-roofed shelters with no walls. Men worked at beams and planks. In truth what had drawn my eye was the rear view of a young man stripped to the waist and plying an adze along a beam. I could not help but admire his muscled back.


    ¡°That¡¯s a carpentry yard. Strange you should need to ask, as they have the like in Adurnam.¡±


    He tugged, but I held my ground.


    His gaze narrowed. ¡°Didn¡¯t you see the two wardens? They can arrest me. I¡¯m taking you to the Speckled Iguana. You¡¯ll stay there in hiding until I sort out if the general is back in the city.¡±


    I ripped my gaze away from the carpenter¡¯s decorative back and stared at Drake as if he had sprouted two heads. ¡°You¡¯re abandoning me here?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not abandoning you, Cat. You¡¯ll lie low in a safe place. I¡¯ll pay your room and board, and the innkeeper will watch over you. He¡¯s a partisan, an old soldier and countryman. An Iberian.¡± He sighed, as if exhausted by having to explain things to a persistently dim-witted child. ¡°I need you to keep your mouth shut and your head down until I return. As soon as I know what the situation is here, we¡¯ll sort things out.¡±


    ¡°How long until that happens? What will I do?¡±


    He shook his arm with an angry grimace, and I let go. ¡°The longer I stand here in public view, the more likely it is I¡¯ll be spotted. Then I¡¯ll be arrested. Is that what you want?¡±


    ¡°Why should I want that?¡±


    ¡°A question I couldn¡¯t possibly answer.¡± As if to punctuate his words, a clock tolled down the hour: ten in the morning. Some distance down the jetty, at an intersection of a major side street, stood a squat building topped by a clock tower. A parade of little clockwork children passed beneath the clock¡¯s face.


    ¡°Blessed Tanit,¡± I whispered, for the clock¡¯s workings had finally shaken loose the obvious. ¡°What if I¡¯m pregnant?¡±


    Most inappropriately, he kissed me on the lips. ¡°Don¡¯t you know why we fire mages are so sought after as lovers?¡±


    ¡°Why would I know that?¡±


    His fingers tightened painfully over mine. ¡°Cat, I fear no man has ever told you that repeated impertinence in a woman makes her ugly. Take care you do not lose your pretty face. Or perhaps you have complaints beyond those whose linen you have already aired.¡±


    The comment so reminded me of the head of the poet Bran Cof that I would have laughed, except I had seen James Drake engulf three men¡¯s bodies in flames.


    I twisted my hand out of his grip. ¡°I am sure,¡± I said in my blandest tone, ¡°that fire mages are sought after as lovers for their own special qualities.¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t know about that. But you¡¯ll be glad to hear we are indifferently fertile. So the chances my seed will plant in you is small.¡±


    I pressed a hand to my belly, seized with a horrible foreboding.


    ¡°Or are you disappointed? I know women dream of becoming pregnant¡ª¡±

 Page 88

    ¡°I was dreaming about having a bowl of yam pudding!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re very amusing, Cat, when you make your little jokes.¡± He flagged down a man who was pulling along a cart with a canvas awning draped over a seat wide enough for two people. ¡°We¡¯ve loitered too long. I must get out of sight immediately. Wardens patrol thickly through these districts where most of the trouble comes from.¡±


    ¡°What kind of trouble?¡±


    ¡°Go to the Speckled Iguana.¡± He kissed me again on the lips and clambered onto the seat. ¡°Ask for the innkeeper and tell him the usual phrase: A rising light marks the dawn of a new world. You can trust him.¡±


    He spoke a meaningless phrase to the cart-man, who was wiping sweat from his forehead with a cloth. The man stowed his cloth, gripped the shafts, and off they jolted, leaving me all alone in the midst of an unfamiliar city.


    19


    I stood stunned and bewildered, surrounded by tramping feet, axes chopping, wheels turning and a man whistling a cheerful tune. People, carts, wheelbarrows, wagons, laden donkeys, and pack dogs with their human handlers walking behind pushed along the main thoroughfare.


    A prickling sensation crawled along my neck as the locket warmed my skin. I looked toward the carpentry yard. The young man with the adze had stopped work in order to turn half around. Was the cursed man staring at me? What had I ever done to him to attract his rude notice?


    He wore loose trousers belted at his hips with rope and above that, as I had already had cause to remark, nothing but gorgeous muscled skin the color of the raw umber worked in painters¡¯ studios, a deep, rich, warm, luxuriously dark brown. He set down the adze and, bracing a hand on the fence, leaped over it. Then he strode toward me as if certain I was about to bolt and he must catch me before I did so.


    Several carpenters halted their work. One whistled, provoking laughter.


    Another yelled, ¡°Don¡¯ let this one run away, Vai. Not like that one yee lost¡­¡±


    I blinked, for the man approaching me so determinedly looked exactly as Andevai Diarisso Haranwy would look if he were half dressed and his chest and back sheeny with sweat from hard physical labor.


    Blessed Tanit, but it was hot in this country!


    He stopped at arm¡¯s length.


    ¡°Catherine,¡± he said, the word fading as if he hadn¡¯t the strength to get it all out.


    I couldn¡¯t tell if he wanted to embrace me or berate me. Heat burning up my cheeks, I knew what he was going to say: ¡°Who was that man and why was he kissing you when you are my wife??¡±


    He said, ¡°Did Duvai find you?¡±


    After several years of effort that passed in perhaps five sluggish breaths, I sewed together the rudiments of speech out of the remnants of my confounded mind.


    ¡°Duvai?¡±


    ¡°After I lost you in that well, I meant to follow you into the spirit world myself at Imbolc. But I was unavoidably detained, and then¡ªwell¡ªthen it wasn¡¯t possible. So I asked my brother Duvai to hunt for you. I must imagine you recall him well enough, since he was the person who guided you out of my village in order to keep you away from me.¡±


    Only Andevai could have managed that hint of peevishness, as if he, rather than I, had been the one inconvenienced by the mansa¡¯s command to kill me!


    ¡°I recall him with a great deal of gratitude, if you must know.¡±


    ¡°I do not doubt it,¡± he said quellingly.


    ¡°He did not find me.¡± I fished out the locket. ¡°But your grandmother did.¡±


    He recoiled, taking a step back. A trio of passing trolls skirted him without breaking stride, as if accustomed to crowded streets where stray men lurched blindly into their path. A man not quite in control of a dozen leashed, unpleasantly large, and clearly short-tempered snapping lizards yelled at us to get out of the way.


    Vai grabbed my wrist. ¡°This isn¡¯t the place to have this conversation.¡±


    He strode back toward the carpentry yard, me trotting alongside, my mind whirling and my stride kicking awkwardly against the damp pagne. We went in by an unlatched gate. Wood shavings warmed by the sun padded my footsteps. Every man in the yard had ceased working in order to enjoy the spectacle. If one man among the twenty or so was not grinning or chuckling, I did not see him.


    ¡°Ja, maku! That a fine catch yee hauled in!¡±


    ¡°That the gal yee lost?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± said Vai in a clipped tone which likely meant he was strangling an intense emotion.


    An ominous silence dropped over the men.


    He tugged me to a thatched-roofed shelter with no walls where a woman, seated in its shade, was measuring a shaved plank with calipers. She had silver-streaked straight black hair and the broad features I was beginning to recognize as Taino.

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    ¡°Boss,¡± he said, halting beside her table, ¡°I need the rest of the day off. I¡¯ll make it up.¡±


    She finished her measurements and noted down the figures in an accounts book before she glanced up. She looked me up and down. ¡°We¡¯s not running a stud service, Vai. Nor a sly tavern.¡±


    Some of the men had come up to the shelter¡¯s edge.


    ¡°Never say yee mean it, maku,¡± said one of the younger ones. He had scarred cheeks and a keen gaze. ¡°She really that one yee lost?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    Soft whistles and murmurs greeted this curt pronouncement.


    The boss measured me rather as she had just been measuring the plank. With no shift of expression, she nodded. ¡°That change matters, then. I shall expect yee tomorrow, the usual.¡±


    ¡°My thanks.¡±


    ¡°I shall bring yee tools when I come for the areito,¡± said the young man with the scars.


    ¡°My thanks, Kofi,¡± said Vai in the absentminded tone of a man whose thoughts have already galloped over the next hill. He led me to another shelter, where he let go of me to grab a singlet out of several draped over a sawhorse. After tugging it on, he unhooked a leather bottle from a crossbeam.


    ¡°Drink,¡± he said, unstoppering it. ¡°You look sun-reddened.¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡± I asked suspiciously.


    ¡°Guava juice sweetened with pineapple and lime. You need to drink or you¡¯ll get sun sick.¡±


    It was juice, sweet and pure, and after I had gulped down so much that I burped, he slung the bottle over his shoulder. The carpenters had moved off and the boss had gone back to her measuring. After a hesitation, he clasped my hand in the way of innocent children, palm to palm, and examined me, neither smiling nor frowning.


    ¡°Will you come with me, Catherine? Or would you rather not?¡±


    ¡°What choice do I have?¡± I demanded.


    His lips thinned as he pressed them tight as if to hold back words he didn¡¯t want to say. Then he spoke. ¡°Why, the choice I just gave you. Which I meant. Is there something I need to know?¡±


    I flushed, utterly embarrassed. ¡°What do you think you might need to know?¡±


    He looked skyward, released a breath, and addressed me without looking at me. ¡°I must wonder if your¡­affections are engaged.¡±


    ¡°My affections are not engaged. I do not love any man, if that is what you mean.¡±


    ¡°Of course it¡¯s what I mean! What am I to think, having seen what I saw?¡±


    ¡°Did it not occur to you that he¡¯s the one who abandoned me? In a strange city? Oh, la, darling! I have secret business of my own and I¡¯ll return to fetch you when I get around to it?¡±


    He looked at the ground, his expression flashing through a series of emotions too complex to unravel. Hard to imagine the man who had worn perfectly polished boots and expensive, tailored dash jackets standing in worn trousers and dusty bare feet in a carpentry yard! ¡°I¡¯m sorry to hear you were abandoned.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t sound sorry. You sound pleased.¡±


    ¡°Very well, Catherine.¡± His gaze flashed up to sear me. ¡°I¡¯m not sorry. And I am pleased.¡± He brushed the scabbed-over wound above my right eye, his touch cautious but his tone trembling as on the brink of a cliff. ¡°Unless he¡¯s hurt you. In that case, I¡¯ll kill him for you, if you like.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t find that amusing.¡±


    Thank Tanit, he looked down again, for I could not have borne the intensity of those eyes for one more heart-stopping breath.


    I went on. ¡°It would be better just to let it go.¡±


    ¡°How like a woman to say so!¡± he muttered.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Nothing,¡± he said too quickly. When he looked up, he had veiled that boiling glare behind a screen of prickly disdain. ¡°My offer still stands. Come with me, if you wish. I ask nothing of you, except that you allow me to offer you shelter. Or go your own way, if that is what you prefer.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll come with you.¡± I didn¡¯t want to let go of a hand that was like a lifeline in a storm-tossed sea.


    He closed his eyes briefly, making no reply. Nor did he let go of my hand.


    We walked inland. Once away from the carpentry yard we were just another young couple, although I am sure I looked as if I had just been fished out of the sea, so bedraggled was I. The neighborhood was laid out in a grid plan, two-story buildings behind gates and walls, mostly workshops and residential compounds. In the streets, children played a game by hitting a ball with their knees and elbows and calves, and it was quite astonishing how they kept it from touching the ground without ever catching it in their hands. Women dyed cloth in vats and hung the cloth from lines to dry. One pretty woman looked up, began to smile as if to call out a greeting to Vai, then saw me. As her eyes widened, she nudged a companion, and they whispered as they watched us go.

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    We walked up a quiet boulevard where men were sewing companionably under cloth awnings. The streets were paved with smooth-fitting stone swept clean of debris, and posted with gas lamps for the coming of evening. Past every gate opened a courtyard where more people, of all ages, lounged under shaded shelters or busied themselves at some manner of work. Women carried baskets of vegetables and fruit on their heads. More than one smiled at Vai with a friendly¡ªor over-friendly¡ªgreeting, only to notice me with surprise or disbelief. He was polite to everyone, but he plowed forward without stopping.


    We turned a corner onto a dusty lane shaded by trees. He led me in through an open gate to a sprawling courtyard with a cistern, a tree, and a two-story wing abutting the back. About a third of the space was taken up by tables and benches set out beneath a vine-swept latticed roof. Behind the tables stretched a counter like a bar in a tavern. To the left lay an open-air kitchen. In its shade, two girls were grating tubers into moist pulp.


    A healthily stout woman of middle age stood at a stone hearth, cooking on a griddle. Seeing Vai, she smiled as might an aunt who spots her favorite nephew come to visit. Seeing me, she abandoned the griddle to a girl and, wiping her hands on a cloth tied over her pagne and blouse, walked over to us.


    ¡°Never tell me!¡± she said with a laugh.


    ¡°Yes, this is Catherine.¡± He turned to me. ¡°Catherine, this is Aunty Djeneba. She owns this lodging house.¡±


    ¡°Peace to you, Aunty,¡± I said, in the village way, because she reminded me of the women of the Tarrant countryside and Adurnam¡¯s markets for whom a long exchange of greetings was the measure of politeness. ¡°Do you have peace?¡±


    ¡°Good morning, Cat¡¯reen,¡± she answered. ¡°¡¯Tis pleasing to make yee acquaintance.¡±


    ¡°Cat is fine.¡±


    ¡°Cat it shall be, then.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t sure how to go on, so I glanced at Vai for help.


    ¡°Catherine, I¡¯m sure you¡¯re hungry. Rice and peas, or fish?¡±


    I had never in my life been too stunned to eat. ¡°Might I have both?¡±


    Aunty Djeneba smiled as if I had called her children the best-mannered in the city. ¡°¡¯Tis good when a gal likes to eat,¡± she said with a knowing glance at Vai as if to congratulate him.


    I blushed, although I am sure I did not know why.


    ¡°Things is still cooking, for it is early yet,¡± she added. ¡°Yee like a bath first? Yee look a bit mucked. The gals shall fetch clean cloth, and yee shall wash and hang that yee have on.¡±


    ¡°Yes, please,¡± I said with a reflexive courtesy, dipping my knees.


    Two girls somewhat younger than me hurried over giggling, and I wasn¡¯t sure if it was me and my muck and my foreign manners they were giggling over or the fact that Vai had not yet let go of my hand.


    ¡°Lad,¡± Aunty said as she patted flour dust off her hands, ¡°yee run down to the harbor and get pargo from Baba. Cat shall still be here when yee get back.¡±


    ¡°Will you?¡± he asked, looking at me as if he expected me to vanish in a puff of smoke.


    ¡°Where else would I go?¡±


    The girls giggled. Aunty swatted them on the arms. His expression got more rigid. With an exhalation that could have been no more pained if he had been pulling a nail from his flesh, he released my hand. For an instant I thought he was going to grab it back, but Aunty nudged him.


    ¡°Go on,¡± she said. All the folk in the compound¡ªat this time of day five women, the two girls, an older man and a lad at the counter, plus two old men lounging in sling-backed chairs and an ancient crone likewise, and several toddling children¡ªwere watching with evident pleasure.


    He walked to the gate. There he halted to look back at me.


    ¡°Go on, maku!¡± There was nothing insulting in her tone, despite what Drake had said about the word. She sounded positively affectionate.


    Still, he hesitated.


    ¡°I will still be here when you come back,¡± I said, not adding: Where else do I have to go?


    With a grimace, he left.


    The girls led me past the big tree. In its shade two women were washing dishes in a trough fed by a pipe and drained by a ditch lined with ceramic. They greeted me with what appeared to be genuine kindness. Yet the lilt in their speech and the number of unknown words made them difficult to understand. Everything was so strange, and my head was beginning to hurt.


    Oh, glorious! A brick-paved platform behind screens made a washhouse. After I set aside my cane, the locket, and the stone, the girls took away all my clothing except for my jacket, which I draped over my arm to hide the bite. By a cunning mechanism with pipes, pumps, a big cistern below and a small one on the roof of the two-storied wing, water flowed through a sieve to create a waterfall of refreshingly cool water. In this shower, I scrubbed away salt and spume and grime with sweet-smelling soap.

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    I dressed in fresh drawers and a sleeveless bodice tightly laced up like a vest with no blouse over or under it, which the girls assured me was perfectly acceptable attire for a young woman. I tugged the filthy jacket on over it anyway. They brought a green cloth whose print depicted a pattern of fans opening and shutting, which I wrapped for a skirt. Then they had me sit on one of the benches in the courtyard while they combed and braided my hair.


    The older girl had just finished tying off the end with a strand of beads when Vai returned with a bundle of wrapped paper. He took the bundle to the kitchen, washed his hands, and, at a word from Aunty Djeneba, grabbed a tray of drink and fruit she had prepared while I was bathing. He set it on the table and sat on the bench opposite me. Aunty called to the girls, and they giggled and left us alone.


    He poured liquid into a cup, which he pushed across to me. ¡°You must drink, Catherine.¡±


    With his hands, he began to peel an orange object.


    I drank. ¡°This juice is the best thing I¡¯ve ever tasted.¡±


    He separated off a wedge of fruit and held it out. ¡°Here.¡±


    It looked moist and cool, so I set down the cup and tried it. I had to close my eyes because the texture melted so sweetly inside my mouth.


    ¡°Just spit out the seeds,¡± he said, holding out a piece of the peel.


    He fed me half the fruit wedge by wedge before I recollected myself and said, ¡°You have some.¡±


    ¡°You look sunburned and yet you¡¯re pale beneath it, so you¡¯ve got to eat,¡± he said. ¡°You¡¯d be cooler with that jacket off.¡±


    My healing bite itched like an accusation. ¡°It comforts me to keep it on.¡±


    He shrugged, and fed me the rest.


    I licked the sticky juice from my fingers, watching him self-consciously carve the knife through the peelings as he tried not to stare at me. ¡°Am I still in the spirit world?¡± I asked.


    ¡°No. Why would you think so?¡±


    ¡°Are you really wearing a rope as a belt? Working as a carpenter?¡±


    Had he been a horse, I would have said he bridled. ¡°It¡¯s perfectly respectable work. I¡¯m good at it.¡±


    ¡°Of course you¡¯re good at it. You¡¯re good at everything you do.¡±


    ¡°Is that meant as a criticism?¡±


    Here was the haughty Andevai I knew! The other one¡ªthe polite, caring one so intent on feeding me¡ªwas beginning to unsettle me. ¡°Why would you think it a criticism? Mightn¡¯t it have just been a description?¡±


    His mouth twitched down. ¡°I¡¯m not sure how I¡¯m meant to answer that. Agree, and I¡¯m proud and vain. Disagree¡­¡±


    ¡°You¡¯d still be proud and vain, and worse, you¡¯d appear falsely humble. You, a cold mage of rare and unexpected potency. The favored son of Four Moons House.¡±


    ¡°Is that what you think? That they favored me?¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t mean they kicked you out?¡±


    ¡°No. I just meant they resent me.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I can understand that. A village boy raised to be a laborer whose entire clan serves Four Moons House in clientage. It must have been difficult for the young men raised in all the privilege of the house to see you walk in and best them all.¡±


    His mouth twitched up, shading his expression to one of nostalgic triumph. ¡°They hated it.¡±


    ¡°And they hated you, too, evidently. But the mansa cannot want to lose you. Nor would your family, for though you were taken away from them to serve as a cold mage, it was clear they love you. So why are you here?¡±


    ¡°I might ask you the same question.¡±


    ¡°Yes, you might. I¡¯m amazed you haven¡¯t yet done so.¡±


    He crossed his arms over his chest in a way that unfortunately displayed his muscular forearms to advantage. ¡°Good manners and simple common sense dictate that I should wait until you have a chance to eat.¡±


    I laughed.


    ¡°Why are you laughing?¡± he demanded.


    ¡°Why do you think I¡¯m laughing?¡±


    ¡°Why would I ask if I already knew?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you remember our first meal together, at the inn in Adurnam? Weren¡¯t you the one who kept rejecting every dish as not good enough for your consequence?¡±


    ¡°Are you comparing that meal to this one?¡±


    ¡°Comparing the food itself, or just your behavior?¡±


    He shoved the platter aside and rested both arms on the tables, gazing at me with a furrowed brow and head cocked to one side. ¡°Why are you answering all my questions with questions?¡±


    ¡°What makes you think I¡¯m answering all your questions with questions?¡±

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    ¡°I can¡¯t possibly imagine, Catherine.¡± He refilled the cup with juice, as if to give his hands something to do rather than throttle me. ¡°Unless one supposed that hearing you answer all my questions with questions makes me think you are answering all my questions with questions.¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± I said hopefully. My lips parted as I released a breath.


    He raised the cup, took a swallow, and lowered it. ¡°Catherine, you are answering all my questions with questions.¡±


    My heart began pounding as if I were running. ¡°Yes, I am.¡±


    He turned the cup once all the way around. ¡°Past experience suggests you may be doing it purposefully simply to annoy me.¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m not.¡± I slid the cup out of his hand. ¡°Although it¡¯s a tempting thought.¡±


    He propped his chin on a hand and considered me until I bit my lower lip. When he spoke, it was as if we were sharing a secret. ¡°You and your cousin crossed into the spirit world in Adurnam. You met my grandmother there. Let me guess. You¡¯re under some manner of binding.¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡±


    ¡°You have to answer questions with questions.¡±


    ¡°Yes. Thank you for realizing!¡± I reached out impulsively to grasp both his hands.


    He looked down, eyes widening.


    I snatched my hands back and tucked them out of sight under the table.


    He made a business of coughing. ¡°It¡¯s easy enough to get around. You¡¯re under a binding. If you can tell me what or who has set this binding on you, maybe I can help you break it.¡±


    A crow fluttered down to land on the roof of the building in back. Its gaze like a hammer nailed my mouth shut. I just sat there.


    Irritation flickered in the tightening of his eyes. Then a thought occurred to him, and his expression cleared. ¡°It makes sense that a binding would bind you so you can¡¯t speak of it.¡±


    ¡°Cold magic can¡¯t break this,¡± I whispered, warning him off, for that cursed crow was still watching us.


    ¡°Don¡¯t think you know what I can manage with regard to cold magic, Catherine.¡±


    ¡°Here in the land of the lowly fire bane,¡± I agreed, noting how his gaze narrowed at the phrase. ¡°You haven¡¯t answered my question. What could possibly bring you to Expedition?¡±


    He looked past me. Rising, he left the table. Resolutely, I did not turn to watch him. He returned with a huge platter of steaming rice and peas topped by a slab of fish still sizzling from being fried in oil. The smell almost flattened me with its anticipatory aroma. He set down the platter and offered me utensils.


    ¡°Don¡¯t think to distract me from my question,¡± I muttered as my traitorous hand accepted spoon and knife.


    He smiled. I did not like that smile. That smile could peel the clothes right off a woman¡¯s body.


    ¡°Go on,¡± he said coaxingly.


    To my horror, I felt the heat of a blush rising just as if he had voiced that very suggestion and I was actually considering it.


    He rocked back, caught himself, and let out a deep breath.


    ¡°Aunty makes the best rice and peas in the city,¡± he said in an altered tone.


    He dug in. The sight of him eating with such gusto shocked me into temporary immobility. Then the smell of the food seduced me. The rice and round beans had been cooked in a creamy milk, and had a peppery flavor not burning but warm. The fish was white and flaky and perfect. It was so good and I was so hungry.


    He paused. A disdainful frown creased his face. ¡°Someone hasn¡¯t been feeding you properly.¡±


    I dropped my gaze back to the food so I didn¡¯t have to look at Vai in case he would guess that I was thinking of Drake, for it seemed obvious he was referring to Drake. ¡°You still didn¡¯t answer. What brought you to Expedition?¡±


    ¡°A three-masted ship.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t lie to me!¡± I set down my spoon.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t lie to you. It was a three-masted ship. As for why I am here, I came to help my sister make a new life here.¡±


    ¡°Kayleigh? And the mansa just let her go?¡±


    He tucked away several spoonfuls of the rice and peas as he considered. ¡°Obviously it is not that simple, but it¡¯s all I can say. If you thereby feel you cannot tell me what brings you to Expedition, then I will understand your reluctance to trust me. But you must know, Catherine, even if you can or wish to say nothing, I will give you whatever shelter and help you need. Anything.¡±


    The word hit so hard I closed my eyes briefly out of sheer gratitude and relief. I was not alone and friendless. But I had to be pragmatic. ¡°Anything encompasses a great deal. I have nothing except the clothes on my back and my sword. And my father¡¯s locket, which I have thanks to you.¡±

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    ¡°I won¡¯t abandon you.¡±


    Mercifully he did not add as your lover evidently did, but when he looked at me with that accusatory gaze, I knew he knew I knew he was thinking it.


    ¡°Thank you.¡± I lowered my gaze to the mundanity of the platter. Gracious Melqart! Between us, we had eaten through almost all of it. ¡°Are you sure we¡¯re not still in the spirit world?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sure. But I wonder why you might think so.¡±


    ¡°I just never saw you eat like a normal person before. You said once that cold magic fed you. Doesn¡¯t it here?¡±


    ¡°The secret belongs to those who know how to keep silent.¡±


    The words ought to have annoyed me, but instead they reminded me of the other thing I possessed. I fished the stone from the jacket¡¯s hem. ¡°I found¡­this.¡± I handed it to him.


    He gasped.


    ¡°Your grandmother walked with us for a while. I must say, she scolded me on your behalf. She favors you. It was very irritating.¡±


    His smile twitched but did not quite bloom. Wisely, he said nothing.


    ¡°Then she was caught in the tide of a dragon¡¯s dream. It swept over her, and she was gone.¡±


    ¡°Not gone, Catherine. Changed.¡±


    I dropped my voice to a whisper. ¡°Is the stone your grandmother?¡±


    ¡°Of course it isn¡¯t my grandmother!¡±


    ¡°Her¡ªuh¡ªher soul, then?¡±


    ¡°What odd notions you hold, Catherine. Is this some sort of Phoenician belief??¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t you remember that it is properly Kena¡¯ani, not Phoenician?¡±


    ¡°I beg your pardon. You told me before, and I forgot.¡± He closed his fingers over the stone. ¡°Something of my grandmother touches this stone. By holding it close, we are close to her. If we sit down to a meal and pour the first drops of our wine on the stone, then she will be called to dwell close beside us.¡± He rose, still clutching the stone. ¡°If you¡¯ll excuse me¡­¡±


    ¡°Go and do what is proper. I¡¯ll see if Aunty needs help.¡±


    He took a step away but turned back to brush my hand with his own as if checking to make sure I was a solid creature and not an illusion woven out of light like the one he had once woven of my face. He walked to the two-story wing, hurried up the stairs, and vanished into a room.


    If I had a thought, I am sure it was too faint to register. At length, I stopped staring after him. I finished the food and carried the tray back to the kitchen sideboard.


    ¡°A good appetite is a precious thing,¡± Aunty Djeneba remarked. She was back at the griddle.


    ¡°The food was splendid. My thanks. Can I help in some way? I¡¯m a good worker. I know how to sew, cook, read, and write. I must tell you, I have nothing, no coin, no possessions, nothing but my labor to offer you.¡±


    ¡°Yee¡¯s married to Vai, is yee not?¡±


    I blinked. At least four times. I had no idea what my expression looked like, but Aunty Djeneba glanced away, and the girls giggled.


    ¡°Is that what he told you?¡± I demanded.


    She considered me thoughtfully. ¡°Everyone around here know the story. He and he sister come here six months ago. He is handsome and charming. He work hard. Know how to make friends. He manners is so very good, I should like to meet he mother. Such a young man is like a flower. The gals will come round to see if they can pluck it. But yee know, Cat, never a hint of that with him. Always he is talking about the gal he lost, that one he married. How can he look at another when he don¡¯ know what had become of she he had lost? Yee know all this, don¡¯ yee?¡± She grasped my arm. ¡°Yee need to sit down?¡±


    ¡°Why would I need to sit down?¡± But I could not get out the other questions foaming up in my thoughts: How had the world come unmoored? Who was this baffling personage pretending to be my husband the arrogant cold mage? Was I actually going to be safe here? How could I save Bee?


    ¡°Yee¡¯s looking unsteady, gal.¡± She guided me to a sling-backed chair next to a toothless old woman who smiled at me but spoke no word. ¡°Sit.¡±


    I sank into the sway-backed canvas and shut my eyes, overcome by a sense of extreme disorientation and by the unrelenting heat.


    I dozed off. When I woke, the shadows had drawn long across the courtyard and a dozen children of varying ages were standing in a semicircle watching me with great round stares. As soon as my open eyes registered, one of the little lads raced across the courtyard over to the long counter where men gathered, drinking and talking. Vai was deep in conversation with men his own age who looked vaguely familiar, likely carpenters from the yard, the ones I¡¯d thought had been teasing him. Except they hadn¡¯t been teasing him at all.

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    Someone laughed; a couple of the men made sparring gestures, play fighting. The little lad tugged on Vai¡¯s arm, and he turned. His gaze met mine, and he made excuses and threaded through the crowd and over to the shelter. The children crowded around as he crouched beside me.


    ¡°Catherine, I hope you are feeling well, not ill.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m just so hot and thirsty.¡±


    He tapped one of the little girls. ¡°Juice.¡± With a bright grin, she hurried off and returned in triumph with a full cup. ¡°Best if you rest until you get your feet under you.¡±


    I drank. My head hurt and I felt queasy, but I did not want to complain. ¡°Let me just sit.¡±


    ¡°Send one of the little lads if you need anything. The girls can fetch you juice. No giggling or talking.¡± As he rose, I belatedly realized the last was a command meant for the children.


    He went back to his friends. I shut my eyes, because the shifting angle of the sun¡¯s rays beyond my patch of shade was making me dizzy. The lilt and cadence of voices comforted me. Rain pounded on the shelter¡¯s roof, kissing me with a cooling draft. Then it was hot again, and I tried to wake up, but I kept fading.


    I heard them talking, but it was too hard to open my eyes.


    ¡°Are you sure she¡¯s not a shade come to haunt you? Like what they call opia here?¡±


    ¡°Of course I¡¯m sure, Kayleigh! She and I are bound by threads of magic chained by a djeli through a mirror. I knew the locket would bring her to me.¡±


    ¡°She doesn¡¯t even like you.¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t be so sure about that.¡± His tone had a smile in it.


    ¡°Could you be more vain? You can¡¯t think she came here to find you! Kofi told me she came in on a canoe up from Cow Killer Beach. It¡¯s all criminals, witches, and whores down there.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you talk like that, Kayleigh!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m just saying it¡¯s got a bad reputation. That¡¯s a nasty gash at her eye. How did she get it?¡±


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter. What matters is she¡¯s here, and she¡¯s safe.¡±


    ¡°I heard she was with another man.¡±


    A breath of cool breeze soothed my fevered brow.


    ¡°Don¡¯t get mad at me, Vai. It¡¯s the truth. Kofi saw you see him. He said it looked like you wanted to plant your adze in the other man¡¯s¡­face.¡±


    It got a little colder. Then, alas, the breath of ice eased. ¡°I see now. You¡¯re jealous.¡±


    Her voice did have a touch of discontented whine. ¡°You promised you would come with me to the areito. But now you¡¯re going to sit here all night and stare at her.¡±


    His anger faded entirely. ¡°I can¡¯t leave her to wake up to unfamiliar faces. Here¡¯s Kofi. Doesn¡¯t he look all cleaned up for you! Because I assure you it¡¯s not for my benefit. But before you leave for the areito, he and I need to have a talk about what we tell little sisters.¡±


    I opened my eyes into a blur of confusing images: The young carpenter with the scars wavered into view wearing a colorful jacket and with his locks ornamented with beads; he was smiling at Vai¡¯s younger sister Kayleigh, who had on a blouse and wrapped pagne in the local way, her blouse ornamented by white necklaces whose polished gleam bore me under into a white-capped sea turgid with ice; a masked face, bright and unkindly, turned to look at me; a latch winked with glittering eyes; a crow swept down in a shroud of black wings. I moaned, trying to get away, but it pecked at my weeping eyes, and I turned to salt and dissolved into the foaming ocean water.


    ¡°Catherine?¡±


    I gasped, bolting upright, heart pounding and breath ragged.


    Night had fallen. A finely etched and exceedingly delicate bauble of cold fire illuminated Vai¡¯s face. Beyond, by lamplight, people were clearing the tables and setting the benches in order.


    ¡°I don¡¯t feel well,¡± I whispered.


    ¡°No,¡± he agreed. He got his arms under me and lifted me bodily out of the chair. ¡°If you can use the privy yourself, I¡¯ll take you there. Otherwise I¡¯ll ask Aunty to come help you.¡±


    ¡°I can do it myself.¡±


    I could, and I did, although I got confused by the pipes and the bowl and the water-flushing mechanism that the girls had showed me how to use earlier, very elaborate and hygienic and unlike anything I had ever seen in Adurnam. I was reeling with dizziness when I came out, so he carried me up the stairs and into a room and onto a narrow cot.


    He peeled me out of my jacket, and there was a sudden silence even though it was already quiet. Afterward he let go of my arm and wiped down my face and neck and arms with a cool cloth. He made me drink in sips and then he moved away and I heard him talking in a low, urgent voice but I couldn¡¯t understand the words.

 Page 95

    I tossed and turned. As in a restless dream, an old man with feathers and shells in his hair entered the room. His calloused hand traced my navel; his lips pressed against my forehead with a kiss that snaked through my body to kindle my blood.


    His unfamiliar voice spoke. ¡°She is clean.¡±


    20


    Later, it was quiet, a hint of breeze pooling around my face.


    ¡°Aunty, it was the worst moment of my life, when she slipped away from me down the well. I thought I¡¯d lost her forever. And then, when I took off her jacket and saw that bite¡­¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯ borrow trouble, lad. The behique say she is clean. Anyway, better if yee go on to yee work, else yee shall be a nuisance all day. See how she stir, because she hear yee voice? She need to sleep, for she is sorely tired and worn. Go on. I shall watch.¡±


    I woke to daylight and a stifling heat like sludge in my lungs. Rain broke overhead, a downpour so torrential I could hear nothing but its drumming on the tile roof. The air cooled. My headache eased. The rain stopped.


    I lay on a cot. I wore only drawers and a thin muslin blouse. There had been a cover over me but I had kicked it off. My cane was tucked along one side. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and cautiously rose, but my head seemed fit on properly. I found a pagne hanging over the screen that divided the little room into two, with a cot on either side and baskets hanging from the center beam. A sheathed sword lay tucked into the rafters, safe from stealing because no one could touch Vai¡¯s cold steel except him. A basket on the floor contained my folded clothing. I bound on the bodice and wrapped the pagne. The blouse¡¯s sleeves were long enough to cover the healing bite.


    My mouth tasted of unpleasant memories. Drake had deserted me to make my own way to the Speckled Iguana, where I would have fallen sick all alone. Not like here, where people¡ªVai¡ªcared what happened to me. Blessed Tanit! The thought of possibly carrying Drake¡¯s child and what would become of me if I did made me determined to forge my own path. I was not going to crawl to Drake to beg for help.


    ¡°Ja, maku!¡± One of the girls peeked in at the open door. She looked a bit older than Bee¡¯s sister Hanan, perhaps fifteen, and with her springy black hair and brown complexion resembled Aunty. ¡°Yee feeling better? Eh! Never mind the question. Yee look not so like fouled cassava paste. I thought sure yee would faint right away last night.¡±


    ¡°I am better, thank you. Never mind what question?¡±


    ¡°Vai say never to ask yee a question. ¡¯Tis almost supper, if yee¡¯s hungry.¡±


    I had to pee, and I realized I was, indeed, hungry as well as furiously thirsty. ¡°My thanks for the folded clothes. What¡¯s your name? If you told me, I forgot.¡±


    ¡°Lucretia.¡±


    ¡°No. Really?¡±


    She grinned. ¡°Me dad¡¯s a Roman sailor. He turn up once a year, all faithful like. ¡¯Tis why I have eight little sisters.¡±


    I laughed and followed her downstairs into the courtyard where men and boys were setting out benches and hauling in barrels, and women and girls were cooking. Aunty Djeneba ran not only a lodging house but an eating and drinking establishment as well, the sort of place people, mostly men, came to relax after a day¡¯s hot work. The low-hanging sun peeking out from a tumult of clouds gave the light a muted glow.


    In the outdoor kitchen, Aunty Djeneba greeted me by looking me over. ¡°Yee stay quiet this evening. Tomorrow we shall talk. Here come Vai.¡±


    He had wood shavings caught in his hair, and a residue of sawdust streaked his bare arms. He gave me a long, searching look, which I endured by drawing out my locket and playing with it. ¡°You look like you feel better.¡±


    ¡°I slept all day.¡± I wanted to say more, but my tongue had turned to stone.


    ¡°You know, Aunty,¡± he said, ¡°I need to go out to the Moonday gathering, if I can.¡±


    ¡°I shall see she come to no harm.¡±


    ¡°What gathering?¡± I asked.


    ¡°I¡¯ll take you another time. If you¡¯ll excuse me. I¡¯ll just stow this in my room.¡± He had a canvas apron slung over his back with tools tucked into sewn compartments. He hurried upstairs, and when he came down, his friends, including Kofi, had appeared at the gate. They stared curiously at me but did not approach, and they left with Vai.


    ¡°I reckon yee shall be most comfortable by Aunty Brigid,¡± said Aunty.


    I crept to the sling chair in the shelter behind the kitchen, next to the toothless old woman who smiled and spoke no word. There were always at least two children hovering, anxious to fetch me juice. I was not hungry, but I could have drunk the sea and then some.

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    Kayleigh came in as night fell, wearing a pretty pagne, her locks brightened with ribbons. She looked exactly as she had last year: tall, robust, and if not as stunning as her brother, still she was a good-looking young woman, one who had not fully left girlhood behind. As she came closer the lines of weariness on her face became evident.


    After a hesitation, she came over. ¡°Cat Barahal. You must be feeling better.¡± She mopped her brow with a scrap of cloth. ¡°Vai went out. He¡¯d not have if he thought you were sick.¡±


    Lucretia appeared with a cup of the cloudy ginger beer everyone here drank. ¡°I hear a rumor the general came back today.¡±


    Kayleigh accepted the cup with a grateful smile. ¡°He is still in Taino country.¡±


    ¡°Me father said the cacica would kick him out when he came a-courting.¡±


    ¡°Your father is Roman, Luce. He sees the general as the enemy. Word at Warden Hall is that the cacica and the general are negotiating. That has made the Council very nervous.¡±


    ¡°Do you mean Camjiata?¡± I asked. ¡°This cacica, would that be Prince Caonabo¡¯s mother?¡±


    Both girls looked at me as if I had sprouted wings and a third eye.


    Kayleigh drained the cup and handed it to Lucretia. ¡°I¡¯ll go wash up.¡± She strode off.


    ¡°Have I done something to offend her?¡±


    ¡°Never mind she,¡± said Lucretia. ¡°She do work very hard at Warden Hall.¡±


    ¡°What is Warden Hall?¡±


    ¡°Ja, maku! Yee know nothing! The wardens keep order in Expedition and enforce the law.¡±


    I could not help but think that working as a servant at Warden Hall would be a cursed good way to eavesdrop on delicate conversations.


    ¡°So I¡¯s just saying,¡± Lucretia went on, ¡°that she is nice. Truly. Not so charming as she brother, but¡­I mean, all they women come around all the time. Yet he never look twice at any! Being he sister, she always that one who count with him. And now here yee come.¡±


    ¡°Washed up on shore like a three-days-dead fish.¡±


    She giggled. ¡°Yee¡¯s so funny.¡±


    I went back up to the room with a candle. Kayleigh had fallen asleep on the other cot, which meant I had slept on Vai¡¯s cot last night. Tomorrow we would obviously have to discuss other sleeping arrangements. I slept soundly. When I woke the next morning, Kayleigh was gone. I didn¡¯t know where Vai had slept.


    The courtyard had a calm beauty in the soft light.


    ¡°Where are all the children?¡± I asked Aunty Djeneba, who was grating the white root called cassava. ¡°Where is Lucretia?¡±


    ¡°At school. They finish at noon. As for yee, we shall start yee easy today. Yee said yee can sew. I have got some mending by. Usually we take it down to Tailors¡¯ Row but it would be a quiet job for yee in the shade.¡±


    I pulled a bench over so I could sit under the kitchen roof. We were alone in the courtyard.


    She said in a low voice, ¡°One thing first. Yee must keep that arm covered until the wound heal. Yee must never speak of what happened. Never.¡±


    I touched my sleeve, feeling the tender wound beneath. ¡°Vai must have seen the bite when he took my jacket off.¡±


    ¡°Yes, and came to me at once, exactly as he should. I went out me own self and brought in a local behique, a good man, very discreet. Only we four know.¡±


    We four, and everyone on Salt Island, but I didn¡¯t volunteer the information. ¡°I know what will happen to me if the wardens track me down. But would something happen to you, Aunty?¡±


    She paused in her grating. ¡°It speak well of yee that yee ask, gal. I would be arrested and lose everything I own.¡±


    ¡°That is a terrible risk. Why take me in?¡±


    She indicated the sewing basket and a folded stack of old clothes. ¡°Here is a great lot of torn hems, ripped sleeves, and holes worn in elbows and knees. We people who live outside the old city have come to believe Expedition¡¯s Council see us as these old clothes to use and throw out. If yee was the daughter of a Council family, we would hear no talk of sending yee to Salt Island.¡±


    ¡°My father wrote that if all are not equal before the law, then the law is worth nothing.¡±


    ¡°A wise man, that one who sired yee. Walk he still among the living?¡±


    I looked away because I could say nothing.


    ¡°Seem the grief is still fresh,¡± she said kindly.


    She returned to cutting, grating, and grinding, while I found peace in mending as she talked about how her people could trace their descent to sailors on the first fleet. She had herself married a man whose grandparents had left Celtic Brigantia to make their fortune in the markets of Expedition. Her husband had passed on a night three years ago when an owl had roosted atop the roof. Her three sons worked a fishing boat with their uncle her brother, and her only surviving daughter Brenna, the one with the Roman sweetheart, helped her run the lodging house. Uncle Joe, widower of Aunty¡¯s sister, oversaw the part of the establishment where folk came to eat and drink.

 Page 97

    ¡°Do you have gaslight on all the streets in Expedition? Only a few places have gaslight in Adurnam.¡±


    ¡°All of the old city and the harbor district and troll town, of course. We here in Passaporte District got the street lighting three years ago. Only because we took to the streets in protest that we pay land tax and excise tax and we shall see something for the coin we pay to the Council¡¯s treasury. But Lucairi District and them on out there? Nothing. They must still rely on fire banes to light they way at night.¡±


    Here was my chance to find out more about mages in this part of the world.


    ¡°Fire banes work like common lamplighters and linkboys here?¡± I finished off mending a threadbare elbow with a pattern darning and held it up.


    She looked surprised. ¡°¡¯Tis as good as tailor¡¯s work. Yee have a neat hand for a woman. Fire banes likewise work for the fire wardens and at areitos and other night gatherings.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s an areito? A festival of some kind?¡±


    ¡°¡¯Tis the Taino word for a sacred or community gathering, what the Romans would call a festival. As for the other, all fire banes must register with Warden Hall. That is the law. At that time they swear never to enter any association with other mages.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve seen the power the mage Houses hold in Europa, so I can understand people in Expedition might be cautious about mage associations. Is there a button for this?¡±


    ¡°In the tin. It need two. If yee¡¯s not registered as a fire bane, yee can be arrested. If yee go to register, yee¡¯s not yet registered, so yee can be arrested if they want to arrest yee.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s exceedingly unfair! Why would the wardens want to arrest fire banes anyway?¡±


    ¡°Because they sell them to the Taino. The proceeds go to Council¡¯s treasury.¡±


    ¡°Why would the Taino want fire banes?¡±


    ¡°Why, as catch-fires. No Taino fire mage take a first breath come the morning without a catch-fire nearby.¡±


    I paused, needle frozen in midair, remembering the three salters Drake had used to catch the accelerating fire of his magic so it wouldn¡¯t consume him. ¡°That¡¯s awful! Why would anyone let fire banes be taken and sold?¡±


    ¡°Because the wardens only take them who have no one to protect them. Fire banes born into a family with much money or a big house in the old city never go missing, never is sold out, nor never is they forced to work for the fire wardens. There is one rule for the rich and another for the rest. So a maku come to these shores is easy game. Yee shall find, Cat, that folk round here say nothing to the wardens no matter what we go a-seeing. Yee understand?¡±


    Since I understood she was telling me that she knew Vai was a fire bane and that I was never to mention it to anyone, I nodded. I fished out another button and began sewing it on. ¡°Are there many powerful fire mages in the Taino kingdom?¡±


    She lowered her voice. ¡°¡¯Tis best be cautious and not speak of behiques, Cat. Yee would not want to come to they notice.¡±


    I moved on, for now. ¡°When did General Camjiata come to Expedition?¡±


    ¡°He and his people landed in Februarius. That man have caused so much trouble over where yee come from. And now he come here and go asking for we help. He want us to pay for he to start up a new war back there in Europa.¡±


    ¡°He traveled here to get aid from Expedition¡¯s Council?¡±


    ¡°He asked. ¡¯Tis one thing the Council done right. They said no.¡±


    ¡°They refused to help him! Is that why he went to the Taino capital? To seek Taino aid?¡±


    ¡°So it look. Any reckoning we look at it, ¡¯tis bad news for Expedition. One time long ago there was many caciques on Kiskeya. Now there is only one, and that one rule over all the islands of the Antilles. I foresee nothing but trouble if the Taino decide to look this way.¡±


    ¡°So they¡¯re an empire, like the Romans. But if the Taino cacique and his clan are so powerful, why don¡¯t they just take over Expedition Territory and its factories and port?¡±


    She smiled. ¡°A smart gal, too, to ask that question. No wonder Vai is so smitten with yee.¡±


    I pawed through the tin looking for a button I did not need. Feeling her gaze on me, I poured buttons onto my palm and scrutinized them.


    She said, ¡°If the Taino is one thing, they is holders of the law. In the First Treaty, the Taino caciques swore they shall never cross the border between Taino country and Expedition Territory. So by Taino way of thinking, to break the treaty is to dishonor the cemi. Yee know, they ancestors. By the by, Cat. When I speak of agreements, it remind me. Vai ask me last night about renting a hammock in the common hall. I thought he mean for Kayleigh, but he mean for he own self. Yee and she is to share the room, which he pay for, and he to sleep elsewhere.¡±

 Page 98

    The buttons were bronze and formed out of the same mold. In a household practicing economy, it was wise to buy plain buttons so they could be interchanged on various garments.


    ¡°Not that ¡¯tis any of me business,¡± she added in a tone that implied the opposite, ¡°but peace in the house make peace in the heart.¡±


    The buttons stared back at me. Not that it was any of their business!


    ¡°It¡¯s not my place to speak of such intimate matters,¡± I said in a tone I hoped walked the fine line between being polite and absolutely crushing this subject into oblivion. ¡°I was hoping to ask to borrow thread. I¡¯ll pay you back, of course. I can salvage a great deal from my skirts and petticoats by piecing together one skirt from the remnants. I could manage a few work vests¡ªsinglets, I mean¡ªfrom the scraps if your little lads have need of such. It¡¯s quite good quality wool challis¡­¡± I trailed off, surprised to find my hands in fists, buttons biting into my palms.


    She gave me a measuring look. ¡°Happen that young man ever hit yee?¡±


    ¡°Hit me? Like, beat me?¡±


    ¡°He don¡¯ seem like that kind. But I reckon I best ask.¡±


    ¡°No. That¡¯s not what happened. Although he¡¯s said some pretty awful things to me.¡±


    She smiled wryly. ¡°I admit, that lad have a sharp tongue when he wish, not that he ever use it on he elders! And he think very well of he own self.¡±


    ¡°That is a way of describing it,¡± I agreed.


    She chuckled. ¡°Yee may use any of the thread in the copper tin. If yee¡¯s feeling up to it, I reckon I shall set yee to serving food and drink in the evenings. Yee¡¯s a pleasing gal to look on, and yee have a bold way of speaking. ¡¯Tis hard to get help these days with the factories hiring so many.¡±


    ¡°I can do that. Aunty, I¡¯m grateful to you for taking me in. I mean to earn my keep.¡±


    ¡°Seeing that look on Vai¡¯s face when he brought yee back is keep enough, but fear not, gal. I shall see yee earn yee bed.¡± She laughed merrily at whatever expression blanched my face.


    I fetched my ruined skirts and borrowed scissors from one of the neighbor men. At a table in front of an interested audience of children and the regular customers who always came early, I began dismantling the ripped and torn remains while I spun a carefully worded tale that left out Salt Island, James Drake, and Prince Caonabo, and jumped straight from the watery attack to my beach rescue by buccaneers. The rains came through, as they did every afternoon, and more people gathered as folk left off work for the day and came to drink and relax.


    ¡°Yee say yee was attacked by a shark? Describe what yee saw, gal.¡±


    ¡°It was very large, and a nasty shiny gray, and it had dead flat eyes. I must say, I¡¯ve never been so terrified in my life.¡± Except standing before the creature who sired me. ¡°I punched it, and it swam off.¡±


    They laughed and whistled. Several began debating whether it was a carite or a cajaya, two different kinds of sharks known to attack people. I looked up to see Vai standing in the back with arms crossed, glowering as if I had personally offended him. By the evidence of sawdust dusting his skin, he had only recently come in and not yet washed; he¡¯d tied a kerchief over his head today, making him look very buccaneer-ish, a man about to sail off in an airship except of course for the minor issue of his deflating the balloon and thereby causing a spectacular crash.


    ¡°That shark is not the predator yee shall have been feared of, gal,¡± said Uncle Joe. ¡°¡¯Tis they buccaneers yee shall have feared more. Seem yee was rescued off the beach by the Barr Cousins. They is called Nick Blade for he knives and the Hyena Queen for the way she laugh.¡±


    ¡°The Barr Cousins? Likely so. We were never formally introduced.¡±


    ¡°Yee¡¯s killing me, gal!¡± said some wit in the crowd. ¡°¡®Never formally introduced!¡¯¡±


    ¡°She said her grandmother was a Kena¡¯ani woman. That makes us cousins of a sort. Maybe more, since I¡¯m a Barahal. We might be truly cousins, if their ancestors shortened the Barahal name to Barr. That must be why we got along so well.¡±


    My bravado sent my audience into gales of laughter as I measured cloth against the waistband. As Vai¡¯s gaze swept across my audience, they stepped back just as if he had pushed each one. Maybe he had, for the air had a sudden bite. All hastily moved away to other tables.


    He sat down opposite me, arms still crossed. ¡°You¡¯ll get sick again if you overdo it.¡±


    I kept my voice low as I pinned cloth to the waistband, for although the customers had gone to sit elsewhere that did not mean they weren¡¯t watching. ¡°I need to earn my keep, Vai, not as your kept woman. It does amaze me how you felt able to tell everyone the gripping tale of how you lost your darling wife and have searched for her ever since. How heartbreaking. How noble.¡±

 Page 99

    ¡°It keeps away the women.¡±


    Irritation marred the features of most men, making them look small-minded or ill-tempered. Not Vai. Irritation sharpened his features, made a woman want to kiss him until he relented. I imagined hungry young women buzzing like bees to a succulently annoyed flower.


    He raised an eyebrow, in supercilious query.


    ¡°How nice for you,¡± I said, since he was clearly expecting a response to a statement meant to provoke me. ¡°Or not.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t change the subject, Catherine. I don¡¯t see how the tale I told is much different than the one you just embroidered.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s all true!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sure it is. If anyone could punch a shark in the eye and survive to tell of it, it would be you.¡±


    ¡°I would thank you for the fine praise, except you looked so annoyed when I was telling that part of the story.¡±


    ¡°Yes, annoyance was certainly my first reaction on hearing you had been attacked by a shark. I couldn¡¯t possibly have been shocked or terrified on your behalf. Although you left out the part about exactly how you found yourself floating in the middle of the sea in the first place.¡±


    ¡°Would you have turned me over to the wardens if I hadn¡¯t been clean?¡±


    His chin raised as sharply as if I had slapped him. A breath of ice kissed my lips.


    Because I was suddenly, inexplicably furious, I pressed my attack, leaning closer with an aggressive whisper. ¡°You would have been right to do so. I was on Salt Island.¡±


    He stood so quickly that all around the courtyard people jumped, and looked forcibly away. He grabbed my arm and dragged me closer, across the table. The table¡¯s edge dug into my thighs.


    His voice emerged in a hoarse murmur. ¡°You just dreamed that. You were never there.¡±


    ¡°Let go,¡± I said, rigid beneath his hand. All I could see was Abby¡¯s face.


    He released me. Sat down. Shut his eyes, breathing hard, as the cold eddy of air around us faded. I fought to recover my composure. As I straightened out the disturbed fabric, I wondered what people were making of all this. It would be an easy plate to garnish: The long-parted lovers quarrel over the circumstance that precipitated their separation.


    When his breathing had settled, he opened his eyes and considered me with the haughty arrogance I knew best. ¡°Which explains the presence of the fire mage. Although I can¡¯t quite figure how a fire mage might have come to be working with the notorious Barr Cousins.¡±


    I parried. ¡°I don¡¯t think the Barr Cousins liked the fire mage much.¡±


    ¡°Good for them. I don¡¯t like him much either.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t ask you to like him. You don¡¯t even know him.¡±


    He set his elbows on the table, heedless of the fabric I was neatly piecing back together. ¡°There is where you are wrong. I met him in Adurnam. In the entryway of the law offices of Godwik and Clutch. Where I also found you. I remembered that when I saw him again today¡ª¡±


    Jerking up, I stabbed myself with a pin. ¡°Ah!¡±


    ¡°¡ªWandering around the harbor with a ridiculous cap pulled down to cover his red hair and asking about a girl he had lost track of after he had rescued her from a shipwreck on a deserted islet. I¡¯m surprised you forgot to mention the shipwreck in your otherwise flamboyant tale.¡±


    I licked a spot of blood from my finger.


    ¡°I must wonder why he was in Adurnam then, and why he came here now,¡± he finished.


    Vai didn¡¯t know General Camjiata had been in the law offices in Adurnam. And I wasn¡¯t about to tell him since it was none of his cursed business and nothing to do with me anyway no matter what the Iberian Monster claimed.


    ¡°I never met Drake before that day in Adurnam,¡± I said quite truthfully, ¡°and then not again until that which we won¡¯t speak of.¡± But I sat down, resting my head in my hands because otherwise I was going to touch my belly. ¡°Blessed Tanit! Did anyone tell him where I¡¯d gone?¡±


    ¡°No one did in the carpentry yard. I did find out you can leave a message for him at the Speckled Iguana. Shall we go over there now?¡±


    I found the courage to look at him. ¡°Can¡¯t I just stay here?¡±


    He exhaled sharply. Then the self-satisfied lift of his mouth betrayed him. ¡°You can, if that¡¯s what you want.¡±


    I began to tremble. ¡°You couldn¡¯t just come straight out and ask me what you really want to know, which I must suppose is whether I want to go back to James Drake. At least the infamous murderer Nick Blade was honest with me!¡±

 Page 100

    That made him sit up straight. ¡°Do enlighten me!¡±


    ¡°He scolded me. He said, ¡®Don¡¯t you go getting drunk around men. What do you think will happen?¡¯¡±


    ¡°Did he, now?¡± said the arrogant cold mage thoughtfully, drawing forefinger and thumb down the line of his jaw in a way that dragged my gaze toward his lips.


    ¡°Do you think I¡¯m lying about that?¡± I snapped.


    ¡°Did I say I thought you were lying?¡±


    ¡°Are you going to ask me questions to annoy me?¡± I considered stabbing him with a pin.


    ¡°Who do you think can keep this up longer?¡± he said with an aggravating smirk. He rose, snagged a cup from a tray being carried past by Brenna¡ªwho smiled on him as if wishing him good fortune!¡ªand handed it to me. ¡°Have a drink?¡±


    ¡°Are you trying to get me drunk?¡±


    ¡°Why would I want to get you drunk, Catherine?¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that a way men seduce women¡ª?¡± I broke off, so flustered and ashamed that all I could do was take a drink. It was juice, sweet and pure.


    ¡°I¡¯ve heard it is the only way some men can manage to seduce women.¡± He took the cup from my hand, drained it, and mercifully changed the subject. ¡°I wish I could know how you are able to stand hidden in plain sight in a chamber where I can see you but others cannot.¡±


    I leaned toward him confidingly, and he caught in a breath.


    In a low voice, I said, ¡°The secret belongs to those who remain silent.¡±


    He laughed quite charmingly, curse him, for it was the laugh of a man willing to be amused at his own expense. ¡°How long have you been waiting to say that to me?¡±


    ¡°How long do you think I¡¯ve been waiting?¡±


    ¡°I would suppose, since the very first time you heard me say it. Well, Catherine, I am nothing if not persistent. I also wish I could know if you sailed from Europa to the Antilles, or if you made the journey here while still in the spirit world.¡±


    ¡°And I wish I could know why you and your sister are here. I don¡¯t believe the mansa is generous enough to let go of a girl who might be bred for the hope of more potent cold mages.¡±


    He smiled in a way that made me wary. ¡°There show the cat¡¯s claws. It¡¯s a fair assessment. I will not lie to you, Catherine. Like you, I have things I am not free to speak of. Let me know what I can do to help you with settling in.¡±


    I bundled up the skirts. ¡°I¡¯ll sew in the mornings and serve in the evenings. I start tonight.¡±


    I challenged him with a glare to protest that I needed to rest another day. He merely smiled a soft smile that made my heart turn over, an anatomically impossible maneuver that had the unexpected consequence of heating my blood to a boil.


    I had been bound into marriage against my will and chained by magic in ways I did not understand. If the head of the poet Bran Cof had told the truth, I could be released from the marriage as long as I did not succumb to an inconvenient attraction to his physical form. I had a dreadful task assigned me. I could not afford sentiment, or distraction. The master of the Wild Hunt was not interested in sentiment, nor would he be distracted. Bee had already called me heartless, and years of living in an impoverished household had taught me how to be sensible.


    Taking a deep breath, I began folding up the fabric. Having to be careful with the pins was good practice. Pins drew blood if they pricked you hard enough.


    ¡°Just so you understand, Vai. I am grateful for your help. But nothing has changed between us that we have not already discussed.¡±


    I glanced up to see how he was taking my implacable declaration, only to surprise a look on his face which I could only describe as calculating.


    ¡°What?¡± I demanded. ¡°You look like you¡¯re plotting a crime.¡±


    He looked away so quickly it was as good as a confession.


    ¡°We¡¯re finished here.¡± I pressed cloth to my chest like a shield and stepped back from the table. Around the courtyard, people were pretending not to watch, but they were watching.


    He let me go without saying one more word.


    21


    To wait tables, you had to have a good memory, be quick on your feet, and know how to keep men laughing while you avoided hands touching you in places you weren¡¯t keen on being touched. Whatever tips they gave me¡ªsmall coins but solid¡ªwere mine to keep. And I needed money, for Aunty was paying me in room and board. So I worked long hours, every afternoon and evening from the first arrival to the last departure.


    At first I stuck close to the boardinghouse, going out only with Aunty, Brenna, or Lucretia as I got to know Tailors¡¯ Row, the local market, and the larger neighborhood. I needed to reconnoiter my ground. Above all, I did not want to stumble across James Drake.