Kaitlin glared at her reflection. Her skin may be sagging. Her hair may be graying. But her will was iron. It was in her eyes, just like her father used to say. “You have iron in your eyes, Kaitlin. You’re strong. Life will hurt you, but you’ll survive, my daughter. The iron doesn’t give in.”
She squared her shoulders. There were magics she could work. Dark things, vicious, forbidden things she could let loose on the Rat pack. And all of the old crone’s magic couldn’t save them then. Oh, the Guard would come, and the militia would gather and whine about the outlawed magic. Let them come. She would hold them off.
Perhaps she could even start anew. Time had robbed her of her fertility, but there were plenty of children in the Mire. She could pay some woman for a good strong child, and Kaitlin would have another son. And this time, she would make no mistakes.
She turned to the couch where she had left her shawl and frowned when it wasn’t there. For a moment she searched and then saw it hanging over the porch railing, where she had stood this morning seeing Arig off.
Strange.
She felt around for a trace of foreign magic and found none. The shield of wards stretching from her house remained intact. Besides, none would dare to enter her domain. Nobody would be that stupid.
Kaitlin strode onto the porch, tiny sparks of power breaking over her skin. She passed her hand over the shawl. Nothing. Not spelled in any way, the pattern as intricate as ever. She must’ve forgotten it here on the porch.
Kaitlin lifted the shawl, wrapped it around her shoulders, and stood for a moment, breathing in the Mire smells. The afternoon was winding down. Soon the night would fall. The dark time. The Rats would be in their Rathole, celebrating, bloated with wine and success. She had a few things to show them.
A faint prickling in her hand made her glance at her fingers. Thin gray residue sheathed her fingertips. She stared at it, puzzled, rubbed her fingers with her thumb, and gasped as the skin and muscle peeled off.
Shocked, she whirled, searching for traces of offensive spells, chanting to raise her defenses. Power surged and formed a reassuring, solid wall of magic to guard her from the world. She could chant herself out of it. Again and again she whispered, but the skin on her fingers refused to heal.
The shawl. She tore it from her body and screamed as the skin on her neck came off with it. Numbness crept into her fingers and seeped into her arms.
This couldn’t be. She was iron! She was strong.
Her legs failed, and Kaitlin crumpled onto the porch. Numbness clutched at her chest. Her heart skipped a beat . . . The numbness burst into pain. It surged through her body, ripping into her insides with savage teeth.
She tried to call out to the workers in the stable, but pain had locked her throat in a fiery collar and her voice refused to obey.
I’m dying . . .
She wouldn’t let the Rats have the land. Not her land, not her house, not the wreck of a body that once had been her husband. With an enormous effort of will, Kaitlin poured the remnants of her life into one last magic.
GASTON dashed along the twisted Fisherman’s track. He had tossed the sack and iron tongs he had used to handle the shawl into some bushes to reduce the weight, but it didn’t make much difference. His legs were beginning to tire. Gaston leaped over a fallen tree. The weeds flanking the overgrown path slapped his shoulders as he ran, dusting his skin with yellow spring pollen.
Behind him a roar rose, a dull muted sound like the voice of a distant waterfall. He glanced over his shoulder and saw weeds snap upright in the distance as if pulled straight by an invisible hand. Pines groaned in protest.
He ran. He ran like he had never run before in his life, squeezing every drop of speed from his muscles until he thought they would tear from his bones. The roar grew louder. Tiny rocks pelted him. The air in his lungs turned to fire.
Gaston saw a glimpse of the river ahead and launched himself toward it.
Not going to make it.
He hit the water and dove deep into the gloom. A tiny ervaurg shot past him, spooked by his presence.
Above him the sky turned yellow.
TWENTY-THREE
CERISE stretched her legs and drank more juice. Her whole body ached like she’d been beaten with a sack of rocks.
“How are we doing?” Ignata asked from the other end of the room.
“We’re fine.” Cerise glanced at her. The skin on Ignata’s face seemed stretched too tight. Dark bags clutched at her eyes. Catherine had hid in her room the moment they entered the house. Cerise sighed. If she had any sense, she would’ve hidden also. She tried, but the anxiety made her stir-crazy, and once she took a shower, she came down to the library, where Ignata ambushed her with ickberry juice to “replace electrolytes,” whatever that meant.
“What a day,” Ignata murmured.
Erian shouldered his way into the room and sank into a soft chair, his eyes closed, his arm in a sling. “What a week.”
Ignata turned to him. “Why are you still awake? Didn’t I give you some valerian half an hour ago?”
He opened his pale eyes and looked at her. “I didn’t drink it.”
“Why not?”
“Because your valerian has enough sleeping tincture in it to put an elephant to sleep.”
Ignata covered her face with her hands. “You know, if you had to hire a doctor, I bet you’d listen to her.”
“No, we wouldn’t,” Cerise murmured.
“Where is the blueblood?” Erian asked.
“With Kaldar.”
“I noticed something.” Erian turned in his chair. “He’s got a memory like a gator trap. There are over fifty of us, and he hasn’t confused a single name yet.”
Cerise scooted deeper into the chair. That was all she needed, a family discussion about Lord Bill.
“I like him,” Ignata said. “He saved Lark.” A smile stretched her lips. “And Cerise likes him, too.”
“Don’t start,” Cerise murmured.
“It’s about time, too. It’s been, what, two years since Tobias ran off?”
“Three,” Erian said.
Kaldar walked into the room, followed by William. Their stares connected and Cerise’s heart skipped a beat.
Kaldar dropped into a chair, stretching long legs. “What are we talking about?”
“We’re trying to decide when you’re going to marry Cerise off,” Erian said.
Kaldar leaned back, a little light playing in his eyes. “Well ...”
Cerise set her glass down with a clink. “Enough. Have you figured out which house my mother is in?”
Kaldar grimaced. “Not yet. In case you forgot, Blue-rock is in the middle of a pretty big lake. It takes time to find the right house. We’ll know tomorrow. I’ve got guys on it.”
“What guys?”
Kaldar waved his hand. “If I tell you who I sent to spy on the house, you’ll bust my balls about how dangerous it is and how I shouldn’t put children in peril. It’s being handled, that’s all you get.”
“Now, wait a minute—”
Something thumped against the window.
Cerise grasped her knife. Kaldar was on his feet and moving to the window along the wall, dagger in hand.
Another thump. His back to the wall, Kaldar leaned to glance outside, sighed, and slid the glass panel up.
A small animal scrambled onto the windowsill. Fuzzy with mouse fur, it sat on its haunches, looking at them with enormous pale green eyes.
Oh no.
The beast waddled to the edge of the windowsill. Its bat wings fluttered once, twice, it took the plunge and glided to the table. Tiny claws slid on the polished surface, and the creature flopped on its butt, skidded, and crawled back to sit before her, whiskers moving on the shrewlike nose.
No escape now. “Emel, you almost gave me a seizure.”
“Sorry about that,” Emel’s voice came not from the beast but from about three inches above its head. “I don’t have full control of this little fellow yet. I just made him a couple of weeks ago, but I was sure that under the present circumstances anything larger than him would get shot down.”
The beast scratched its side with a tiny black foot.
“I’m so sorry about Anya,” Emel said.
“Me, too.” A pang of guilt stabbed her. Anya had volunteered to run the stinker to the house. If it wasn’t for Lagar’s gator traps, she would still be alive.
The bat shivered. “Someone summoned Raste Adir to the clearing in front of Sene. Was it you or Grandmother Azan?”
“Me. Grandmother is sleeping.”
The beast sneezed and curled into a tiny ball. “Very well done,” said Emel’s disembodied voice. “You held it a touch too long, but other than that, very well done.”
His praise filled her with absurd pride. At least she had done something right. “Thank you.”
Richard slipped through the door, followed by Murid and Aunt Pete, her missing left eye hidden by a black leather patch.
The beast fell asleep, its tiny ribcage rising and falling with smooth regularity.
“Did you know that most of the Sheerile estate has been blighted?” Emel continued. “The house is crumbling into dust, and the entire place is raining yellow pine needles. Grandmother didn’t have anything to do with that, did she?”
Smart bastard. “Emel, you know perfectly well that blight magic takes a life. All of us care too much about Grandmother to let her throw herself away like that. She’s just sleeping. We lost a lot of people today, and it took a toll. Kaitlin was probably so mad that she lost the feud, she sacrificed herself to blight the place.”
“I thought as much. Of course, you do remember that aiding a casting of the blight is punishable by death, according to Mire law.”
And he would be heartbroken if the Mire militia dragged her off. Unless he got the money first, of course. “Yes, I remember.”
A sound of a throat being cleared issued from above the creature. “There is the matter of the eel,” Emel said. “I wasn’t confident my message would get through to you.”
“What are you implying?” Kaldar stopped cleaning his fingernails with the tip of his dagger.
“Nothing offensive. Simply put, all of you had a very difficult day, and I’m sure the eel was the last thing on your mind. However, the problem remains unsolved. The law clearly says that if you purposefully destroy property belonging to another, you must pay restitution. As you know, since we are related by blood, the eel would not have attacked you unprovoked. So, either you provoked it or you did nothing to avoid it. I understand that another person was involved in the altercation, but the fact remains: you are allowed passage through Sect-held property, but he was not. The eel was simply doing its duty. Since you were present at the scene and can’t claim ignorance of our traditions, the Sect holds you responsible for not taking care of—”
“How much?” Cerise asked.
“Five thousand.”
She reeled back. Kaldar’s jaw hung down. Erian’s eyes snapped open. Ignata nearly dropped her glass.
Cerise leaned forward. “Five thousand dollars? That’s outrageous!”
“It was a fifty-year-old animal.”
“Which attacked me in the middle of the swamp in an unmarked stream!”
“There was a marker there. We’re just not sure what happened to it.”
“This is unfair!”
Emel sighed. “Cerise, you and I both know that you are perfectly capable of avoiding mud eels, especially one of this size. It was hard not to notice the thing—it was fourteen feet long. However, your points are valid and you’re my dear cousin, that’s why it’s only five thousand and not seven as it would’ve been for anyone else.”
“We can’t do five thousand,” she said flatly.
“I’ll go as low as four thousand eight hundred, Cerise. I’m sorry but anything less would be an insult to the Sect. And even so, the missing two hundred will have to come from my own funds.”
Gods, where would she get the money? They had to pay the Sect. It was too powerful. Making an enemy of it would mean that their livestock would start dropping dead. First the cows and rolpies, then dogs, then relatives.
“If you do not have the lump sum, we can set up a payment schedule,” Emel suggested. “Of course, there would be interest involved ...”
“Three payments,” she said. “No interest.”
“Within three months, the first good-faith payment due by the end of this week.”
“You’re forcing me to choose between clothes for the winter and being forever in debt to the Sect. I don’t appreciate that.”
“I’m sorry, Cerise. I truly am.”
The creature awoke. “I very much care about all of you,” Emel said. “The Sect does not wish me involved in this affair with the Hand. But I’ll try to help the best I can. I
will
find a way.”
The beast took to the air and vanished into the darkness outside.