The Spiritualist stiffened, but said nothing. Edward smiled. It pleased him to know that Hern understood the difference between them here. Hern might have influence in Zarin, but this was Gaol. Here, there was no power, no authority that the duke did not control.
“It is late,” Hern said at last. “Please excuse me.”
Edward waved, listening as Hern turned and left. When the man was gone, Edward picked up his ledgers and his lamp and walked toward the door. When he reached it, he stopped and turned to his garden. He looked at it for a moment, the well-balanced colors, the sweet fragrance of the flowers, all in perfect order. Satisfied, he said, “Good night.”
As soon as the words left his lips, every flower in the garden snapped itself shut. With that, Duke Edward of Gaol took his lantern and went down the empty halls to his bed.
F
ar, far west of Gaol, far west of everything on the barren coast of Tamil, the westernmost Council Kingdom, Gin ran through the sparse grass with a bony rabbit hanging from his teeth, his swirling coat making him almost invisible in the clouds of cold, salty sea spray. The land here met the water in great cliffs, as though the continent had turned its back on the endless, steely water, and the ocean, in retaliation, bit at the rock with knife-blade waves, eating it away over the endless years into a large and varied assortment of crags and caves, yawning from the cliffs like gaping mouths below the dull gray sky.
Gin followed the cliff line until he reached a place where the coast seemed to fold in on itself. Here, moving his paws very carefully on the wet, smooth stone, he climbed down into a hollow between two pillars of rock. It was narrow, and he had to scramble a few times to keep from getting stuck. Then, about ten feet down, the rock suddenly opened up, dropping him into a large cave.
It was dim, but not dark. Gray light filtered down through the cracks overhead and through the wide mouth of the cave that looked out over the ocean. Little ripples of shells and sea grass on the sand marked the high-tide line, filling the cavern with the smell of salt and rotting seaweed. Gin landed neatly on the hard sand and turned away from the roaring sea, trotting up toward the back of the cave where a small, sad fire sputtered on a pile of damp driftwood. Beside it, hunched over in a little ragged ball, was his mistress.
He dropped the rabbit in the sand beside the fire and sat down.
“Food,” he said. “For when you’re done moping.”
Miranda glared at him between her folded arms. “I’m not moping.” “Could have fooled me,” Gin snorted.
She reached for the rabbit, but just before her fingers touched the torn fur, Gin scooted it away with his paw.
“Are you ready to talk about where we’re going next?” Miranda sighed. “We’re not going anywhere.”
Gin’s orange eyes narrowed. “So we’re just going to live out our lives in a sea cave?” “Until I can think of somewhere better,” Miranda snapped. “We’re fugitives, remember?”
“So what?” Gin said. “If anyone is actually looking for us, it’s probably Banage trying to set this mess straight.”
“This isn’t Banage’s problem,” Miranda said, meeting Gin’s eyes for the first time. “I was the one who decided to do things the hard way, and I failed.” She buried her head in her arms again. “If I can’t be a good Spiritualist, then at least I’ll be a good outcast and vanish quietly, not make a scene to embarrass the Court further.”
Gin shook his head. “Do you even hear how ridiculous you’re being? Do you think it’ll make everything better if you keep playing dutiful Spiritualist to the end?”
“Supporting the Spirit Court
is
my duty!” Miranda cried. “I’m not playing, mutt.”
“No,” Gin said. “You’re hiding and licking your wounds. What good are you to the Spirit Court if you’re only using it as a reason to run away?”
“
Run away
?” Miranda’s head snapped up. “I don’t get to just stop being a Spiritualist, Gin! I have oaths! I have
obligations
!”
“Exactly,” Gin said. “But to us first. I thought you’d already made this decision back in Zarin, but now I’m not so sure. What matters more, Miranda, the Spirit Court or the spirits? Will you deny your oaths to us to save Banage’s honor? Would he even want you to?”
Miranda looked away, and Gin stood up with a huff. “Just remember, you’re doing no one any good hiding in this hole,” he growled, trotting toward the cave entrance. “Eat your rabbit. Next time you get hungry, you can go out and catch your own dinner.”
Miranda stayed put until he left. When his shadow vanished into the sea spray, she grabbed the rabbit and began to dress it.
Stupid dog
, she thought.
She skewered the rabbit on a stick and arranged it over the coals. Gin might be a particularly perceptive dog, but he was still a dog, and he didn’t understand. If she made a scene, things would only get worse for Master Banage, and that would be intolerable. Banage had been the one trying to help her, as always, and she’d thrown it back in his face. As Miranda saw it, she had only one option left,
one final duty: disappear, fade into the world, and never give Hern another inch of leverage against her master.
Miranda sat back against the cave wall, digging her fingers into the hard-packed sand as the rabbit began to sizzle. Outside, the gray ocean crashed and foamed, throwing cold spray deep into the cave. She grimaced. Gin was right about one thing: They couldn’t stay here forever. She had no spare clothes, no blankets, and she was filthy with sea grime and sand. Even her rings had cataracts of salt on them. Still, she didn’t know where else to run, or what to do when she got there. When she tried to imagine life separated from the Spirit Court, her mind went blank.
She supposed that was understandable. She’d been in the Spirit Court since she was thirteen, and from the moment she’d taken her vows the Court had been her life. That, she’d always suspected, was the main reason Banage had accepted her as his apprentice over all the others. She was only one who would work the hours he worked. But she’d done it gladly, because when she was doing the Spirit Court’s work, she felt as if she was doing something that mattered, something worthwhile. It gave her purpose, meaning, confidence. Now, without the Court, she felt like a block of driftwood bobbing on the waves, going nowhere.
She leaned back, staring up at the firelight as it danced across the smooth curve of the sea-washed stone. The wind blew through the cave, whistling over the rock like it was laughing at her. Then, out of nowhere, a voice whispered, “Miranda?”
Miranda leaped to her feet with her hands out, ready, but the cave was empty. Only the fire moved, the little flames clinging for life in the high wind. She pressed her back against the wall. A trick of the wind? Spirits sometimes mumbled as they went, especially winds, who seldom slept. Yet the voice had been clear, and it had certainly said her name.
She was turning this over frantically in her head, trying to keep a watch on everything at once, when her eyes caught something strange. At the mouth of the cave, silhouetted by the strip of sunlight, a figure landed.
Miranda blinked rapidly, but it didn’t change what she saw. With the light at their back, she couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, but it was certainly human, even though she’d just seen it do something a human shouldn’t be able to do. Whatever it was had not walked up or climbed down—it had
landed
in front of her cave. Landed neatly, as though it had hopped down off a step, but that made no sense at all. The cliff was nearly a hundred feet tall.
Even as she was trying to sort this out, the figure ducked under the cave’s low entrance and walked forward with quick, sprightly steps. Miranda pressed her back to the wall and sent a tremor of power down to her rings only to find that they were already awake and ready, glimmering suspiciously. As the figure stepped into the circle of the firelight, Miranda saw that it was a man. She placed him at late middle age, maybe older, with gray hair and skin that was starting to droop. He had an intelligent, wrinkled face and large spectacles, which gave him the air of a kindly scholar. This effect was aided by the long, shapeless robe he wore wrapped several times around his bony shoulders so that he looked like someone who’d lost a fight with a bed sheet. Other than the robe and the spectacles, he wore no other clothes she could see. Even his feet were bare, and he took care to walk only on the sand, stepping around the washed-up patches of sharp, broken shells.
Miranda didn’t move an inch as he approached. Nothing about him was threatening, yet here was a stranger who’d appeared from nowhere, and she was a wanted fugitive. But even as the thought crossed her mind, she felt almost silly for thinking it. Anyone could have seen that the man wasn’t from the Spirit Court. If the lack of rings wasn’t proof enough, the fact that he just walked up to a Spiritualist, who had all her spirits buzzing, without a trace of caution completely tossed out all suspicion of Spirit Court involvement. That left the question, what was he?
As he approached, the wind continued to roar, drowning out all other sounds. It blew the sand in waves and whipped the man’s robes around him, though, miraculously, they never tangled in his arms or impeded his legs. When he reached Miranda’s fire, the man sat down gracefully, like a guest at a banquet, and gestured with his hand.
The moment he moved his fingers, the wind died out, and in the sudden silence, he extended his hand to Miranda.
“Please,” he said, smiling. “Sit.”
Miranda didn’t budge. It took a strong-willed wizard to work with a wind, and she wasn’t about to give him an opening just because he was polite. “Who are you?”
“Someone who wants to help you, Spiritualist Lyonette,” the man said pleasantly.
“If you know that much,” Miranda said, relaxing a fraction, “then you should know it’s just Miranda now. My title was stripped last week.”
“So I have been told,” the man said. “But such things matter very little to the powers I represent.” He motioned again. “Please, do sit.”
Curiosity was eating at her now, and she inched her way down the wall until she was sitting, facing him across the fire.
“I’m sorry,” the man said, taking off his spectacles and cleaning them on his robe. “I have been rude. My name is Lelbon. I serve as an ambassador for Illir.”
He paused, waiting for some kind of reaction, but the name meant nothing to Miranda. However, the moment Lelbon spoke, she felt a sharp, stabbing pressure against her collarbone. At first, she thought the man had done something, but then she realized it was Eril’s pendant driving itself into her chest.
Careful to keep her face casual, she sent a small questioning tendril of power down to her wind spirit. The answer she received was an overwhelming, desperate need to come out.
“Eril,” she said softly, pulling on the thread that connected them, giving permission. The pendant’s pressure stopped and the wind spirit flew out. For once, however, Eril did not rush around. Instead, he swirled obediently beside Miranda, creating little circles in the sand.
“Sorry, mistress,” the wind whispered. “Illir is one of the Wind Lords. To not pay my respects to his ambassador would be unthinkably rude.”
Miranda tensed. “Wind Lords?”
“Yes,” Lelbon said. “The West Wind, specifically.”
“And this Illir,” Miranda said carefully, “is the Great Spirit of the west?” It seemed like a tremendous area to be under the control of one Great Spirit, but with spirits it was always better to suggest more power rather than less, so as not to risk offending. From the way her usually intractable wind spirit was acting, Miranda guessed that Illir was not someone you wanted angry with you.
“Great Spirit isn’t the most accurate description,” Lelbon said with the slow consideration of someone who thrived on particulars. “Great Spirits have a domain: The river controls its valley, an ancient tree guards its forest, and so forth. Winds are different. They can cross dozens of different domains over the course of their day, and since they do not touch the ground, local Great Spirits have little control over them. So, rather than be part of the patchwork of grounded domains, the winds have their own domain in the sky, which is ruled by four lords, one for each cardinal direction. Whenever a wind blows in a direction, it enters the sway of that lord. Illir is the Lord of the West. Therefore, when a wind blows west, it is under the rule of Illir.” He smiled at the space where Eril was circling. “Any given wind will blow in all directions during its lifetime, and thus owes allegiance to all four winds. Angering any of them could mean shutting off that direction forever.”
“A terrible fate,” Eril shuddered. “It is our nature to blow where we choose. Losing a direction for a wind is like losing a limb for a human.”
Miranda nodded slowly, a little overwhelmed. She’d never heard of any of this, not from her lessons in the Spirit Court or her travels, and certainly not from her wind spirit.
“Don’t look so fretful.” Lelbon smiled at her wide-eyed look. “There’s no reason for humans, wizard or otherwise, to know the obligations of the winds. Most spirits don’t even understand how it works. They don’t need to. The winds handle their own affairs.”
“So what are you?” It felt rather personal to ask, but she had to know. “Are you human or…”
Lelbon laughed. “Oh, I’m human. I’m a scholar who studies spirits, wind spirits in particular, which is how I stumbled into my current position. The West Wind is an old, powerful spirit, but also rather eccentric and very interested in the goings-on of humans. In return for letting me study him and his court, I serve him as messenger and ambassador whenever he needs a face people can see. Most people find talking to a wind directly to be quite disconcerting.”