Spiral Path (Night Calls Series Book 3) (42 page)

Somewhere behind me, I heard Emma’s voice whisper “Wizards!”
in a disgusted voice.

It was Emma who had the ear of every kitchen worker, for
Cook was still trying to calm down. “Something huge was flying in the great
hall,” Emma reported. “It followed me to the kitchen, swooping at me like a
scolding jay.”

“What was it?” one footman asked.

Emma shuddered and shook her head. “I did not stop running
to look. Never look at magic. It’s too risky.”

This time you were
right,
I thought.

“Anna? Anna, a carriage came for you!” came a boy’s bellow.

Praise Lord and Lady,
they came for me.
I unwound the little dark-haired girl clinging to me. “It’s
all right,” I told her. “You can go back to your friends now.” I smiled to
reassure her, though I didn’t like leaving so many young ones in a house that
had had a demon running loose, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

No one here was going to listen to Anna. And I had to get
out of here with the cylinder. The redhead and the courier would just have to
wonder what happened to it, until they heard from the Livingstons.

Cook had surfaced. Her hair was tightly pinned, her skirts
in proper order and her apron smooth. The queen of the kitchen was once more in
control.

“Thank you for your hard work, Anna,” the woman said, giving
me a firm look.

“Thank you, ma’am,” I managed, giving her a quick curtsy.

Out into the courtyard, I was stopped by a blast of icy
wind. A storm was building, tiny pellets of snow swirling everywhere. I pulled
my shawl over my face and walked to the side of the dark carriage. I didn’t
even wait for the coachman, I just pulled open the door and used the piled snow
to climb in.

They could wake me at Windward.

The vehicle started moving. The carriage windows were
cracked open at the top, wind whistling through. I sat in the dark gripping my
hands tightly and thinking
Anna, Anna.
I was still Anna until I was back inside Windward’s grounds.

A dry voice came out of the darkness. “We have examined
three servants so far. We still have not discovered who was responsible for the
mischief tonight. You are candidate number four.”

o0o

I gasped out loud.

This is the way a
rabbit feels in the dark forest . . . .

“You are not from the farm we are visiting!” I sounded
breathless, which was Anna’s voice.

A faint glow started within the carriage, slowly bringing
the moving room into focus. One tiny star of pale blue light bobbed and
fluttered between us in the wind whistling through the open windows.

We were moving—only the coachman would hear me scream.

“Where are we going?” I demanded as a man’s dark greatcoat
became visible. The scarf wrapped around his neck was pale, as was his face. He
looked like he was older than Professor Tonneman and younger than my father.
Other than that, I could see only that he was wearing a heavy wool coat and a
well-tended beaver hat.

He didn’t feel like he was there. I felt nothing at all, no
psychic mark that told me another human was sharing the carriage.

Yet the tiny blue light danced on his gloved hand. The
light, at least, was real, and made him look like a corpse.

“We are not going anywhere,” was the response.

Then his magic rose with the strength of a winter storm,
lashing at me. I felt like an onion, my top sliced off and my layers peeling
away. I dropped my soul anchor into the earth, letting the thin thread play out
with the slowly moving carriage laboring through the snow.

Images rushed at me, of digging up papery bulbs from my
mother’s garden, the smell of fresh dirt and garlic and hot wind swirling
around me. I saw my hands setting noose traps and skinning animals for their
pelts. The first time I used a bow to kill a deer, the metallic taste of blood
on my tongue as I bit my lip. I’d cried for the death, but I’d gutted and
skinned that deer, even as my parents taught me how to hang the meat to smoke.
Collecting eggs in the dark, the shells smooth and warm, setting the sweet milk
out in pans to let the cream rise, riding to my aunt’s on our mule, the hot,
damp animal moving beneath me—

“Damn the gods, not another false trail.” His voice was so
even as he dug deeper, coming closer to my family, to Marta, to Shaw, to
Margaret—

He’s not going to
stop.

No.

Words floated up within like smoke, words I had played with
but never used.

My magic sprang through my cousin’s ward with all the force
I had inside me.

Cantamen dissolvatur.

Our flickering star of light silently expanded, dissolving
into the sparkle of fireflies. The man gasped hoarsely, throwing up his other
arm to protect his eyes.

Mentally I grabbed a passing gust of wind, coiling it like a
spring. Yanking, I hauled the swirling power down to Earth so fast that I could
have started a fire from the friction.

The focus of my storm struck next to the carriage, and we
floated free as the crack of thunder rolled over us. There was no up or down,
no surface beneath us—and then I landed sprawled across the seat and the floor
of the carriage, wedged against the opposite door. The carriage lay on its
side. Everything,
everything
was
silent.

The man had vanished.

I had to move, fast.

Finally I could hear again, a roaring in my ears resolving
into the creaks and groans of a carriage falling apart. I could feel the
carriage jerking, actually sliding along on the snow beneath the door I leaned
against. The sound of hysterical horses reached me. I had to get out before the
driver regained control of his team.

The jarring and bouncing of the crippled carriage came to an
abrupt halt, throwing me against my seat. I pulled myself up and carefully felt
with my foot for an edge of the seat. When I found it, I stood on it and
reached the door above me. Twisting the handle, I pushed, setting my other foot
on the opposite seat. One more heave, and I was able to throw open the door.

A small whirlwind spun lazily above the carriage. I smiled
up at it.
Bright blessings, Lady, that
you have given me an argument.
I flipped the stairs away from me and
crawled through doorway and over, perching on the opening while I turned myself
around.

Both the horses and coachman were gone, the ends of the cut
traces slowly becoming buried by the snowfall.

All right, then.
I
sat catching my breath and getting a feel for where north lay.

Jumping off the fallen carriage, I landed in heavy snow. It
was not very deep, and I staggered to my feet. The remnants of previous cart
tracks showed as depressions under fresh snowfall. At least I had help walking
a path. My boots could handle it, but my skirt was going to be soaked.

Tears trickled down my face.

I didn’t know if I was still scared or relieved.

I didn’t know if I had killed the man, and I didn’t care.

He had threatened my
family.

He might have found Cousin Esme and the school.

They might still find us.

They thought someone
spelled the biscuit dough to make mischief.

Windward was not that far away; I had walked farther . . . .

Above me, my friendly whirling wind wove its way through the
branches, a parasol of protection over my head. Occasionally I petted the cone
of force I held at the base, marveling that it did not drain me or threaten me.

It was like having a stray cat follow you.

Frozen tears hurt my eyes. I scrubbed my face with my shawl
until the only dampness on my skin was an occasional snowflake.

Warmth crept through me, all the way to my fingertips and
toes, that same heat that inspired me to seize the cylinder. I waited, but
nothing else happened.

At least I was not cold anymore.

I didn’t know how long I stumbled through the snowfall,
sliding through the powder, avoiding chunks of older ice, but finally I could
hear a carriage of some kind coming from the south. I moved off the road behind
a tree, hoping their coach lamps would not extend far enough to touch me.

The carriage was dark, slowing as it approached my grove of
trees. The coachman pulled his horses to a halt just past me. The door flipped
open, stairs dropped, and I heard Margaret’s soft voice.

“Miss Sorensson? Are you here?”

“She’s here.” It was Shaw’s voice. He hopped out of the
carriage, a lit lantern in hand. “Allie?”

Relief trickled through me; for a moment my knees could not
hold me upright. I floundered through the snowdrifts. “Here!” I whispered for
fear of what might be listening in the darkness beyond.

Shaw offered me a warm hand. He gave me a brief smile, his
grip firm. “Are you all right?”

“I am now.”

Shaw looked above us. “Do you still need that for protection?”

That?
I looked up
at the swirling winds curling above us, lifting strands of our hair.
Oh.
Exhaustion nipped at me, like
children pinching each other when their mother wasn’t looking.

“We might be followed,” I managed to get out.

“Do you need a window open, or can you control it without
touching it?” he asked, drawing me toward the carriage.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I’ve always touched it.”

“Then we’ll keep one window open for you so you can talk to
it,” Shaw replied, offering his arm as support so I could climb in the
carriage.

All right.

Did I talk to winds?

I guess I did . . . .

Once I was in the carriage Margaret threw her arms around me
and hugged me tightly. “Oh,
Alfreda
!”
she said.

That was the second time, wasn’t it? That was permission.
Only took a week to get on a first name basis. “It’s all right, Margaret, I’m
all right,” I whispered into her ear, hugging her back.

“No one had any idea what he was keeping!” Margaret went on,
almost babbling. “Professor Livingston said they would have found another
exchange point if they had known
!”

“How could I hear
you?” I asked as I fumbled with the cross twisted around my neck.

“You heard me?”
Margaret sounded surprised.

“You told me to run,” I replied. “So I ran!”

“I . . . don’t know how you heard me,” she admitted. “I just
started screaming as if you could hear me. I was so frightened for you. Perhaps
Professor Livingston will know?”

“Sometimes fear takes us to greater heights of power,” Shaw
suggested from his seat across from us. “Also, you mentor Allie. Maybe that
means you know where to find her.” In a softer tone, he added: “I always know
where she is, too.”

Margaret’s voice was full of warmth: “
Sometimes
I know where to find her.”

My smile blossomed. I was confident that Margaret could find
me.

I prayed to the lord and lady that I could find Margaret, if
ever need be.

o0o

A small crowd waited for us in the Windward breezeway,
including Catherin Williams, who hugged me and Margaret, first separately and
then together. John Kymric was there, his white hair a flag in the gloom, and
Mrs. Gardener told us to hurry in for dinner and hot chocolate as Kymric said, “Professor
Livingston will see you now.”

I was sure she would, but I hoped that the complete tale
could wait. I was so tired I could barely hold myself up. I wanted to hand over
that cylinder and crawl into a warm bed.

The butler swept us along to the front parlor where both the
Livingstons waited, along with Li Sung, silent and watching from a seat farther
from the fireplace.

I slid my hand into my wand slit and pulled out the
cylinder. With a slight bend of the knee, I offered it to my cousin. “I felt
such warmth when I looked at it,” I told her, “that I thought you wanted me to
take it. I hope it wasn’t the house tempting me.”

“You were correct, I wanted you to take it,” Cousin Esme
said, taking the cylinder from my palms. She held my hand for a moment. “Good.
The link worked to keep you warm.” Then she released me and sat back.

“Emerson was too new to the gathering, and was being
watched. Even he is not so fascinating that he can’t get away for a few moments
of privacy. But you were also there, and now we have discovered a way to
communicate under heavy defensive spells. Still, I never imagined that Henry
Lee was consorting with demons.” Dr. Livingston stirred, as if about to speak,
but she glanced his way and added: “Lee is too skilled for a demon to simply
slip onto his estate.”

“Agreed,” Dr. Livingston replied, taking a sip from a
teacup.

She shook her head even as she gently twisted the cylinder,
breaking what I now saw was a seal of wax. I moved to sit next to Margaret on
the small couch close to the fire, and Shaw chose to stand near the door,
watching us all.

Through my exhaustion I wondered if Cousin Esme had felt the
demon, or if Margaret had told her. Could a demon come here? I turned to
Margaret, who set her hand gently on my arm and said: “The guardians are
watching.”

Oh.
Relief.

My cousin drew some papers from the cylinder and looked hard
at them, tilting them so the candles at her elbow gave her the best light possible.
“How did they manage to get hold of these?” she murmured, offering them to her
husband. He adjusted his monocle, quickly reading, and then sighed deeply.

“I had hoped that rumor was false,” Dr. Livingston said
heavily, and turned to Li Sung. “It is definitely Burr’s signature.”

“So is he traitor, or merely greedy?” Li Sung asked.

“It looks to me as if he is power-hungry,” Cousin Esme
replied, “but that will be for the administration to decide. The duel made his
return to politics unlikely. This will seal that fate.”