The Dragon Heir (10 page)

Another pause. “Well. He
and his daddy took the kids into Coal Grove and turned them over to the county.
I about went crazy when I came home and found them gone.”

Madison looked up to find Seph
watching her. She closed her eyes, wishing him gone. He didn't need to hear
this.

She lowered her voice further.
“When did all this happen?”

“A week ago.”

“A week ago!” Static
crashed in her ear again and she held the phone at arm's length, took a deep
breath, let it out, brought it back to her ear. “Mama, where are
they?” Madison pictured Grace and John Robert locked up in some kind of
home for wayward kids. Grace would be having a fit. J. R. would cry.

“They're in foster care.
There's a hearing scheduled. I have Ray McCartney representing me. But, the
thing is, he don't think they'll give the kids back to me.”

“Why not?”

“This ain't the first
time the county's been out.” Carlene rushed on, so Madison couldn't get a
word in. “You know they've been hassling us ever since Min died. Ray wants
you to come back for the hearing. He says they might let the kids go if the
county knows you'll be here to watch them.”

“When's the
hearing?”

“Next Thursday.”

“Mama! I'm in school!
Spring semester is just starting.”

Carlene ignored this.
“I've been trying to call you, but you never answer your phone. And I have
to drive to town to call. Or use the phone at the Ropers.”

Madison felt a rush of guilt,
remembering how often she'd ignored the phone. She hadn't even listened to the
messages.

“Listen. I'll come for
the hearing, but it'll be Wednesday before I can get there.”

“Thanks, honey. I know
things'll be fine once you're here.” In the space of a few minutes,
Carlene's voice had gone from breathless panic to breezy confidence.

Madison clicked off and stood
clutching the receiver. During the course of the conversation, a weight had
descended. A yoke of responsibility, familiar from the time she was small. The
burden of making sure everything turned out all right.

Seph was still there. He
stood, a little shakily, using the back of the chair for support. “What
happened?” he asked.

“I have to go home.
Family crisis.”

“Can I help?”

“No.” She didn't
really want to discuss her sad-assed family.

Seph reached for her, she took
a step back, and he dropped his hands. “Look, I'll talk to my father. I
think he's planning to stay through New Year's, anyway. If he can help with the
boundary, I'll go with you.”

Madison's heart lurched in
gratitude. She could really use a friend. It had been so long since she'd had
someone on her side. Then she thought of Seph in Coal Grove, meeting Carlene
and the rest. Seph, who'd been born to money and raised in Toronto and gone to
school in Switzerland and spoke French like a native.

No. Seph was her friend—more than a friend. Maybe they couldn't be together,
but she still didn't want to look into his eyes and find embarrassment or pity.

Besides, he seemed to be in
charge of saving everybody else.

“Thanks. I mean it, but
I'd better handle this on my own.”

Seph cleared his throat.
“It might not be a good idea for you to leave the sanctuary by yourself.”

Madison's mind was already
racing, cataloging all the things she had to do. Now it stumbled. “What?
Why not?”

“It's just a bad time.
Everyone's trying to gain an advantage—D'Orsay,
the Roses. Someone might have remembered what happened at Second Sister, and be
looking for you.”

So his concern for her had to
do with wizards. Always wizards. Madison thrust her face into his.
“Listen. I. Have. To. Go. I have no choice, understand?”

He raised his hands,
capitulating. “When will you be back?”

“Not this semester,
anyway. If I had to take a guess, I'd say I'll be lucky to be back in the
fall.”

Seph frowned down at her.
“You're not serious. You've been working so hard to get to art school. And
now you want to drop out of high school?”

She turned away, rounding her
shoulders against his questions. “Don't worry. I'll think of something.
I'll know more after I get down there.”

“I wish you'd let me
help.”

She shivered, feeling sparks
arcing over the chasm between them. Feeling totally alone. Maybe Seph couldn't
leave. But she could. It would give her time to work this out. He wasn't the
only one having a hard time.

“Maddie? Are you
okay?” The dark brows came together in a frown. “You're
shaking.”

“Look, it's late,”
she said, backing away, putting her hands
behind her back and nodding toward the
door. “You'd better go. I need to pack.”

He hesitated, as if he would
say something else. Then he shook his head, turned, and was gone. She didn't
even hear the front door open and close.

As soon as Seph was out of
sight, Madison raced up three flights of stairs to the third floor, taking them
two at a time. She shouldered open the door to her room and thumbed the light
switch. The bulb in the overhead fixture fizzed, then exploded in a shower of
glass.

Crossing to the window in the
dark, she ripped open the curtains, her fingers leaving smoldering holes in the
cloth. She flung open the wardrobe and snatched off the sheets draping the
painting that stood inside.

Throwing back her head and
closing her eyes, she extended her hands and sent power through her fingers
like a breath long held and finally released. It streaked through the air and
buried itself in the canvas, smelling like burnt coffee grounds. The paint
blistered and ran into muddy swirls.

She backed away until the bed
hit the backs of her knees. She slumped back onto the mattress, resting her
feet on the bedframe, her elbows on her knees.

The painting reorganized
itself, bleak, but recognizable and horribly animated. It was Second Sister all
over again, Seph thrusting her behind him as Leicester and the alumni sent
flame spiraling across the conference room. Only this time it struck Seph dead
on, flinging him against the wall like a broken marionette.

It changed again—Seph laid out in St. Catherine's, pale and still,
candles at his hands and feet, mourners filing past, pointing and whispering
when Madison entered the church.

Buried in paint was the
evidence of a dozen such attacks, an unrelenting series of scenes of Seph dying
in every way imaginable.

Seph stirred the alien magic
beneath her skin, woke it up like some monster of the deep. When she let it
trickle out, Seph grew pale and tired, he developed raging headaches and his
appetite dwindled. When she held it back, Seph visibly improved. But it built and
built inside her until she had to release it or explode. There'd been several
near misses until she'd discovered she could dissipate it into art—horrible art, but better than any other alternative.
She'd tried to paint over it, to obliterate the sequence of awful images, but
they continued to surface, like oil on polluted water.

It was a secret she had to
keep from Seph—from everyone. There was
no way Hastings or Linda or Nick Snowbeard would allow her to stay if they
knew. They'd have no idea how to fix it, and Seph was too important to risk.
She should have left long ago.

But she didn't. She couldn't
give up her dreams of college and Seph McCauley both. She kept hoping the magic
from Second Sister would eventually peter out.

Well, now she had no choice. Grimly,
she began sorting through her belongings. There wasn't much to pack. She'd
brought little from her life in Coal Grove. And she hadn't had the money to buy
much since her arrival in Trinity.

After some thought, she pushed
the hex painting back into the wardrobe and covered it over with a drop cloth.
Two drop cloths. She closed the wardrobe and locked it. She wasn't going to
take that thing to Coal Grove. She wouldn't need it once she got back home.
Seph wouldn't be there to wake the monster.

While she worked, she sorted
through her thoughts, as well.

She had no desire to crawl
back to Coal Grove Consolidated High School for the last five months of the
year. She was done with that. She'd met the curriculum requirements, and she'd
taken all their arts courses. She'd hoped to get a year of college in before
she had to pay for it herself. Now she'd probably lose the whole semester.

She knew how it would be once
she went home. Her old life would wrap around her like a well-used quilt.

The whispering would begin
again, stirred up by her presence. Bit by bit, they'd tear the flesh from the
bones of her dreams.

She stared out the window at
the hills and hollows of the lake.

Truth be told, she missed the
hills and hollows of home, the texture of the timeworn land of her childhood.
She missed the people, too, some of them. But not the limits they set for her
and the assumptions they made, based on who her mama and daddy were. Not the
notes that got left on her locker at school. Not the way people stuck
crucifixes in her face like she was some kind of vampire—as if they knew exactly who she was and how she'd
turn out.

Maybe she was just running
from one kind of trouble to another, from the strange and magical trouble in
Trinity to a more familiar kind. At home, they expected too little of her. And
here, they expected too much.

Falling in love with Seph
McCauley was the kind of bad move Carlene had made all her life. Her mother
careened from crisis to crisis, thriving on calamity. She acted like love was
something you caught, like cholera. Or a spell that took you unaware. So
she couldn't possibly be blamed for screwing everything up.

Madison meant to be different.
She meant to take hold of her life and get what she wanted and leave Coalton
County behind for good.

“It'll happen,” she
promised herself. But not just yet.

The canopy bed with the pink
satin coverlet and the leaping unicorns on the bedposts was reassuringly
familiar. Aunt Millisandra had furnished the room and named it Leesha's Room
when Leesha was only three. Until recently, Leesha had stayed there at least
once or twice a year. It had always been a kind of confectionary cavelike
retreat.

Only now she didn't feel safe.

She propped herself against
the ruffled pillow shams and drew the coverlet up to her waist. Releasing a
gusty sigh, she punched numbers into her cell phone.

Barber answered on the third
ring. “Yes?”

“Well. I'm here.”

Barber laughed. “Really?
I always know right where you are, remember?”

Leesha fingered the gold circlet
Barber had fused around her neck. Jason had said attack magic wouldn't work in
the sanctuary. But maybe Barber could track her just the same.

“Look, this isn't
working. It's like I said. Everybody hates me.”

Barber tsked. “Haley
doesn't hate you. You've never even met, right?”

“Well.” Leesha
hesitated. “I met him tonight. At a party.”

“There you go. That's a
start. I'm sure you made a good impression.” Barber sounded hugely amused.

“The thing is, I just
don't … I can't do this anymore. You'll have to think of something else.”

Barber's voice was like velvet
over stone. “That's where you're wrong. This is your problem. You made the
deal with D'Orsay. You promised we'd deliver Haley and the Dragonheart. Those
papers you gave me mean nothing if we can't consecrate the Covenant. You need
to lure Haley out of the sanctuary and to a place where I can get at him. How
you do it is up to you.”

“I have money. I can pay
you. Just take it off, okay?” Leesha struggled to control her voice.
Begging didn't come easy.

“You think I have to come
to you for money?” The velvet was gone. “I'm sick of you
bluebloods treating me like a nobody. I know where you are and I know where
your Aunt Milli lives. I better see some results or I'll squeeze the breath
right out of the both of you.” He hung up.

The phone fell from her
nerveless fingers and plopped on the satin comforter. Wrapping her arms around
her pillow, Leesha buried her face in the ticking and wept.

The next morning Seph rolled
out of bed late, his stomach knotted up, his head pounding. Then the events of
the night before came back to him. It seemed like whenever he and Madison spent
time together, it ended in a fight, resulting in him feeling beat up.

He'd never met a girl like
Maddie Moss. She was like one of those untouchable plants that closed up their
leaves when you brushed against them. It had been a totally frustrating six
months. Other girls had made it clear they liked him, but Seph never reciprocated.
Madison was like an intoxicating flower that pricked you till you bled, but it
was somehow worth it to get close. She was at war with herself, she was at war
with him, and yet there were moments…

And now she was going away.

He pulled on his jeans and a
shirt and descended the winding staircase, catching glimpses of the frozen lake
through the windows as he navigated his way to the bottom.

The sky was bluing up as the
sun rose higher in the sky, kindling the icicles that hung from the gutters of
Stone Cottage. It would be a beautiful winter day.

His parents were in the
kitchen.

“Hey.” Seph poured
himself some orange juice and dropped an English muffin into the toaster.
“Who's watching the boundary?”

“I am,” Hastings
replied. “As long as I'm here.”

How does he do that? Seph
wondered. He's not even breaking a sweat.

“You and I need to go
over some ideas I have for monitoring magical traffic within the
sanctuary,” Hastings went on.

“We're talking to the
sanctuary board later this afternoon,” Linda added. “We're going to
discuss contingency plans in the event of an attack. We'd like you to
come.” She focused in on him and frowned. “Are you all right,
sweetheart? You look pale and you've got those dark circles under your eyes
again.”

“We were out pretty late,”
Seph said.

“Later, I'm meeting with
Mercedes and Snowbeard at the church to go over the items Jason brought from
the ghyll,” Hastings said. “Your insights would be valuable.”

Seph couldn't help feeling
flattered. His father always treated him as if he were capable of great things.
Which made him want to accomplish great things. Even if the pressure was hard
to take sometimes.

This was quality time with his
father.

Fishing his muffin out of the
toaster, he slathered it with butter. He carried his plate to the table and
Linda plunked one of her big milkshakes in front of him.

He rolled his eyes.
“Milkshakes for breakfast? Again?”

“Drink up. You're skin
and bones. You've been sick more often in the past six months than you've been
in your whole life before that.”

When Seph hesitated, Hastings
added, “Listen to your mother. You're going to need all your strength
today, I promise you.”

Seph hated when they ganged up
on him. He lifted his glass in a mock toast and took a long swallow. Peanut
butter and chocolate. Kind of like a peanut butter cup in a glass.

Linda went upstairs to shower,
leaving Seph alone with his father.

“How are things going in
Britain?” Seph asked.

Hastings shrugged. “The
Roses have laid siege to Raven's Ghyll, hoping to flush D'Orsay out of his
hole. There's some question about the whereabouts of the Covenant. If D'Orsay
were holding it, surely he would have acted by now to bring the guilds into
line. But if he doesn't have it, who does?”

He paused, then, receiving no
answer from Seph, changed the subject. “You're still going out with
Madison Moss.”

It wasn't really a question.
“Yeah. Well, sort of. It's kind of off and on.” He didn't really want
to talk about girl trouble with his father.

“Snowbeard tells me she's
ambivalent about our mission here.”

Seph's defenses slammed into
place. “That's right. She's not gifted. It's not her fight.”

“She's not gifted in the
traditional sense, true. But she has a talent that could be of great use to us,
if…”

“She's not into it, okay?
She's got classes and she's working a lot of hours because she has to pay for
school next year.”

“So you're saying she
could be receptive to the right offer.”

Seph thrust back his chair,
leaving long scratches in the polished wood floor. “What I'm saying is,
she's got her own problems. She's talented, but the talent she wants to work on
is painting.”

“Painting won't help
us.” Hastings leaned back in his chair. “We don't know a lot about
elicitors, since they're not part of the guild system. Legend has it they are
descendants of Aidan Ladhra's Dragonguard.” Hastings snorted. “That's
unlikely. But you know what happened at Second Sister.”

Seph carried his plate and
glass to the sink and dropped them in with a clatter. “I'm not listening
to this.”

“I want you to work with
her, Seph.”

He swung around to face his
father. “Work with her or work on her?”

The wizard waved a hand.
“I've seen the way she looks at you. Even if she is not vulnerable to
wizardry, you can exert an … influence. I want you to find out everything you
can about her capabilities.”

“And then what?”

“Convince her to help
us.”

“Right. Just another
sacrifice for the bloody cause.” Seph splashed coffee into a mug,
remembering Maia, who'd died in Toronto because of him.

“Do you have any idea how
tenuous our position is? The presence of Trinity is an affront to the Roses.
When they
finish with Claude they'll come after us. Or, worse, they'll join forces with
D'Orsay.”

“No.”

Hastings slammed his coffee
mug down on the table and stood. “Given the powers arrayed against us, we
cannot allow some ill-founded, unfathomable, extravagant set of
principles to prevent us from seizing every advantage we can.”

Seph stood, also, and suddenly
they were standing toe to toe and face to face, energy crackling in the air
between them. Seph was surprised to find that he was equal in height to his
father. When had that happened?

“Sorry,” Seph said,
“but there are some things I just won't do.”

Hastings stared at him as if
he'd morphed into something unrecognizable. Then his lips twitched into a half
smile. “Very well,” he said. He sat back down at the table, and
gestured at the other chair. “Please.”

Seph didn't sit, but leaned
forward, resting the heels of his hands on the table. “Madison's going
away, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“Family emergency. She's
going home.”

“For how long?”

Seph shrugged. “She
doesn't know. Maybe even through the summer.”

“That's bad for us and
dangerous for her.”

“I tried to talk her out
of it. But she's going, unless we lock her in the crypt at St. Catherine's and
slide food under the door. So how far are you willing to go?”

Not that far, apparently,
because Hastings changed the subject. “The Roses have been in touch with
you, have they not?” Hastings looked him in the eyes.

Seph hesitated, then nodded.
“And D'Orsay.” He felt guilty, even though he hadn't responded.

“If they can't lure you
one way, they may try another,” Hastings said. “They may use her to
get to you.” Hastings studied Seph, tapping the tips of his fingers
together. “Well, I suppose there's no help for it now. Keep her departure
quiet if you can. Don't tell anyone where she's gone.”

“How long are you going
to be here?” Seph asked.

“Not much longer,
unfortunately.” The wizard's hands moved restlessly over the table, the
stone in his ring glittering in the morning sunlight. “I'm afraid you're
going to have to take on even more responsibility in the near future.”

When Hastings didn't go on,
Seph prompted him. “Why? What's up?”

“Your mother and I are
organizing an assault on Raven's Ghyll.”

Seph blinked at him.
“What? I thought you…”

“I don't think the
Covenant is there. But given the fact that war is more and more of a certainty,
the hoard may play a pivotal role. In fact, it already has.”

Seph had heard of the
legendary cache of weapons in Raven's Ghyll. “Has anyone actually seen it?
I mean, I thought maybe the hoard was just one of those rumors that turn out to
be nothing.”

“Possible, but unlikely.
The D'Orsays have taken advantage of their role as Masters of the Game to
collect magical weapons for centuries. As far as we know, they're somewhere in
the ghyll.” He laughed. “The Roses are convinced, anyway. The hoard
is what's keeping them from entering the ghyll. It might do the same for Trinity.
At the very least, if we make it unavailable, the Roses may do our work for us and
eliminate D'Orsay. And the last thing we want is for the hoard to fall into the
hands of the Roses.”

Seph felt a cold trickle of
apprehension. “How are you going to do that? Break into the ghyll, I mean?
How are you going to get past the Roses?” He had to ask, though he wasn't
sure he really wanted to know.

Hastings smiled wolfishly.
“There are lots of ways to get in. The challenge will be getting
out.”

That wasn't reassuring.
“Jason wants to come with you.”

“I know Jason wants to
come. But he has a hard time following orders. I want him here, under Nick's
supervision, and where he can help you. We're spread very thin, especially
where wizards are concerned.”

“You could cut him some
slack,” Seph said. “He saved my life, you know, at the Havens.”

“I know that.”
Hastings rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand like he had a headache
of his own. “Jason will prove most useful to us if we can find a way to
channel that passion of his, so he doesn't go up in flames and take the rest of
us with him.”

Madison found Sara Mignon in
her studio on the third floor of Saddlewood Hall. Her art teacher was clad in a
paint-spattered denim shirt and jeans, flinging exuberant splashes of acrylic
onto a rough board the size of a small barn. Two graduate students toiled away
at the bottom corners, laying in lines that Sara gleefully ignored.

When she saw Madison, Sara
jumped down from her stepladder and set her paints on the bottom step. Using
her sleeve,
she wiped bright yellow from the tip of her nose. Her curly hair spiraled out
every which way, a rich, blue-black color that came from a bottle. She looked
like no teacher Madison had ever had before.

“Hey, Maddie. What do you
think?”

“Well, it … it's fine. I
like it.” Madison was still startled when her professors asked her
opinion. Not that she didn't have opinions, she just wasn't used to anybody
wanting to hear them. She had gone to schools where you called the teachers sir
and ma'am. As in, Yes, sir and Yes, ma'am.

Madison liked everything Sara
did, though her teacher's work was really different from her own. Sara's art
was tropical in its heat. Madison's painting was cool and smoky and subdued as
dusk in the hollows.

Sara (as she insisted on being
called) studied the painting critically, hands on hips. “That yellow draws
the eye, doesn't it? It might be a little too assertive.” She turned to
Madison. “Are you here to talk about your capstone?”

“Well, ah…”

“Let's take a look at it,
shall we?”

The capstone projects were
displayed in a sunlit studio on the third floor of the art building. Moody
oils, languid watercolors, pushy acrylics. Madison's painting was secluded in a
corner, covered by a drape.

Sara swept the cloth away and
they stood, side by side. Sara studied the work while Madison stared at her
toes.

Why did I have to submit that
one?

“I like the layering
you've done, the flames laid over the stone, the blood splattered on the floor,
the arrangement of the bodies, and the way the architecture of the piece
carries the eye. There's a strong fantasy element here. Even horror.”

Madison nodded mutely.

“This is really different
from your other work,” Sara said. “More abstract, more raw emotion,
more hot shades. There's a violence here I haven't seen from you before. Can
you tell me about it?”

No, actually. There was a lack of censure in Sara
that invited confidences, but Madison knew better than to share this particular
secret.

“It's…um…from a dream I
had.”

More like a nightmare.

“Well, it's interesting
to see you getting away from landscapes and exploring new subjects and styles.
At your age, I think that's important.” Sara redraped the painting.
“So. Will you be able to help me out next Friday?”

Madison stuffed her hands in
her pockets. Saying it made it real. “I … ah … wanted to tell you I can't
be here for your opening next week. I—I
have to drop out. I have to go home. Family emergency. I'm really sorry.” Tears
welled up in her eyes and she turned away, mortified.

Sara put a hand on her
shoulder. “Nothing serious, I hope.”

“No,” Madison said
automatically. “Well, maybe. I think I can get it sorted out. But I'll
probably have to stay home from now through summer.”

“Going back to those
dreamy mountains, are you?” Sara grinned. “I'd call that a gift for
an artist.”

Sara had a knack of making you
feel good about yourself. She was as sunny as her paintings. “I guess
so,” Madison said, feeling a little better. “But I was hoping to get
another eight credit hours this semester, what with the two courses I'm taking
with you and the capstone. In the fall, I have to pay for it myself.
And in the fall, you'll be going back to Chicago.”

Sara frowned and tilted her
head. “I don't know why we can't still work together. These aren't lecture
courses. It's not like I'd be looking over your shoulder even if you were here.
You can paint as well in—what is
it—Coalville?—as you can here. Maybe we can meet once a month and I can look
over your work and give you a grade at the end of the semester. Can you manage
that?”