The Twisting (25 page)

Mary Clare hesitated, then nodded. “Working a Knack on others isn’t accepted. You can have fingers pointed at you if
you
accuse someone else of doing it. The Elders investigate both of you. It’s a problem for Knack-bearers whose talents aren’t so obvious, like those of a ’cambire or planta.”

Annmar checked to be sure no one was looking their way, then whispered, “So, based on what I’ve told you, do you think Mr. Shearing worked his Knack on me?”

“My Knack doesn’t make your skin crawl, does it?” She barely waited for Annmar to shake her head. “From what I’ve done, um, experienced, people feel nothing.”

“Mistress Gere felt nothing.”

“Right.” Mary Clare flipped her hands up. “I don’t know what he was doing to you. See the problem? No one can accuse him of anything.”

She’d have to find a way to prove it. Or just stop him. Without getting accused herself.

Annmar sighed. “I can’t let Mr. Shearing know what I’m doing. He figured out I have an artistic Knack—”

“Which no Basin dweller thinks twice about.”

“—but I want to avoid talking about that, too.”

Mary Clare rolled her eyes. “Dressed like this, he won’t be asking you about art. Thank the Creator we have hours to educate you on how to avoid him and practice your Knack.”

Then she’d be on her own, alone with Mr. Shearing. Annmar pressed a gloved hand to her forehead, covering the tears welling in her eyes. “He won’t take no for an answer. As much as I want to stop him from controlling me, or Mistress Gere or anyone else, I may not be able to.” She swallowed, and a tear escaped.

“I thought you said the man liked to brag? Likely, he’ll tell you right off how his Knack works.”

“He-he should. But
other
things may happen while I’m trying to learn his techniques. He’s relentless, and he’s made it clear he’d like sex with me, too. I have more choices than when I first came to Blighted Basin. For work, for making someplace home, for…me. If I can’t avoid his attentions, then I’ll lay him out and leave.” She wiped her eyes and told Mary Clare about Jac’s training.

“Brilliant!” Mary Clare smiled. “Your Basin skills are improving every day. You’ll do this, Annmar, just give yourself the chance. The dress and Mr. Shearing’s desire will get him talking. Once he spills his secrets, you act: Make Mr. Shearing fail with his manhood, or be unable to use his arms, or even to fall asleep, without knowing what happened.”

A week ago, Mary Clare’s ideas would have sounded like another penny dreadful tale, but now Annmar knew each idea was possible. “Sleep. That’s not a bad idea—oh. We could have used Master Brightwell’s brew.”

“Oh, dear…” Mary Clare shrugged. “Too late now to turn back, besides with everything else you can repair in a body, making one sleep should be easy.”

“I wonder how the threads—”

Mary Clare tapped her fingers to Annmar’s lips. “Don’t think about it. Knacks work better when you don’t worry over the exactness.” She lowered her hand and gave a reassuring nod. “On the next train you’ll have time to practice the sleep idea on me and perfect your performance.”

“Performance?”

“It’s nearly that, since you feel nothing for him. You should pretend you admire his maleness.”

“Admire him?”

Mary Clare rolled her eyes. “His manhood. Tell him it’s bigger than you imagined.”

“I imagined it?”

“You did. And it’s better than you had hoped. Lands, Annmar, have you never thought about what men want to hear?”

She definitely had not. At least in this area. “They like hearing about…themselves?”

“Yes,” she said adamantly. “I suppose I have to excuse you, not growing up in the country. My pa hired hands for the heavy work. That didn’t mean he let us girls off doing chores, and I learned bragging is a boy’s way of life. After my older sisters started seeing those boys and talking about them, I put it together.”

Mary Clare leaned in. “Say you think he’s endowed in a masculine sense. That’s of course after you fawn over his chest, his muscles, how strong he must be. Not too much, mind you. It’ll sound contrived. Of course, you can ask how it works.”

“How—oh, his—” Annmar lifted a hand to shield her heating face. The half day of train rides might not be long enough for her to get through Mary Clare’s idea of preparing.

chapter TWENTY-SEVEN

Daeryn kicked aside
his covers and rolled to sit on the side of his bed. Why had he woken? His sleep-deprived head and the angle of light cutting into their room’s dormer window told him the time was around midday. He’d been tossing for some time now. Something felt…off.

He rubbed his eyes and looked across at Rivley’s foot, the only piece of him visible in the mound of blankets the avian piled on when desperate enough to sleep in the daylight. Daeryn didn’t want to wake him. If Riv hadn’t recovered from his bout of nerves, it’d make him even angrier than he’d been when Miz Gere insisted he see Miriam. Smooth talking had released him from the sickroom, but Riv had been in a huff after the healer foisted the sleeping herb on him.

Daeryn slipped out of the room, thinking he’d go to the kitchen for a glass of milk, if not more. Yet once in the bunkhouse corridor he realized he wanted to check on Annmar. Not just wanted to,
needed
to
.

Despite his intention, he missed her connecting hallway. He backtracked. By the time he’d passed the spot where it should have been, he knew: Annmar had closed it to him.

A sinking feeling like a hairball weighed in his stomach. Why had she blocked him?

He raced downstairs and to the end of the bunkhouse. Only the cobwebbed piles of farm clutter stood in the storage area. “But her staircase is right here,” he growled, yanking at a roll of fencing that refused to budge.

Muscles tight with the change to polecat threatening again, he pivoted and ran to the house. He burst into the kitchen, his gaze sweeping over the vacant drafting table and corner rocker before riveting on Mrs. Betsy. “Have you seen Annmar? Ma’am?”

She placed a roaster pan on top of the cookstove and closed the oven door before turning and frowning. “This morning. Didn’t you accompany her to town?”

“Yes, and we came back together. Have you seen her since…what time is it?”

Mrs. Betsy gestured around the kitchen. Pots and pans and dishes of food lined the serving counter and filled the table around which three of Mary Clare’s sisters dawdled. The youngest openly stared at him. The others tried not to. “Lunch hour,” the white-haired cook intoned. “Though we can’t serve a meal with still feet.”

Each girl grabbed up a dish and scurried into the dining room, leaving Mrs. Betsy to shake her head. “These girls try, but they move in a muddle without Mary Clare staying on their tails.”

“Where is Mary Clare, ma’am?”

“Off for the day, duck, by special request. I assume accompanying your artist girl. You saw the two of them this morning, dressed to the nines.”

Had they been? He couldn’t remember. Annmar always looked nice.

Daeryn rubbed the ache in his stomach. It wasn’t hunger. This feeling meant something was wrong. But what? Scent-marking relayed only a portion of what a true pack mark would. He had to piece the rest together himself.

She’d worn her good clothes, gone somewhere with Mary Clare. Why hadn’t she asked him to go…oh. In the tunnels she’d seen him change and rage at the hedge-rider, the dangerous ’cambire behavior he’d described to her last night. Not what a proper girl wanted in an escort.

But he’d told her of those beastly habits before they’d kissed. Before
she’d
asked to kiss. He’d thought it had gone well, but she’d said little afterward…

Ah, hell.

That kiss happened after he’d said he wasn’t free, nor would he leave the Basin even if—Wait.
She’d
asked him about leaving the Basin. She’d been nervous, on top of her upset about Henry’s death—

Daeryn bolted from the kitchen, narrowly missing one of the Pemberton girls in his race across the dining room to Miz Gere’s office. His fingers darted for the knob, then he stopped and rapped on the wooden panel instead.

He opened it at the same time she said, “Come in.”

Miz Gere took off her reading glasses and looked at him. “What is your hurry, my boy?”

“Annmar is…doesn’t seem to be around. And I can’t get into her room anymore. Could you use your Knack to check for her on the property?”

Miz Gere rolled her eyes. “Her room’s closure to you should tell you something. It’s none of your business where she is.”

“But I think she’s left, gone back to the city. Would you check? Please?”

Putting down her glasses, Miz Gere rose and came to the door. “Daeryn, you have to realize, not every girl is going to fall for your handsome looks and pretty talk. Let this one…” She frowned.

“She
is
gone, isn’t she? Mary Clare, too?”

After a moment, Miz Gere nodded. “I told Annmar I couldn’t pay her after her trial ended. I thought we’d made an arrangement, though perhaps she’s gone to Market Day looking for another position. I’m sure she’d let me know if she was leaving for good. She has wages coming.”

“She’s not at Market Day,” said a young girl behind them.

They turned, and with a shaky hand, Mary Frances held out an envelope addressed to Mary Clare. “It’s from Mary Alice, our oldest sister. I-I read it already. I wasn’t going to tell, but Ma says no secrets if the person is in danger.”

Miz Gere took the envelope. “What danger?”

“The Outside city,” Mary Frances whispered, her eyes wide. “Everyone knows it’s dangerous, but Mary Clare so wants to go there. I didn’t tell her Mary Alice said she could visit, ’cause she might go if she got the letter. But he”—the girl nodded to Daeryn—“says she and her best-est friend Annmar are missing, and I remembered that this morning Mary Clare packed a lunch.” Her green eyes welled with tears. “Two of everything.”

Daeryn’s aching stomach sent up a wail of pain. That had been a good-bye kiss.

“If she doesn’t know Mary Alice said yes, then why did they leave?” asked Mistress Gere.

Mary Frances swallowed. “I heard them planning a punishment, with sketches or something else. Mary Clare said she’d get me if I told anyone, but it’s for a Mr. Shearing.”

“No, they didn’t.” Miz Gere put a hand to her mouth.

Daeryn spun to her. “What? What else do you know about the bas—man?”

The lady turned to the little girl. “Thank you, Mary Frances. You did the right thing telling us. I’ll let your mother know.” She waited for the girl to enter the kitchen, then faced Daeryn. “Annmar came to me with a story about him confusing her with his touch and thought he had done the same to me. I dismissed the idea, thinking it no more than a young woman’s awe of a successful businessman who had paid her undue attention. But in asking my fellow consortium members about their dealings with the man, I discovered every last one of them took a loan—and regretted it. Most accepted the offer when he delivered their purchased machines, and none could say why they’d done it. Then I realized I’d also wanted to buy more of his machines, right up until he started playing games with us.”

Daeryn snorted. “Then my running him off did more good than we thought.” It might land him in a heap of trouble to suggest the businessman was a witch, but he had to ask: “Do you think Shearing worked his Knack on you?”

She nodded. “Repeat this only if necessary: The other Farmlands Elders and I are investigating the stories of dozens of Basin farmers he’s contacted. However, my immediate concern is for Annmar if she’s gone to confront him.”

“I want to go after her.”

Miz Gere clasped his shoulder. “Do it.”

Daeryn raced out of the house and across the farmyard, chickens scattering before him. Annmar was a new Knack-bearer. She had no idea how dangerous a Basin witch could be.

He pounded up his bunkhouse stairs, taking two at a time, and burst into the room he shared with his best friend. “Rivley?” he called. “Get up.”

He wrenched open a dresser drawer. His hand hovered above the clothing inside. What did he need to go to the city? He opened the next drawer, but he couldn’t seem to find anything to suit. Damn, it didn’t matter. Clean trousers landed on the floor. He dropped his trousers, pulled off his shirt and spun to the wardrobe, throwing the doors wide, pawing through shirts. “What should I take?” he mumbled, then louder, “Riv? Get up.”

From deep in the covers came a hissed, “Sleeping. Leave me alone.”

Daeryn whirled and kicked Rivley’s bed.

“Get out,” Rivley snapped.

The hair on Daeryn’s neck rose, sprouting with polecat fur. No packmate dared refuse a call to action. Daeryn shoved his hands into the mound on the bed and heaved it over.

Rivley landed, his lean limbs tangled in blankets, his reddening face screwed into fury. “What are you doing?” He thrashed out and smacked Daeryn in the legs, knocking him off his feet. “I’ve had next to no sleep, you ass, and got caught quaking in my boots, thanks to you. They won’t let me operate the Harvester if I’m not better by tonight. And I have to be. I won’t put Mary Beth in that position again. Or Master Brightwell.”

Daeryn scrambled up, dread and nerves and outrage burning through him. His muscles hummed and twisted, his raging body allowing him only one solitary thought: “Annmar has gone to the city,” he snarled.

“I don’t blame her!” Rivley rose on his knees and swung at him again.

No!
Daeryn’s instincts screamed. He shifted form and pounced on Rivley’s back, landing on his left shoulder and sinking his canines deep.

“Get off—” Rivley punched Daeryn’s forehead and tried to lift him around the middle.

Daeryn dug in his claws and held fast, his jaws locked in place. Rivley twisted, issuing shouts and then hawk shrieks when he tried to shift and couldn’t.

Seconds later, the mark was done. Daeryn relaxed his jaws and extracted his teeth. Four deep punctures connected by a ring of smaller skin breaks. Instinctively, his tongue rolled out, and he licked the welling blood. One swipe sanitized and sealed the wound with the acidic saliva that rose in ’cambires with the marking urge.

Daeryn retracted his claws and dropped to the floor, changing forms and straightening as Rivley did. They faced off, both glaring, neither backing down, neither averting his gaze. A growl rose in Daeryn’s throat, answered by a harsh click from Rivley’s.

“What the hell is with you?” Riv shouted. “We agreed to discuss this!”

Great Creator, Riv is
… Daeryn stepped back and cut his vocalization. Rivley didn’t move. He wasn’t acting beta. Definitely not beta. Daeryn held himself rigid, muscles roaring with the strongest ’cambire urges he’d experienced in years. What had he done? He’d marked Riv, but then backed down—
him
? An alpha? And Rivley… Rivley looked—ah, furious.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to work—or was it? Every instinct said he needed Rivley at his side. Pack. Now, to protect Annmar. What they’d realized was needed to solve the gildan…and for him to be with Annmar. His head spun with confusion.
I’ve forced a mark on Rivley.
He’d never done that before.

Rivley had never fought him before.

He agreed to be pack, just last night.
In that second, Daeryn became all too aware of his body: standing on his toes, leaning forward, fists clenched, hackles raised.
Not this way.
This was one move short of a fight. Like he’d nearly had with Jac. He and Rivley were more equally matched, but… He didn’t want to fight his best friend. He wanted his friend back.

He wanted Annmar back.

But this…
ah, hell
. He and Riv had agreed to
co-lead
. Their first gildan lesson had resolved because they’d realized they each should claim an alpha position. The gravity of his mistake settled onto Daeryn, and his stomach clenched tighter than his fists. He eyed the avian. How could he avoid a fight? His standoff with Jac from a week ago stirred in his memory.
Fight her with words
, Rivley had said then…and now demanded.

Daeryn forced his balance to his heels, his arms to loosen, his fists to open. “Discussion? Up until I suggested that, you didn’t care if we talked about it.” Damn, anger still edged his voice. Daeryn cleared his throat and tried again. “We never talk like we used to. Maybe you were right, we just need to become pack. Maybe you’re right now, I should have talked it over.”

“Damned right.” Rivley’s fists pumped. “This is
not
working together. We’re supposed to work together to restore a pack. As co-leaders.”

“We are working together. We have the doodem. The Harvester works. And now I need the help of a packmate to find Annmar. She’s left the Basin, and I can’t follow alone.”

Rivley stomped a foot. “So you’re going to drag her back here and mark her, too?”

“I-I don’t know the next step with her. But she’s gone and in danger, and I have no future with her if she’s not here and we’re not free of these.” He pointed between the bloodstones sparkling in their navel piercings.

“You only had to ask,” Rivley snapped, his voice escalating. “Even if Brightwell said the Harvester still needed repairs, you’d come first. Whatever it was, I would have said yes. You never—”

Bam. Bam. Bam.

They jumped at the banging on their door. It flew open. Maraquin, dressed in a flannel shirt that hung to her knees, stepped one foot in and pushed aside mussed strands of dark hair to peer at them. “What’s the problem down here? Jac wants to know if you’re in trouble—” Her roving gaze fixed on Rivley’s shoulder. “Oh. Well.”