The Smoke-Scented Girl (26 page)

“You’re not dead,” she said. Her voice was
dull and emotionless. “I thought you would be dead.”

“You have such little faith in me? I won’t
say it wasn’t hard, but I do have some small skill as a magician.
And—” He pulled her bag off his back and rummaged in it. “I brought
you a dress.”

She looked up at him, holding out the blue
gown with a flourish, and began to laugh, somewhat hysterically,
but it was a laugh nonetheless. He laughed with her. She would be
all right, he thought, and turned his back so she could dress.
“Your legs,” he said suddenly.

“Reborn, remember? She—” Kerensa’s voice cut
off abruptly. “She mostly just tried to take the spell off, and
that terrified me, but otherwise she didn’t hurt me much.”

“I know Odelia. I think you’re lying to
me.”

“Well, I know you, and I think you’re trying
to make all of this your fault, so you can just stop that right
now. I don’t even feel any pain. You can turn around now.” She was
looking through her bag for her shoes. “The worst part was feeling
like...like a thing. Like all they cared about was the weapon.”

Evon felt sick again. “The magicians are
here,” he said. “They helped rescue you. I’m afraid some of them
will see you only as a weapon too.”

Kerensa put on her cloak and shivered. “Isn’t
there anything we can do?”

“I’m going to be lucky if Mistress
Gavranter—that’s their head magician—can arrange for me to stay
here rather than be shipped off to Matra. I think I impressed her,
and I did just manage to survive the weapon at its most powerful.
But...it’s likely they won’t let me work on the spell anymore. I
might be allowed to consult.”

“That’s so unfair.”

“It will give me time to work on the other
spell. The one that proves the Despot is the spell’s target.”

Kerensa came close enough to him that he
could see her smooth face in the moonlight. “You really think
that’s true?”

“I try to trust my instincts. But not so much
that I won’t try to prove it before acting on it.”

Kerensa took his hand and squeezed it,
sending a thrill through his body. “Thanks for coming after
me.”

His vision was still a little blurry, but he
could see her eyes, and his heart ached. He’d thought—he’d hoped,
by the way she had clung to him as he carried her, that
possibly...but no. The look she gave him had nothing but friendly
affection in it. He managed a smile. “How could I do otherwise, and
still call myself your friend?”
Though a friend wouldn’t be
feeling this way about you right now. Oh, Kerensa.

The devastation extended far beyond the
ruined manor, farther than Evon’s blurry vision could see in the
moonlight. The smoking ground was rough, and
presadi
was
awkward, so it took them some time to cross the hundred yards or
more to where the frost-burned grass began again. They saw no sign
of life anywhere, all across the fields. They neared the forest,
and Evon worried that the others might not have gotten out in time,
that Piercy—

“There you are! You had me worried, dear
fellow. I was about to come looking for you.” Piercy detached
himself from the trees and embraced him, pounding him hard on the
back. “Kerensa, you look well.”

“I feel well,” she said. “The urge has
passed. I thought you came with a lot of people.”

“We’re all here, Miss Haylter, and are
astonished at that display,” Mistress Gavranter said. “Belitha
Gavranter, and I hope we will be able to discover the secret of
that spell and free you from it.”

“I hope so too, Mistress Gavranter,” Kerensa
said. “Was...was anyone killed?”

“Five of Mrs. Petelter’s agents did not
return, and two of our magicians were caught in the weapon’s fury,”
she said. “Please don’t look that way, young lady. It’s not under
your control, and they knew what the risks were.”

Evon almost told her about Kerensa’s holding
off the blast for several minutes. He decided to wait until they
were alone. If those magicians knew Kerensa could do something like
that, they might draw the wrong conclusions. Better not to confuse
them now.

“It’s hard for me not to feel guilty,”
Kerensa was saying. “Even though I know it’s the spell doing
it.”

“Well, I think we can rid you of it soon,
with Mr. Lorantis’s help,” Mistress Gavranter said. “I suggest we
go on to Ostradon and find shelter there. In the morning, if you
don’t mind, Miss Haylter, we’ll begin our studies.”

Evon kept his mouth shut. If Mistress
Gavranter was going to ignore his summons back to Matra, he wasn’t
going to make an issue of it. He mounted, and took Kerensa up
behind him, wishing her hands on his waist meant more than just her
need to stay on the horse. His terror for her safety had dissolved
into misery at his own situation. If he—if they—succeeded at
freeing her, the magicians would take the spell to Matra, or to the
Despot, and Kerensa would go home and back to her old life, and he
would never see her again. She thought of him as the brother he’d
claimed to be, would probably remember him fondly or with
gratitude, and he would carry the memory of her face with him for
the rest of his life. He clenched his hands on the reins. At least
she’d remember him. It would have to be enough.

Piercy threw open a window, choking and
gagging. “Evon Lorantis,” he said, waving the thick orange smoke
out the window, “you are my best friend, and I would do anything
for you, but I am nearly to the point of tossing you out this
window along with your noxious fumes.”

Evon was coughing too hard to answer at
first. Finally, his eyes streaming, he said, “You could get another
room. You probably
should
get another room. I can’t promise
that won’t happen again.”

“If I acquired my own room, there would be
nothing constraining you from staying up all hours and forgetting
to eat. You and I will simply have to come to an accommodation. And
I will find something to occupy me during the daylight hours, when
you are busily engaged in finding new and unpleasant ways to
fumigate a room.”

“There was the one that ended with a flash of
light and purple fire.”

“All right, fumigate or illuminate a room,
though I am not certain purple is anyone’s color.” Piercy stepped
away from the window, ostentatiously holding his nose. “It is
dinnertime,” he said. “I will take myself off to the dining room,
and you should away to speak to Mistress Gavranter. She kept
Kerensa far too long yesterday.”

“Kerensa looks exhausted still. I’d hoped it
was just the effect of the weapon’s activation, but I think the
magicians are pushing her too hard.”

“You are the one with the power to stop that,
dear fellow. I cannot credit how those magicians’ attitudes toward
you changed when you walked out of that desolation unscathed.”

“Not totally unscathed. My coat is never
going to be the same, and the hair on the back of my head is still
a little singed.”

Piercy walked around Evon and tugged at the
indicated hair. “You saw what remained of the deceased when they
were retrieved yesterday. Everyone is shocked, amazed and awestruck
that you did not resemble them. With good reason.” Serious now, he
added, “Evon, that was extremely dangerous. You had no idea your
spell would even work against a fire of that magnitude.”

“I promised I wouldn’t leave her,” Evon said.
He went to shut the window, which was letting in a frigid
breeze.

“She wouldn’t thank you for killing yourself
to keep that promise,” Piercy said. “And I hope you don’t think
that risking your life will change her feelings for you.”

Evon shook his head. He looked out over the
rooftops of Ostradon, watching smoke rise from the chimneys of the
tall, narrow brick houses. “I couldn’t leave her.”

Piercy sighed. “I know.” He went to the door.
“Eat something. Don’t force me to bring you something vile from the
kitchens. Hunger may be the best sauce, but it’s murder on the
intellectual faculties.”

Evon heard the door close behind Piercy, then
turned and moved things off the small round-topped table he’d
appropriated from the downstairs hall of the inn. It was covered
with a layer of orange dust, under which was a layer of brown
crumbly things. He used a handkerchief to wipe the top of the
table, sending dust and crumbly things to the floor. If he took a
positive view, that was one more thing he knew
didn’t
work.
From a more negative perspective, it was one thing that didn’t work
out of what might be a million other non-viable possibilities. He
sat heavily in his chair and stared at the bare table. He felt as
though he was on the right path, but he couldn’t work out which of
the many things he’d tried were part of that right path. Piercy was
right; he needed to eat something. No, first he had to extract
Kerensa from the magicians’ clutches. They’d all been awed by their
first sight of the spell, but now that it was a commonplace, they
had a tendency to forget there was a woman attached to it.

He went down the hall and up a flight of
stairs to the third floor, which the magicians had appropriated for
their use as sleeping and working quarters. He knocked on the door
at the far end of the hall, then entered. Kerensa sat quietly in a
chair, her caramel-golden hair bundled at the base of her neck,
spell-ribbons frozen in place around her. Several of the magicians
hovered over her, making notes or copying runes. It infuriated Evon
that the magicians insisted on repeating his work, claiming that
his perfectly clear notes were unintelligible. Such a waste of
time. The slow pace of their work further infuriated him. They
seemed to believe that the activation of the spell meant they had
plenty of time before the urge struck Kerensa again. Evon kept
having to remind himself that he was there solely because Mistress
Gavranter had overridden Mrs. Petelter’s demand that Evon obey the
Home Defense command for him to return home. Mrs. Petelter, who’d
failed utterly to capture Valantis, was in disgrace not only for
that failure but because of the debacle that had gotten Kerensa
kidnapped in the first place. She’d intended to send Evon home
immediately, to avoid looking disobedient as well as incompetent,
but Mistress Gavranter had taken her aside and had a few quiet
words with her, then the two women had gone into Mrs. Petelter’s
room for a mirror conversation with Home Defense, and ultimately
they’d emerged, Mrs. Petelter looking relieved, Mistress Gavranter
looking smugly pleased. Now Mrs. Petelter avoided him, and Evon
avoided her, just in case she changed her mind.

“Mistress Gavranter,” Evon said. The magician
was seated near the window, frowning over a page of notes. She
looked up inquiringly. “Mistress Gavranter, I believe it’s
dinnertime, and I think everyone would do better with a little
refreshment.”

Mistress Gavranter’s eyes went to Kerensa,
then back to Evon. “Thank you, Mr. Lorantis, I think that is an
excellent idea.”

“It can wait another five minutes,” Mistress
Quendester said, not bothering to look at Evon, who had to stop
himself making an angry reply. “Five minutes” was Mistress
Quendester’s habitual response to any suggestion by Evon that it
was time to stop.

“I really need to stop, Mistress Quendester,”
Kerensa said. “Don’t worry, I’ll come back.”

Mistress Quendester glared at Kerensa. “I’d
think you would want us to work as fast as possible,” she
snapped.

“I wish you would,” Kerensa said sweetly.

“Oh, let the girl go, Caris,” Master
Waldratis, the balding magician, said, stepping back and mopping at
his forehead with his handkerchief. “I could use a rest
myself.”

“
Desini,
” Evon said with a sharper
flick of his fingers than was necessary to dismiss
epiria
,
taking advantage of Mistress Quendester’s irritation and the
distraction of the other magicians. They murmured crossly, casting
dire glances Evon’s way, but no one challenged him. It was good to
have a reputation.

Evon offered Kerensa his arm, and the two of
them went down the stairs to the dining room. “I’m glad you came in
when you did,” Kerensa said. “I was starting to get restless. Have
you made any progress?”

Evon grimaced. “If you call several more
explosive failures ‘progress,’ then yes.”

“At least you know what doesn’t work.”

“That’s what I told myself, but I knew I was
lying.”

She laughed and squeezed his arm. “Isn’t
there anything I can do to help?”

He looked at her cheerful face and thought of
a million things he wanted to say to her. “Continue to cooperate
with the magicians,” he said. “Maybe they’ll find a way to separate
the spell from you, and then it won’t matter whom it’s
targeting.”

“I think some of them couldn’t find a way to
their own backsides without a map and a guide dog, but I’ll try to
be helpful.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. They’re a lot more careful of my
comfort than I expected. I think some of them believe I really do
have control over the spell and are terrified I might repeat my
performance at the Speculatus manor if they anger me. I haven’t
done anything to correct that impression.”

“It seems I’m not the only one with a
reputation for fearsomeness.”

“They do walk softly around you. You must
have been something to watch, back at the manor.”

Evon thought of Odelia collapsed on the floor
with her head hanging at an unnatural angle. “I did what the
situation called for.”

They entered the dining room and joined
Piercy at his table. A waiter brought them somewhat dry roast
chicken with boiled onions and potatoes. Evon picked at his food
and went over his last failure in his head. Phosphorus wasn’t
working as a source of light, symbolic of guidance. Plus, it was
dangerous and volatile. Wood and candle hadn’t burned hot enough,
and oil gave off too much smoke. What was left? Alcohol might
work...in fact, a nice clear alcohol would be more symbolic than
white phosphorus, clarity of liquor, clarity of purpose.