“His son was very much an admirer of the Witch Lord at the gathering,” Henri added.
“The ghost brought a warning,” Lorella said. “In a fortnight, there’s to be a big feast at Lord Sandicott’s manor. The king will be in attendance. It’s been planned for over a year. Some kind of liege obligation,” she added, with a gesture that said she didn’t quite grasp the details. “Sandicott is drugged to the gills, barely alive. The wife and son are planning something big at the feast. The ghost feared they mean to kill the king and somehow blame Lord Sandicott.”
Rett let out a whistle. “It just might work.”
“Kristoph’s guard will be down,” Ridge said, pacing in the small room. He rubbed the back of his neck as he thought aloud. “He’ll feel safe in Sandicott’s manor because the man was one of his top generals. They fought together in the last war. There are all kinds of stories about Sandicott saving the king’s life. He’ll have bodyguards, but they won’t be expecting a threat from the lord or his family; they’ll be watching for an attack from outside.”
“For us,” Rett said, meeting Ridge’s gaze. “They’ll be watching for assassins. The Witch Lord set us up. If anyone sees us, they’ll think we mean to kill the king. And if Sandicott’s son succeeds, they’ll spin a tale that we were working with his father, who’s so addled by opium that he’s gone mad.”
“I’m afraid that’s quite possible,” Henri agreed. He pulled the pot of soup from the fire and filled four bowls, which he handed out along with spoons and chunks of fresh bread.
Henri gave a self-deprecating smile. “My apologies for such poor fare.”
Lorella lifted the bowl and savored the aroma. “No apologies needed. This smells wonderful.”
“Henri cooks the best food any wanted men could ever hope for,” Ridge replied.
They ate in silence. After she finished, Lorella pushed her empty bowl aside and sighed in contentment. “Thank you. I was getting desperate when you found me. I might have come looking for you, but I didn’t know how to locate you.”
“Good thing you didn’t, or you might have been caught by the guards as an accomplice,” Rett said. He gave Lorella a searching look. “Have any of the ghosts who’ve come to you about the Witch Lord been children? Perhaps with a very strong resonance?”
Lorella frowned. “Magic?”
Rett nodded. “We found out that the Witch Lord is kidnapping children with abilities and enslaving them, selling them to his followers to use for their own gain. We managed to free several from a caravan, but there were others who had already been sold. We don’t know who has them, but they’re being used as an unfair advantage to gain more wealth and power for the Witch Lord’s disciples.”
Lorella closed her eyes. “Damn. This is even bigger than I thought.” She took a few deep breaths. “No. I haven’t seen any child ghosts. That doesn’t mean the Witch Lord’s people haven’t killed any children; they just might not have made their way to me. I’d notice a child with power. That’s something that lasts beyond life.”
“Truly?” Rett asked. “And the gods permit it?”
Ridge felt a stab of sadness at the open need in Rett’s face. The monks at the orphanage had been adamant about the evil of unsanctioned magic. Not that anyone seemed to be holding that against Makary, who wore the title of Witch Lord as an honorific. But for two poor orphans—or even two of the King’s Shadows—a touch of magic meant shame, taint, fear of discovery. They had only ever been able to confide in each other, and then in Henri when the secret couldn’t be kept from him. Ridge had made his peace long ago with the Sight, figuring that whatever gods gave them their abilities had no right to judge them for those same powers. But the stigma had always bothered Rett more, which seemed odd since he had so little conscience about his thieving past.
Then again, Rett had stolen to survive in those early years. Thieving was something he did, not something he was. Rett had the Sight, and a dollop more of magic they had yet to fully understand. Before the present disaster, Ridge had hoped that if their abilities ever came to light, Burke would somehow overlook it as another kind of weapon in the service of the king. Now, if they were caught, it would be another nail in their coffins.
Lorella’s expression told Ridge she had picked up on the unspoken plea in Rett’s voice. “What we are is how the gods made us,” she replied. “Who are men to judge that the gods made us wrong? With everything we’re given, we do no harm.”
Rett nodded, and stood, gathering their empty bowls for want of something to do. “Glad you think so,” he said in a tight voice.
“I’ll take those,” Henri said, rising and relieving Rett of the bowls. He washed them in a bucket and set them to dry. “Not elegant, but functional,” he said of the arrangement. “I’ll go get more water.” With that, he grabbed the bucket and went downstairs.
“What now?” Lorella looked from Rett to Ridge.
“We can’t stay in hiding forever. Sooner or later, the other Shadows will track us down. If not the Shadows, then the Witch Lord’s people,” Rett replied.
“We have to stop the Witch Lord, save the king, and convince Kristoph to believe us,” Ridge replied.
Lorella gave a snort of disbelief. “Is that all? How are the three of us going to manage that?”
“Four.” They looked up to see Henri in the doorway. “There are four of us. Strength in numbers.”
“Don’t discount Henri,” Ridge said with a smile. “He thrashes people—very politely.”
“What can we use?” Rett walked over to check the street below, staying hidden by the curtains from prying eyes. He looked back at Ridge. “You and I have our…abilities. Not sure how they can help, other than recognizing who’s completely sold out to the Witch Lord.”
“You can do that?” Lorella asked sharply.
“And we’ve got Lorella’s connection to the spirits,” Ridge continued, not answering her question. “They may be our best informants if they can be gathered,” he added with a questioning look to Lorella.
“I think so. I’ll try.”
“I have sources as well,” Henri volunteered. “They know me under other names, and they don’t know about my employ with you. So I should be able to continue getting some information that way.” He paused. “What I heard today suggests more people missing—probably showing up as Miss Lorella’s ghosts.”
“Be careful,” Ridge said. “People have the damnedest way of figuring things out when you don’t want them to. You’d make a tempting hostage.”
Henri seemed to pluck a small dagger from thin air and twirled it through his fingers, then sent it flying to stick in the wood above the hearth. “I’m always cautious,” he said with a slight smile. “And you’ve taught me well.”
“All anyone wanted to talk about near the docks were the murders,” Rett said. “As soon as I figured out what was being said, I left. But I did find out two important things. The dead men were killed assassin-style, and definitely by a pair of assassins. No doubt that it was meant to put the blame on us. And the second—the trade in opium’s better than ever. Likely thanks to the Witch Lord and his followers.”
“I sent a message to Burke,” Ridge replied. “Coded,” he added as Rett moved to argue. “And this was before I heard about the killings. I told him not to believe what he hears, warned him that the king is in danger.” He sighed. “Doesn’t mean he’ll listen.”
“Do you think Caralin—” Rett began.
Ridge shook his head. “Too dangerous. For her and us. She has to follow orders, or end up like us. I think we have to count the Shadows out. Too many of them would love to see us brought down a peg or two, and the rest won’t risk their necks against something this big. Even if they believe in the Witch Lord, they believe in the Code more. We broke it when we went rogue. Burke, he might agree about Makary, but with the rest—we’ve gone too far. He’ll send them after us, and he’ll mean it.”
Chapter Thirteen
Rett woke to the sound of mut
ed screams and plaintive whimpers. For a second, he didn’t recognize where he was until the desperate events of the past few days caught up with his sleep-addled mind. Outlaws. Hunted. Hiding.
Ridge awoke more quickly, rising from his spot on the floor to join Rett in bending over their newest houseguest. Lorella twitched and trembled, caught in vivid nightmares.
Rett knelt beside her, gently lifting her hand. Lorella did not rouse.
“Come on, wake up,” Rett urged, patting her face. He had more than his share of troubled dreams, given everything he had seen, and the things he’d done that rested uneasy on his soul. He was no stranger to waking in a cold sweat, breath heaving, trembling with the adrenaline of the fight, or the imagined loss of a battle gone wrong. He knew that Henri had learned early to call out to him from a safe distance, or poke with a broomstick rather than risk a fist to the jaw.
This felt different. Rett gripped Lorella’s shoulder and shook her gently, careful to block her hands to keep her from swinging at him. She didn’t even try, and somehow that seemed worse. “I don’t know why she isn’t waking up.”
“Room’s cold,” Ridge observed.
Henri padded up behind the couch where Lorella had been sleeping, looking like a stranger shorn of his hair and beard. Rett wondered if the disguise bothered Henri. He hadn’t felt like himself since he’d cut his hair and changed its color. Bad enough to hide from people who wanted to kill them; worse to feel like he no longer recognized his own face. “Could it be something to do with the ghosts?”
Rett stroked a hand over Lorella’s face. Her skin felt clammy, and beneath her eyelids, her eyes flicked back and forth quickly. She cried out, a muffled, desperate sound. “Maybe. Whatever’s happening, it’s not good.”
Lorella gasped, eyes opening and wide with pain. She stiffened, practically coming off the couch, and Rett grabbed her shoulders to steady her.
“Gods. Look!” Ridge pointed. Blood beaded from three fresh red gashes across Lorella’s chest, as if claws had torn across her flesh.
“What—”
“Something’s attacking in her dreams. And the cold—either the spirits are coming to see what’s happening, or whatever’s doing this to her is a ghost.”
“Let me try,” Rett murmured, unsure of just what he intended to do. He laid the palm of his hand over Lorella’s eyes and called to his Sight, but it revealed nothing. This was one of the few times he wished he could have a vision when he needed it.
And yet…something stirred. Rett had no training with his magic; to even seek such a thing would have meant disaster. He had only experimented when dire circumstances forced his hand, and then only to save Ridge’s life or his own when all else failed. So now, the best he could do was blunder toward something elusive that his gut told him he had to find.
Rett pulled harder on his errant magic, making this up as he went. If he could somehow enter Lorella’s dreams—impossible as that sounded—perhaps he could guide her back, help her escape the torment that locked her into unconsciousness.
Or maybe get trapped himself.
Suddenly Rett’s world went black.
Complete darkness gave him no way to find his bearings. Rett thought of catacombs, and they appeared around him. He looked for a stairway, and the carved stone steps stretched down into the depths. He thought of light and found himself holding a torch. Just as easily, an iron knife felt real and solid in his other hand.
Torn between feeling ridiculous and being completely terrified, Rett pushed on, and as he moved through the darkened passageways, Lorella’s screams grew louder. The air around him chilled Rett to the bone, enough to make his teeth chatter. He wondered whether the medium always felt like this, halfway between living and dead, or whether it was a trick of the nightmare.
Up ahead, around a corner, Rett caught a glimpse of light. He moved cautiously, remembering that whatever injured Lorella in the dream world had left physical wounds in the waking world. He had no desire to discover whether death was final in both.
He turned the corner, and Fenton looked up from where he had Lorella pinned against the rough stone wall. “You,” the ghostly traitor snarled. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
Lorella’s head lolled to one side, her lip split, one eye swelling shut and a darkening bruise on her cheek. The ghost attacker had been busy; those marks weren’t on her when Rett began his journey. Maybe they were real, or perhaps they were only in the dream world. But the bloody gashes were seeping rivulets, staining Lorella’s shirt.
“Let her go,” Rett challenged.
“You have no power here.” Fenton sneered at him.
“Are you sure about that?”
Fenton let go of Lorella, and she slid to the floor. The duke’s dead brother turned on Rett, teeth bared, fists clenched. “She lied!” he roared. “We had a deal. She betrayed me to my idiot brother, got me killed. I owe her.”
“You betrayed your brother—and your king,” Rett returned, keeping both torch and knife ready for an attack. “It’s not her fault it caught up to you. If you want to be specific, Hennessy—the crazy man with the bomb—killed you.”
“She’s the one who opened her mouth and ruined everything,” Fenton growled. “Without her, even if I’d died, my brother would have accepted the crates. The revolution would have gone on. Now, she’s compromised the plan.”
“That’s what brings you back from the dead for vengeance? The Witch Lord’s stupid ‘revolution’?” Rett knew he had to keep Fenton talking. Already the ghost had mirrored Rett’s movements, unintentionally stepping farther from Lorella.
“He’s brilliant!” Fenton shouted. “Much better than that weakling king.”
“How is it you have the power to be here?” Rett asked, shifting a half-step at a time to draw Fenton off from his intended victim. “How are you here in her dreams and the other ghosts aren’t?”
“Maybe I had more of a reason.”
“Maybe the others didn’t have someone to open the door,” Rett replied.
His dream-self sprang forward, slashing at Fenton’s ghost with his iron knife and swinging at the apparition with his torch. Fenton’s image broke apart, splintering like shattered glass, vanishing for an instant. Rett knew he would be back, and he knew what he had to do.
Rett cast his magic back along the path that brought him here, back to the anchoring feel of his hand on Lorella’s forehead, and the grip of Ridge’s hand on his shoulder.
In the next breath, he called to the ghosts that had been worriedly hovering around Lorella’s prone form and felt an onslaught of spirits surge through him like a bridge. Their dead chill froze him to the marrow, and the unrelenting cold constricted his chest and tightened his throat. He labored to draw air and feared he might lose consciousness.
If I pass out here, can I ever get back? Will Lorella and I both die, tangled up in a nightmare that never ends?
As suddenly as his breath left him, the tightness vanished, and he sucked in a deep, desperate gulp of air. In the pause between dispelling Fenton’s spirit and summoning the ghosts, the duke’s faithless brother returned, his expression even more malevolent than before. This time he closed on Rett, hands clenched into claws, not even needing a weapon. He swung at Rett, who had not completely shaken off the disorientation of the ghosts’ passage.
The clawed fingers raked across Rett’s face, and he reeled back as warm blood oozed from the wounds. Instinct and training had his body reacting, jabbing with the torch and slashing with his knife. The iron blew apart the revenant, but Fenton formed behind him, and this time the slashes ripped through his shirt, digging into his back.
Rett wheeled, stabbing with the knife, only to send Fenton elsewhere in the next breath. Fenton was already dead; he could keep this up forever. Rett and Lorella couldn’t last. Already, Rett felt himself waning, and Lorella had been Fenton’s prisoner even longer.
Fenton’s nails cut across Rett’s shoulder, staggering him. Rett had never used this much magi
c, hardly more than a touch or a small surge, nothing this sustained. The drain went soul deep, taking energy and life with it to maintain the connection, leaving him dry and cold.
He heard voices shouting in the distance. Henri, worried to the point of panic. Ridge, barking commands, frightened and angry. Rett knew he needed to let go, to come back to himself, or what remained of him. But he couldn’t. Not yet. Not without freeing Lorella.
Fenton closed again, and Rett knew this time the mad ghost would rip out his throat. The feral gleam in Fenton’s eyes gave away his intention. Rett’s spent torch guttered, flickering. Once it went out, there would be only darkness.
Fenton lunged. Rett dodged and stumbled toward Lorella, landing on his knees beside her. Ghosts surged between him and their attacker and began tearing into Fenton, whose screams echoed as loudly as Lorella’s had. Rett wrapped his arms around Lorella, folding her against his chest. Blood soaked his shirt and smeared his cheek, and Lorella felt small and too still in his grip. If they were ever going to get back, they couldn’t wait any longer.
Still making it up as he went, Rett closed his eyes. He held onto Lorella, and let go of everything else.
They fell.
Rett felt hands on him, tearing Lorella from his grasp although he tried to hang on. The floor beneath him was wood, not the cold stone of Lorella’s dream, and the air felt warm, though the chill still froze him bone deep.
“Wake up,” a voice commanded, edged sharp. “Come on, wake up, dammit!” Ridge sounded worried. “Why is there so much blood? Gods, what happened to you?”
Rett wanted to answer, and he tried to open his eyes. His body lacked the energy, and his exhausted mind lacked the will. Instead, he floated, no longer falling, not yet landed. Adrift on a warm current, mostly numb to the injuries Fenton had inflicted, or maybe beyond caring.
“Any luck?” Ridge asked, his voice a note higher than usual with apprehension.
“She’s warming up. Altar and athame, I never saw such a thing.”
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