Leesha shook her head. “No, thank you.”
The boy leaned against the sideboard. “We’ve more of a selection down in the cellar,” he said. “Would you like to see?”
“No, I’m quite all right, thank you.” Looking to change the subject, she said, “Who beat you up?”
That struck a nerve. “No one beat me up, Miss Middleton,” the boy said, straightening, his fair face flushing dark rose against the bruises. “From a power standpoint, I totally had the advantage. Had it not been for . . .”
“Devereaux.”
Now it was the boy’s turn to jump and look guilty.
Claude D’Orsay stood framed in the doorway, dressed in wool trousers, cashmere sweater, and tweed jacket. The wizard’s hair was dark and close-cropped, his face fine-boned and aristocratic.
“Miss Middleton, a pleasure to see you again. I see you’ve met my son.”
“Yes,” Leesha replied. “I wouldn’t have known it from his looks.”
“He favors my late wife.” D’Orsay came into the room and extended his hand to Leesha. His grip was cool and dry, with a wizard’s electrical sting.
“You didn’t tell me anyone was coming, Father.” Devereaux still looked sullen. “How was I supposed to know who she was?”
“It was rather short notice, Dev,” D’Orsay replied. “Miss Middleton requested a meeting.” He studied Leesha appraisingly. “I believe the last time we met was here, at Raven’s Ghyll, at the last tournament.”
“That was a disaster,” Leesha said bluntly.
D’Orsay didn’t disagree, but nodded toward the side-board. “Would you like something?”
“No, thank you,” Leesha replied, wondering how many times she was going to have to refuse refreshment before leaving.
D’Orsay gestured to one of two chairs by the hearth. “Please. Sit. Make yourself comfortable.”
Leesha sat, not particularly comfortably, and D’Orsay sat down opposite her. Devereaux slouched onto the hearth itself, clearly intending to listen, if not to participate.
Leesha nodded at Devereaux, and raised an eyebrow.
“Dev can stay. I value his opinion.” D’Orsay paused. “So. Are you here representing Jessamine Longbranch?”
“Why would you think that?”
“I believe you were working for her last year when you— ah—brought those two young men here as hostages during the last tournament. Friends of that bizarre mongrel warrior she created. Jack Swift. Now that was a disaster.”
“Must’ve seemed like a good idea at the time,” Leesha said. “Anyway, I’m not working for her anymore.”
“Ah, yes. Didn’t I hear you’d fallen in with some traders? I don’t imagine Jessamine approved.”
Leesha examined her nails. “You can’t believe everything you hear.”
“But you’re working with someone.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Who?”
“My partner wants to remain anonymous until we’re sure we can do business.”
D’Orsay sat back in his chair and smiled like a cat with a bird between his paws. “We can be very persuasive.”
Leesha’s heart flopped wildly but she managed to keep her voice steady. “My partner wouldn’t like it if anything bad happened to me.”
“Did you bring the document with you?”
“Do I look stupid or what?”
D’Orsay shrugged. “One can never tell by appearances. Where is it now?”
“You should be thinking about what kind of deal you’re willing to make.”
“I could offer to trade you for the Covenant.”
Leesha sighed. She groped in her bag for her compact and reapplied her lipstick, trying to keep her hand from shaking. Playing for time. “I’m just the hired help, you know? I can be replaced. But my associate might be annoyed enough to decide to sell the piece to someone else.”
“No one else would want it.”
“Please. I’m a trader. I know who wants what. The Roses want to destroy it because it takes power out of their hands and puts it in yours. The underguilds want to destroy it because it keeps them subservient to wizards. You want to consecrate it and enforce it. I bet we could get a three-way auction going.”
D’Orsay raised his hand. “I hardly think that’s necessary.” He smiled, as if acknowledging defeat. The man was a charmer, no doubt about it. And good looking, for someone so totally old.
D’Orsay rose, laid another log on the fire, and returned to his seat, taking his time. “Has your associate given you leave to negotiate the sale?”
“He has.”
“Then I assume he’s shared with you what offer he might be willing to accept?”
“He has.”
“And ...?”
“He wants to be written in.”
D’Orsay shoved back his sleeves. “Excuse me?”
“The new Covenant states that all of the magical guilds including the Wizard Houses will be ruled by you and Gregory Leicester and your heirs. Leicester is dead, and he has no blood heirs. My partner wishes to be named legal heir to Gregory Leicester and so, coruler of the guilds.”
“Your partner is out of his mind,” D’Orsay said pleasantly.
Leesha took a deep breath, cursing the day she’d become entangled in this. “That’s his price. Take it or leave it.”
“Who does he think he is? Does he really think I would bring him in as a full partner? Leicester and I worked on this project for years.”
“Look at it this way. What can you offer that the Roses can’t? I’m sure they can come up with more money than you, if everyone puts in. Plus, if they destroy the Covenant, then my associate doesn’t have to worry about living under your rule, which, having read the document, seems risky. The only way to ease his mind is to allow him to come in as an equal.”
D’Orsay pressed his fingertips together. “If I knew who I was dealing with, if I knew we would be compatible . . .”
If you knew if he’d be easy to kill, Leesha thought. No doubt both partners would be hiring assassins before the ink on the agreement was dry. With any luck, they’d kill each other.
“This is my inheritance, too,” Devereaux said, leaning forward. “Let’s take her to the cellar. We can make her tell us whatever we want.”
Getawayfrommeyoumiserablelittlecreep, Leesha thought, perspiration trickling between her shoulder blades. She made a show of looking at her watch.
“Let me handle this, Dev,” D’Orsay said. The wizard massaged his forehead, as if it hurt, then turned back to Leesha. “Perhaps we could negotiate a private sale, you and I.”
Leesha considered this. In fact, she’d considered this long before she ever entered the Ghyll. “I don’t actually hold the original.”
“Perhaps you could obtain it.”
“That would be . . . difficult.” Impossible, actually, with things as they were, but she wouldn’t tell him that.
“Your partner could meet with an accident.”
Leesha liked that idea a lot. “He could, but I couldn’t be connected with it in any way. Plus it would have to be a completely ...um ... permanent accident. If you know what I mean.”
“Ah.” D’Orsay smiled. “You might be able to provide an opportunity, yes?”
“Maybe.”
“And what would you want in return?”
That would be enough. Getting free of Warren Barber. Getting free of this whole business. But it wouldn’t be wizardly to say so. “Oh, I don’t know. Money is nice. Or maybe I’d like to be written in myself,” she added. They’d expect that, of course.
D’Orsay smiled back. “Very well, then. I think we can come to an arrangement.” Meaning they’d stab each other in the back as soon as they could. “But, tell me. How did your employer come by the document? As a sometime buyer of antiquities and art, I know that the provenance of a piece often speaks to its authenticity.”
Leesha rolled her eyes. “Now that would be too much like a clue.”
D’Orsa
y’s smile disappeared. “There can no deal between us without a name.”
“And if he finds out I told you?”
“My dear young lady, he won’t find out from me. That would not be in my self-interest. I cannot go after your partner if I don’t know who it is. Hmm?”
Leesha took a deep breath and resisted the temptation to finger her neckline again. “It’s Warren Barber.”
D’Orsay raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Who?”
“Warren Barber,” she repeated.
The eyebrows stayed up. “And who, may I ask, is that?”
Old Warren doesn’t move in your circles, I guess, Leesha thought. Mine either. She shivered, then turned it into a shrug. “He was one of Leicester’s students at the Havens. Sometimes called the Spider.”
“The . . . Spider.” D’Orsay tapped his elegant forefinger against his chin, looking amused. “You’re saying this whole scheme’s been organized by teenagers?”
“Well. No offense, but the old people don’t seem to be doing so great.”
“Perhaps not.” D’Orsay inclined his head graciously. “But I’ve not heard of Barber.”
“He does Weirwalls. Supposedly he was the one that spun the wall around the inn at Second Sister to keep the guilds from escaping the conference before the Covenant was signed.” Leesha hadn’t been there, thank god, but she’d heard all about it.
“I see.” D’Orsay’s eyes glittered. “Then he must have been the one who failed, who let McCauley and Haley and the girl into the hall.”
Barber hadn’t mentioned that. Ha. “Anyway, when he saw what was happening, when McCauley showed up and Leicester got killed, Barber went and stole the document.”
“How . . . resourceful.” D’Orsay sighed, as if mourning the duplicity of man. “Now, then. What manner of paperwork would satisfy young Mr. Barber?”
“I have something with me.” Leesha pulled a folder from her portfolio. “These attest that, for purposes of the Covenant, my associate to be named later is the heir of Gregory Leicester, and assumes all privileges and rights, blah, blah.” She handed it across to D’Orsay. “Once these are signed and properly processed, the . . . ah . . . revised Covenant will be made available for consecration in the ghyll before the Weirstone.” Naturally, details of that were rather sketchy.
A peculiar expression flitted across D’Orsay’s face. Followed by a calculating one. “Ah. Well. The Weirstone.”
“Is there a problem?”
“Well, there may be. There was an intruder in the ghyll a few nights ago.” D’Orsay smiled thinly. “He attacked my son, and I believe he might have carried away something important.”
Leesha glanced over at Devereaux’s battered face. “What makes you think that?”
“The Weirstone has dimmed. In fact, it appears to be . . . extinguished.”
Leesha shuddered, the reaction of any reasonable wizard to a threat to their heritage of magic. “What do you think that means?”
“Difficult to say what it means in terms of the consecration of the Covenant. The Roses and the rebels assume we hold it. Perhaps that was the intent of the raid, to make it impossible for us to enforce it.”
“But that would ruin everything!”
“Precisely. Therefore, now that our interests so closely coincide, perhaps we could ask Mr. Barber to contribute to the success of this enterprise in a material way.”
“Excuse me?” He’d lost her after precisely.
“As an act of good faith, I am asking that you and your partner bring the perpetrator back here, alive, along with whatever he took from here.”
Great. She knew who would get that assignment. “How ...how is Barber supposed to find this person,” Leesha said, irritably, “when we don’t even know for sure if he took anything?”
D’Orsay smiled. “We can help you there. We now know who it was, and we have some idea about what’s missing.”
“Why should we go out hunting your burglar?”
D’Orsay waved the papers under Leesha’s nose. “As soon as I sign this, Barber has as much interest in seeing the Covenant consecrated as I do. But I’m rather pinned down here. If I leave Raven’s Ghyll, the Roses will be on me before I’m out of Cumbria. And in my absence, they might seize control of the ghyll. Which, again, would be inconvenient if we wish to access the Weirstone. Barber, on the other hand, can follow this Jason Haley to America, and . . .”
“Who’s Jason Haley?” Leesha interrupted. “I never heard of him.”
D’Orsay stood and crossed to the desk, choosing a folder from a pile. He pulled out a color print, returned, and handed it to Leesha. “Dev didn’t have any trouble identifying him from our database of rebels and troublemakers.”
To Leesha’s surprise, Jason Haley looked to be a boy about her age, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, with brilliant blue eyes and a sardonic grin.
“He shouldn’t present any difficulty for someone like Barber. From what we gather, he’s a minor operative and sneak thief....”
“Who managed to sneak in here and steal something out from under your nose.”
D’Orsay nodded. “True. And he’s also the boy who teamed up with McCauley in the attack at Second Sister. He’s aligned with the riffraff in Trinity.”
“Riffraff like Leander Hastings and Nicodemus Snowbeard? Them, I’ve heard of. I’d rather not cross paths with them again.” Oh, God, no. Her former partners were still buried under the Trinity High School parking lot.
“That’s the field we’re playing on, my dear.”
Leesha sighed. “Do you think he’s gone to Trinity?”
“I suspect so.”
Too many people knew her in Trinity. “What did Haley take?”
Devereaux opened his mouth as if to speak, but D’Orsay cut in. “We believe it’s a sefa stone of some kind, small enough to hold in your hands, with a flaming center. Useless on its own, we believe, but, somehow, here in the ghyll . . .” D’Orsay shrugged.
That wouldn’t be easy to find, even in Trinity, Leesha thought glumly.
“So,” D’Orsay said cheerfully. “Send Barber after Jason Haley. Perhaps they’ll kill each other and you can collect the stone. Meanwhile, do keep in touch about Barber’s whereabouts and we’ll look for an opportunity to eliminate him. Do we have a bargain?” D’Orsay asked.
“That depends. Are you going to sign this or not?” Leesha said crossly. “I have to take something back to Barber.” She was tired of being everyone’s servant.
D’Orsay crossed to his desk, found a pen in the drawer, and signed the paperwork with a flourish, scribbling an addendum in the margins. He handed it to Leesha. “I’ll have your driver bring the car round for you, then. I look forward to a long and prosperous relationship. Assuming you or Barber bring back Jason Haley and the Covenant, we’ll be seeing more of each other.”
* * *
After the girl had gone, Dev crossed to the shelf next to the fireplace and lifted down the book Haley had dropped in the snow, struggling a little with the weight of it. Dev sat down on the hearth and began leafing through. They’d both read it two or three times, debating its meaning.
Dev began to read aloud, his blond head still bent over the book. “I will bury the Dragonheart stone in the mountain with such protections as I can lend it, in the hope that chance will put it into the possession of one with the heart and desire to release its full power. That person will seize control of the gifts that have been given. That person will once again reign over the guilds. Or destroy them, as they deserve.”
He looked up at D’Orsay. “So you think Haley took the Dragonheart.”
“I think he must have, Dev.” D’Orsay felt positively betrayed. If Haley found this thing called the Dragonheart in the ghyll, where did he find it? And how did he find it so fast? These were D’Orsay’s ancestral lands, after all. They’d been in his family since—well—since the property had been called Dragon’s Ghyll. If there were magical artifacts in the valley, they belonged to him and
his heirs.
Dev set the heavy book aside, stood, and paced restlessly back and forth. “I should have stopped him. I let him get away.”
“Dev. He’s a vicious street hoodlum. Just look what he did to your face.”
It was true. Jason Haley was little more than an underpowered punk with a talent for illusion, but he and Hastings and McCauley had already brought down a conspiracy that had been years in the making.
The scene at Second Sister played over in D’Orsay’s head, like the ever-repeating trailer of a bad film. He blocked the scenes, picked over and tallied the players on screen.
He and Leicester had engineered a meeting of all the magical guilds and the Wizard Council on the island of Second Sister. Leicester’s slave wizards immobilized everyone in the room. They’d forced the guilds and the council to sign D’Orsay’s Covenant, naming them rulers over the guilds. That much had gone according to plan.
Haley and McCauley must have been hiding in the room all along. Haley’s fake dragon appeared, a thirty-foot-tall glamour that dazzled and distracted all the wizards in the hall while McCauley opened fire against Leicester. Leicester lured McCauley into the open. And then, something happened.
A girl had appeared out of nowhere, a girl with the singular name of Madison Moss. How she’d come to be at Second Sister, D’Orsay had no idea. When Leicester flamed McCauley, the girl stepped in front and took the hit. Leicester went down, his wizard slaves with him. And Haley and McCauley had killed him.
Who was this girl? She was not from any of the major families, or he’d have recognized her. He’d searched the online genealogies, his agents had inquired. As far as they could tell, she was a nobody.
Pausing at the hearth, D’Orsay gripped the poker with its emblems of roses and thrust it into the flames. The log dissolved to ash and sparks flew upward.
Devereaux spoke, startling him out of his reverie. “I don’t understand why you’re dealing with them, Father. Barber sounds like a common thief. And we don’t want him to get hold of the Dragonheart.”
“There is a saying, Dev. It takes a thief to catch one.
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