Philadelphia
Pushing his way through the astonished party’s crowd, old Morgan Astraea addressed the uninvited men who now stood in his foyer. “What precisely are you doing here?”
Jordan’s mother stroked a careful hand down his back as they huddled as near the door as he could maneuver them.
“We’ve received reports of a potential Conductor being in your household.”
“Why would you presume a Witch is here?”
Thunder cracked so loud the huge house rattled.
Morgan Astraea nodded. “An unpredicted storm would raise questions, I suppose.” He groaned. “You discovered one just two years past—and we were as surprised as you,” Morgan assured. “We need no taint nor the blasphemy of magick in this household,” he assured. “Root the devil out!”
The Councilman smiled, signaling the Tester with a simple sweep of his fingers. “Signal the servants,” he suggested. “Such trouble is nearly always breeding in their ranks.”
The servants were gathered and although Rowen did a tremendous job keeping most of the guests focused on him—one of his more stellar abilities—Jordan could not help but slip from his grasp and make her way toward the staff that waited for the Tester’s verdict.
Behind her Rowen paused in the midst of telling some joke and she sensed the crowd breaking apart, watching her and watching him equally. Footsteps followed her—his boots covering the distance quickly, Catrina’s heels clopping in a harried fashion.
Jordan stood at the edge of the circle of Wraiths, Wardens, and servants, watching the Tester’s eyes rove in a strange, unceasing manner. Two years ago the Councilman had come and taken Marisca, Cook’s daughter. There was no Tester needed. And, much as her parents had adored her, no one dared hide her from the Council’s eyes. The punishment for Harboring was swift and sure.
They all heard tales of the posses that rode, rooting out anyone using magick or displaying magickal abilities. This was the New World. A world free of the taint and trouble magick brought.
A world unlike the one across the Western Ocean where magick tore dynasties apart and brought wars of epic proportions to crush commoners and nobles alike. Everyone knew the most dangerous of the magickers were Weather Witches. Well, nearly the most dangerous …
But all people, young and old, rich and poor, ranked and Witches, knew tales of Galeyn the Weather Witch and the way, at only eight, she saved an entire ship of colonists from a vicious Merrow attack. Compared to the multitude of Weather Witches, other magickers seemed only rumors.
The Tester’s eyes found hers and held them until no one else in the room dared speak, dared move, dared breathe …
His hand reached out, long and thin with fingers that curled more than bent, turned palm up, and slowly slid in the air before them like a hunting hound scenting the air.
Someone whispered, “He is preparing for the Touch Test,” and another voice behind her agreed, “Said to be as simple as Salem…”
His hand paused a moment, fingers twitching like they’d been tickled by some invisible feather … then his hand darted out, fast and sure.
Jordan jumped when he grabbed her arm and sparks flew between them, the scent of something in the air burning, and he yanked her forward with a rudeness no one would ever show a member of the Fifth of the Nine.
“No,” she yelped.
Most were no longer seeing her because they all—the best of the higher ranks of the Nine—watched as Morgan Astraea’s face crumpled and fell, realizing what it meant that his daughter was a Weather Witch. That magick ran in her blood and not his wife’s.
And certainly not in his own.
“No…” Lady Astraea whispered, her face twisting in a mirror of his agony. “No. It cannot be,” she protested. “He is wrong!” Her voice rose as she took a sudden step forward. “No,” she said again, regaining control of her voice. “The Tester is wrong. There is no chance that she is what he claims. My blood is without taint and Lord Morgan Astraea’s blood is without taint and…” She raised her head, tipping her chin up nobly, but her hands trembled at the unspoken accusation. “It is utterly impossible due to my spotless reputation.”
Lord Astraea was still frozen, pain etched deep in his features, when the Councilman puffed out his chest and announced to the assembled crowd, “The Tester is beyond reproach. But it appears her ladyship is not.”
“No,” Lady Astraea protested. “I would never…”
But her lord turned away, his face drawn and his attention fixed to a glowing wall sconce by the doors, and the Tester shoved Jordan into the waiting hands of a Warden.
The Wardens spread out, snapping the steel-ringed butts of their heavy-handled canes on the marble floor so the sound rang through the hall. The servants stepped back, eyes lowered—thankful it was not one among their number this time.
Standing in the foyer, the Warden’s grip tight on her, Jordan swallowed hard. The carefully framed paper cuttings of the previous Astraea family members’ profiles all seemed to be pointing at her, their sightless silhouettes weighing her. Her grandmother, quite the debutante of her time, peered down her aquiline nose at her grandchild while Great-grandmother Silicia tipped her head heavenward as if to avoid the distressing scene being playing out beside her picture. Jordan even imagined that the silhouettes of her sisters (who seldom cared a whit for her) looked away, aware Jordan’s profile would never hang beside theirs.
Wringing her hands, Lady Astraea repeated a single word: “No.” It ran from her mouth so fast and smooth, over and over again so that soon it was just a trilling noise somewhere between a choke and a cry.
Jordan’s gaze latched onto her mother and she swallowed hard, uttering the one word that held all her emotion in its two soft syllables. “Mother?”
“No,” Lady Astraea snapped, head shaking, the word firm. “No. You are mine and you are his. Have faith, Jordan. The truth will out,” Lady Astraea insisted. Her eyes were wide, wild, and she took an unsteady step forward. “Test her.”
The Tester’s head jerked up, his eyes glinting at the challenge. “Test her?” he asked. His lips twisted into a grim smile. “Test your child? Here?”
“Test. Her.”
Catrina and Rowen both stepped forward.
“Be brave, Jordan,” Catrina said. “Yes. If you are so certain—test her. Before us all. Prove you are correct or leave this house.”
Rowen’s head lowered, but he caught Jordan’s eyes.
It was the surest way to prove her innocence.
The Warden released her but when the Tester drew his blade, Jordan pulled back, “No” tumbling from her lips as well.
Catrina stomped forward and looked Jordan in the eyes.
So many eyes were on her, so many intense stares seeking her out she had no idea who to turn to. So she chose the one closest. Catrina. Her best friend. The same one who had introduced her to Rowen. The girl who was so much like her sister … Jordan swallowed again and nodded.
“I will hold your hand,” Catrina offered. “It will only be a little cut—nothing that will mar your perfect skin for long,” she assured. “Surely it will not leave her scarred, will it?”
The Tester said, “One can never tell.”
Jordan trembled. All she had were her looks … and her rank.
The sky rumbled overhead and everyone jumped.
“But what harm is a small scar when it proves you’re innocent?” Catrina said, so close to Jordan’s face their noses nearly touched.
“Yes,” Jordan agreed. “Yes. Hold my hand,” she asked so gently the crowd stepped forward to hear. “Test me so my mother’s good name might be restored.”
Catrina clutched her hand and the Tester changed his position ever so slightly, the knife glimmering. Jordan closed her eyes and bit down on her lower lip, her fingers going white around Catrina’s as the blade nipped her right forearm.
Sparks flew up from Jordan, Catrina fell back, her face contorted in horror, and above them all the heaven
s opened and dumped rain until there was no noise save the rush of water.
Catrina trembled, clutching at Rowen, and Jordan fell to her knees, sobbing the one word on everyone’s lips—No.
The downpour stopped as fast as it had started and the brief silence that followed was somehow more deafening.
“The girl is seventeen, is she not?” the Tester asked.
Nods came from all around.
“The Astraea family is hereby found guilty of Harboring.”
“Noooo!”
The Wraiths swooped in with a keening cry, and, grasping Jordan by her arms, lifted her to her feet once more. Although her shoes scraped the floor, for a moment she stood only by the Wraiths’ will, her legs loose as rubber beneath her starched petticoats. Her eyes squeezed shut and tears trembled on her lashes, threatening to fall. But she drew in a ragged breath, found her feet, and forced her eyes open under the realization that this might be the last time she ever saw her home.
Her family.
Her friends.
Her Rowen.
“No!” Rowen shouted. “You cannot take her…” He protested, lunging across the space between the party guests, the Wraiths and the rest of them. “She is my—”
Meal-ticket, Jordan thought. If he were honest, that’s how the sentence would end. We are not lovers, we have never even kissed … And the idea they might exchange promises had set her nerves trembling just two hours before as she was laced into her gown by her best friend.
The Wraiths paused, their fingers tightening on Jordan’s upper arms as they hauled her farther from him. The Wardens cracked their canes’ butts against the floor in unified warning.
Rowen worried them. Jordan might have snorted at the idea had snorting been acceptable ladylike behavior. As it was not, she merely tilted her head in her best imitation of appropriate curiosity. It was imperative she maintain some dignity even when being placed under arrest.
But the idea of Rowen being worrisome to Wardens and Wraiths?
Rowen? The man best suited to matching the buttons on his waistcoat to whatever pocket watch he wore on a given day? Rowen—the one who could only duel with a sword if he stood on a designated piste?
Rowen, to whom “alpha” was merely the beginning of “alphabet”?
She had known him since they were five and six and the only thing worrisome about Rowen was his willingness to sneak alcohol into the teetotalers’ punch bowl and dance like a mill worker. Or curse like a sailor for the sake of making her blush. Or sing a song he’d heard attending a minstrel show …
“You cannot take her,” he repeated, fiercer than she’d ever seen him.
His mother stepped forward, resting a hand on his arm.
He shook it off and took another step.
“Do not act the madman!” his mother scolded. “Let her go.”
Jordan raised an eyebrow. So that was how it would be now, yes? The accusation made, her family’s reputation already tumbling to ruin not even ten minutes since the Wardens’ arrival.
A few guests slunk toward the door the Wandering Wallace’s assistant held open for their escape. Best not to be remembered as having attended this particular party. Rank by association meant being part of the wrong group at the wrong moment might mar your standing irreparably.
Jordan should not have blamed them, as she herself would have been among the first to sneak away in similar circumstances. Still, she blamed them whether she should or not.
“You cannot take her,” he insisted. “I haven’t given her her birthday gift yet.”
Don’t do it, she thought, scrunching her face up to be as unappealing as possible. Don’t dare ask for my promise now—it would be social suicide …
With one more step he was toe-to-toe with her. He leaned in—down, she realized, suddenly struck by Rowen’s height. She was certainly no delicate flower but Rowen was … a tree by comparison. His shock of blond hair brushed against her forehead and his lips found hers with a homing ability she would have never imagined in someone who got turned around window-shopping!
When his lips moved against hers the panic filling her head died away to nothing and she was left with only silence. And sensation.
That was when he sneaked his fingers into the heavy folds of ruffled lace trimming her sleeve and pierced the fabric there with something cold.
Her eyes popped open and she gasped but he hardened his kiss as his hands drifted back down her arms and paused to clasp her wrists. Pressing his cheek to hers he whispered, “When you are alone and only then—look. Someday you will learn to more readily wear such a thing in such a fashion.” He broke away then, resting his forehead against hers, his eyes searching her own.
“Now,” the Tester snapped, and they dragged her out the front door of her family’s mansion.
The last glimpse she had of her seventeenth birthday party was of Catrina stepping up to Rowen and slipping her hand around his to lead him away from his view of Jordan.
His taste on her lips, Jordan understood a new way Rowen might yet prove worrisome.
The doors closed behind them and Jordan’s vision faded in the grip of night. She stumbled on the wet herringbone walkway, only held up by the Wraiths’ fierce and biting fingers. They tugged her forward a moment until she remembered the quality of her shoes and forced her feet to catch up with the rest of her so as to not scuff their brocade satin.
The smell and the impatient stomp of a beast with shoed feet announced another presence even before she glimpsed them under the soft glow of the street light.
Horses.
A carriage was hooked to them, its body rounded and trimmed in molding that reflected the wavering light. Tall wheels and high windows glinted.
Even she had only ridden in a carriage drawn by real horses for weddings and funerals. Horses were a dangerous commodity with the Wildkin War still raging. Their meat was a Merrow delicacy so few made it over the sea in anything but a Cutter or an airship. And any that had the misfortune of grazing near a body of salty water … Jordan shivered. Bloody trails marking the disappearance of an entire herd of horses by the bay made it known that Merrow—at least when hungry—could slither more than a quarter mile on land to pull a horse back to a watery end.
When the other water-loving Wildkin joined the Merrow cause in some strange sense of watery camaraderie, not even freshwater was safe. There might be no magicking allowed in the New World, but the beasts that existed here naturally (or stowed away to cross the Pond) seemed happy to thrive as fiercely as if magick had given them birth instead of the natural world.
Jordan watched the horses—might one be something more sinister in disguise? It had happened more than once according to Catrina. Wealthy men had lost more than pride when a Pooka replaced a horse in a herd and allowed itself to be ridden or hooked to a carriage.
But, noting the heavy adornments of metal and bars on both doors and windows, Jordan realized her transport was both carriage and cage.
Chapter Four
All sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together …
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Philadelphia
The doors closed and Rowen looked down at his hand, his gaze lingering on Catrina’s fingers, wrapped round his own. He yanked free of her and, taking a step back, nearly trod on his own mother.
“We really must be going,” his mother said in a stage whisper so loud the entire party heard. “It is not appropriate for us to be seen in the company of such…” She paused, letting the sentence hang so anyone might fill in the blanks.
Rowen stepped away from her as well.
“She nearly ruined your future, Rowen!” she scolded, no longer wasting good graces on a gentle tone of voice.
He shook his head.
“She lied to you, Rowen,” his mother said, the pitch of her voice rising.
He shook his head again. Jordan would have teased that if he did that much more people would surely hear rocks rattle.
; Damn it.
Jordan’s mother sniffled by the servants, eyes and nose running as Chloe tried to dab the moisture away and was swatted at for her attempts.
Lady Astraea’s husband had stalked from the room, glowering, after tearing her modest silhouette from the foyer wall, the accusation of Jordan being a Weather Witch impugning his wife’s morality. She must have slept with someone with a tainted bloodline to conceive Jordan. She had betrayed his trust and their vows. She was an adulterer. A fornicator. And having been intimate with her, his reputation was ruined as well.
None of it made any sense.
Rowen’s brow furrowed in thought.
Lady Astraea was as blindly faithful as a wife could be. She overlooked all her husband’s imperfections—the squirrel hunts that never resulted in squirrels being brought to the kitchen but inevitably required the servants to help walk a tipsy Lord Astraea to his bedroom, the money that disappeared whenever he and the boys played cards but never (“I swear on my life, Cynthia, never!”) bet, the fact he still could not dance a proper waltz. It seemed to Rowen she loved Lord Astraea even more for what was certainly only the abbreviated list of quirks he had observed or been told of by Jordan.
Lady Astraea was not the type to fall under another man’s spell.
And Jordan had never manifested powers—or even shown the slightest affinity with the weather—until tonight.
None of it made any sense.
Catrina’s hand once more found his and with a growl Rowen shook her off and vaulted across the distance to Lady Astraea.
Wide-eyed, she stumbled back, but Rowen caught her sleeve and, closing his eyes (and trying to equally close his ears against the screeching of his mother), pulled the disowned Lady Astraea into his arms.
He said exactly what she needed to hear—a lie.
“It will be all right,” he assured as she snuffled into his shirt.
“Rowen Albertus Burchette!” his mother shrieked, and he jerked upright, hearing his middle name invoked in public.
The clomping of her heels across the glossy marble tiles only gave him a moment’s warning before her hands caught his arm and she tried to wrench it away from Jordan’s mother.
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