by Devon Monk
Alun strode out of the barn, impatience clipping his step. “Brothers,” he said. “Let’s get this done with.”
Bryn and Cadoc turned heel and followed him.
Wil was waiting in the shadows. As soon as the Madders had passed by, he slipped into the barn.
Mae and Miss Dupuis led the mules and horse toward stalls, all of the animals too tired to care about the unfamiliar surroundings.
“They’re in a hurry,” Mae said. “Do you know why?”
Cedar took the horse’s reins from her. “I’m given to understand they owe a favor to someone here in town.”
“Perhaps that is why they wanted to avoid it?” Miss Dupuis said.
Cedar watched Father Kyne, who stood in the stall, removing the light saddle from his horse. He was watching them all but, most especially, him and Wil.
“I don’t know the Madders’ business,” Cedar said. “And they seem content to leave it that way. I do want to thank you, Father Kyne, for guiding us to town. It’s been a long, hard ride.”
“My pleasure,” he said quietly. “You and the wolf. He belongs to you?”
Cedar nodded. “My name is Cedar Hunt. The wolf is named Wil. This is Mae Lindson and Sophie Dupuis.”
Father Kyne nodded to them each, and draped the saddle over the stall door, followed by the bridle. “You are all welcome to my home, for as long as you have need.”
“We don’t want to be a burden, Father Kyne,” Miss Dupuis said. “Perhaps there is a hotel with room for us this evening?”
“Not so late in the night,” he said, stepping out of the stall. “In the morning, I would be happy to take you to better accommodations. But tonight, no one should be out on the streets. There are…strange happenings in our town. I do not think it would be safe.”
He pulled the hood of his cloak back up and then left the barn, disappearing into the snow.
Cedar finished with the saddle, blanket, and bridle from the horse, then closed the stall door behind him.
“Well,” Miss Dupuis said, “I, for one, am looking forward to some time out of this weather. Perhaps a cup of tea, or a hot meal.”
She adjusted her scarves and hat, tucked her hands into her woolen muff. “Do you need any help with the animals?” she asked.
“No,” Cedar said. “We’ll be right behind you. Wil, please go with her.”
She walked out of the barn and so did Wil.
Mae lingered in the stall with the last mule.
“Mae,” Cedar said. “Are you all right?”
She patted the mule on the nose before ducking under its neck and stepping out of the stall. “Better now that we are out of the storm. How are your hands? The burns?”
“Fine,” he said. “I don’t feel them. The burns,” he clarified. “I wanted to thank you. For the spells, the warmth against the cold. I wouldn’t have survived that without your witchcraft.”
“I think you are overstating that a bit,” she said gently. “Nothing could have stopped you from finding our way through that storm.”
He gave her a slight smile.
“Tomorrow will be the full moon,” she said. “Do you want me to try to cast something to ease the beast?”
They’d tried that, more than once. Spells didn’t seem to have an effect on the curse he carried. The best way to be sure he didn’t roam the night killing Strange—or accidentally any people who got in his way—was to chain him up and wait until dawn gave him back his mind and body.
Mae strolled up next to him. He could see the fatigue in her step, but she held her shoulders back and her eyes were clear. “Or do you want me to chain you?”
She paused, her gaze searching his face. It was suddenly no longer the beast that he was thinking about. It was Mae and only Mae.
Mate, the beast whispered in his head.
Cedar very gently brushed a stray lock of her hair away from the curve of her cheek, his fingers hot and stinging. “I want,” he said softly, “you.”
They had had too little time alone together since they started this journey. Only enough for a caught hand, a stolen kiss. He hadn’t even had a chance to tell her how much he loved her. To ask her if she would be his wife.
Mae looked down and smiled, but shook her head slightly, taking this moment away too. “We need rest, you need rest. I want…” She looked away, swallowed, then looked back to him, her expression calm, clear. “I want you to eat something, and drink.”
He took in a breath, knowing he should say more, explain to her that he wanted her in his life, forever.
But before he could say a word, she slipped her finger gently to his lip, and then very carefully kissed him. She pulled away, and he could see a small drop of his blood on her bottom lip. She took out her kerchief and dabbed at her lip, then at his.
“You are injured, Cedar,” she said softly. “You might not feel it now, but you will. You need rest.”
The beast inside him pushed, wanting out, wanting her, and if not her, then wanting the hunt.
But she was right. He needed rest, warmth, and a man’s mind for as long as he could have those things. He took a deep breath and ignored the beast’s demands. He offered her his arm. “Mrs. Lindson,” he said.
“Rowen,” she corrected. “My maiden name is Rowen. I think I will use it again.”
Cedar’s heart leaped at that and he smiled. “It’s a good name.”
“Yes, it is,” she said.
It was a short enough walk to the church, and the glow from the windows made of small colored panes lay a patchwork quilt across the snow.
Mae stepped into that light, and for a moment he imagined her at the altar with him, exchanging vows. Then she stomped snow off her boots and stepped through the door.
He shook his head. This was something new to him. When he’d been a much younger man and asked his wife to marry him, it had been a whirlwind of plans, and preparations, and a wedding before spring was over.
But Mae…Mae was worth waiting a thousand springs for.
He climbed the church steps and paused.
An eerie call, like the weeping of the dead, echoed through the night.
He snapped around, hands to the side, feet spread, bracing for an attack.
Nothing moved in the snow. Nothing he could see. The call rolled out from the city, a sobbing wail.
The Strange were crying. He’d never heard a Strange weep, but he knew with every inch of his being that it was the Strange behind that sound.
The crackle of lightning licked copper against the sky. Once, twice, three times. Then thunder rumbled in its wake. He thought he heard a gun fire far off, then all was quiet again, smothered by the falling snow.
There should not have been lightning in the middle of this snowstorm. Copper lightning. There should not have been thunder.
And the slight scent of blood in the air told him there was something else here that didn’t belong: the Holder.
4
Rose had never been in a library before. The small town of Hallelujah, where she’d been raised, had a few books in the schoolhouse and a few more in the church, but there wasn’t a proper library within a hundred miles.
But here the entire house was filled with shelves that reached up two stories high. Off where one might expect bedrooms were chairs and tables and lamps set easy for the eyes. The whole place smelled of summer—that peculiar dust-and-dry scent of well-tended books, oily ink, leather, and wood that was shared with the season.
“I could live here,” Rose sighed, drawing her fingers along the mounded spines of the gold-lettered volumes.
Thomas Wicks chuckled. “Do you read much, Miss Small?”
“I’ve always endeavored to do so. Mostly the periodicals coming through my parents’ shop. Sometimes a novel or poems, but those were usually ordered by people in town who were quick to pick them up.”
“Come now. You never once snuck a book off in a corner and took a peek?”
She looked up and across the room. Thomas was half-
turned from the shelf there, in shirtsleeves and vest, having draped his coat and jacket across the back of a chair. He’d taken off his hat too, revealing his dark, wavy hair. She thought he looked rather at home here, as if he did indeed have a cot stashed away in some corner of the place and would at any moment kick off his shoes and settle in by the fire.
He smiled, waiting for her answer.
“Maybe once or twice,” she admitted with a laugh. “Old Mrs. Pruce loved her romantic fiction, and Mr. Donaldson asked every week if a new bit from his favorite, Longfellow, had come through.”
“Did you have a favorite too?” He turned back to the shelves and tipped his head just slightly to one side to better read the titles on the spine. “Poetry, intellect, suspense?”
“Oh, I like it all, especially the popular fictions. But really, anything at all to set my mind dreaming.” Rose noticed a stout brown volume and tugged it out gently by its top. The Handbook of Household Sciences. She tucked it under her arm with her other finds, The Lady’s Oracle and The Lamplighter.
“And you, Mr. Wicks? Do you have a preferred sort of reading?”
“I am particular to the philosophies.”
“Really?” She glanced back over at him.
He nodded, even though he was still facing the shelves. “I have a horrifying fascination about such things. Seeing the world through other people’s eyes and minds. Imagining the implications of varying arguments and scenarios. About the world. About the heavens. About the human heart. So…fascinating.”
The way he said it all, it sounded like poetry. Rose folded the books against her chest and studied her companion. “Do you live here in town, Mr. Wicks?”
“Presently.” He tucked his hands behind his back and bent nearly in half, browsing the books on the lower shelves.
“What is your occupation?”
“Currently? A purveyor of fine literature. Previously? A railroad and express agent. And before that, other, less interesting things.”
“You’ve worked for the railroads?”
“Just so.”
“How exciting,” she said. “Have you been to all the great cities, then? Boston? Philadelphia? New York?”
His shoulders tightened just a bit at the mention of the cities. He pulled himself up to his height again, then, casually: “If one may consider them great. Yes. Those places and many more.”
The way he said it, she suddenly wondered why he had left them for this rather out-of-the-way spur in Kansas.
The wind battered at the shingles and sieved through the cracks around the door, reminding her that outside this cocoon of ink and page, winter was on a wail. Time had slipped away. It was dark out, and here she was lingering with a perfect stranger after hours.
Best she be moving on.
“Well, then,” she said, giving her words a lift. “Thank you for showing me around the place, Mr. Wicks. I’ll just be signing out and on my way.”
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.” He seemed to choose a book at random off the shelf, then picked up his jacket and coat. “I do hope you’ll allow me to see you to your front step?”
Rose narrowed her eyes. What did she really know about this man? Nothing other than the rather idle chitchat over the last few hours. He seemed a kind, polite, and guileless sort. But it had been her experience that sly-hearted people often hid behind kind smiles.
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to be bothering you,” she said. “I know my way about. Why, I suppose Mr. Davis might be headed out to the farm, and I’ll just hop his wagon.”
He frowned while donning his outercoat. “It has never been my experience that Mr. Davis is reliable. It must be—”
A train whistle hooted, two short, one long howl. When it softened a bit, Rose was sure she could hear the call of the conductor, urging passengers aboard.
“—five o’clock exactly.” He tucked his watch into his pocket. “Mr. Davis should be halfway to the creek by now.”
“Do you pay such close attention to all of Hays City’s residents?” Rose wandered up to the librarian’s desk and placed the books down.
“Well, no. But you have to admit he is difficult to overlook. I think he quite prefers it that way.”
That was true. Mr. Davis had a bit of a drinking habit, and by evening each night as he rambled out of town with his tinker wagon, he was usually singing at the top of his lungs.
“Is that everything now?” Miss Bucker wore round glasses much like Mr. Wicks, only hers had glass in them as thick as a thumb. That glass didn’t appear to be strong enough to take the squint out of her eyes as she flipped each book over and took note of the title and author in the ledger at her side.
She picked up the fountain pen and quirked her head to one side, pen raised, looking down her nose at the same time as looking up at Rose. “Name, my dear?”
“Miss Rose Small. I’m currently at Miss Adaline’s farm.”
“Is that so? I heard an airship came crashing into the orchard just a few months ago. Were you there to see it?”
Rose had indeed been there. She’d been injured, very sick, and aboard Captain Hink’s airship, the Swift. They nearly hadn’t made it to the farm that was owned by the coven of witches where Mae had been raised. The Swift hadn’t so much crashed as barely limped the winds to come down less than easily in the orchards.
“I didn’t see a ship crash at all,” Rose said quite truthfully.
“Well, I expect such things to become common now,” Miss Bucker said. “Such comings and goings with the rail line and ships and strange travel devices. This town used to be a quiet place. A nice place.” She planted her pen back in the ink pot and shook her head. “Look at it now. New faces every day, bandits and roughs just adding to the mess of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if we burst our boundaries by next spring.”
“Hays City is busy,” Mr. Wicks said. “That is the price for the advance of civilization, I’m afraid. But it’s not growing as quickly as some other towns. The rail connections in Council Bluff and Des Moines have more than tripled the size of those cities in under a year.”
“Civilization can advance all it wants,” she said with a huff. “In those cities.”
He grinned at Rose when Miss Bucker wasn’t looking, then slid his book onto her desk.
“Oh, you can take it, Thomas,” she said more kindly. “I know you’ll have it back by the morning.”
“Thank you, Miss Bucker.”
Rose tucked the books inside the inner pocket she’d sewn into her heavy coat; then, knowing the books were safe from the elements, she tugged the door open and stepped out into the night.
Wet, dark, and cold. It wasn’t snow coming down; it was waves of freezing sleet that the wind snapped out like sheets on a line.
Rose swore under her breath. She hadn’t ridden into town. She’d stormed her way on foot, five miles or so, without once thinking how she’d get back in the dark.
Well, she knew the way, and there wasn’t anything wrong with her feet. She’d be cold and wet by the end of it, but neither of those things would be her death.
Time to get walking.
She’d made it down to the end of the block when Mr. Wicks called out.
“Miss Small.” He all-too-quickly caught up to her strong stride before she’d even reached the hardware store. “You aren’t going to travel the night alone are you?”
“Yes, I am, Mr. Wicks. Don’t bother yourself over my welfare. I can take care of myself.”
“It isn’t a bother—”
A horse loped down the street toward them. Rose paused on the wooden sidewalk, squinting against the sleet catching like sparks of gold in the wedge of shop light.
She knew that rider. Captain Hink.
“You’re coming home,” he said, pulling the horse up short and glaring down at her.
“Not with you, I’m not,” she said.
“Excuse me,” Thomas said. “Are you a relation to Miss Small?”
“No,” Rose said. “He most certa
inly is not. My relations aren’t lying, cheating dogs.”
“How would you know?” Hink asked. “You run across one of your real relations lately?”
“If I had, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Rose Small, I do not know what has gotten into you.” Hink pushed his hat back off his eyes a bit.
“Give me your horse.” She held her hand out.
“What? No.”
“You won’t need it, will you?”
He leaned forward a bit to drape one arm on the saddle horn and the sleeting rain shattered down like diamonds from the brim of his hat. “If I wanted to be standing in the street with my boots in a puddle, that’s where I’d be. What has gotten into you, woman?”
“Clarity,” she said. “You don’t need the horse. You have a warm bed waiting for you right down Whore Street.”
Hink opened his mouth, but instead of yelling, he laughed.
He laughed.
Rose took a deep breath and clenched her hands into fists. Hot white fury filled her, and the taste of melted metal filled her mouth. How dare he make fun of her. How dare he try to laugh his way out of his betrayal.
Did she mean so little to him?
“Is that what this is all about?” he asked. “My…other interests? I suppose you’ve made up your mind without once hearing my explanation.”
“Mr. Hink,” she said through her teeth. “Do not slight me so. I am not a fool.”
He had the sense to straighten up and lean back.
“The only thing you have that I would even consider accepting,” she continued, “is that horse. All the rest of you is abhorrent to my eyes.”
Hink hitched one shoulder back as if taking a punch.
“Rose, you’re just not seeing it straight,” Hink said.
“Excuse me, Mr. Hink, is it?” Thomas said. “The lady is obviously unwilling to entertain your company. In this weather, at this hour, a gentleman’s duty is to give up his mount so that the lady may find shelter.”
Hink turned his single blue eye down on the slender man next to her.
“Who the hell are you?”
Rose had seen that look on his face before. It was the sort of look he gave men who stood between him and the Swift. Possessive, angry, and harder than iron, Captain Hink didn’t hesitate to kill men who threatened the one thing he loved—his ship.