The Chase

by Virginia Boecker

“If he’s touched them.”

  John makes a noise that’s halfway between a groan and a growl, irritated and disgusted all at once.

  “I don’t want him to know those things about me,” I say. “Not yet. Maybe not ever. I don’t know. But I just thought since he can hear you anyway—”

  “Why not let me talk to him?”

  “Exactly.”

  John goes quiet again.

  “I need your help,” I continue. “I can’t go to Nicholas, you know that. He’ll lock me up for twenty years, and that’ll be just for talking to a boy, never mind a revenant. You’re the only one I can tell the truth about him to, the only one I trust.”

  “Yet you don’t trust me enough to listen when I say not to have anything to do with him?”

  “Because I’m difficult, remember?” Then: “It’s too late for that anyway.”

  John looks down at the bundle of herbs piled at his feet. Keeps his eyes on them instead of on me, and when he’s like this I know better than to push him further.

  “And if I say no?”

  “Then I will do it on my own,” I reply quietly. “He’s in trouble, and I want to help him. I know you can understand that much at least, even if you can’t understand why.”

  “Then I won’t try and stop you,” he says, eyes still on the ground. “It would be pointless; you’ve made that clear enough. But Fifer”—he looks up then, adding in that unnerving, almost prescient way of his—“this is a dangerous game you’re playing.”

  Why do you play these games with me?

  He snatches his basket off the ground and then he’s gone, slamming the wooden gate behind him.

  * * *

  The next morning, there’s a knock at the cottage door. I know exactly who it is even before he cracks it open, sticks a messy head inside, and says, “I’ll help you watch out for him, but I won’t talk to him, not unless it’s absolutely necessary. And no matter what happens to him, you have to promise me you won’t leave Harrow.”

  John waits for my promise before joining me at the table, this time laid out with a map of Anglia, the things I need for another location spell set beside them. John looks at them and then to me; he doesn’t bother to look surprised. He knows I know he would show up. Then he says, “Well? Let’s see what’s happening.”

  I walk through the steps of the spell. Candles, incense, water, salt, another filched button. The date stirred into the goblet, a whispered incantation, and, this time, a handful of cowslip seeds to broaden the boundaries of the spell. They will allow me to see not just Schuyler but whoever else might be with him. The moment the magic activates, a line of pink lights up alongside a new cluster of green, showing me he’s not alone.

  John leans in to examine them, brows creased in confusion. “Is that right? Are you sure you did the spell correctly?”

  “Of course I did it correctly,” I snap. I can feel a rush of anger coming on, lighting up my face and tightening my limbs. Nothing makes me angrier than worry, except perhaps fear. “I did it last night, and I saw the same thing. Schuyler’s left Fleet. He got out.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I would have, if you’d come back last night to tell me you’d help me like you were supposed to.”

  John straightens up. “You don’t sound happy about it,” he remarks. His voice is low, meditative; it’s the voice he uses when he thinks I need to be soothed. “Why don’t you tell me what you think is going on?”

  I pause a moment to align my thoughts. “By my measure, he left Fleet sometime yesterday morning.” I glance at the map again. At the pink, glowing speck scattered among sand, at the pale green embers that glow around and alongside it. “At first, I thought he escaped. I considered the idea that someone helped him, only he doesn’t need it. Besides, there’s no one who would risk their life to save his anyway.”

  John, wisely, says nothing to that.

  “Which leads me to the conclusion he was let out. I know”—I hold up a hand to John’s objection—“people aren’t just let out. But I think there’s more to it. I think he might have been let out, but not let free.”

  “Let out but not let free,” John repeats. Then his expression clears. “Is that what that is, there?” He points to the green lights. “The person or people that are with him?”

  I nod. “Yes. I extended the spell’s location abilities to include those in his immediate vicinity, color coding them to indicate friend or foe. Green means foe.”

  John pulls back to look at me, his shadowed eyes wide with respect. Then he mutters, “Foe to who?”

  “Let’s look at what we know,” I say, and now I’m the one tempering my tone to soothe him. If John’s dislike for Schuyler begins to outweigh his desire to help me he’ll leave, and I can’t do this without him. I have to tread lightly. “Schuyler was in jail, now he’s out. I expect this means he’s in danger. My guess is whoever he is with, since they’re not allies, they’re leading him somewhere, and I doubt it’s anywhere good.”

  John scowls again. “Here to Harrow?”

  “No,” I reply. “Say what you will about Schuyler, but he wouldn’t lead an enemy here. Besides, he’s not heading in the right direction for Harrow, not if he stays on this course, which he has done since yesterday.” I tap the map again. “What’s in the east?”

  John shrugs. “Water.”

  Water.

  I don’t have John’s healer’s intuition, and I’m no seer. But I’m also no fool, and neither is Schuyler. He’s a thief. If he’s left Fleet—been let out of Fleet—it’s because he bargained for it: stealing something for someone, someone or something important. Or both. His life and freedom in exchange for it. But even though Schuyler is no fool, he can be stupid. I’m willing to bargain my life that he has no intention of seeing it through. And that is more dangerous—and worrisome—than if he did.

  As John pointed out, there’s nothing east but water. A trail of marshes and waterways threading all the way to the coast, the waterways filled with spooks and the marshes with nymphs. Neither inherently dangerous, not unless you know how to make use them. But if you do—and I assume Schuyler does—you could lead someone through there, entrap them in the relentless questioning of the spooks or the siren of the nymphs, then they’d be lured into the water and never be seen again. And from there, it’s a short trip to a port and a ship and a one-way passage out of Anglia.

  As for what he’s been commissioned to steal… well. I want to say I don’t care. I want to say it doesn’t matter. But he’s in over his head, and he’s got no one to help him. For all Schuyler’s lies and negligence and impudence, I know his alienation from others weighs on him. I know it makes him rash and thoughtless and provocative, desperate to evoke a response—any response—just to prove he matters.

  I know this, because I do it, too.

  “Fifer, I feel the need to point out that it appears as if your… friend has gotten himself tangled up with someone or something having to do with the king, or the king’s men, or god knows what. Do you really want to involve yourself with him, and by proxy, them?” A pause. “I don’t know why you can’t just let it go.”

  I shoot him a look. “I don’t know what you’ve got against him in the first place. It’s not as if he’s done anything to you. You spoke to him for all of fifteen minutes at Winter’s Night. Fifteen very soused minutes, may I add, ten of which she was hanging on your arm, the other five looking as if you would vomit, the latter I can only assume related to the former.”

  “Stop trying to change the subject.” John’s mouth thins, an unhappy little line. Then he says, “He’s a hundred years old. I don’t need to state the obvious when I say that’s far too old for you. That’s without getting into the fact that he isn’t actually living, or that he could kill you. I don’t mean that he would murder you,” he clarifies over my objections. “It’s that he could without meaning to. He could get carried away. You know. In a moment of… of…” He waves off the end, whether in disgust or
discomfort.

  “That’s not happened,” I say, quiet. “I would tell you if it did.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “I can handle myself.” I try again. “You don’t have to worry about me—never mind.” John’s scowl has turned fierce, and I know better than to say that. He is family to me, the best brother I never asked for. I was dumped on Nicholas’s doorstep by my own mother after my magic began showing itself and she was too frightened and horrified to keep me. Ten years have passed since then, but there are some things that even time won’t take with it.

  John turns away from me then, and I think he’s going to leave, I think he’s going to walk out the door, which he has every right to do. Instead, he stops in front of the window, peers out into shaded woods, and says, “What do you want me to tell him?”

  Chapter 6

  Schuyler

  Blackwell sends his wolves after me.

  More to the point: He sends them with me. He doesn’t trust me—fancy that—so he’s sent a group of child minders to make sure I do as I’m told and bring back this sword. Ensured now by the presence of the trio of witch hunters: the blond bastard from Fleet who now has a grudge to bear, along with a ginger, and one who is as dark on the outside as he is on the inside.

  We’ve been on foot now for hours, well out of Upminster, heading vaguely northeast. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve got this ruddy poem that makes no sense, and the words “the element is water.” Blackwell thinks I’ll sort it out given proper motivation, but he overestimates me. I’m no scholar; I wasn’t even when I was alive. The son of a cloth merchant needs to know no more than the heft and weave of fabric and the value of a sovereign. The only thing I know how to do is get into—and out of—trouble.

  “You.” I point to the blond. He and the other two decided to stop for the night; they’re busy trying to set up camp with the provisions in their bags. I pick through his mind a bit until I locate his name. “Caleb, is it?”

  The blond doesn’t reply.

  “Well, Caleb, I’m going to attend to my personal business.” I point to the thicket bramble a dozen yards away. He looks up from his task, stringing a tarp between two trees, and frowns.

  “I thought revenants didn’t need to do… that.”

  I rock back on my heels. “Revenants drinking blood, revenants eating flesh, revenants ripping a man’s arm from its socket and beating him to death with it…” I shrug. “Only half those rumors are true. As for this one, well, you’re welcome to come along and watch, if you’d like proof.”

  The three exchange a glance above the tarp.

  “Pass,” Caleb says. “But we’ll still be watching you. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “As if you could stop me,” I mutter.

  Twenty paces from the flat ground where we’ve set up camp is a cluster of bushes I duck behind. Caleb was right: Revenants don’t have to piss, or do anything else, but I’ve got to keep up appearances. Squatting along the ground, I fish out the poem and hold it up in the last of the dying daylight.

  There he drew the brand Azoth,

  Drawing it into the winter moon,

  Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth

  And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt:

  For all the haft twinkled with emerald sparks,

  Twists of bronze lights

  Of subtlest jewelry.

  I read it once, twice, five times, ten. It means nothing to me each time. The element is water. This means nothing to me, either, but then, it doesn’t need to. I have no intention of finding this sword. Never did. I only planned on getting away, skipping right the hell out of Anglia, to Cambria or Airann or somewhere where Blackwell can’t find me, or until he grows bored of looking. Although if this sword means that much to him, that may mean never.

  It’s this last bit that troubles me the most. I’m not the sentimental sort, but Anglia is my home. I don’t care for Cambrian food or Airann weather or Gallic women or Iberian men, not to mention that I’m a bit too old to be starting over.

  And that’s all a lie anyway. I don’t want to leave because of her.

  If I could hear what she was thinking, if I knew for certain she had no real interest in me, maybe it would be easier to go. As it is, I’ve been gone for three weeks and I’ve not heard a murmur from her. Not a wisp, not a sigh, not a fleeting moment with my name attached to it. I’ve listened. But she wears that damned barrier and all I’m met with is resounding silence. Unless there’s another way. Someone else’s thoughts I can maraud, in order to hear hers.

  I close my eyes. Hearing someone I’m not familiar with takes some time now. In the beginning, it was enough to drive a man mad. Sounds from everywhere, voices and thoughts and memories, they swarmed through the air busy and loud as wasps. I couldn’t tell one from the other; it seemed not to matter: It was all misery and it all became mine. It took me half a century to block it out. But now I need to hear him and I need it to happen now.

  That healer.

  His mind is slippery. There’s nothing to grab on to. Usually I start with someone’s memories; they’re the most abundant and the least guarded. Once I find one, I can hook into it and wind my way into what I’m really looking for, a bit like rings in a chain. But the healer’s memories are locked tight, heavily guarded. Fifer didn’t tell me what happened to his family, but she didn’t have to. I saw it in the way he drank himself into a stupor, the way Fifer followed his every move, the way she dragged him out of the woods on the arm of some girl, fussed over him, and brought him home.

  Finally, I latch on to something: thoughts. Now, these are usually the last thing I go to. They’re ephemeral, unstable, linear as the moon and full of unchecked emotion that shrouds their true meaning. But this healer, John, his emotions are so tethered down, so tightly controlled that his mind has become a map. I grab on to his first thought.

  God’s blood, what now? Then: She looks tired.

  I latch on to the she. There’s a pause then, a lengthy one with no real thoughts, nothing to discern, just a crackling of irritation: lightning in an otherwise clear sky.

  Then: Location spell? Goddamned revenant.

  It’s Fifer, it has to be. She’s looking for me. The smirk isn’t halfway across my face before I hear:

  Fleet.

  There’s a crack in the dam. A trickle, a stream, then a gush of emotion, all his. I’m hit with a torrent of grief so hard I stumble back onto the ground, letting out a barely repressed grunt.

  “Having some difficulty, revenant? I hear it happens to the aged.” The dark one. He laughs at his own bad joke.

  I jerk my head up. I’d almost forgotten they were there, or why I was back here. So I grunt louder. “I… yes. Can I get a little help back here?”

  The witch hunters laugh, make gagging noises, call insults. But I’ve already tuned them out, latching on to the healer and his thoughts again. They’re jumbled, threaded with hate and fear and sorrow, so sharp and intrusive and big they almost become mine. Then, just mere seconds before I release him, I hear help. I hear no. I hear a litany of blistered curses and then I feel it, know it by the recession of sorrow into resignation.

  What do you want me to tell him?

  * * *

  The message was short but none too sweet: Get the hell out of there, idiot.

  Not entirely helpful.

  Fifer and the healer have managed to work out that I was let go from Fleet, that I was let go for no good reason, and that I’m surrounded by enemies. And while the healer doesn’t speak to me again, at least not directly, I can still hear his thoughts about me, which I would not describe as lukewarm, and his accusations, which I would not describe as inaccurate.

  But then I heard him think the word nymphs.

  He tells me to lead the witch hunters to the swamps. To let the nymphs lure them or the spooks to confound them, for both to drown them. It’s a brilliant idea, so brilliant I’m angry he’s the one who thought
of it. It’s an easy way to get rid of them and my hands don’t get muddied doing it. Killed in the line of duty, it can’t be proven otherwise, and good riddance, the healer thinks. For someone meant to save lives, he’s certainly got a good head for how to end them.

  But for me to make this plan work, I need to assure the witch hunters I’m serious about finding this sword, that I know what I’m doing. If they believe otherwise, I’m a dead man. Again.

  I spend a lot of time with the poem, muttering words aloud, gazing up at the sky, putting on my very best thinking face, which involves a lot of scowling and brow raising and pursing lips. Caleb and the others watch me with wary fascination and I could laugh, I very nearly do, at the blind trust they’ve put in me. But around day four, that trust begins to wane, alongside signs of civilization. It must have occurred to them at some point that I might be leading them on a fool’s errand, and by nightfall it comes to an end.

  “That’s it.” Caleb stops in the middle of the dirt path we’re standing on, lifts the bag from his shoulder, lets it drop dramatically to the ground. “I’m not going another step farther. Not until you tell us exactly where you’re leading us, and why.”

  I stop walking, too. I’ve been prepared for this question, and I know exactly how to answer it.

  “Emerald sparks.” I affect a misty, magical voice, tilting my head toward the darkening skies as if divinely guided. “The emerald is a gem of water. The poem indicates the Azoth is bejeweled with them.” I tug out the scrap of parchment, growing grimier and oilier by the day, and hold it up. “The haft twinkled with emerald sparks.” It’s complete bullshit, of course, but it’s the only line that makes remote sense to me.

  There’s a trio of grunts.

  “Emeralds. Water. The alchemical symbol for water is a triangle”—this I plucked from the healer’s head, packed full of boring yet occasionally useful information—“and, of course, there are three ports in eastern Anglia. When plotted on a map, their locations form the shape of a triangle.” This, incidentally, is not bullshit. There are three ports in eastern Anglia: Hackney, Westferry, and Seven Kings. They’re known as The Triangle because of the way they lie along the jut of the coast and because they are almost equidistant apart.