“No. Thank you.” Roeglin let her move past, staying out of her colleagues’ path as they followed.
Brigitte and the children watched them go, motionless until they had left. Roeglin looked at Brigitte. “What happened?”
Brigitte gestured to the kat. “You’d have to ask her.”
Mordan walked past him and hopped lightly onto the tall bed that had served as a treatment table. Lying down beside Marsh, she draped a paw over her mistress’s slight figure. Mindful of the healer’s words, Roeglin looked around.
When he didn’t see a chair anywhere in the room, he shrugged and looked out the door. Gustav saved him the trouble, coming in carrying a chair in each hand. He set one down at Marsh’s head and pointed to it. “Sit.”
Roeglin looked sheepish. “You heard, then?”
“I heard.” Gustav set the second chair down and looked at Brigitte.
The shadow mage shook her head. She laid a hand on each of her apprentices’ shoulders. “These two have classes.”
At Aisha’s whine of protest, Gustav cocked his head. “It’s either classes or kitchen duty.”
Tamlin had opened his mouth to argue, but he closed it again and turned to Brigitte. “What did you want us to practice today?”
5
Shadow Monster Strike
“It was Idris,” Marsh insisted, once she was awake and the healers said she was well enough to talk about what had happened.
They hadn’t left her alone for long, coming in as soon as Brigitte and the two apprentices had left. Gustav rose as they entered, but Roeglin leaned his elbow against the edge of the bed and refused to look at them—even if he did watch them from the corner of his eye.
When the healers had handed Marsh a clean set of clothes, he’d left to let her dress in peace, but pivoted to face the door as she came out. “Are you okay?”
“Okay enough to kick your ass if you don’t ease up and give me some space.”
He took a step back as she turned on Mordan. The kat had been walking so close behind her she seemed to have grown a tail. “You too!”
Mordan reached forward and hooked a paw around her ankles, sending her tumbling to the floor.
“A la putain!”
The kat kept walking, putting one large forepaw in the center of Marsh’s back and strolling forward and out of the medical center. Marsh pushed off the floor and brushed herself down, glowering after the kat. Before she could say anything, Gustav walked in.
“You,” he declared, catching sight of Marsh and letting his gaze drift to Roeglin. “Both of you. We need to talk.”
Kwame, Tabia, and Lemma appeared behind him, and the healer in attendance stepped out from one of the adjoining rooms. He firmly disagreed. “Not in here.”
Lemma inclined her head, acknowledging him. “Of course not, Tumelo. We will be in my office if you need to find us.”
Marsh figured that she meant if Tumelo needed to send someone after her, but she didn’t say anything, just followed quietly when Lemma and her leaders left. Gustav waited and fell in beside her. “How do you feel?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m fine.”
The look he shot her said he didn’t believe her for a moment, but he didn’t argue, and they reached Lemma’s office without saying another word.
“It was Idris,” she told them when they asked if she’d seen her attacker.
“But he’s dead.” Gustav’s face blanched. “Claudie killed him.”
Claudie had indeed, the twelve-year-old showing no more remorse than any of the raiders hunting her. She’d killed Idris with darts pulled from the shadow. Since that was a trick she’d only ever seen Gustav do, she’d also proven herself to be a quick study.
Shaking memories of the dark-haired, golden-skinned girl from her mind, Marsh concentrated on Gustav. “It was Idris.”
Mordan stretched, yawning loudly, and Marsh turned to her. Her eyes flared green. “What do you mean, no?”
This time, the kat lifted her head and stared into Marsh’s eyes.
The human with the farmer’s face was not the farmer, the kat insisted, showing Marsh the image but overlaying it with the memory of scent. See?
Marsh wrinkled her nose. She did see, but she didn’t understand.
The kat took her through it again. Idris scent. Assassin scent. Her lips curled, and a snarl rippled between them. Not same. Different prey.
Marsh closed her eyes, cutting the link between them. “Dan’s right. They’re not the same. They smell different.”
“Smell?” Roeglin asked and peered cautiously into her head. Where?
Marsh showed him, opening her eyes so she could watch his face. The look as he screwed up his face was funny as the Deeps. He glanced down at Mordan. “Is this how you tell?”
The cat blinked her eyes at him, the movement a slow, deliberate affirmative. Roeglin turned back to Marsh. “So not Idris.”
“No.”
“Councilor Labat warned you he had siblings,” Gustav cut in. “Do you remember?”
Now that he mentioned it, Marsh did remember.
”I know the family,” Ines Labat had said. “They run to multiples.”
Which only meant that Idris had had siblings. Now Ines’s question about whether Marsh would remember him if she saw him again made perfect sense. Idris had siblings, and they looked exactly like him.
She wondered if there were any girls in the mix...and if they looked the same. What would a feminine Idris look like?
Pretty darned ugly, Roeglin told her, and she didn’t know whether to be angry or relieved that he was back in her head again. She smiled. Yup.
Gustav turned to Lemma. “You’re mind walkers, aren’t you?”
Her eyes sheeted with white, and her reply was audible only in their heads.
Many of us, yes.
Gustav replied out loud. “Good, then you can see what the assassin looked like and pass the image to your people.”
It was as close to an order as Marsh had heard him give since their arrival, and the first order she’d ever heard him give the ruler of a town.
It is done.
Marsh lifted her head, her eyes wide with disbelief. Sulema gave her a gentle smile. I’ve had more years of practice than you’ve had time to live, the woman told her. Be kind to yourself.
Roeglin laughed and laid an arm across Marsh’s shoulders. “Hear that, Marsh? Be kind to yourself.”
Sulema shot Marsh a wink. “And be kind to him, too,” she added out loud, where everyone could hear her. “Men can be a little fragile.”
Gustav snorted, his lips curling partly in amusement and partly in disagreement. “Not all of us.”
“Oh, no,” Tabia cut in and pointed at Gustav. “Him and Kwame here, you can be as unkind to as you like.”
Gustav rocked back in his chair. “Not what I meant,” but he had a slight smile as he said it, one that vanished as he looked at Lemma. “You said they sent the shadow monsters through first.” He frowned. “Did they kill or just destroy?”
“Do they do anything but kill?”
Marsh glanced at Gustav but let the captain do the talking. He avoided the question. “Did they?”
Lemma exchanged glances with her two leaders, and then she sighed. “They destroyed, tearing through buildings and terrorizing their inhabitants into corners but killing no one.”
“No people,” Kwame added. “Animals were another thing.” He turned his head away, swallowing hard and shaking his head. “We lost a lot of familiars that day, and household pets didn’t stand a chance. I don’t know if any of the truffle dogs or pigs survived.”
“The what?” Marsh asked, but Gustav raised his hand, and she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“What happened to the people?” he asked.
This time Tabia answered. “We took down the first wave of monsters and got as many of them out as we could. When we came back for the rest, they were gone, but there were no bodies.”
“And no
sign of a mass burial either,” Kwame added before Gustav could ask. “We didn’t find any sign of a trail, though. Not for more than a few feet. It was like they’d been taken into the center of town and then vanished.”
“A gate,” Marsh murmured, and the three leaders looked at her.
“Gate?”
She rolled her eyes, remembering one of the comments made by her escort when she’d been brought in. “You know what I mean. Gates through the shadow, farther than a shadow mage can step.”
Lemma’s gaze sharpened. “Do you know how they work?”
Marsh shook her head. “Not yet.”
“But you have an idea.”
Gustav shifted impatiently beside her and Marsh cast a nervous glance toward him.
“Go ahead,” he told her. “I’m sure we’d all be interested in hearing it.”
His tone left her with no doubt she should have mentioned it earlier.
“I only just started to put it together,” she explained, and Roeglin broke in before she could continue.
“And you didn’t want to say anything until, what...” He stopped dead, his jaw dropping open as he stared at her in disbelief. “You were going to try it yourself? Without telling me?”
“Without telling any of us?” Gustav pressed, catching what Roeglin wasn’t saying. He laid a heavy hand on Marsh’s knee.
Marsh bowed her head, studying her hands as she twisted her fingers together. Roeglin nudged her. “Well?”
She refused to look at him. “I...” She paused, and he nudged her again. “Maybe...”
He punched her in the shoulder—hard.
“Ow!”
Marsh glanced across the table. Tabia, Kwame, and Sulema watched them, eyebrows raised, lips pursed, and slightly impatient.
“Well?” Sulema added her demand to Roeglin and Gustav’s.
“Yes,” Marsh told them. “I was going to try it on my own...without saying anything.” She looked at Gustav, hoping he’d understand. “What if I’d gotten it wrong?”
He stood up so abruptly he knocked his chair over, pivoting away from her and running a hand through his hair then standing stock still and taking a deep breath. When he turned back, his expression was a mixture of anxiety and fury.
“If you’d gotten it wrong,” he answered, picking his chair back up and setting it back on its feet. “If you’d gotten it wrong, we’d never have known what happened to you. We wouldn’t even know where to start looking for you.”
He settled himself into his chair and regarded her intently. “And what would we have done then?”
Marsh didn’t have an answer for that.
Sulema’s gentle voice cut in before anyone else could speak. “Why don’t you tell us your theory and we can all work to see if there is a safe way for you to test it out?”
This time, Marsh looked at Gustav before she replied.
He looked back, raising his eyebrows and regarding her in pretend shock. “Oh, so now you want my permission?”
He looked at Roeglin. “What do you say, shadow mage?”
Marsh couldn’t help it. She shot a quick glance at the mage. He was smirking, his hazel eyes alive with mischief as he regarded her. “We could just let her go it alone.”
Sulema rolled her eyes. “I told you to be kind,” she scolded Marsh. “Now you’ve upset two of them.”
Marsh wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.
“What were you thinking of doing, child?” The gentleness of her tone gave Marsh the courage to look her in the eye.
“I was going to try to open a gate in the shadow.” Marsh caught the start of disbelief on the faces around her and closed her eyes so she couldn’t see them anymore. Trying not to think of how crazy she sounded, she rushed on. “I think it’s like shadow-stepping, except you open the path you take so others can follow.”
“Like you and Mordan?” Roeglin asked, but Marsh shook her head. “No, Dan steps with me...or she used to. Now she knows how to do it on her own.”
“She copied you?”
Marsh shook her head. “No, I took her with me, and she understood how it was done and did it herself.”
“So she did copy you.”
“No.” Marsh was firm and kept a hold on her temper. “She took the knowledge, soaking it up like a...like a sludge slime...” Mordan gave a growled a protest. “Or something.”
The kat huffed out a puff of air and Marsh continued. “Anyway, she knows how, and not by copying.”
“And?” Gustav pushed, clearly not impressed by Marsh’s digression.
“So, the raiders open gates for people who don’t know how to do shadow magic, so it’s not the same. It’s more like the way rock mages open a wall of rock so others can pass through it.”
“And you want to do that to shadow.”
“Yes.”
“What makes you think you can?”
“Because it works for rock.”
Roeglin groaned and buried his face in his hands. “Not the same.” The words came out muffled.
Marsh glared at him. “Is so.”
“Is so not,” he argued, and she pushed back her chair, trying to think of somewhere to go.
“Is. So. Too!” She growled, not realizing just how much she sounded like Aisha as she moved her hands to carve an arc through the air.
The shadows flowed to her fingertips and then settled in the shape. Shadows were fine and the caverns were safe, but her family—her uncle, her cousins. Marsh felt a lump form in her throat. How was she ever going to reach them?
It is dark in the cave of water, Mordan suggested, and Marsh tried to picture the bathing rooms at Hawk’s Ledge. The Kat wasn’t quite right. Sure, the communal entry was dim, but each cubicle had lanterns bathing it in warm golden light.
The gasp from beside her made her open her eyes just as a wet sponge flew through the small window in front of her. It hit her in the face, sending water down her front and soaking through her tunic to the skin. The smell of lavender-scented water made her realize what she’d done, but the window was gone.
She stumbled back from the now-empty space, reaching for her chair. Roeglin made sure she didn’t end up on her ass, then wrapped his arm around her shoulders once more. “Well, you showed us, didn’t you?”
Marsh didn’t know what to say.
“And you were going to open a gate to where, exactly?” Gustav still wasn’t impressed.
Marsh found it hard to find her voice. “I-I hadn’t worked that out yet.”
She looked over at their hosts. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure how this helps with defending the cavern. It’s just something...”
“You’re going after the raiders’ home base?” Tabia asked, and Marsh nodded.
“Yes. Once the caverns are secure. I’m—”
“We’re,” Roeglin corrected and Gustav cleared his throat.
Marsh continued. “We’re going after the raiders’ home base.” She glanced down at the kat. “I’ve made a promi—”
“Several promises,” Roeglin interrupted.
She turned to him, frustrated by his constant interruptions. “Do you want to tell the story?”
He raised his hands in placation. “No. Sorry. Please. You’re doing so well with the details. Why don’t you go right ahead?”
“Smartass.”
“Don’t you want to finish?”
“Children!” Gustav’s reprimand brought their squabbling up short. He turned to Sulema. “Mages,” he said, then realized who he was speaking to. His face flushed scarlet. “No offense intended.”
Sulema smiled. “None taken. You wanted to discuss the defense of our cavern with us?”
The faint emphasis on “our” was almost a warning, and Gustav sat a little straighter. “We meant no offense.”
“None is taken,” Sulema told him, relaxing a little. “We could do with the help. What did you have in mind?”
Slowly, Gustav went over what they had intended—to warn them and then help them set up an indepe
ndent force. “But I think it might have gone a little past that stage,” he added, “so I was going to offer our assistance for whatever you had in mind.”
Sulema’s face clouded. “We hadn’t reached that stage yet,” she admitted. “What have you done in the past?”
“It’s a sinkhole, you say?” Gustav asked, continuing when they nodded, “Well, it’s a bit different to the other surface accesses we’ve encountered, but this is what we’ve done in the past.”
By the time he had finished describing what they had done at Mika’s Outlet and then repeated at the Piermonts’ stud, the leaders were shaking their heads.
“The sinkhole opens to the sky,” Kwame told them. “Without it, we wouldn’t have the climate we need for growing the kaffee and chocolate.”
“The plants need the humidity of the grotto,” Tabia explained.
“And the warmer temperatures,” Sulema said. “Our druids have only been able to do so much, and while you’ll find the plants in other areas, even they have seasons when they do not produce. They produce all year round in the Grotto. Sealing the sinkhole is out of the question.”
Gustav let out a long breath and changed the topic. “Do you know how the raiders reached you?”
“Well, it wasn’t from the tunnels,” Kwame told him. “We had guards on that. None had passed.”
Marsh frowned. “Had you had any strangers through town just beforehand?”
Sulema shook her head. “We had travelers often, but in the last few months since the caverns went dark? I don’t think so.”
“And Katlego is beyond us.”
“Katlego?”
“She ran the waystation, but we could not reach her before the raiders took them.”
“I see, and what...” Gustav let his words peter out as a commotion erupted outside.
“Later!” Sulema snapped, slipping out from behind the table and racing for the door. “Our fighters have returned.”
“Fighters?” Gustav asked, following her, but neither Kwame nor Tabia stopped to answer.
He hurried after them, Roeglin and Marsh following in his wake.
Magic Below Paris Complete Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 8): Trading Into Shadow, Trading Into Darkness, Trading Close to Light, Trading By Firelight, Trading by Shroomlight, plus 3 more Page 103