Cold Magic (Spiritwalker 1)

The fire sighed to embers. The hilt of the ghost sword grew cold against my palm.

“We’ll take the attic room,” I said, too loudly, because I did not intend to see the innkeeper’s pewter cups shattered in a fit of rage. “We’ll need extra blankets, as many as you have, if you don’t mind, maester. But the principles of convection suggest that hot air rises, so up in the attic we should be warm enough even with no brazier to heat the room.”

o;Arson,” he said.

He crushed the remains of the amulet in his hand, then shook its dust to the ground with murmured words I did not recognize. He carried a small silver snuffbox in his sleeve, but it contained salt, not snuff, and he pinched a few crystals between thumb and middle finger and scattered this over the threshold.

A cold wind rose out of the north. A light rain, spiced with fingers of stinging sleet, misted down out of the sky.

“Follow us after you have scouted the perimeter,” he said to the coachman.

I walked beside him back into town. Every house that we passed had shutters closed against the lowering night. The hilt of the ghost sword came alive in my hand, but apparently he still could not see it.

We reached the edge of the square and walked to the other inn. The smith waited in his doorway, arms still crossed, speaking no word of welcome. My husband did not acknowledge him, nor did he stray too close to the smithy, a place of power opposed to his own cold magic, even if no person who stirred the embers of fire magic could raise an equivalent level of power without being physically consumed by an uncontrollable blast of elemental fire.

No footman or liveried servant waited at the inn’s entrance to greet distinguished customers. As we approached the open gates, the lanterns sputtered and went out. I could barely distinguish the griffin talisman painted on the inn’s sign. We walked into a courtyard surrounded by the inn buildings and their double tier of balconies. At the door to the common house, he was stymied because no servant waited to open the heavy door, but I was not too proud to fix a hand around the door handle and drag it open.

“Catherine!” He made a gesture of protest.

I ignored him and crossed the threshold into a large, warm, and smoky room fitted with long tables and benches. It was at this hour empty except for the tempting smell of chicken broth and baking squash. Through a second door, which was propped open by a brick, I could see into an adjoining supper room where people were dining and chattering. With a frown, Andevai entered. The blazing fire in the hearth sank like a shy child hiding his face from strangers.

A man carrying a tray piled with dishes emerged from the supper room and stopped stock-still to stare at us, like an actor pretending shock in a Roman comedy. He cleared his throat uneasily. “How can I help you, maester? Maestra?”

“What happened to the House inn?” Andevai demanded. “When I last passed through here ten days ago, I stayed there.”

“It burned, maester.”

“I can see that it burned. It was destroyed by arson.”

“I wouldn’t know about that, maester.”

“I don’t suppose you would. No one ever does. When did it happen?”

“Nine days ago, maester. A rare conflagration.”

The fire flickered, struggling to stay alive. “So it seems. It is now too late for us to travel farther upon the turnpike and seek the next House accommodation.”

The innkeeper’s gaze flashed to the fire, and his breathing quickened. “I ask pardon for not recognizing you, Magister. We never see magisters such as yourself in my inn, begging your pardon. Indeed, Griffin Inn is no place you’ll be accustomed to, Magister. We’ve no specially heated rooms for cold mages like yourself, like the House inns are fitted with.” The man gestured with the tray toward the fire. “We heat with hearths and braziers. Anyway, we’ve only one room remaining for tonight, an attic room with several cots. Not even a proper bed.”

“You can clear a chamber for our use.”

The man took in an angry breath. “That I can’t, Magister. I can’t turn out those guests who’ve already made their arrangements and paid in advance. I’m not able to collect tithes from my neighbors as the House inn did, with the threat of House retribution backing up their demands should any not pay the tax. Anyway, Magister, even besides the attic room, we’ve only four sleeping rooms, none of them to your liking, I am sure.”

“You are deliberately insulting me.”

“I am telling you the cold truth, Magister. Maybe you choose to take it as an insult, if you’re not accustomed to hearing the truth spoken to you.” The man’s knuckles were clenched to a pallor around the tray. It took a courageous man to speak so frankly to a cold mage.

The fire sighed to embers. The hilt of the ghost sword grew cold against my palm.

“We’ll take the attic room,” I said, too loudly, because I did not intend to see the innkeeper’s pewter cups shattered in a fit of rage. “We’ll need extra blankets, as many as you have, if you don’t mind, maester. But the principles of convection suggest that hot air rises, so up in the attic we should be warm enough even with no brazier to heat the room.”

The man had expressive eyebrows; one quirked now, cocking up as he examined me. He looked again at Andevai to identify what possible relation we might have, and nodded. “Supper is served in the supper room, maestra. Or must I also address you as Magister?”

“No. Thank you.”

His eyebrows lifted again before he recovered his composure. “I’ll send my niece to show you up when we’re done serving supper, but you’ll have to have your own people carry up your cases or what have you, as we’re shorthanded tonight what with the wedding of my wife’s cousin’s nephew in Londun. I would have shut up the inn and gone over the river myself for the wedding feast if not for—”

A trill of laughter—humanlike but not human—lilted out of the supper room.