Cold Fire (Spiritwalker 2)

It wasn’t just fear that was making me feel cold. It was actually getting colder. The cozy glamour of the fire wavered. The red glow began to shrink, and pieces of coal to settle. The fire flickered and all at once gave a weary gasp of defeat. Ash puffed and sank.

Rory sniffed. “That’s magic,” he said.

“Oh, no,” whispered Bee.

Only the presence of a powerful cold mage could suck the life out of a fire from a distance. As on an inhaled breath, the house tensed to silence, as if waiting. The ghostly hilt of my sword stung like nettles against my skin as cold magic whispered down its hidden blade. A preemptory knock rapped so loudly on the front door that the walls vibrated.

Kehinde stepped to the kitchen door and looked into the passageway. “Come with me, General. We have a bolt-hole.”

“Grab your coat and mine, and go out the back with Rory,” I said to Bee, for she was the one the cold mages wanted. “We’ll meet at that inn where we slept before.”

Camjiata paused at the threshold, so unruffled by this emergency I admired his calm. “What do you mean to do against cold mages? For I recognize their touch.”

I pushed past him and headed for the stairs. “I’m Tara Bell’s child, aren’t I? The Amazon’s daughter. I have a sword, so I mean to fight them.”

4

I found James Drake at the front door instead of the nameless young foreigner. Drake’s lips were tilted up in a funny kind of smile, giving him the look of a man who is expecting a gift or a slap. He set a gloved hand on the latch but snatched it back.

“It’s like ice!” he hissed.

My sword’s hilt waxed cold against my palm. Had the cold mages found us missing and already tracked us down? Or had they discovered Camjiata was in Adurnam and come for him?

“Stand back.” Gritting his teeth against the latch’s cold burn, Drake opened the front door.

Seen past him, a man stood on the stoop, cane in hand.

“These are the offices of Godwik and Clutch, lawyers,” said Drake, as though to a simpleton. “Callers are admitted only by appointment.”

“Isn’t it redundant to inform me that these are the offices of Godwik and Clutch, lawyers,” said the man with the cane, “when the sign out front informs me both in word and in picture of that very fact? Naturally I do have an appointment with the solicitor named Chartji. Otherwise you can be sure I would not have ventured into a neighborhood like this one for legal aid.”

Some men have the unfortunate propensity to look exceptionally well in the clothing they wear, and the effect must therefore be amplified when they dress with full attention to the most fashionable styles, the best tailors, and the most expensive fabric. In fact, he wore a greatcoat of an exceedingly fine cut, magnificently adorned by five layered shoulder capes rather than the practical one or the fashionable three. Its wool was dyed with patterned lines and sigils that reminded me of the clothing the hunters of his village wore when out in the bush. Altogether, the coat was one worn to be noticed and admired.

It was also unbuttoned, as if the ferocious cold did not bother him at all. Beneath he wore a dash jacket tailored to flatter a well-built, slender frame and falling in loose cutaway folds from hips to knees. The fabric’s violently bright red-and-gold chain pattern made me blink. How any man could wear cloth that staggeringly vivid and not look ridiculous I could not fathom. Yet there he was, him and his annoyingly handsome face. I should have known.

“My very question,” said Drake with a cutting smile. “What is a cold mage doing in this neighborhood? A mage of your ilk must despise the scalding technology of combustion. He must regard with contempt the clever contraptions and schemes made by trolls and goblins in their busy workshops. Which rise all around you, in all their industrious vigor.”

I expected sparks to fly. The two men, as they say, stared daggers.

“So polite of you to inform me of what I must despise.” The man on the stoop examined Drake as he might a man who has the bad taste to dress in provincial fashion when venturing into the city. “But unnecessary, since I’ve found I can make such judgments for myself.”

Drake’s free hand curled into a fist. A tremor kissed the air, expanding like the unseen pressure of a hand or an invisible dragon’s sigh. I tasted smoke. A ripple swirled as shimmering heat across the threshold.

“Stop that!” The cold mage raised a hand as if brushing away a fluttering moth. The pressure and heat ceased so abruptly I coughed.

o;What do you want?” whispered Bee.

“What matters,” said Camjiata, “is what you want, Beatrice.”

It wasn’t just fear that was making me feel cold. It was actually getting colder. The cozy glamour of the fire wavered. The red glow began to shrink, and pieces of coal to settle. The fire flickered and all at once gave a weary gasp of defeat. Ash puffed and sank.

Rory sniffed. “That’s magic,” he said.

“Oh, no,” whispered Bee.

Only the presence of a powerful cold mage could suck the life out of a fire from a distance. As on an inhaled breath, the house tensed to silence, as if waiting. The ghostly hilt of my sword stung like nettles against my skin as cold magic whispered down its hidden blade. A preemptory knock rapped so loudly on the front door that the walls vibrated.

Kehinde stepped to the kitchen door and looked into the passageway. “Come with me, General. We have a bolt-hole.”