Cold Fire (Spiritwalker 2)

My gaze caught Kofi’s, and suddenly we were both snickering.

Vai’s tone had a glacial scour. “Catherine, perhaps you and Kofi shall go over to the kitchen. I am sure you are hungry.” He tossed the more soberly patterned silver-gray one on the rumpled bed and began to pull on the purple jacket with stylized orange and black stones.

“That one makes my eyes hurt,” I said to the sky. As Kofi and I walked along the brick path toward the dining patio, I decided to dispense with courtesies. “Did you ever trust me, Kofi? Before I was tamed, I mean.”

He whistled appreciatively. “So yee heard that? Meant as a jest.”

“Of course it was! I never doubted!”

He chuckled. “As for the other, yee appeared so suddenly, and up from Cow Killer Beach. Even before, the way he talked about the perdita made me think him witched. It was harder to judge after yee came, for yee would push him away with one hand and draw him close with the other.”

“Two-faced like a star-apple tree. It’s because the leaves are a different color on each side, isn’t it?” I paused at the dining patio, not wanting to take this conversation into the kitchen. “I was very confused. As for the witching, did it ever occur to you he might have set that on himself??”

“Talked he own self into believing he was in love with yee? Could be. Yee know, before the hurricane, I would have thrown yee overboard without a second thought. But when yee crawled under that boat for the sake of a man yee never met nor had reason to care for, I got to wondering. Cat, yee understand I’s concerned that yee shall treat Vai well and not betray him.”

“I had no idea about the raid at Nance’s. As for the other, I shall answer honestly, Kofi, because you have been a good friend to him. I do mean to treat him well. I won’t betray him. But I’ll tell you truly, the best thing for Vai is not to return to the mage House.”

People have all kinds of smiles. Kofi’s lips twitched in a way that made his scars flare. “Yee reckon he shall be better served by joining the general.”

“I don’t trust the general at all. I favor the radicals, but I want to know how people talking around a table think they can win a war.”

He crossed his arms in a way that emphasized how big and sturdy he was, the kind of man you wanted at your side when felling trees, or Councils. “Them with the armies and the coin, and these cold mages yee speak of, shall always have the weapons to crush us. Maybe words is a better weapon than yee think they is.”

“Kofi, that time when Vai almost used his cold magic when that drunk man insulted him, what did you say to him to calm him down?”

He slanted a gaze at the bellyache bush, as if checking for Vai, and then back at me. “I reckon I have had some practice calming that man down, for that was not the first time he almost got in a fight. This time, I just said, ‘If yee want that gal, yee shall not do this.’ It worked.”

“I thought you didn’t like me. Why would you encourage him to keep thinking about me?”

“Gal, yee defied the mansa who rule him and he people. Nothing I could ever say could turn that man’s mind from yee. I saved me breath.”

Footsteps approached, and Vai came into view tugging on his cuffs. He had chosen a jacket of red, gold, and orange squares limned by black. A slim sword swayed from his belt like a bolt of lightning caught and sheathed. Cold steel in the hand of a cold mage. So be it. We would face the general and negotiate our next move together.

His gaze flicked between Kofi and me, and he smiled as if our amity pleased him.

“Best we eat before we go,” he said, taking my hand.

He and Kofi chattered about doings in the city, mostly Kofi telling the news of the huge retinue necessary to the cacica’s consequence: The Taino had reached the festival ground before they were expected, having been brought by a fleet of airships.

“A fleet of airships?” Vai exclaimed as we came to the kitchen, covered by a roof but open to the air on three sides. “Lord of All! Do they mean to invade?”

“The Taino have always said they would not break the First Treaty. So maybe ’tis just to honor the marriage of a prince who shall likely become cacique.”

Kofi greeted the professora as if he knew her well. We sat down to bowls of warm rice porridge steamed in milk and garnished with cinnamon. I was so overtaken by the delicious smell and creamy texture of the porridge that I could only eat and listen.

“No one had any idea the Taino have been building a fleet of airships.” The professora paused to study me. “Every cook must love you, Maestressa Barahal.”

“’Tis good when a gal like to eat,” remarked Kofi.

I looked up to see Vai fail to not look pleased with himself. Flushed, I felt it wiser to set back to the porridge than respond.

“Have they manufactories we have not heard mention of??” Kofi asked.

“So we must hope,” she said, “otherwise they have sealed a contract with a troll consortium in the north. That would not bode well for peace among the trolls. Or maybe the Purépecha kingdom has a hand in it, for Prince Caonabo is son to a Purépecha prince who was at one time married to the cacica. Unlikely, for the kingdoms are rivals.”

Kofi shook his head. “I reckon if the Taino have such a fleet, ’tis hard to see how Expedition can survive.”

“Sometimes,” I said, “a little free territory like Expedition serves like one of those valves where you let steam escape from an engine where the pressure is getting too high. Criminals and agitators can be driven there rather than imprisoning or executing them. Left free, they’ll fight among themselves rather than be seen as sacrifices. Competing mercantile interests will stay bogged down. Dangerous technologies can be floated where they won’t do harm to the Taino if they fail. If there is trouble, it can be blamed on Expedition rather than the Taino court.”