Cold Fire (Spiritwalker 2)

“Gal?” Uncle Joe paused beside me where I leaned against the counter, stricken by a wash of cramping or perhaps only fear. “Yee all right?”

I pressed my hand against the locket, where our hearts pulsed. Vai would know that I lived and that, because I lived, I would come after him. “Just tired, Uncle.”

“Yee go up to yee sleep, gal. Yee have the same room as before.”

I looked around to find Rory sitting between Tanny and Diantha, lounging at his ease with his long legs stretched out. He was laughing in that flirtatious way he had as Tanny told a story whose words I could not be bothered to overhear. “That will not end well, Uncle, do you think? What if they fight over him?”

He chuckled. “There is that about those two gals I think yee don’ know. Anyway, they’s of age to make up they own minds, gal. Yee go on up.”

I slipped out of the courtyard and went up with a candle to light my weary way. When I closed the door behind me, I stared, for the room was furnished with a bed and chest I knew. I set the candle on the floor and opened the lid to see all his dash jackets waiting for him. As I ran my hands through the folds of the fabric, a tear wound down my cheek.

I did not hear the door open and close. Wind blew out the candle, and he touched my shoulder.

“Catherine.”

“Vai? Blessed Tanit! Vai!”

I leaped up and embraced him as the lid banged down. He pressed his lips hotly to mine and in the dark room with the cheerful noise of the evening drinkers serenading us, we kissed until I thought I would dissolve into him.

Then I caught my breath and drew back, peering at him in the darkness, him and his annoyingly handsome face and the strange wisp-light in his beautiful eyes. My hands stroked the buttons and fine chains of embroidery woven down the front of the dash jacket he wore. My fingers itched to undress the man I loved. “Vai, how did you escape…?”

Fear squeezed my heart.

“Let me see your navel,” I said.

He laughed, but it was not Vai’s laugh. His smile cut like contempt, and although he looked exactly like Vai, his gaze was as hard as stone. “I have come to warn yee, maku. We don’ want yee here. Yee cut a path through what was closed. Elsewise that one shall not have taken blood from this country.”

“But aren’t you a spirit from the spirit world, too? Ruled by the courts?”

“Think yee so? The other land be plenty vast and ’tis not all the same. If yee reckon to force a path from this land back to them, then I promise yee, we shall eat yee before yee can get there. For yee have no right to trample here in places yee know nothing of and don’ own.”

He vanished in a hissing patter like the scatter of sand melded with the scent of overripe guavas. That, too, dissipated, leaving me with no light, trembling hands, and the burning memory of his mouth on mine. I sank onto the bed Vai had built for us and for the longest time I could not move, until the door opened and Rory squeezed in.

“Cat? What is it? I could smell your tears.”

He stretched out beside me, saying nothing more. Soothed by the comfort of his presence, I slept.

I woke at dawn, rumpled and mussed, because I had slept in my clothes. Rory was gone, nor had I any idea how long he had stayed with me. I straightened my pagne and blouse and hurried downstairs to do my business and tidy up. The little lads and lasses were lined up, ready to march off hand in hand to school. I gave them each a kiss and promised to buy them a sweet even though I had no money and no idea how to get hold of the money Vai had been given by the mansa.

The opia’s warning haunted me as I ate an orange and considered my options. Yet it was easier to move than to sit, so I went out to walk the old neighborhood. I returned from visiting my friends on Tailors’ Row to find Rory sitting on a bench with Luce giggling on his knee.

I marched over to them and dragged her off. “That is enough of that!”

She set fists on hips. “I’s sixteen this year. Old enough to know me own mind!”

“Rory, if you do anything with her I would not approve of, I shall castrate you.”

He drew himself up, affronted, but before he could speak, I pressed a hand to his chest. “How did you get Vai’s jacket?”

“The general gave it to me on Hallows’ Night. After we retreated back to the big house. It was generous of him to take me away from the ball court, considering some of those Taino soldiers were beginning to look at me like they thought they would have to try to kill me. My other clothes were all ripped and torn. Then after I had dressed, this woman came, quite shrieking, I must tell you, Cat, for it made my ears hurt. Afterward she had the nerve to put her hand on my—”

“I can guess.”

“After the way she complained, I can’t imagine why she would think I would want to be petted by her!”

“How did the bed and the chest get here?”

“I don’t know everything, Cat! I can’t imagine why you expect me to! Someone else came, and there was a great deal of argument but at that moment I was down in one of the guardrooms very involved with—”