Windwitch (The Witchlands 2)

Oh, hell-waters.

His hands swept up; his winds shot out, a charge of power to counteract the moving line.

Merik watched, breath held, as it stilled. As the whole world stilled, shrinking down to that cursed string and his booming heart. It thundered loud enough to give him away.

Yet no alarm went off. No trap released, leaving Merik to carefully sweep his gaze over every leaf, every petal, every strip of bark in sight. The wire traveled into the shadows, to where iron beams held glass walls upright. Then up the string shot, ending at a brass bell.

Merik’s breath kicked out. That had been too close, for though the bell might have been tiny, it was more than enough to alert someone of Merik’s arrival. The only other sound was a burbling fountain at the greenhouse’s heart.

While Merik wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that young Serrit Linday was a paranoid bastard, there had never been guards or trip wires at the nobleman’s mansion during their childhood.

Which suggested that Linday was meeting someone, and either he didn’t trust that someone or he intended to betray that someone. Had Merik the time, he would’ve crawled into the nearby cherry tree and waited, watching to see who hit this backdoor trap. After all, learning whom Linday feared might be valuable information.

Merik hadn’t the time, though, nor the patience. Plus, he’d abandoned poor Cam back at Pin’s Keep. She was still out there, no doubt panicking over where her admiral had gone.

So after checking his hood was still firmly in place, Merik resumed his approach. Twice more, he found hidden trip wires, and twice more, he bypassed them. It was slow going, slipping through the leaves and roots, yet all the while using his winds to keep the jungle still. To keep the trip wires from activating.

At last Merik reached the center of the greenhouse, where the gravel of the outer paths gave way to sandstone tiles arranged in a complex array of sunbursts. The Linday family sigil. At the center was a fountain, also fashioned into a sunburst.

Before the bubbling water sat Serrit Linday. His frenetic energy clashed with the soft serenity of the scene. He swatted and swatted and swatted again at brilliant white lilies along the fountain’s edge, while his finely slippered toe tapped the pristine grass into mush. Even the lamplight from the streets outside seemed too bright, too pure for Linday’s antiquated black robe.

This was not the arrogant vizer Merik remembered from boyhood. This was a scared man—and scared men were easy men.

Easy was always good.

Merik slipped to the edge of the clearing, to where grass gave way to flagstones. Behind Linday and still out of sight. Then he lowered his hood and offered a rough, “Hello, Vizer.”

The man’s breath punched out. He deflated completely, spine wilting and shoulders dropping over his knees. For half a moment, Merik thought he’d fainted …

Until a weak, “I don’t have it,” whispered out.

Merik stepped from the shadows. “You mistake me for someone else.”

At that, Linday tensed. Then his head swung around. His eyes met Merik’s. Then he gazed up and down, clearly taking in Merik’s scars, his ragged clothes. For half a skittering moment, Merik thought the vizer might recognize him from their brief encounters over the years.

But he didn’t, and Merik almost smiled as warring expressions settled across the young man’s face. Relief mingled with horror and confusion … before shivering back to relief.

Which was not precisely the end reaction Merik had hoped for.

He approached the fountain, and although Linday shrank back, the man didn’t run. Not even when Merik gripped his collar and yanked him close.

“Do you know who I am?” Merik murmured. This close, the man’s face was a mask of fine lines. He looked twice the age Merik knew him to be.

“No,” Linday rasped. He was trembling now. “I don’t know you.”

“They call me the Left Hand of Noden. They call me the Fury.” Power, power, power. “I’m going to ask you a few questions now, Vizer, and I want you to answer quickly. If you do not…” He twisted his fists, tightening Linday’s collar. Cutting off the man’s air.

Linday shook all the harder in Merik’s hands, and that was more the reaction Merik had hoped for. “I’ll answer, I’ll answer.”

“Good.” Merik’s eyes narrowed, his brow stretching. “You bought a prisoner from Pin’s Keep. Garren was his name. I need to know what you did with him.”

“I don’t know.”

Yank. Twist. Linday’s breath slashed out.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I must, I must.” Linday’s eyes began to cross. “I … must, or he’ll kill me.”

Fresh rage slashed through Merik. He wrung Linday’s collar tighter. “By whose hand would you rather die, Vizer? His or mine?”

“Neither,” the man choked. “Please—the shadow man comes for me. Help me. Please, before they turn me into one of their puppets—please! I’ll tell you everything you want—”

A bell rang.

A soft twinkle to fill the greenhouse.

Vizer Linday went limp, as if his knees could no longer hold him. Merik released Linday, who crumpled to the tiles.

A second bell tolled. Chills raced down the back of Merik’s neck. His spine. He whirled around …

To find a wall of night slithering through the greenhouse. Approaching this way, it slipped and slid and coiled and gripped. Shadow hands that tendriled forward, over the ground, across the foliage, along the ceiling.