Heroes Return (37 page)

“So it’s inevitable that I’m going to sleep with him?” That was ridiculous. Sure, I liked smart people, but just because I met one didn’t mean I was going to think Taro was somehow inadequate.

“I never said that,” he protested.

“Why else have you been acting so strangely around him?”

He crossed his arms. “I haven’t.”

“You can’t possibly believe that.”

He said nothing.

I rolled my eyes. He wasn’t going to admit he was wrong, and I knew I was right. There was no point in arguing further so I let it slide. I stared into air while Taro flipped over cards.

In time he asked, “What are you thinking?”

“I performed that wind ritual properly. It should have worked.”

“Stop worrying about it.”

He might as well have told me to stop breathing. “Dane died because I couldn’t do it.”

“That’s not your fault.”

“It’s more my fault than anyone else’s.”

“It’s no one’s fault.”

But I was the one with the opportunity to do something about it. And I’d failed. “I’m going to try it again.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“I thought you didn’t like playing around with that sort of thing.”

I snapped my fingers, suddenly struck with a brilliant idea.

“This can’t be good,” said Taro.

“Reid has theorized that there might be a connection between Sources and Shields and magic.”

“You’re the one who keeps saying that what we do isn’t magic.”

“It’s not, but that doesn’t mean they can’t work together.”

“What are you talking about?”

When I’d attempted to manipulate the weather in the past, it had been through Taro, him channeling and me adjusting the currents through him. I couldn’t control the elements as much as I felt I needed. When I tried the spell, I had the potential for control, but couldn’t access the winds as I would have liked. So what would happen if I combined the two procedures?

It couldn’t hurt to try.

Doing the spell while Shielding would be challenging but I was sure I could do it. “Will you channel for me so I can play with this?”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

It helped that he had little to do, too.

I got the ingredients, the mint and the water and the candles and the fans. I locked the door. I chewed the mint and lit the candles and stood within them with the fans in my hands. “All right,” I said to Taro, “please start channeling.”

He opened himself to the forces. At the same time, while I was Shielding him, I went through the same steps of the spell I had before. I felt the same brushing against my skin I had felt before. It was stronger against my right than it had been before, but this time I could lift my right hand and shape the wind with my fans.

And suddenly, I was surrounded in fog. I hadn’t expected that and it almost knocked away my concentration. Within the fog swirled tendrils of translucent blue. When I touched them with my fans, they shifted, and as they shifted, so did the wind rattling the shutters. “Bide by me, winds of all,” I said, and with the fans held parallel to the floor, I crouched down and brought my fans lower and lower. There was pressure there, pushing against me, but I proved to be stronger. I was eventually able to lay the fans flat on the floor.

“Stop channeling,” I said to Taro, and he did.

There was silence. The wind was gone.

“You did it.” Taro sounded surprised. I guessed I couldn’t blame him. After all, I hadn’t been able to do it the last time. When it would have mattered.

Poor Fiona.

Was this why spells hadn’t worked for the First Landed? Did one need to be part of a Pair to do it?

Of course, there were regulars who seemed able to perform spells. Maybe they could cast spells concerning the weather. Or maybe there was something about being a Shield or a Source that meant they had to have a partner when casting spells that affected the weather. But there were people who cast spells in High Scape, and if anyone had tried to adjust the horrific weather of the Harsh Summer, they hadn’t appeared to be successful.

I didn’t know. Didn’t really care. I wouldn’t be playing with the weather much. But my success gave me another idea. “I have to talk to Reid,” I announced as I locked up the casting paraphernalia. Taro scowled. “It’s important,” I insisted, and I left before he could say anything, heading back to the library.

Reid, as I’d hoped, was still there.

“Can I take it you were successful?” he asked.

“Unbelievable, isn’t it?”

“I wonder why it worked this time.”

I wasn’t going to tell him of Taro’s involvement. Taro might not like it. “Maybe I was able to concentrate better because no one’s life was at stake.” Why hadn’t I thought to work with Taro the first time? We always accomplished more when we worked together. “Are there any spells about calming earthquakes in that book?”

“They had spells for all natural disasters, from what I can see. But what use would you have for something like that? You and Source Karish already know how to deal with those.”

And I wanted him to keep believing that. “It behooves us to learn everything we can about such things.”

“Behooves,” he echoed, and I could see I hadn’t fooled him at all. “Earthquakes, you say?”

“Aye.”

“I’ll make a copy for you.”

“Thank you, Academic. I am most grateful.”

Wouldn’t it be marvelous if I’d found the solution to the difficulty we were having with channeling? Not that I wanted to stay in Flown Raven, but the idea of being driven out because of an inability to perform our tasks had a bitter taste I was eager to expel.

Chapter Twenty-seven

I jerked awake at the sound of a sharp thud, followed by footsteps running down the hall.

It was dark and cold and the wind was rattling the windows. Again.

“Come back here!” I heard Fiona shout.

A second set of footsteps thundered down the hall.

I scrambled out of bed, aware that Taro was doing the same. We raced to the door and out into the hall. But neither of us had thought to bring a candle and we couldn’t see anything.

Tarce was smarter than Taro and I, coming out to the hall with a lit lantern, and we followed the footsteps and Fiona’s shouts through the halls and down the stairs. In the dark I felt like we were going in circles, and I could hear other voices and footsteps. It was a chaotic chase, the candlelight bouncing against the wood paneling of the walls, and I thought the whole time that I would tumble down the stairs.

Someone started screaming. I didn’t know who the hell it was. I just wished they would shut up. They were adding to the confusion.

Tarce, Taro and I, as well as Bailey and Frances, ended up in the kitchen. A dangerous place to be in the dark. It was so unfamiliar to me, and I knocked my hip against the corner of one of the tables. That hurt.

Fiona was out the back door of the kitchen, and she was still shouting. “I know who you are! I’ll find you!”

“For Zaire’s sake, Fiona!” Tarce snapped. “What’s going on?”

We heard nothing from Fiona, so the five of us traipsed out into the grass, cold and wet against our bare feet. The wind was fierce and bitter. The moonlight showed us Fiona standing there in her nightgown, staring off into the distance.

“Fiona!” Tarce barked.

Fiona turned around, her hair down and whipping about in the wind, her nightgown plastered against her legs and torso. “Did you see her?” she demanded.

“We didn’t see anything,” said Tarce.

“She attacked me in my room. I woke up and someone was moving around beside me. She tried to kill me.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see anything. Some woman.”

Hell, nothing was going right for Fiona. It was just one disaster after another. If I were her, I would be about ready to give up.

I heard Taro’s teeth chattering. It was freezing out there in the wet wind.

“Come inside, Fi,” said Tarce, reaching for her arm.

Fiona stepped out of reach. “She’s out here.”

“We won’t be able to find her in the dark.”

“We’ll lose her.”

“We’ve already lost her,” said Tarce. “Come inside. Let us take a look at you.” He reached out and grabbed her arm.

She hissed and yanked her arm back. “Don’t!”

“Get inside, Fiona.”

It wasn’t until we were back in the kitchen with some more candles lit that we saw that the shadows on her sleeves were streaks of blood soaking through the white fabric. “You’re bleeding!” Taro announced in shock.

“What the hell happened?” Tarce demanded.

“She had a knife,” Fiona said, and her voice sounded calmer than it had earlier. That had to be a good sign. “She was trying to kill me. I got my arms up in time and tried to catch her, but I was tangled up in my bedclothes and she got away from me.”

“And you didn’t see anything?” Tarce asked. “Or hear anything?”

“Just that it was a smaller person, someone not able to overpower me. A woman, I think.”

“I’m going to fetch the healer,” said Tarce.

“Not in the middle of the night, Tarce,” Fiona objected.

“Don’t be stupid. You’re bleeding. Go up to your room and get comfortable. Shintaro, Dunleavy, I’d appreciate it if you would stay with her to discourage any second attempts.”

“Of course,” said Taro.

“Bailey, I want you to check all the servants’ quarters to see if anyone’s missing.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“It isn’t one of our people,” Fiona protested.

“You don’t know that, and we might as well cross off that possibility if we can.”

“You realize that if it were one of the servants,” I said, “they’d have had time to circle back to one of the other entrances and get back upstairs in time for Bailey to find them.”

Tarce glared at me for pointing out the truth. There were times when the truth was unwelcome. Bailey left at a quick pace. Perhaps he would be able to catch someone getting back into bed. Tarce left, too, which left Taro and me to figure out what to do about Fiona.

“Let’s get you back to your room,” Taro said to Fiona.

“I’m not hiding in my room!” she snapped. “I’m finding the woman who did this!”

“Bailey’s looking for her.”

“None of our people would do this.”

“If it’s an outsider, we won’t find her tonight.”

I was thinking it would have to be a servant, or a servant would have to be involved, to know exactly where Fiona slept, but that was probably another truth no one wanted to hear.

“We will if we go from cottage to cottage and catch them in the act of bedding down,” Fiona persisted.

“They’ve already bedded down by now, or they will have by the time we get there. Please, Fiona, be sensible. You’re bleeding.”

Fiona whirled on me. “Why can’t you find her?” she demanded. “Use one of your spells.”

“I haven’t come across spells that find people. That’s not what I do, Fiona.”

“That’s not what you do,” she sneered. “You and Shintaro. He’s just a Source and you’re just a Shield and that’s all anyone can ask of you. The rest of us don’t have the luxury of being only one thing.”

“Perhaps, but that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t use a spell to help you.” And I wished I could. Fiona didn’t deserve this.

“I’m going to have to insist, Fiona,” said Taro. “If you faint down here, you’ll have to be carried to your room. You don’t want the servants to see that, do you?”

“I’m not going to faint,” Fiona muttered.

“You don’t want to risk it, do you? Blood loss can have unpredictable effects.”

Either Fiona was convinced by Taro’s argument or she was simply in too much physical discomfort to continue to debate the issue, but she allowed herself to be prodded into movement and escorted up to her room.

There was no screaming now, the silence broken only by the wailing of the wind. “I don’t understand why all the servants aren’t up and about,” I said, “with all that racket.”

“They don’t want to risk catching the bad luck,” Frances said in a hushed tone.

“Don’t be foolish, Frances,” Taro snapped. “I’m sure they merely wanted to avoid getting in the way. And I’m sure the healer will need some clean water. Please go fetch some.”

Frances drew herself up to her full insignificant height. “I don’t take orders from you.”

“Frances,” Fiona interjected in a soothing voice. “Please do as he asks.”

Frances sniffed and glared before she left, muttering none too quietly about how some people just didn’t know their place. I didn’t know servants were allowed to do that sort of thing.

“Let me look at you,” Taro said to Fiona.

“Do you know anything about healing knife wounds?” she demanded.

“No.”

“Then you keep your eyes and your hands to yourself.”

The thought of a knife sinking into her arms, the image of steel separating red flesh, made my stomach clench in disgust. Still, the way Fiona was moving and talking, it seemed the injuries were not severe. So there was no reason for Taro to be fiddling around in there.

“The room is clean,” she whispered. “He promised the room was clean. This doesn’t make sense.”

“I don’t understand,” Taro confessed.

“Your room was bringing the bad luck,” Fiona said in a loud voice, and she almost sounded as though she were accusing him of something. “Cleansing it was supposed to end it.”

That was what she thought this was about? “This wasn’t because of bad luck, Fiona.”

“Of course it is. It’s just another bead in the string with the fall and the cave and the wind and Dane.”

“Dane was bad luck,” I said. “But the rest of it is all because someone’s been trying to kill you.” I couldn’t believe none of us had thought of that earlier. All those accidents, it was unrealistic to think they were just a series of unplanned mishaps.