Cold Fire
He looked past Drake and saw me. Wincing back as if he’d been struck, he lost his footing and staggered down a step before catching himself. His surprise gave me hope. Maybe Four Moons House and the mansa had not yet tracked us down.
He jumped back up to the door, his gaze fixed on me the way a hammer seeks a nail.
The cold magic pulsing from him coursed down my sword’s hidden blade. If I twisted my draw just right, I could pull a blade into this world out of the spirit world where it currently resided. Not that cold steel would avail me much against Andevai Diarisso Haranwy, the very cold mage who had destroyed the famous airship. I was surprised the incognito guards Camjiata had posted on the lane had not raised the alarm, but then again, you could not identify a cold mage by looks. He might be any particularly well-dressed young man born to a family of high status and notable wealth. They could not have known he’d been born to neither but risen to both.
“You’ll have to return another time, Magister.” Drake started to close the door.
The man I was obliged to call my husband thrust out an arm and, with the tip of his cane, halted the door’s swing. He pushed inside, closed the door, and on the entry mat paused to stamp snow off his polished boots and tap the dusting of snow off his hat.
“I have an appointment with the solicitor Chartji,” he said as he set hat, cane, and gloves on a side table. “You cannot deny me entrance.”
With his lips pressed together and his dark gaze mocking, he surveyed Drake with the disdain that came so easily to him. Drake’s clothes were indeed undistinguished, although practical and sturdy, but in any other company a man with Drake’s striking eyes and attractive face might expect his looks and smile to render his clothing invisible. In this company, he just looked drab.
As the gazes of the two men met, Drake’s blue eyes seemed to blaze. My lips stung as with the bite of a kiln’s heat. My lungs felt choked by unseen smoke and ash. My skin crawled as if licked by invisible tongues of fire. I gasped, sure the air was about to burst into flame.
A chill descended as decisively as a curtain falls at the end of an act. The burning taste of fire was utterly extinguished. Ice brushed my lips like a cold kiss, but it was only sensation, not actual frozen water.
Andevai uncurled a fisted hand as if he were carefully releasing a captured bird. “You’re strong, but not nearly strong enough.” He spoke in a bitingly arrogant tone whose sheer cool vainglory would have been sufficient to bestir a herd of calmly grazing elephants into a maddened, city-flattening stampede. “It’s a bit dangerous, don’t you think? Playing with fire?”
Drake’s grin popped, but he looked furious, not amused. He took a step toward me. With narrowed eyes, Andevai placed himself between me and Drake. Then he met my wary gaze.
I had last seen him two days before. He had not changed. His hair was cut close against his black head, and his beard and mustache were trimmed very short and with absolute perfection, no doubt to encourage young women to look at him. The less said about his beautiful brown eyes, the better. Especially when I recalled the unkind and even cruel things he had said to me when we had first been thrown together, when he had dragged me against my will from the only home I had ever known.
His voice was soft now, emotion tightly controlled. “I suppose your presence here means you have managed yet another escape, Catherine.”
“I can’t tell you anything. Your allegiance lies with Four Moons House.”
He regarded me coolly enough that I felt obliged to admire his composure, considering the things he had said at our last meeting.
“Considering the things that were said at our last meeting,” he said, as if his thoughts aligned with mine, “it may surprise you to hear that my arrival here has nothing to do with you.”
“Considering the things that were said?!” I muttered, for it was hard to know what to say to a man when, the last time you saw him, you had shared a potent kiss. But I found words. “Every mage House has advocates trained in the law who can argue cases in the law courts. What use can you possibly have for Chartji’s services?”
“A question I might ask you.”
“You might, but my answer would be the same as yours.”
He flashed a smile of such astounding sweetness and humor—as if he appreciated my wit!—that it would have been easier for me if my heart had simply stopped and I had dropped dead. I had not known the man could smile like that.
His smile vanished and he said in a serious tone, “Perhaps you’d best sit down, Catherine. Are you going to faint?”