Cold Magic

“Don’t,” he said, grabbing my wrist to stop me. He wasn’t looking at me; I followed his gaze with my own.



Sweet Tanit in her bower!



A man with a rifle stood framed by the broken window, taking aim.



I tried to make a sound; at first no word came out. Then they flooded. “That’s a rifle! Those are illegal!”



My husband raised his other hand as though flicking away a fly.



I tugged, but he did not release. He just stood there, as if we were poised in a park on a peaceful night to breathe in the scented air. “Rifles are far more accurate than muskets, or didn’t you know that?” I pointed out.



“I’m surprised you do, since rifles are illegal.”



I have good vision, even in the dark. The man in the window tensed and released. Fire!



There was no sound. No flash. No percussion.



The man turned and shouted into the interior. “We’ve got a mage! Bring the crossbows!”



“Up,” my husband said.



I clambered over a big branch like I was mounting a horse. He shoved the mass of the coverlet, now shedding feathers, into my face.



“What—”



“Take it! Must you question everything? While it’s true the rifle won’t fire, I likely won’t survive a crossbow bolt.”



I took it. He climbed after me. A pair of men appeared in the window, lifting crossbows to sight. On the branch, now at the same height as the window, he ripped the coverlet from my hands and, just as the men released the bolts, flung it outward as if rich fabric and the feathers of a rumpled and now-dirty coverlet, however finely made, could stop two iron bolts.



The coverlet billowed open and began to unravel along the rip. I stared as the cloth unwove, becoming a cloud of threads, some racing out in front while others lagged behind with the mass of downy feathers, all of it slowly drifting toward the window as if on unseen wings. As the two bolts pierced the cloud, they unaccountably slowed and began to wobble. Surrounded by the cloud of feathers, they simply dropped heavily to earth, all their momentum sucked clean away. The threads and feathers meanwhile accelerated toward the men hurriedly cocking new bolts into place, as if they had fed on the speed of the bolts and turned it into their own energy.



A yank on my braid pulled my head around.



“Move!” He went up.



I scrambled after him, easing out on a thick branch to the top of the wall. As he swung his legs over, the branch he was on snapped off and it—and he—dropped out of sight with a thump into the alley. Straddling the wall, I looked back to see the men in the window flailing in a storm of down.



“Catherine!” He was rising, dusting off his clothes with one hand as he raised a cold bubble of illumination in the other.



I lowered myself until I hung from my arms and then let go. Naturally, I landed with perfect grace and straightened immediately to scorn the hand he offered, since he had been expecting me to tumble to earth as clumsily as he had.



“Who are they?” I asked. “Why do they want to kill you?”



“Why do you suppose it is me they want to kill?”



My heart was racing and my thoughts were churning and my mouth lost that tight leash Aunt Tilly had bound it with. “How much time do I have to answer the question?”



He took a step back from me. “I was warned that Barahals would have little conversation and fewer manners, coming from a clan of spies and mercenaries. Can we go now? Or must we duel in the Celtic style with more pointless insults?”



On the other side of the wall, men shouted orders. No doubt they were sending men the long way around to cut off both ends of the alley.



“Which way?” I asked.



He measured the sky. I had no trouble seeing in the light made by the fire, hazy and red and tangled with streamers of smoke, but he seemed to be looking for something else. Temple bells came alive, first one and then the others joining in, ringing the fire chase: Awake! Awake! Awake! Their thundering rhythm drowned out his answer. With a grimace of annoyance, he gestured more broadly than necessary, as if he thought my vision was as poor as most people’s would be: this way. As he turned to run, he stumbled over the broken branch lying across the narrow alley. I snorted. Didn’t mages possess spirit sight, as I did? He took one dragging step, righting himself with a shake, and took off at a run for the eastern end of the alley, the one that lay farthest from the inn’s gated entrance. I ran after him. Maybe the Barahals were now spies and mercenaries, if you felt obliged to use those words, but that meant Barahal children, male and female, were trained in the family business. By the time we got to the end of the long alley, he was breathing hard and I wasn’t.