help me.”
“Is there no physician you can go to?”
“It’s no longer an ailment for medicine.” Her voice was calm now, but her face was ashen and her hands twisted together.
Isyllt paused for several heartbeats. “Can I be of some assistance?”
Anhai’s eyes flickered toward Isyllt’s left hand. “Lady, I couldn’t impose on you for a family problem.” Her voice cracked.
“What’s wrong with your niece?”
Anhai stopped arguing and started walking, Isyllt and Adam trailing along. “It started as a simple fever. A common childhood complaint, rarely serious…I was taking care of her while her mother was away.” She shook her head, a wealth of anger and fear in that gesture.
“And it’s beyond the physicians now?” Isyllt shivered. “I’m a mage, but I have no miracles for you.” Kiril had tried that, and she’d seen the good it did.
“Not beyond-outside. A ghost found her, slipped through my wards, and now I can’t cast it out again.”
Isyllt smiled. “Ghosts I can handle.”
Anhai’s house sat on the far side of Jadewater, in a quiet, well-kept neighborhood past the temple spires. Isyllt recognized the reek of illness and anger and death before the woman led them up the steps. She felt the ghost as they crossed the threshold, felt strength and madness. A shudder crawled down her back and her blood quickened.
An old woman opened the door for them, gray hair tousled beneath her scarf. She stared at Isyllt and Adam.
“How is she?” Anhai asked.
“No better. Her mother is with her now.”
Adam caught Isyllt’s arm, pulled her close. “How dangerous is this?”
She shrugged and tugged free of his grip. At least the hall wasn’t spinning. “Take me to her,” she said to Anhai.
The girl lay on a narrow bed, curtains and blankets pulled back. A pleasant cluttered room-toys piled on shelves and books and quills scattered across the low desk, but the specter’s presence filled the room like rank fog, drained it of warmth and color. Salt lined the windows and door, but it was too little too late. Another woman sat beside the bed, gray and drawn, henna-streaked hair in tangles around her face.
“What’s her name?” Isyllt asked, leaning over the bed. The girl looked no more than ten or eleven, darker skinned than the other women but ashen now. Sweat-damp curls clung to her face and sprawled across the pillow. Bruise-shadowed eyes were closed and her narrow chest rose and fell too fast.
“Lilani.” The other woman looked up, eyes widening as she saw Isyllt. “Who are you?”
“A mage.” She crouched beside the girl, brushed a hand against her fevered brow. The child twitched but didn’t wake. “You’re her mother?”
She nodded. “Vienh Xian-Lhun. Please, Lady, if you can help-The ghost is inside her now. She’s fighting, but…”
Isyllt nodded. It lay like a seething shadow below the girl’s skin. “Do you know who it is?”
Silence filled the room, save for Lilani’s labored breath.
“My grandmother,” Vienh said at last. “Deilin Xian.” She licked cracked lips. “We knew she hadn’t had the proper rites-her body was lost-but I never imagined…” She shook her head angrily. “The house was warded, rot it! The whole damned city is supposed to be warded.”
“Do you have more salt?” Isyllt asked Anhai. The woman nodded and darted down the hall. “Brush those seals away,” she told Vienh, jerking her head toward the window and door. “They’re worthless now.”
The woman did it, fast and efficient, while Isyllt leaned over Lilani again. The girl’s skin burned dangerously hot, and they had no time for ice and cold compresses. Ghostlight flickered in the black diamond and a chill washed through the room. Lilani sighed, hair scratching on the pillow as she turned her head. Her eyes flickered, showing Isyllt bloodshot whites and amber irises.
She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she held. Just a fever. Not the plague. The room swam as urgency warred with wine in her blood. She’d never tried an exorcism drunk before.
Anhai returned with a jar of salt. Isyllt ran white crystals through her fingers, letting their clean strength reassure her. “Shakera. Anhai, Vienh, leave the room. Please,” she added as Anhai’s eyebrows climbed toward her hair.
“Why?” Vienh crossed wiry arms, dark eyes narrowing.
“Because you’re both the ghost’s blood, yes?” They nodded. “And when I draw her out of Lilani, she may try this with either of you. And I don’t want to do this three times in a row.”
They relented, retreating into the hall. “Adam, come here.” He came, warily. “Have you ever been part of an exorcism before?”
“Yes. I didn’t enjoy it.”
“I doubt this will be any more pleasant. Help me move the bed.”
They dragged the heavy wooden frame away from the wall, until Isyllt had enough room to trace a circle of salt around bed and child. “Sit with her,” she told Adam.
He propped Lilani up in his lap, leaning her head against his chest and stroking her hair when she moaned. He knew what he was doing, thank all the powers. Isyllt swallowed, her stomach clenching.
She pulled a leather pouch from a pocket in her skirts. Inside the silk-lined wallet lay a narrow surgeon’s blade, a palm-sized mirror, a sack of salt, incense, and a silver chain. An exorcist’s kit-years of habit had trained her to carry it always. They were past the stage for incense and cajoling. Instead she removed the knife.
The blade was well-honed. She didn’t feel the cut until blood pooled in her left hand, feathering across the fine lines of her palm. The pain came a moment later, hot and sharp.
Isyllt crouched at the foot of the bed and stretched out her bleeding hand. “Deilin. Come out and talk to me.”
Lilani tossed; Adam’s hands tightened on her shoulders.
“What do you want with this child?”
The darkness surged inside the girl, drowning Lilani’s own colors. Isyllt blew across her hand, stinging the wound and wafting the smell of fresh blood into the girl’s face. Lilani moaned and licked her lips.
“Deilin Xian!”
Isyllt’s voice cracked like a lash, and the child stiffened. Chapped lips parted and a rough, hollow voice let loose a stream of angry Sivahran.
“Let me guess,” Isyllt muttered, “none of that is polite either?”
Adam chuckled. “
“Charming woman.” She met Lilani’s eyes, and the wraith’s lightless gaze behind them. Deilin’s control was strong if blood wouldn’t tempt her out. “Leave the child alone, Deilin. It won’t work.”
More cursing. Lilani twitched and writhed, but Adam held her fast.
Isyllt rolled her eyes. “Fine. Don’t say I didn’t give you a chance.” She reached out, pressed her bloody hand against Lilani’s chest. Flesh stopped flesh, but cold
“Lilani,” she whispered, praying the girl could hear her over the ghost’s invective, “hold on.”
And she wrenched the ghost free.
Lilani screamed. Someone in the hallway screamed. Deilin lunged against Isyllt, icy dead fingers clawing for her throat. Just a pale shadow to Isyllt’s blurring eyes, but strong with anger and desperation. The ghost fell against her, nearly as solid as flesh, and both women tumbled off the end of the bed.
The salt circle caught them like a wall of fire, and Isyllt twisted in time to keep from breaking it. Her arm was numb, breath a shuddering plume in the frosty air.
Deilin was strong, but Isyllt was a trained necromancer, student of the finest sorcerer in Erisin. She drew a breath, focused, and pinned the ghost flat to the floor. Her ring spat opalescent fire, burning with the presence of death.
Anhai trembled at the threshold, held back by her sister’s arm.
“I can make sure she never does this again, to anyone.” Isyllt’s voice rasped through her frozen throat. “Will
