side.
The building was dark and shuttered for the night. She undid the lock as before, walking straight past the sleeping animals until she was standing again before the ghosthound’s cage. The animal didn’t even bother to feign sleep this time. He was awake and waiting when she came around the corner, his orange eyes wide and glowing in the ambient light from the torches far across the lawn.
“Changed your mind?” he growled.
“Yes and no,” Miranda said, stepping up until she was right in front of the bars, well within claw range. “I’m getting out of here tonight, and I’m taking you with me. I can’t let you kill Hapter, but I can offer you something else.”
The dog snorted. “You think because you’re a wizard you have anything I want?”
“I’m not just a wizard,” Miranda said. “I’m a Spiritualist, and what I can offer you is my solemn promise on my oaths and my name that if you leave here with me tonight, I will not rest until I have returned you to your home. It was wrong of Hapter to bring you here, wrong of him to lock you up. I can’t let you kill him for those wrongs, but I can help undo them. I will take you home, all the way across the sea to the land of ice, but you have to swear to me that you will not make any move for Hapter.”
The ghosthound’s orange eyes widened, and then his long toothed mouth opened in a laugh that made her hair stand on end. “Take me home?” he said, the words so broken by his growling laughter that Miranda almost couldn’t understand them. “You stupid little girl. What makes you think I want to go home?”
“How is that stupid?” Miranda snapped. “Isn’t that why you want to kill Hapter? Because he brought you here and keeps you against your will?”
“Among other reasons,” the dog said.
“So why won’t you let me make it right?” Miranda said. “I can put things back as they were, return you to your life before Hapter came.”
“There is no more home for me,” the ghosthound growled. “You understand nothing, human. I do not want to kill the man who captured me because he brought me here. I must kill him because that is the last act left of my life.” He tilted his head, and his orange eyes grew bitter. “I have no more home to go to. My capture was a disgrace. If I were to take your offer and go back, my pack would hunt me down and kill me. Death is the only cure for such dishonor. I understand this, which is why I must kill the man you call Hapter. If I must die, I will at least die with a cleared name and my honor restored. My pack mates are proud, worthy hunters, and they deserve no less.”
“Wait,” Miranda said. “That’s why you want to kill Hapter? To appease some kind of screwed-up honor system for your pack a thousand miles away across the sea? Powers, mutt, they won’t even know.”
“I will know,” the ghosthound snarled. “And that is what matters.”
“What matters is your life!” Miranda shouted. “You are healthy, strong, alive. You are worth so much more than the dishonor of being captured by some hunter who got lucky. Hapter’s a slime, his life isn’t worth a hair of your coat, and I will not let you die avenging yourself on the likes of him.”
“I don’t see how it’s any of your business what I do with my life,” the hound said, lashing his tail.
Miranda lifted her chin. “If you’re so willing to throw it away, then I don’t see how you can complain about me picking it up.”
The ghosthound snorted. “And what would you do with it? Bind me to you with the rest of your pets?”
“My spirits are not pets,” Miranda said. “They are my partners, my strength. They are what I have pledged my life to.” She stepped forward, plunging her hand through the bars. “Come with me. If you won’t go home, we’ll find something else.”
The dog glanced at her hand, growling deep in his throat. On her finger, she felt Durn pull at their connection, but Miranda didn’t dare take her eyes off the ghosthound’s to see what the stone spirit was upset about. “Don’t die here,” she whispered. “Don’t let him break you. Come with me; run with me.”
The ghosthound met her eyes one last time. “It is you who should run, little Spiritualist,” he said, his voice low. “Listen to your rock.”
Miranda frowned and shifted her attention to Durn’s connection. As she did, the warning blared through her right before the hand closed on her shoulder, jerking her away from the cage.
“What do you think you are doing?”
The roar was Hapter’s voice, and the hand was his as well. Caught off-guard, Miranda tumbled back when he pulled her. The ghosthound’s claws snatched out a second later, going through the air where she had been to claw at Hapter. If she hadn’t been there, the blow would have landed, but the ghosthound apparently wasn’t willing to kill her to get to his enemy, because the dog shifted his strike at the last second to keep from hitting her and missed Hapter as a result. Hapter dragged them both back with a string of curses and threw Miranda against the wall, putting them both well out of the dog’s reach.
“Are you insane?” he shouted, panting beside her. “What part of ‘dangerous animal’ do you not understand?”
“He’s not an animal!” Miranda shouted back. “He’s as smart as we are. How dare you keep him in a cage like that?”
Martin stared at her in disbelief. “I see,” he said at last. “It’s not enough for you to throw away all propriety, you have to try and steal my ghosthound while you’re at it.”
“I’m not stealing anything,” Miranda said. “You have no right to lock up an intelligent creature against his —”
“Enough!” Hapter roared, slamming her into the wall.
The moment he touched her, Miranda reached for Eril. The wind flew out with a great whoop, hitting Hapter across the chest so hard he flew backward toward the ghosthound’s cage. She realized her mistake when she caught the glint in the hound’s eyes and grabbed her connection with Eril, turning the wind just before the dog’s claws snatched Hapter out of the air. The new gust blew him onto the ground at her feet, and the ghosthound snapped his teeth in frustration.
“Stop it,” Miranda said, glaring at the hound before turning her eyes to Hapter, who was pushing himself up. “And just so you know, I did that for him”—she nodded at the ghosthound—“not for you. If he’d killed you, your men would have put him down, and that’s far more than you’re worth.”
“Powers, woman,” Hapter wheezed, stumbling to his feet. “Don’t you know who I am? I could buy and sell your miserable life a hundred times over!”
“My life is not for sale!” Miranda cried. “Get that through your head!”
“And when will you get it through your head that you already belong to me?” Hapter said, tugging his jacket straight.
There were other men running through the zoo building, their boots so loud Miranda didn’t need Durn’s warning, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off Hapter. “I belong to no one,” she said as Hapter’s private guard came into the room. “My oaths are to the Court and the spirits. You own nothing of me.”
“There you are wrong,” Hapter said, his thin mouth breaking into a cruel smile. “You are a done deal, Miranda. Bought and paid for, just like him.” He jerked his head toward the ghosthound, who snarled. The sound only sent Hapter’s grin wider, and he glanced at the guard closest to Miranda. “Escort my fiancee to her new room, the one without windows, and see that she stays there. Don’t worry about her spirits. I’ve been informed by a reliable source that, since she’s not acting on behalf of the Court at the moment, she can’t use them except for self-defense from actual bodily harm.” He turned back to Miranda. “And since we’re only doing this to keep her safe, I don’t think there will be a problem, do you, dearest?”
“Why you—” Miranda was unable to finish before the guards moved in. They surrounded her in a ring of muscle, and for several moments, Miranda contemplated letting Durn have his way with them. But Hapter was technically right. She wasn’t acting on the Court’s behalf, which meant her right to use her spirits against others was severely limited, especially considering he was her fiance. If she wasn’t careful, this could reflect very badly on the Court, and that was a chance she wasn’t willing to take out of temper. So she relaxed and let the guards take her, muttering insults at Hapter the whole way. Behind her, the ghosthound’s growl was loud enough to rattle the stone walls, but he didn’t say another word as the guards escorted her to the house.
Hapter made good on his threat. The room they put her in was right beside his in the interior of the house. It was very nice, but it was clearly a prison with no windows, no fireplace, and a door solid enough to be a vault.
