Weather Witch

innocence and helping put to rights an entire system that had somehow broken down.

Lord Stevenson threw open her door and (obviously having no concern for decorum) stepped inside, holding a lantern before him. A bit of light streamed in from the hallway’s distant window and Jordan struggled to wrap her mind around the time. She barely had a chance to snatch up her shawl before he raised his voice to her.

“Hurry, Witch,” he snapped. “We have places to be today so we may Gather more of your kind.”

“More of my kind?”

“More Witches. They are bringing in their newest Gatherings from all up and down the East Coast. And I will come along at least as far as Holgate. To make sure you arrive safely.” He grabbed her shoulder as she was slipping on her shoes and shoved her forward so that she hopped to maintain balance. Her shoes’ silk ribbons trailed in the dust and she stopped to lift her skirts and tie the laces, saying, “Transport us all? But the carriage—”

He shoved her against the wall long enough to bend over her shoes and rip the ribbons free. Then he resumed prodding and pushing her down the hall and the stairs, across the main hall, and finally out into the sunlight.

Her golden gown sparkling in the morning’s first light, she realized there would be no more carriage rides until she cleared her name.

Behind the carriage and its horses stood a wagon with heavy-boned horses all its own. They were harnessed tightly to their wheeled burden, their hooves broad and black, legs and necks thick with cords of muscle.

The wagon reminded her of one she had seen the day Rowen sneaked her into the Below for an incoming circus they would otherwise have not been allowed to attend. There had been wagons much like this one in the long line pulling into Philadelphia. Heavy-framed on wide wooden-spoked and steel-tired wheels, the wagon’s body was framed with long metal bars creating a cage.

Her brain slowed at the thought, realizing how easily she’d moved from caged animals in her birthday’s menagerie to caged people. “You mean to put us in there? Like animals?”

“You are Witches,” Stevenson reminded. “Oh. Oh, you really don’t know, do you? You are no longer afforded any special treatment. You no longer rank.” He looked at her and wiped at the tip of his nose. “Though I daresay you will smell rank at the journey’s end.”

She stared at him, stunned.

“It sometimes amazes me,” he admitted, “considering your education and money, how ignorant your rank can be.

“Load the girl,” he ordered a Wraith, shoving her forward one more time.

Hissing, the Wraith closed its hand on her, hauling her along toward the back of the wagon and the door with its bulky antiquated lock.

She scrambled up three slanting steps and fell into the cage, landing on fresh straw spread across the wagon’s bottom. Straw. Like she was livestock! The door clanged shut, and the wagon rattled as the lock snapped closed and the wagon lurched forward, rocking from side to side nearly as much as it crawled ahead.

Jordan tried standing, holding the bars for support, but the jerking and jostling of the wagon over uneven roads pitched her to her knees again and again. Finally she sat, adjusted her skirts so she was as ladylike as could be given such circumstances, and leaned her back on the bars to watch the countryside pass by.

Through forests thick with wildlife that scurried, flew, and sang from the treetops and across cleared swaths of land where small clusters of houses gathered together and called themselves villages they went, the wagon groaning and Jordan becoming increasingly sore. The road narrowed as they climbed into strange foothills. At rare moments Jordan glimpsed water miles away and far below, sparkling like a bed of shifting sapphires.

She scooted to the other side of the wagon, clutched the bars, and pressed her face against them to get a better view. The water was so wide! She had never been allowed to view such a large body of water. Her father said seeing such places (especially the sea) did strange things to a man or a woman—gave them what he called “the longing,” a desire for adventure aboard ship.

Jordan snorted and sat back, her eyes searching for water between the stocky hills. She crossed her arms. Her father was odd about some things. She felt no longing. Yes, she might admit a fascination with such a large body of water but she had heard enough tales of the Merrow to have no desire to board any ship—not even the aptly named Cutter, its hull bristling with blades for slicing waterborne enemies to ribbons. No. She had no longing to be on any ship. Or in any wagon.

She peered out from under the wagon’s roof. No. Not even an airship gliding through the sky and cutting through clouds or stealing thunder for its newly rumored thermo-acoustic engine could tempt her aboard. No. Certainly not. She was Grounded and would stay that way.

On horseback now, the Councilman dropped back to ride beside the wagon. Jordan tipped her chin up and looked away in defiance. She would prove she was no Witch. She would forgive them the indignities they had served her and might even be so gracious as to not mention it again in public.

Stevenson pressed his horse close to the wagon and smiled. “It won’t be long now,” he assured. “And you’ll be with your own kind. All will be right as rain,” he said, his tone mocking.

But beneath his slick smile she remembered the threat. If she could not be Made she would be made to disappear. And there was only one way to do that.

Murder.

Chapter Nine

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night …

—WALT WHITMAN

Philadelphia

The young man no longer stuck to the shadows, no longer waited until nightfall to work his magick—or mischief, as those Grounded would claim. He was tall and broad of shoulder with dark hair and gray eyes and a coolness about him that made people think of first frosts and snowfalls. And with good reason.

Because Marion Kruse was a coldhearted young man.

Truth be told, he wanted nothing more than to return to a simpler time. A time he didn’t wander the roads and towns doing small things to amuse himself and set others to wondering. He wanted nothing more than to be back at his mother’s feet, reading books about pirates and scoundrels that made her laugh and tell him and his brother to never grow up to be wicked—that goodness was its own reward. He wanted nothing more than to grow fat on Chloe’s generously proportioned biscuits and call her “nanny” again. Nothing more than to go fox hunting with his father and friends (even that frustrating pretty boy Rowen Burchette) and dance with an attractive girl.

He wanted nothing more than to go back to before he’d been Made.

But Marion had been taught that going back was nigh unto impossible.

For a few years after his escape he had drifted through the forests and along strange roadways, meeting people and learning more about them than he’d ever known before. Too often knowing more meant respecting them less. But over the years he kept drifting closer and closer to his home city of Philadelphia. Not intentionally, but one night he looked up at the stars and realized they were nearly in the exact position as those he’d watched from his bedchamber on the Hill.

He paused on the sidewalk by a window box filled with begonias. They were his mother’s favorite. So he moved on, glancing at the sky and the airships hanging there, big glass-bottomed airboats fat as fruit in fall. He lifted his face to better view the shadowy bellies of the ships overhead and wondered how many were infested with pirates—or respected captains with a pirate’s worldview. The airships were modern ones with wings, rudders, and a large balloon keeping them aloft even when their Weather Witch of a Conductor could not. They