David had spoken of a noose tightening about his neck. Was this what it felt like? This inability to catch her breath, a hard knot lodged in her throat, and a pounding headache?
When the man held out his coins, she swallowed back her distaste and took them, dropping them into her apron pocket.
“Let’s begin.”
“For the third and final time, where’s Callista?” David demanded. Oakham’s pugnacious attitude was wearing at the best of times. After a morning spent haggling over two mounts even a knacker would shun and another interminable hour attempting to maneuver through the crush of humanity blocking the roads, David found it damned irritating.
Oakham scoured him with a belligerent glare. “Working.”
“I need to speak with her.”
“You’ll have to wait. While you’ve been gadding about town, she’s been earning the bread you eat and the bed you sleep on. I’d be grateful if I were you.”
That was the last fucking straw. David’s fist clenched, his stance braced for battle, and only a hand upon his forearm kept him from laying Oakham flat on his back in the dust. Nancy playing peacemaker again. She dragged David away before he could satisfy his urge to send Oakham into next week.
“She’s with someone. Is it important?”
Of course it was bloody important. And the reason stood looking at him like he was some sort of butterfly- crushing, puppy-drowning fiend. Corey had accomplished what he’d set out to do—flush his quarry out of hiding. Once they left the troupe, it would be a race to Addershiels, one step ahead of every blighter in hopes of a fifty- pound reward. With the two knock-kneed nags he’d purchased, his odds were as long as Rosemary Lane to a ragshop that they’d make it there unscathed.
“I’ll wait.” He spun on his heel, pushing his way through the crowd. His first thought was whisky. His second thought, hard on its heels, was Callista. His thirst died with a sick roll of his stomach.
For some reason, Nancy Oakham decided to follow. She kept pace, her condition in no way impairing her ground-eating stride. She eyed him like a disease with her too-shrewd gaze. “I don’t begin to understand who you are or why you’ve dragged Cally into your mess, but she deserves better. She deserves someone who’ll care for her. Who’ll protect her and be good to her.”
“Someone like your brother?”
“Why not? He’s not rich or elegant and he doesn’t act all high in the instep, but he’s got a good heart and he’d make Cally a good husband. If you cared at all for her, you’d see that.”
Was Nancy right? Marriage to Oakham would definitely thwart Hawthorne’s and Corey’s plans, and if anyone could defend his wife against all comers, the burly showman could. David had witnessed the man’s crack ability with knife and pistol during the few shows he’d performed on the road, and David knew the weight of his fists firsthand. Besides, if he left Callista behind, his odds on reaching Addershiels alive grew exponentially. She would be better off here, among people who cared about her. She would have a home. She wouldn’t be alone anymore.
“You and your brother love each other very much,” he said.
Nancy’s eyes widened, but she gave a jerk of a nod. “Course we do. We’re family. Family take care of one another no matter what.”
He’d had a family once. And a clan. People who loved him. People who were there when he needed them.
He thought of Mac and his steadfast courage against the impossible. He thought of Gray and his hope when all seemed hopeless. And his heart squeezed uncomfortably in his chest when he remembered Adam, dead almost a year now, and the terrible words David had spoken that he’d never had a chance to take back.
The three of them had irritated David and angered him and driven him mad at times, but they had never once deserted him. Could he do any less now when they needed him?
“. . . and leave before things go any further.”
His hand dug into his pockets, coming up against the torn and crumpled notice.
“Before things go any further.”
Too late. They’d already moved far beyond Callista. It was personal now.
Someone wanted
Someone wanted the Imnada.
A scream threw his heart into his throat and sent his hand reaching for a nonexistent sword.
“That’s Cally.” Nancy took off at a half run, dodging some and thrusting others aside in her haste. David followed, fists clenched, nerves thrumming under his skin.
A pretty, blond woman stumbled out of the wagon, a handkerchief clutched to her mouth. A man followed, his gaze wildly scanning the crowd as if seeking assistance. He saw Nancy approaching with obvious relief. “Something’s wrong. I touched her and she was . . . she was stone cold. I think she’s dead . . .”
He babbled on, arms gesticulating, the woman by his side sobbing uncontrollably into her drippy handkerchief. David pushed past and into the wagon, leaving Nancy to handle her hysterical customers. Moving from bright light to darkness, he was blinded for a moment. He tripped and stumbled over an overturned chair, grabbing the table to steady himself. The candle flickered wildly while the bells set in a row before Callista clanked and rattled, one falling into her lap. She made no move to retrieve it. Instead she remained completely still, her lips tinged blue, her eyes a shimmering, iridescent gold, as if the heat of the sun boiled in her gaze.
“Callista?” He touched her hand where it rested on the handle of the largest bell. Not the cool moist give of death. Instead her flesh was as cold and white as marble, frost riming her hair and powdering her shoulders. He felt for a pulse, expelled a relieved breath to feel the flutter of her heart beneath his fingers.
“Callista, it’s time to come back.” He knelt beside her, cupping her face in his hands. “Look at me, Fey-blood. Hear me.”
Tears formed at the corners of her eyes, tracking slowly down her pale cheeks before freezing like diamonds at the corners of her mouth.
Frightened now, he shook her by the shoulders. “Damn it, Callista, wake up.”
Nothing.
Again. More roughly this time, his fingers growing numb where they touched her bare flesh, his stomach curdling into a tight ball. He’d never seen a necromancer at work, but surely this shouldn’t happen. This couldn’t be normal. What if she never woke? What if she was trapped in death forever?
12
The path wound. Turned and turned again. Right or left? She couldn’t remember. The thick trees obscured her view ahead and behind, and the landmarks she’d noted to guide her back had faded as if they’d never been.
The right path descended into a thick wood. The left rose to a high ridge before disappearing. Neither seemed familiar. She shouldn’t have come so far. The landscape was foreign, the twining paths looping and circling back. She had wanted to lead the Stockton child’s spirit deep into death, where it could not find its way back out. Now she was lost as well.
She chose the right-hand fork, hurrying down the slope and beneath the trees. Here within the deeper reaches, the paths were either strewn with rocks and exposed roots or sucking, quivering bogs one must traverse with care. The trees reached their black and skeletal branches to grab and harry, and there was always the threat of dangerous beings who would be drawn to her warmth and her light. She’d never encountered one, but Mother had described them all in gory detail, making certain Callista understood the danger—shambling, mindless grel and rotting, worm-riddled dead-flesh, the ghostly, shrouded soul eaters with their reaching bony hands, and phantasms whose eerie wails sounded like the screams of a million condemned souls; the world’s nightmares made real.
