“As if you could.” Jac snorted. “Great Creator, all that love scenting has affected your brain. I meant it’s our duty to check this out.”
A rumble started in his chest. How dare she—love scenting? He sniffed. Annmar.
Great Creator, indeed. Jac had hit upon his damned problem. He’d confused his human and ’cambire sides by scent-marking Annmar in human form. Human form. He shook himself. ’Cambires didn’t often do that because most of their protective needs occurred in animal form, but Annmar had no other form—and apparently it didn’t matter to his ’cambire side. And his urges to protect let his ’cambire control his head, driving out the teamwork he’d tried so hard to apply.
Rivley poked him in the back, making Daeryn glance up. Jac had straightened, and Maraquin stood at her alpha’s shoulder, both eyeing him. Damn, he didn’t need a fight just when he’d figured out the reason for his slips. Daeryn held up his open hands. “Uh, right.” Human. He’d keep to human form, human actions, talking things out. But all he could manage was to repeat Jac’s last words: “We should…check this out.”
Jac rolled her eyes. “How about this plan? You get Terrent to lead us, Maraquin and me also. I’ll let Zar know, but we should be back for tonight’s start. As a team, we’ll check whether the gobblers are using this cavern, then you’re on your own.”
A door opened down the hall. “Youse talking about me?” shouted Terrent.
“You heard right,” Daeryn called back. “May as well get out here.” He eyed Jac for a second, then stuck out his hand. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet. You still have to clear the rest of us with Miz Gere. Three of us should make it back by full dark, but if you’re taking Rivley, a Harvester mechanic…”
His shoulders tensed again. Daeryn didn’t trust himself to speak. He spun on his heel, nearly knocking over Rivley. His co-leader yanked him over the threshold of the wolves’ room. He swung the door closed while telling Jac and Mar, “Right. We’ll handle that while you two get ready.” The door thudded shut, and Rivley shoved Daeryn toward Terrent with a muttered, “That’s as close as you’ll get to Jac agreeing. After this, sweet-talking Mistress Gere will be as easy as catching mice in a bag of grain.”
True. Miz Gere had concerns about Riv operating the Harvester anyway, so he’d bring up a night’s break. More complicated was navigating this trip. Daeryn had to manage it without further angering the wolves, or Rivley, before he settled his ’cambire side.
* * *
Breakthrough Gap
It wasn’t as easy as Annmar had believed for her to get by Mr. Yates with the Proof from her arrival.
“Shouldn’t have that,” he said. “I plumb forgot it when you made Mr. O’s drawing.”
But it was his gratitude for the drawing she’d done of the cat for his wife’s birthday that weighed heavier when she asked to return to the Outside to tidy up a business transaction, accompanied by Mary Clare—for propriety, she emphasized.
Describing his cat’s invigorated constitution—which Annmar didn’t dare comment on—Mr. Yates offered an arm to each girl and escorted them through the gorge. Dappled sunlight lit the rising stone. No chill clutched her, no feelings of the rock closing around her. Still, the walls lay close enough to touch and, when viewed through her Knack, rippled with blue waves.
On the Gapton side, Mr. Yates helped them onto the train and, with a cocked brow, put out his hand.
Annmar and Mary Clare placed their Proofs in it.
“This don’t mean I don’t expect you back,” he said, “but I’m charged to guard what’s ours.” He tipped his hat, and the train rolled down the incline.
* * *
While Rivley worked out the details of what they needed to take and how, Daeryn raced to the greenhouse. He searched the workbench until he found what he needed: a small jar with drops of fungus brew remaining in the bottom. It would be enough if Rivley needed to be knocked out to cross through the cavern.
He wrapped it in a rag and slipped the jar into his pocket before pounding across the farmyard again. Three figures trudged around the drive. He gave the group only a cursory glance—most of the farmworkers were dragging their feet these days—and when Leander hailed him, he only waved and continued to the main house.
But then an even more familiar voice snapped, “Dae!”
He turned. “Great—”
The silver-haired boy ran to him and leaped…tumbling them both to the ground. Chocolate fur flushed across Daeryn’s skin, protecting him from the gravel but not the playful batting of oversized mountain cat paws. They rolled again and again, their tangle of brown arms and legs surging back and forth between human and ’cambire. Great fun, but…
Daeryn flipped up and forced his body to human, at the same time pinning the heel of one hand to a shoulder in a worn homespun shirt—a style he recognized from Rockbridge, along with the grinning face.
He couldn’t help grinning back. “Jeptha Silverside.”
“Ey up, Dae?” The cheeks of the wiry fellow flicked in and out of his ’cambire’s thickly furred jowls.
“My message reached you about helping?”
“Apparently just in time. You look like hell.”
Daeryn patted his former packmate’s thinly bearded jawline. “And this scruff of hair is supposed to make you look older?” The cat ’cambire was a year younger than he and Rivley.
“Aw, you noticed.” Jeptha’s eyes lit up, and he jutted out his chin, making the black and silver mottled hairs puff out. “Goes well with roaming in the Wildlands.”
The Wildlands. Was he kidding? Few ’cambires were welcome in the lands the wolves controlled. But knowing Jeptha, it’d be a long tale, and one that would have to wait. “That’s how you’re here so quickly.”
“And ready to pitch in. You need help?” He looked pointedly at the hand Daeryn had pressed to his left shoulder.
Daeryn’s canines twitched for the second time in a half hour. Damn, what is with me? He yanked his hand from Jeptha and straightened, first to kneeling and then his feet. He offered Jeptha a hand and pulled him up. “It’s not like that here,” he said, maybe too sharply. He waved to the farm buildings. “It’s a business, work. I’m in charge of the nocturnal guards, but it’s a team position, not pack.”
Jeptha tilted his head. “I don’t get it.”
“Instead of alphas, we have skilled leaders—many of them—and skilled followers, and we listen to each other and support each other in any way we can. Trust me, it works.”
Almost immediately, Jeptha’s shoulder shrugged to the thick silver hair trailing his collar. “I don’t see how, but I do trust you. Just tell me what to do.”
That’s what Daeryn needed to hear. Jeptha had always been a follower, a good pack member, ready for whatever, and best, a fierce and agile hunter. People never guessed from his easygoing personality. Daeryn clasped his shoulder. “Thanks. I knew I could count on you.” He looked back at the house. Their playful greeting had taken them to the edge of the pear orchard, thirty feet from where Leander and another man stood—no, a woman with cropped black hair. Loose masculine clothing hid her slight figure, but the scent and sense of her were unmistakable.
Daeryn tilted his head toward the female and raised a questioning brow. “You and…?”
Jeptha smirked. “Like I’d ever be interested. That’s Helen Shadowpaws. Better known as Hell-On-Paws. Just a friend. Another on the cat trails who could also help on short notice. You know me. Still the same…” His eyes took on a faint gleam. “And Riv?”
Right, same Jeptha. Interested in males who weren’t interested in him. Daeryn dipped a nod. “Heh, keep dreaming.”
Jeptha shook his head, shooting Dae a grin at the same time. “Figured as much.”
“You’ll see him tomorrow. We’re about to leave.” He poked Jeptha and started walking. “Any minute, in fact. I’ll have a word with Wellspring’s owner, then introduce you two. What questions she doesn’t answer, I will when I retu
rn. I’m glad you’re here.” Their timing couldn’t be better. Having substitutes should ease Miz Gere’s concerns about him and Riv leaving—briefly, he’d stress—and hopefully get him a copy of that address on Mary Alice’s envelope.
* * *
Derbyshire
When Annmar and Mary Clare walked through the Rowsley station, an appreciative whistle sounded, long and low. Annmar started, and contrary to the societal protocol she’d had ingrained in her before her teen years, she looked around.
Two men dressed in green suits lounged against the station wall, one with dark hair, the other redheaded. They laughed, and the dark-haired one winked.
Heat rose over her cheeks and spread across her chest.
Mary Clare nudged her. “Take ’em down a notch,” she whispered, “with, you know, your special technique.”
She shouldn’t…and yet, why not? At least it’d teach these two not to pester women. She delved into her Knack’s ready blue mist. Beneath the dark-haired man’s green trousers, she envisioned his hips and thighs and between, his manhood…hanging limp.
He grinned and beckoned her over.
A wave of irritation, at him and herself, broke her concentration.
“Go ahead,” Mary Clare murmured. “I’m watching the bulge at his front. I’ll let you know.”
Annmar pressed her hand to her collarbone and focused on the luminated threads. They formed up an image of his figure again. A few blue filaments darted through his flesh, seemingly under her control, like they’d been within Rivley…but they slipped off, disappearing along with the imagined likeness.
“What’s wrong?” Mary Clare hissed.
She couldn’t hold an image. Not with that man. She darted her gaze to the red-haired man, directing the warm blue Knack to him and the clear interest in his trousers.
Nothing happened. The audacity of what she was trying hit her. Engaging a man’s interest on the street was never proper behavior. Annmar dropped her Knack and averted her gaze, but not before seeing their leering expressions—and the gold insignia above their coat pockets.
She gaped. Shearing’s men? No.
Annmar spun away, arm linked with Mary Clare’s. Oh, Lord. Her Knack didn’t appear to work on Outsiders. What if it didn’t work on Mr. Shearing?
* * *
Once on the Derwent Valley train, Mary Clare leaned into her, her eyes questioning, feelings of dread seeping from her.
Annmar frowned. “I couldn’t do it. The filaments slipped away, like…like they had nothing to anchor to. I recognized their coats. Those men are employed by Shearing Enterprises. Though he’s Basin-bred, he’s been living Outside, just like they do. What if...?”
Mary Clare gripped her arm, the trepidation flowing in her icy fingers.
Gently, but firmly, Annmar pushed her back. “I feel terrible enough on my own. Do Knacks only work on Basin dwellers?”
“Well, it appears your Knack only works on Basin folk.” The air cleared between them as Mary Clare forced her worry under control. “You suspect Mr. Shearing’s using a Knack, but that doesn’t mean it works like ours. He could be a mixed species, or even a hedge-rider.”
Annmar put her fingertips to her temples. “Maybe living Outside repels it, or kills it, like their oil did to the Harvester. But Mr. Shearing must have threads. He halfway succeeded in swaying me.”
“But how do the threads get into people and…there?”
“From the fungus in the soil. I saw them go into the doodems, move to plants and people. And between people. They connect the Basin residents. I think I just use my filaments to move ones already there when I heal someone. Those men didn’t have any themselves, just mine.”
“Wait!” Mary Clare put up a finger. “Then the threads weren’t in the machines. They were in the doodems, and our oil.”
“Right, Basin oil comes from Basin vegetables, Rivley told me.”
“If it’s in those vegetables, then it’s in our food, too? I mean our regular food.”
Annmar slapped a hand to her mouth. “I never looked.”
Mary Clare yanked a cloth-wrapped package from her bag and shoved a loaf of bread at Annmar. “Look!”
Nothing was in the bread or the meat, but the apples had filaments, and so did the butter.
Mary Clare was close to crying. “The only other things I brought are jars of the kitchen’s new pea nut spread and jam.”
“Patrice’s jam?” Annmar snatched the jar and opened it. The jam teemed with blue fibers running circles around the glass perimeter. One zinged from a blob at the edge to her finger. She started laughing, half relief, half sob.
Mary Clare hugged her. “Regular cooking must kill it. Miz Gere’s Knack chefs have a special process.”
The jar of pea nut spread also bore fibers, but not nearly so many. The newness of the vegetable, they decided.
Mary Clare packed everything away. “Very well. We eat only the meat and save the rest to offer Mr. Shearing.”
It couldn’t be as simple as Mary Clare said. “How can you be so sure this will work? I mean, how much does a person have to eat to have enough fibers?”
Mary Clare put a finger to Annmar’s lips. “Hush. I have to believe it will work, and you must, too. It’s all we’ve got.”
chapter TWENTY-NINE
Blighted Basin
The path ran crookedly along the ridgeline, buried among the spruce trees growing on the Basin side of the mountain. Daeryn rode Jac’s ruff at her suggestion. He agreed, to save himself from losing the argument that her wolf form could outrace his polecat. Without a word, Rivley had flown to Maraquin and tightened his talons onto the downsized saddlebags carrying their best clothes and boots. Terrent’s red fox form led the way in a gallop.
Daeryn closed his eyes. It’s working. The plan had fallen into place, then the pack—group had come together. If they weren’t exactly pack, the feeling was close enough to settle his urges. Scent-marking Annmar brought them on, but sinking his teeth into Rivley stirred up even more feelings: desire to work in cooperation, the satisfaction of addressing a problem together…the comforts of the group. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed them. Didn’t it figure they’d pull together just when the Collective was falling apart? If only the vested members could ride out the lean times without being at each other’s throats, Miz Gere could get Wellspring running again.
That is, if Mr. Shearing didn’t sway her and the rest of the Farmlands to his way of business.
They came to the end of a long ascent, and a rockier path lay ahead. Jac slowed to a walk upon entering a small clearing. Her nose lifted. His did as well, but before a scent reached him, movement at the ridgetop caught his eye. The conifers hid the source, but it was too big for prey. His hackles rose.
“Halt.” The man’s shout bounced off the looming rock, and he came into view. Pointing a gun.
Daeryn flattened himself to Jac’s back, the blood in his ears roaring. It was OverEdge all over again.
* * *
Derbyshire
Having devised a way to increase Mr. Shearing’s blue threads—if necessary—Annmar settled onto the train to Derby and honed the other plans with Mary Clare. Then after she succeeded in making the excited redhead fall asleep, she hunched into the corner of the last window seat in the car. She didn’t want anyone to see her rude drawings of Mr. Shearing.
She didn’t know exactly what the man looked like without his tailored suits, but at least she had a better idea than two weeks ago. She certainly knew his features and general body shape. To set those firmly in her mind, she sketched different views of him over and over, filling pages that should have made her blush.
Today they didn’t.
Annmar held out her last figure drawing. His face looked just as she remembered it when he’d handed back countless rolls of parchment, his smile conveying more than pleasure at her work. His body… Well, it was masculine, proportioned to him and anatomically correct. Since her last healing drawings hadn’t requir
ed complete details, this should be enough.
Now to practice. She closed her eyes and reached for her Knack. The now-familiar lines appeared in an instant, blue filaments readily replacing pencil lines.
Her stomach wrenched. The image was too real.
She pulled out of her Knack, her hand covering her mouth as the image disappeared from her vision. Annmar glanced at Mary Clare, then around the passenger car to the half-dozen other riders.
No one noticed. She wiped her clammy hands on her handkerchief and then searched her satchel for her squirrel doodem to hold. Her fingers closed on a hard lump, but instead of her squirrel, she brought out another rock.
She’d found the glittering stone in Old Terry’s tunnel this morning and picked it from the wall. Little crystals in it sparkled blue and yellow in the window light, but that prettiness wasn’t why she’d taken the rock. This rock had been wrapped by a thread of the palest gold and still was when viewed through her Knack. Annmar touched the thread, and it squirmed around her finger. Unlike the blue threads, this yellow one flowed like a small snake: off one finger, to another, and explored her hand before returning to swirl its rock.
Annmar left it there. Her breathing had leveled out, so she put away the rock and checked for her remaining coins. Those, and three in her small, beaded reticule, were the last. It wouldn’t be enough to see them through a day in Derby and home again. As Mary Clare had suggested, Annmar had to persuade Mr. Shearing to pay her in advance. Knowing the magnate, it would take a negotiation. Annmar sighed. Surely only the first of many during the long evening ahead.
She re-opened her sketchbook to Mr. Shearing’s drawing. If she appeared to agree with him, would he see no need to use his Knack on her? He hadn’t ever succeeded in persuading her to follow his suggestions, but she had to keep a clear head to find out how his talent worked—and to use her Knack.
She had the skills to carry out her plan, but if she had to block his Knack, she would. Like Old Terry, he’d be able to tell, and that would end any hope of her learning more. She’d do her best to block him only as a last resort.
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