The Smoke-Scented Girl

by Melissa McShane

  They turned a corner and found themselves facing a long, low gray brick wall, beyond which leafless trees and bare brambly shrubs spread out past the limits of their vision. The entrance to the park was some hundred steps to their left, and despite the season men and women still passed its gates. Evon sniffed again. “The route’s directly through there,” he said.

  “Then let us by all means be tourists, albeit tourists who were woefully misled as to the season Inveros shows itself best to distinction,” Piercy said.

  But they hadn’t taken more than ten of those hundred steps before someone behind them said, “Evon Lorantis, by the Gods! And his shadow. I certainly didn’t expect to see you here. And don’t you both look so...well, your sartorial decisions have always been unique, Evon, but you might at least make an effort not to look as though you’d been tramping the long and muddy roads for a week.”

  Evon stiffened. He hadn’t expected to hear that voice here. Or wanted to hear it, ever again. “Odelia,” he said as he turned around, trying for a cheery greeting. “How unexpected to see you here, too.” He didn’t dare look at Piercy, whose expression, whatever it was, would make him lose his composure in the face of this woman.

  Odelia Cattertis stood in her familiar pose, legs slightly akimbo, fists on hips, her lips quirked to one side and one eyebrow raised. It was a pose that said she was ready to fight anyone who cared to come at her, though Evon knew her preferred weapons were words rather than fists. She wore her stiff black bonnet dangling down her back, hanging by its tied strings, and her dark brown hair was pulled sharply back from her face and knotted at the base of her neck. A black cloak lined with sable nearly concealed her full-skirted, multi-tiered black gown of finely woven wool, and she wore jet earrings that dangled almost to her shoulders. It was mourning garb, but Evon had known her long enough to know that black was simply her preferred color. That it put people at a disadvantage, wondering how to speak to a grieving woman, was a side benefit.

  “I mean, we’re all aware of your work ethic,” Odelia continued, “so it really is surprising to see you on a...really, Evon, you do realize most people take their holidays when the weather isn’t so nippy?”

  “I might say the same for you, Odelia,” Evon retorted, “but since you seem happiest when other people are miserable, I suppose it’s no surprise that you’re taking your holiday now.”

  Odelia pretended to be hurt, but her wounded expression was marred by her trilling, beautiful laugh. “You know me so well, don’t you?” She glanced at Piercy. “Nothing to say in greeting, Evon’s shadow?”

  “Good morning, Miss Cattertis,” Piercy said in a monotone. His hand was gripping the head of his walking stick so tightly Evon could see the tendons standing out. Piercy had never liked Odelia, even before he began hating her on Evon’s behalf. He was also the only one who didn’t believe that the scholastic rivalry she and Evon had shared had ever become a romantic relationship. Looking at her with an impartial eye, Evon could see why someone might have believed it. Odelia had a lovely heart-shaped face, pink lips that seemed permanently on the verge of a kiss, and enormous blue eyes fringed with the longest, blackest lashes Evon had ever seen. She also had the heart of a snake and a mind to match, all steel edges and indifference as to whom she cut.

  “Good morning, Mr. Faranter,” Odelia said, imitating his deep voice with a mocking bow. “Evon, it really is so good to see you again! Still slogging away at At-last and Company?”

  “I understand you’re working for Speculatus now,” Evon said. There was no point in engaging her ridiculous taunts. “Congratulations. Are they treating you well?”

  “Indescribably well,” Odelia said, smiling coyly. “It’s a pity they didn’t approach you. We did work so well together, didn’t we?”

  Evon nodded, unable to speak as a hundred infuriating memories surged up. It didn’t matter that he’d ultimately taken the top prize in their graduating class, he could only remember how innocently he’d accepted her first friendly overtures, how pleased he’d been at the thought of finding someone who matched him intellectually, how furious and humiliated he’d been when he realized she’d only collaborated with him to make him look like a fool. Their relationship hadn’t been so much a rivalry as a hotly contested war.

  “I don’t suppose you really are here on holiday?” he said politely, casting his eye over the oncoming conversation for a way to leave it gracefully and get back to their task.

  “Business,” she said. “Secret business.” Her blue eyes twinkled at him. This was the signal for him to try to drag the secret out of her. He was about to decline taking the bait when he noticed that Piercy had tensed up, meaning that something wasn’t right. Piercy might be a terrible liar, but his instincts about people were excellent. So Evon said, “Secret, is it? Can’t you give an old friend a little hint?”

  “I really shouldn’t.”

  “That’s a shame.” Evon paused, then let a sly smile touch his lips. “Oh, Odelia, you nearly fooled me. There’s no secret. Really, is your work so pedestrian that you have to pretend otherwise?”

  “My work is far more interesting than whatever you’ve been doing, holed up in that poky old building for the last six years,” Odelia said hotly.

  “You know where I work? Really, I’m touched that you cared enough to drop by. Not that they’d let you in, of course, trade secrets and all that. Oh, that’s true, you wouldn’t know anything about that.”

  “I’m privy to more secrets than you can possibly imagine, Lorantis,” Odelia said.

  “Oh, I believe you,” Evon said as insincerely as he could manage without giving the game away.

  “Really? Watch the newspapers. Speculatus is on the verge of something big, and I’m the one who’s going to find it. Magic like no one’s seen before. We’ll see how important your secrets are then, won’t we?”

  “I’ll be watching the papers for your name with great interest,” Evon assured her. “We should let you get back to your...secret business.”

  Odelia sneered at both of them and walked away, kicking up her skirts to keep them out of the slush. Evon and Piercy watched her go without speaking. When she was out of sight, Evon said, “Good instincts.”

  “Speculatus is going after the Fearsome Firemage,” Piercy said. “I’d bet on it.”

  “She seemed pretty confident. Whatever other flaws Odelia has, she never acts on impulse. They must have a way to track the magician. We have to move quickly.”

  “I ought to let my superiors know about this,” Piercy said.

  “Now?”

  “This could mean bringing Speculatus to justice. I think some of my superiors would call that more important than locating the Fearsome Firemage.”

  “That’s true.” Evon chewed his lower lip. “I can continue on my own.”

  “Is that safe?”

  “I have no idea. But we can’t afford to halt the search while you send a message. I won’t approach her unless I think Odelia’s about to attack. Do you have a mirror?”

  Piercy patted his front pocket. “I may not be much of a magician, but I can manage a communication spell.”

  “I’ll contact you when I find her. Go back to the inn when you’re finished.”

  “I think this is a terrible idea.”

  “So do I. But we’ve run out of good ones.” He nodded at Piercy and walked rapidly to the park gates.

  The park would be beautiful in the summer, leaves in every shade of green, close-trimmed grass, gravel crunching underfoot as you strolled the paths, possibly with an attractive companion. It was still beautiful in the heart of winter, though in a different way, the bare branches making runes against the cloudless blue sky, thin drifts of snow over the winter-yellowed grass. Evon walked as quickly as he dared without drawing attention to himself. It wasn’t impossible that Odelia had companions, and that they were watching him; Odelia’s mind was that suspicious. But it was hard not to break into a run, especially since the scent was growing stronger.
His heart rate picked up, not from exertion but from excitement. He wanted to see this woman. He wanted to ask her a million questions. And he was so close he could, literally, smell victory.

  He emerged from the park into a paved pedestrian zone, a place he guessed in summer would be thronged with holiday-goers and the kind of street artists who painted poor reproductions of the scenery for far too much money. The scent still led directly forward, across the pavement and...stopped. He’d expected it to cross the street that terminated in the pedestrian zone, but it ended somewhere in the middle of the vast brick-paved promenade. She was here. One of these women walking past.... He went forward slowly, using his eyes as much as his nose. Long blonde hair, an oval face, not too tall, young. All the women had their hair bundled up under bonnets or kerchiefs. It was impossible to tell the shape of their faces. And from this distance, they all seemed to be the same height and age. He continued moving forward, narrowing his search. She was in that group of about ten women, but which one? All looked identical in dark cloaks and bundled hair, though one of them wore a kerchief while the rest had dark bonnets. The woman in the kerchief carried a bag over her shoulder and was moving faster than the others. She was in such a hurry that she pushed the others aside and proceeded at a near run across the street, not waiting for the sweeper.

  It was her.

  Evon broke into a faster pace himself, no longer afraid of Odelia’s unseen, possibly non-existent watchers. The woman was moving so quickly that he feared losing her in the crowd. Though she was frequently obscured by other, taller pedestrians, her dingy white kerchief stood out and gave him something to follow. He had to do a little shoving himself to keep her in sight, but soon he found a pace that matched hers and was able to stay about fifteen feet behind her, a comfortable distance. His heart was pounding. Where was she going in such a hurry? Suppose she’d found a new victim? Would he be able to stop her? Would he want to stop her?

  The woman didn’t notice him following her, didn’t seem concerned that anyone might be following her, just kept walking rapidly without looking to left or right, out of the central district. They passed stores with barred windows, tall houses narrower than Evon’s own, mansions that made Evon nervous, aware of his scruffiness and afraid the local constabulary might roust him for a vagrant. He continued to follow her through the wealthier parts of Inveros and into less prosperous but still attractive neighborhoods, all the while heading toward the outskirts of town. The farther they went, the thinner the crowds became, until Evon was certain she would notice him simply because they were the only two people on the street. He slowed his pace, but she still didn’t seem aware of his presence. They passed through neighborhoods that became plainer and more worn until they reached a place where wooden houses blasted gray by the airborne sand and salt leaned against one another, some so visibly canted that Evon expected to see them tip over at the next gust of wind. They were close enough to hear the ocean but not see it, and the air tasted briny and smelled of seagull. The street, which terminated in scrub grass and sand dunes, was empty except for the two of them.

  The woman dropped her bag in the street and began to run toward one of the houses near the end of the row. Without thinking, Evon ran after her. She was almost certainly going to kill whoever was in that house, and now that the moment had come, Evon realized that he couldn’t allow someone, even someone evil, to die in that inferno. “Wait!” he shouted, again without thinking, and the woman slowed her steps and turned to face him. Her face was unexpectedly lovely, even twisted with rage as it was now.

  “Go back!” she shouted. “You’re not the one I’m here for!” She had the slightly broad vowels of a northerner and sounded as if she were pleading with him rather than commanding him.

  “I can’t let you do this,” Evon said, stopping some ten feet away. Maybe there was still hope. She’d stopped to talk; maybe she was willing to listen.

  Her face contorted with a choking, mirthless laugh. “You can’t stop me,” she said, mocking. “Get out now. Stay away. You don’t deserve to die.” She threw her cloak on the ground and kicked off her shoes, then whipped the kerchief from her head and dropped it on the pile. Her blonde hair came loose from where she’d wrapped it around her head and fell heavily around her shoulders. She stood facing him in a thin country dress with a straight skirt, her shoulders heaving as she drew in great, sobbing breaths.

  “Whoever that person is doesn’t deserve to die either,” Evon said, pointing at the house, wondering if it was true.

  She laughed again. “You think I don’t know that?” She turned and sprinted toward the house. She moved so quickly that Evon was caught off guard. “Desini cucurri!” he shouted, flicking both his hands up and out like a conductor raising his baton, wincing against the jaw-numbing chill of the spell, like biting a chunk of ice, but she was inside the house before the spell could affect her. Evon cursed and ran full-out, yanked the door open so hard it nearly tore free from its leather hinges, and pulled up short.

  The door led directly into a single small room with a stone fireplace that seemed more sturdy than the house it warmed. The magician stood in the middle of the room, her whole body clenched as if she were fighting some strong impulse. “You can get away if you run now,” she said through clenched teeth, and Evon realized she wasn’t speaking to him. A short, fat woman rose from a rocking chair near the fireplace, staring at both of the intruders as if she couldn’t believe their presence.

  “Who are you? Get out of my house! Jontis!”

  “Just go,” the magician said. Her skin looked rosy in the firelight. “Don’t call him. Get out.”

  “Jontis!” the woman screamed. She limped over to the magician and raised both her hands as if to strike her. The magician’s skin went from rosy to bright red. Fiery yellow lines, irregular and jagged, roiled beneath her skin. “It’s too late,” she said through her clenched teeth. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m—”

  Pure instinct threw Evon to the floor. He pressed the tips of his index and pinky fingers together and shouted “Presadi!” just as the world went white around him.

  Heat battered at him, dried his nostrils and his eyes and lips and pulled his skin tight across his cheekbones. Sweat sprang up and instantly evaporated. He squeezed his eyes shut and covered them with his arms, terrified that he’d already gone blind in that first exposure to the magician’s fire. His ears rang with a high, keening sound that was probably the blood singing through them, propelled by his too-rapidly beating heart. He panted like a dog in the heat, then tried to calm himself. He only had so much air in this bubble and he was using it up too fast. He could already feel himself becoming dizzy—or was that the heat?

  He risked a peek at his surroundings and found the air had gone from blinding white to a flickering yellow-orange. It was still brutally hot inside his shield, and he could feel himself becoming increasingly light-headed. Either he was going to die of suffocation in here, or he could die by fire out there. He decided to take his chances with the fire. As he dismissed the shield, he sucked in one last breath, just in case; it burned all the way down.

  Thick smoke that smelled of salt-dried wood filled the air, rendering everything in the room dim and wavery. He was just outside the edge of a black-burned, glassy circle of earth, the foundation that lay beneath the floorboards. The fireplace stones had melted and flowed like mud over the hearth. Half the roof had collapsed and all of it, the entire house, was on fire. Evon stood and staggered a little at the heat, which was nothing close to what he’d experienced inside the shield, but was still hot enough to remind him that he needed to get out, fast.

  He looked down and saw the grotesque outline of a human skeleton at his feet, and behind it, the magician. She was on her knees, shaking hard, her hair obscuring her face and her arms around her chest. She was also naked. Without thinking, Evon removed his coat and put it around her shoulders, then half-lifted her to her feet. She turned to look at him, her eyes dull and confused, and said, “Y
ou didn’t burn.”

  “I will if we don’t get out of here,” he said, and urged her toward the door. It was entirely aflame, and Evon had to cast another spell to open it without setting himself on fire, all the time listening to the creaks and moans of the house under siege by the flames and thinking hurry hurry hurry until they were both safely outside and in the street, well away from the burning building. A few people had gathered to watch the house burn, but made no effort to rescue anyone who might be inside and paid no attention to Evon and the magician. She didn’t try to get away from him, only leaned heavily on his arm as if she were exhausted. Evon stopped to pick up her belongings and overheard a man say, “Probably just as well, her going like that.”

  “Never did find out what happened to her son,” his neighbor said.

  Evon half-dragged the magician down the street past the last houses and out of sight behind a dune, then released her. She made no effort to keep his coat closed over her body, and Evon, embarrassed for both of them, turned his back on her and held out her cloak and satchel. “Thank you,” she said. Her voice was husky, almost raw-sounding. He heard her rummage in her bag, and after a few minutes she said, “You can turn around now,” with what almost might have been humor.

  Evon turned and found her fastening the last few buttons on her dress. She bent and picked up his coat and handed it to him, gingerly, as if she expected him to take hold of her again. “You’re not dead,” she said. “You should have burned.”

  “Did you want me to?” he asked.

  She reacted as though he’d slapped her. “Of course not,” she said. “But everyone burns. There’s never been a single survivor. So I want to know, why you.”

  Her directness, and the calmness with which she spoke, unnerved Evon more than if she’d screamed at him or threatened him. “It’s a new kind of shield,” he said. “It almost didn’t work. I think your spell is a good deal more potent than any fire I expected it to defend against.”

  She wrapped her cloak more securely around herself and shivered, then lifted her bag to her shoulder. “What do you want from me?” she asked.