The Smoke-Scented Girl

by Melissa McShane

  Evon was again unnerved. “I want to understand that spell,” he said. “It’s what I’ve been researching, fire spells and protecting against fire. I think we can use it in the war. Will you—I can teach you the shield spell in return, if you like. I don’t mean you any harm,” he insisted.

  “I’m not a magician,” she said. “And you don’t want this spell.” She turned and began to walk away. Evon grabbed her wrist, realizing how stupid that was only after he’d already taken hold of her. She stopped and looked down at his hand. “Let go of me.”

  “Look,” Evon said, feeling desperate, “I’ve been trying to find you for weeks. I just want to talk to you. Come with me. Just an hour. Maybe two. Then...I don’t know. But—” She looked up at him, and her face was so empty of emotion, her eyes so dead, that he was seized with a wrenching sympathy for her. “I think you need help. My name is Evon Lorantis. I want to help you. What’s your name?”

  Confusion, and some other emotion he had no name for, flickered across her face. “Kerensa,” she said. “Kerensa Haylter.”

  Chapter Five

  It was Evon’s turn to lead the way, retracing their steps toward the heart of the city and the inn where he and Piercy were staying. He had to resist the urge to take Miss Haylter by the hand and tow her along after him. Every time they turned a corner he expected her to take off running in the opposite direction. But she stayed close by his side, not speaking, not even looking at him in the brief moments when he glanced over to reassure himself that she was, indeed, still with him. The scent of smoke that drifted from her wasn’t as pungent as he’d imagined it might be, this close to her, more of a memory of a smell than the smell itself. He wondered what she was thinking. She hadn’t sounded insane, but that haunted look in her eyes suggested that whatever grasp she had on reality was tenuous. And nothing she’d said, from the moment he’d confronted her, fit the picture he and Piercy had drawn from the evidence. How could she not be a magician, with magic like that at her disposal? And yet she’d seemed reluctant—no, that was far too tame a word for the way her whole body had gone rigid as she’d screamed at the victim to get out. It was as if the spell was under someone else’s control, and that was simply impossible. He glanced at her once again, and this time met her eyes as she did the same. Her skin appeared too creamy, as if she had no pores, and he wanted to touch it to see if that were true. Her face was expressionless, and after a moment she looked away. Evon flexed his fingers, once again resisting the urge to tether her like a kite to keep her from drifting away.

  He kept an eye out, as they walked, for Odelia or anyone who looked like a member of Speculatus, casting their net wide in the hopes of catching Miss Haylter in it. It was a pointless impulse; Odelia and anyone she had with her would be dressed just like anyone else. But meeting Odelia had roused some of the old paranoia he felt whenever he dealt with her. Suppose she had approached him because she knew why he was in Inveros, and had used him to find the rogue magician? Evon felt his shoulders beginning to hunch defensively. It was not beyond possibility that Odelia would attack them in the middle of the street, despite the throng of innocent bystanders.

  “Is something wrong?” Miss Haylter said. Her husky voice had no emotion to it.

  “Nothing,” Evon said, straightening and trying to walk normally. All he needed was for her to panic and run away, forcing him either to chase her through the crowded streets or start the whole process of finding her again. He scanned the crowd again. Surely Odelia would stand out, dressed like the harbinger of death she was?

  His heart pounded once, hard, as he realized Miss Haylter was no longer beside him. He turned to see her standing three feet away, looking up at the sky, not moving. Pedestrians brushed past her, but she seemed unaware of their presence. Evon went to her side and took her arm, not caring that it was a stupid idea. “Is something wrong?” he asked, echoing her earlier words.

  “This is a bad idea,” she said. “I can’t help you. You can’t help me.”

  “Just...give me one hour. Please.” Her arm lay unresisting in his grasp. “You can’t know what’s possible if you won’t even talk to me. Please.” How far would he get if he picked her up and carried her away? About ten feet, that’s how far, and then she’d start screaming and he’d either be tackled by concerned citizens or arrested by a stern constabulary, and either way he’d lose her again.

  She lowered her head to look at him. “You don’t understand anything.”

  “Then explain it to me. But do it at the inn, not on the street.” Evon tugged gently on her arm, and after a moment she began walking. He kept hold of her until they reached the inn, then indicated she should precede him through the door. An older woman at the desk glanced up briefly, then gave them both a longer, disapproving look. “No guests,” she said.

  “My sister,” Evon said, “and she won’t be staying long. You don’t mind, do you?” He gave her what he hoped was his most winning smile, when inside he was screaming at yet another delay. Miss Haylter stared at the wall above the woman’s head, focused on something only she could see. The woman looked at Miss Haylter, then at Evon, and began tapping her fingers in a one-two-three rhythm on the desk. Evon slid a coin across the desk toward her. She slid it out of sight. “Good day to you both,” she said, “but your...sister...better be gone in an hour.”

  “Thank you,” Evon said, and bowed Miss Haylter toward the stairs, carefully ensuring that she went first so she wouldn’t have anywhere to flee to, if it came to that.

  “She thought I was a whore,” Miss Haylter said as they passed the second floor landing.

  “I’m sorry,” Evon said.

  “It doesn’t matter.” They left the stairs at the third floor and Evon led the way to the fourth door on the left.

  “Oh. I’m traveling with a friend. He’s no danger to you, but I wanted to warn you.”

  She turned that blank gaze on him. “You’re no danger to me either,” she said, and Evon wasn’t sure if she was talking about his motives or his abilities. He opened the door and indicated she should enter; she did so without hesitation.

  From the en-suite bath came the sound of gurgling water and a voice loudly humming a popular music-hall tune. “Evon? Did you find her? I was just drawing a bath—my superiors were most assuredly pleased to hear about Speculatus, though ‘pleased’ is probably too subtle a word for their reaction.” Piercy, naked at least from the waist up, poked his head out of the bathroom and said, “I—Evon!” He slammed the door and added, “Was it so impossible for you to declare in a loud and carrying voice that we have company of a very feminine nature?”

  Evon put his hand over his mouth so Piercy couldn’t hear him laugh. He looked at Miss Haylter and was surprised and comforted to see her eyes lose that dead look for a moment. “Piercy, put your trousers on and come out here to greet Miss Haylter. Kerensa Haylter,” he said.

  After some banging and the sound of water draining, Piercy emerged, fully dressed though not as sprucely garbed as he usually was. “Miss Haylter, did you say? A pleasure,” he said, taking her hand and bowing over it. “You have been a difficult woman to find, and I say that with great feeling. Too few cities are equipped with adequate laundry facilities, and some of my clothes will never be the same again. So your name is actually Kerensa? We wondered, Lore and I—”

  “Will you sit, Miss Haylter? Piercy, stop babbling and get Miss Haylter a drink of water. One for me too, if you don’t mind. It’s been rather hot for both of us.”

  Piercy stopped halfway to the jug, his face ashen. “Are you all right?” he said in a low voice. “Evon, did she...were you actually there?”

  “I think Miss Elltis owes me a promotion for that shield spell,” Evon said. He held the only chair in the room for their guest, then took a seat on the edge of his bed and waited for her to take a long drink before tossing back most of a glass himself. He felt dry and itchy and wished he could have taken the bath Piercy had drawn and then drained. “I don’t think we we
re followed, though I’m not sure how I would have known if we were. I didn’t see Odelia, at least. But she implied she had some way to find Miss Haylter, so I think we should assume she will eventually find her here.”

  “That’s not good, Lore. My superiors were quite specific on the topic of Speculatus. They demanded that we stay out of their way, and I am more than happy to abide by their wishes on this point, if all their members are as virulently antisocial as Odelia Cattertis. Pity you can’t—” He clamped his lips tight on the end of that sentence, addressed to Miss Haylter, and Evon glared at him. Miss Haylter seemed not to notice. “That is to say, I sincerely hope we do not have to deal with Odelia and her postulated companions,” Piercy finished lamely.

  “She wants to find me,” Miss Haylter said.

  “Her organization wants your secret and they won’t be gentle in extracting it,” Evon said.

  She turned her empty eyes on him. “And I suppose you will be.”

  Evon was stung. “I don’t mean to extract anything from you. I simply want to talk.” He knelt on the floor in front of her and put his hand on her forearm. “Miss Haylter,” he said, “this spell isn’t under your control, is it. It’s something that’s been done to you.”

  She nodded, turning her face away. “Something,” she agreed, “though I don’t know what.”

  “You find certain people, and when you’re close enough, the spell activates,” Evon guessed, spinning out what they’d already learned with what he’d observed just an hour ago. “You don’t choose the...targets. You burn them. And it starts over again.”

  She nodded again. “It drives me,” she said. “It goes away for a while. Six days, or five weeks—I never know how long. Three months, once. Then the urge falls on me, and I have to go where it drives me. I don’t have any choice.”

  “Could you not, perhaps, ignore it?” Piercy asked.

  She looked up at him, her too-smooth skin glowing in the light from the window. Her eyes were as dead as ever. “I tried, once,” she said. “The second time, I knew what it meant and I wouldn’t follow. It ached inside me for weeks, months even, and then I was standing in the marketplace and it was like—” She turned away again. “Do you know what it’s like to burn from the inside out?” she said, as calm as if she’d just asked them if they preferred coffee to tea. “After the first few seconds, it hurts so much you can’t feel the pain. That sounds wrong, doesn’t it? But it’s how it is. I burned, and I died, and then I was myself again and there was nothing alive but me for hundreds of feet, all around. So many people dead, and more dying, and I walked away unmarked. Other people paid for my fear. I don’t ignore the urging anymore.”

  “How did it start?” Piercy asked.

  She ignored him, fixing her gaze on Evon. Her eyes were hazel, more green than brown, and dark-circled as if she hadn’t slept in days. “How did you find me?” she asked.

  The image of himself sniffing the wind made his face grow warm. “I...cast a spell. A scenting spell. Following the, um, your unique....” Her unwavering eyes unnerved him yet again. Even when she spoke, she seemed to live at the center of a stillness so profound he felt as if he were losing himself in it. “It was quite difficult,” he added, though he didn’t know why.

  She smiled a faint, amused smile. “Such a polite way of telling me that I haven’t bathed in weeks,” she said. The smile was so at odds with her demeanor that it threw Evon off balance even more.

  “It was the scent of the spell we tracked,” Piercy said. “Lore is right, it was difficult.”

  “I thought I’d be easy to trace, with the trail of destruction I was leaving,” Miss Haylter said. “I was going to turn myself in, several times, but I couldn’t risk being locked away when the urge struck.”

  “You think you should be punished for something you had no control over?” Evon asked. “It’s not as if you’re doing this intentionally.”

  “Does it matter to the people I kill?” Miss Haylter looked at her lap. “You can’t help me,” she said. “I’ve done too much evil to be forgiven. I’d like to die, finally. It hurts, coming back together, more than the dying. Every time, I think, maybe this is the time the Gods let me stay burned. And every time I come to myself and it starts again. I only want to be allowed to die.”

  Evon and Piercy looked at each other. Evon wondered if the look of shock on Piercy’s face mirrored his. “Powerful or not, this is just a spell,” Evon said. “A spell that has somehow gotten tangled up inside you.” He didn’t say that he had never heard of such a thing before, that it should be an impossibility. No sense driving her further into despair, if that was even possible. He had never heard anyone speak with such hopelessness as she just had. “If I can remove it, you can return to your old life. You don’t have to die.”

  “I saw them all burn,” she said, unexpectedly angry. “How am I supposed to live with that?”

  “Every person who died from your spell was a monster,” Piercy interjected. “Someone who had caused pain and torment to anyone they encountered. I cannot imagine what you must have gone through, but you should not blame yourself for innocent deaths. They were all far from innocent. One man had raped and killed six young women and buried them in his cellar. Whoever put this geas on you was using you, true, but it seems to have been as the unwitting hand of justice. This is a guilt you do not deserve to carry.”

  “Not all of them,” she said. “That little boy—”

  “Was a horrible accident,” Piercy continued. “And one whose blame no doubt lies at the feet of the malefactor. I assure you, Miss Haylter, you may have been the instrument, but you bear no guilt.”

  She looked at Piercy, then back at Evon. She seemed to be struggling with some emotion, something she feared to embrace. “Why do you care?” she exclaimed. “I’m nothing to you. Why are you telling me these things? What do you want from me?”

  Evon and Piercy exchanged glances again. Piercy shook his head, minutely. Evon took refuge in the truth. “When we thought you were a magician with a powerful new spell, all I wanted was that knowledge,” he said. “But now....” He trailed off, not knowing himself what he wanted. Her despair overwhelmed him. “I want to help,” he said. “If I could remove the spell...could you learn to...to live again?”

  “You can’t remove it,” she said, but she didn’t sound certain.

  “Believe me, Miss Haylter, if anyone can do it, Lore can,” Piercy said.

  Her impassivity faded away, replaced by the faintest expression of hope. “If you can,” she began, then her eyes rolled up in her head and she fell off the chair, still in a seated position, stiff and unmoving. Evon jerked back and looked at Piercy. “What—” Piercy began. Evon tore his quizzing glass from his waistcoat, fumbling a little, passed his hand across it and said “Epiria” with his eye squinted shut against the expected blinding glow. Instead, faint blue light played across his eyelids, and he opened his eyes to see the familiar ribbons of blue light, scribed with runes he still couldn’t make out. Rough red cords tangled with the blue, binding Miss Haylter’s arms and legs and neck. Desini cucurri. “They’ve found her,” he said, ending the revelation spell and putting away the glass.

  “Found her, but not us, you think?” Piercy said.

  “If they knew we were with her, they’d have tried to immobilize us as well. Probably succeeded. Any spell that can affect someone the magician can’t see has Odelia’s grubby fingerprints all over it. No, I think they believe she’s alone. Get your things. You’ll have to carry her. We’re leaving.”

  He slung his bag over his shoulder and cracked the door open, listening, while Piercy hefted his own bag and stick and awkwardly tried to find a way to carry the frozen young woman. He was somewhat taller than Evon and ultimately put his burden over his shoulder, her bent knees catching at his shoulder and helping him balance her. “I won’t be able to support her like this indefinitely,” he warned.

  “Just to the stable yard. Now shush.” Evon listened. The stairway was
a bottleneck they couldn’t afford to be caught unawares on. “Quietly. Let’s see if we can surprise them.” He pushed the door open and they silently proceeded down the short hall to the landing and down the stairs. Evon’s rapid breathing echoed in his ears so much he was afraid he might not hear them, but as they passed the second floor landing the sound of footsteps, rapid and loud, came to him from the floor below. He gestured to Piercy to stop and flexed his fingers. Despite the danger of their position, Evon grinned. Speculatus was in for a surprise.

  The footsteps approached. Evon looked down over the bannister and saw three men and the flash of a black, tiered skirt. Even better. He flicked his hands up and out and whispered, “Desini cucurri.” The three men dropped, frozen in place as Miss Haylter had been. The black skirt hesitated, and Evon took a few steps down and around the landing to face Odelia. Shock gave way to anger, and she clenched her fist and opened her mouth to speak—

  “Presadi!” Evon shouted, and the iridescent, airtight bubble sprang up close around her, silencing whatever she’d been about to say. Something fatal, judging by her expression. She raised her hand and clawed at her nose and mouth, then at her throat, then closed her eyes and fell hard on the bottom steps. “Let’s go,” Evon said, and he and Piercy with his awkward bundle made their way around the fallen bodies and out of the stairwell. Evon looked down at Odelia for a long moment, then dismissed the shield spell and took a minute to cast a stronger, longer-lasting paralysis. He couldn’t bring himself to kill her, though he wondered if he’d made a mistake exposing the new spell to her. She was smart enough to possibly work out the details for herself. It didn’t matter. It was time to leave.

  The woman at the desk leaned against it, frozen in the act of speaking, her hand raised and her index finger pointed past them at the stairs. Piercy led them the back way through the kitchens and into the yard, where they began rapidly saddling their horses, shooing away the stable hand. Piercy had to set Miss Haylter down in a pile of hay, solicitous of her comfort though they both knew she couldn’t feel anything in that condition. Pulling yet another buckle secure, Piercy said, “Where to now, dear fellow?”