The Smoke-Scented Girl

by Melissa McShane

  “My agents have training for situations exactly like this,” Mrs. Petelter said. In the moonlight, her face had the look of someone determined to prove herself competent.

  “Then—”

  “Evon Lorantis eloqua,” a tiny voice in Evon’s pocket said. Evon pulled it out and repeated, “Eloqua,” and the mirror cleared to show most of Piercy’s face.

  “They’re sloppy,” he whispered. “The guards’ paths don’t overlap, and there’s one fellow who takes long breaks in a corner out of the wind. We can approach from that side, but there’s still the problem of crossing the field.”

  “We have a plan for that,” Evon said, catching Mistress Gavranter’s eye and receiving a nod from her. “Wait there and we’ll join you shortly.”

  “Your attention, please,” Mistress Gavranter said. “We’ll be moving forward on horseback, then proceeding to the manor on foot. When we reach the edge of the forest, we—the magicians—will cast spexa to determine the interior layout of the manor, then fall back to allow Mrs. Petelter’s people an unimpeded view of the building. Please have patience; this is a complicated...operation, I believe you call it, Mrs. Petelter?”

  “Are you sure this is wise, Belitha?” said someone near the back.

  “I am sure it is the wisest option of a host of suboptimal ones,” she replied. “Any other questions? Then let us proceed. Mr. Lorantis, to me.”

  Evon brought his horse alongside Mistress Gavranter’s. “I assume you know the young woman well,” she said drily, and Evon flushed. “Can you cast spexa on the move, so to speak?”

  “I’ve never used it except on spectacles and the odd wall and door,” Evon said.

  “Then I’ll have to teach you. It will help us to have a sense for where she is in the manor, if it’s as large as you say, and it’s likely Speculatus’s magicians will have cast abjurations on the manor itself to prevent our using it on the physical building.” Mistress Gavranter dropped her voice to a near-whisper, and she added, “I suspect those magicians are of better than average capability, if they are able to work so well together as to cast desini cucurri over an entire building. Some of our magicians are not ones who do well under pressure, so I hope they will stand firm when it comes to a fight.”

  “They seemed to work well together casting the finding spell. It was not their fault that it failed.”

  “Working well together when someone is trying to break both your arms at once is very different.” Mistress Gavranter grimaced. “Now, spexa. When you draw the runes on a door, you think of spexa as creating a hole through which you may see. To cast spexa on air, you must believe the opposite: that spexa reveals a hole that is already there, that has always existed....”

  It was a strange way of casting the spell, and the first time Evon succeeded he nearly fell off his horse because spexa was not so much a hole as it was a tunnel that led into emptiness. They were nearly to the edge of the woods before Evon cast the spell properly and had a good look at his bathroom back home. The image was so clear he thought he might be able to reach out and pull the chain on the cistern. He dismissed spexa and sat back heavily in the saddle, swallowing hard to rid himself of the cloying taste of strawberries it left in his mouth. Learning a new spell was exhausting, but it was also interesting and had the side benefit of keeping him distracted.

  “You are good,” Mistress Gavranter said. “Eight minutes. I thought perhaps your reputation was exaggerated.”

  “Thank you,” Evon said. “I didn’t know I had a reputation.”

  “If you tire of working for Tifana Elltis, see me first. I’m certain I can find employment for you.”

  “Again, thank you. I may need to take you up on that offer soon.”

  “Tifana isn’t treating you fairly?”

  “She wants me back in Matra. I’m not going.”

  “I see.” Mistress Gavranter glanced over at her magicians, who were dismounting and making various preparations for spellcasting. “Let us see if we can find your young lady.”

  “Her name is Kerensa, and she’s my friend,” Evon said curtly.

  Mistress Gavranter raised her eyebrows at him, but said nothing more. “To find a person, you should know the person well enough to picture her in your mind. Think of that image, keep it close at hand, and cast the spell.”

  All day and all evening Evon had tried not to think of Kerensa, but now he allowed himself to remember her as he’d seen her last, in her white nightdress, her hair braided and her eyes shining with the excitement of finally learning what had driven her all the long way from her home. He traced runes in the air and said, “Spexa,” and the air parted like an oculus and he saw her, close enough to touch. She lay on the bare wooden floor of an empty room, her back to him, her hair still braided but untidy. Someone’s feet were in the circle of his vision, booted feet that paced near Kerensa’s head. Evon made an involuntary noise of protest. “I can’t see her face,” he said.

  “Take spexa by the sides as if it were a mirror, and turn it,” Mistress Gavranter instructed, and Evon did so. The image wobbled along with his concentration as he felt a cool, soapy something in his hands, though he knew spexa was merely a construct of his mind. He turned it and imagined walking it around Kerensa until he could see her face. It was unmarked, but her hands were bound and as he watched he saw her body and face contort with a scream. The spexa fell apart; he sat on the horse, hands clenched, shaking with fury.

  “Again,” Mistress Gavranter told him. “Time enough for anger when we face our enemy. This will go much faster if you can locate her. Observe.” She pointed at the balding magician and an ordinary-looking woman with intense eyebrows who were gesturing in tandem. Spexa sprang up in front of them, positioned where they could look through it at the house. The lens gave the house the appearance of an architect’s drawing, the walls invisible, all the rooms laid out in stark black lines as if a child had gone over its bones with a black crayon. No furnishings were visible, and the image was empty of people. “That’s the best we can do against their abjurations,” Mistress Gavranter continued. “We can find a path to any room in the house, but unless we enter it and lay spexa on every door in the manor, we will not know where to look for the young woman. For Kerensa. Try again.”

  Evon calmed his breathing and cast the spell again. This time, when the image formed, he was looking at her as if standing near her feet. “Take the spexa and aim it upward. Find a window,” Mistress Gavranter instructed him. Evon grasped the nonexistent handles and swiveled it, and found himself looking at Odelia Cattertis. She was talking to someone out of his sight. She looked bored. The image shook as Evon once again had to gain control of himself. Out of curiosity, he turned the spexa to see the person Odelia was talking to.

  He saw a tall, broad-shouldered man with a heavy red beard and curly hair that hung past his shoulders. He was dressed in waistcoat and old-fashioned knee breeches, but he looked more like a pirate than a gentleman. He replied to whatever Odelia had said, then scratched his beard and stepped away.

  “Can you show him to me?” Mrs. Petelter asked, startling Evon and causing him to briefly lose focus. He nodded and brought the spexa around. The man had taken a seat on an old sofa with the stuffing coming out of the cushion. He picked at the stuffing with his thumb and forefinger and with his other hand drew out a gold watch and consulted it. He said something, then leaned back and crossed his legs.

  “Rayner Valantis,” Mrs. Petelter said. Her voice had an uncharacteristic eagerness to it. “We’ve suspected him of any number of illegal activities, but never been able to catch him in the act. This is an unlooked-for boon. We try to capture him, understand?” This last was directed at her people, who nodded their assent.

  “We understand, but I can’t make any promises, Mrs. Petelter,” Mistress Gavranter said. “Magic in combat situations is imprecise at best. Retrieving Miss Haylter—” she glanced at Evon—“is our first priority.”

  “Yes, I know, Mistress Gavranter,” Mrs. Petelt
er said, but Evon suspected she wasn’t listening. She turned away to consult with one of her agents. Evon remembered what he was supposed to be doing and turned the spexa toward the walls, looking for a window. The room was on a corner, windows lining two adjacent walls. Evon looked out and saw nothing but fields and then forest, then thought to look down and saw a guard pass by, far below. There were three banks of windows below him, and about fifty feet away from the foundation there was a white boulder next to a lone pine tree.

  “Excellent,” Mistress Gavranter said. “Upper left corner...that one.” The two magicians holding the lens turned it as she directed. Evon dismissed spexa and saw, off to the left side of the building, a white boulder with a darkish smudge next to it that might have been a pine tree.

  “Plot a route, please,” Mistress Gavranter told the two, then indicated that Evon should dismount. She joined him on the ground and beckoned to the rest of the magicians to gather near. “Those of you with combat experience know what to do,” she said. “Frigo and forva only if absolutely necessary. If the weapon is close to triggering, we’ll have more fire than we know what to do with. Those without combat training will hold presadi as we advance, then guard the rear. Mrs. Petelter?”

  “My agents will follow as far as the front doors, then spread out to take on purely mundane attacks so you can save your spells for the other magicians,” Mrs. Petelter said.

  “Leaving her free to hunt for that Valantis fellow,” Piercy said in Evon’s ear.

  Evon jumped. “Don’t be so sneaky,” he said irritably.

  “If I weren’t so sneaky, I’d have been caught seven times over by now.”

  Evon retrieved Kerensa’s bag from his horse and tied it securely to his back. “I’m tired of waiting.”

  “How fortunate for you,” said Mistress Gavranter, “because it is time to go.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Clear, bright moonlight lit the snowy fields with a bluish glow that made everyone look half-dead, eyes shadowed and cheeks hollow and dark. Near the head of their small force, Evon divided his attention between his footing and the half-sphere three feet in front of him, a transparent film that rippled with the movement of the magician who held it, the balding man whose name Evon still didn’t know. It was about ten feet tall and thirty feet wide, an awkward burden, and Evon half expected it to be torn from the magician’s hands like a kite in a strong wind. But the magician wielded it with dexterous ease, and the fifteen people who walked behind it had no trouble staying within its shelter. Beside them, the woman with the aggressive eyebrows held an identical shield protecting Mistress Gavranter’s group.

  “This makes me extremely uncomfortable,” Piercy whispered. His boots, like Evon’s, made no noise on the crusted snow; unlike the rest of the party, wrapped in a bubble of desini cleperi, only their boots and Mistress Gavranter’s shoes were so muffled. No spells could be cast from within the area of silence, and while it was possible to extract yourself from it, that took time. So Evon and Mistress Gavranter remained unaffected, to cancel the spell when they reached the manor. Evon had excluded Piercy from desini cleperi as well, since he already moved like a cat and would need to be able to alert Evon to hidden dangers. “We ought not to be able to simply walk up to the manor shielded only by a filmy bit of nothing. It’s hard to believe they can’t see us.”

  “The most they can see is a ripple in the air, and in this light, even that won’t be visible unless someone is very, very lucky. And they’ll only hear our movements when we’re too close for them to do anything about it.”

  “I still say it’s unnatural.”

  “If it were natural, it wouldn’t be magic.”

  They were near enough now to see the passing guard as a figure rather than a moving blob against the brightly-lit manor. He and the dog he led crossed in front of the manor’s front door, moving toward the left. The dog lifted its head, and Evon cursed mentally, gestured and whispered, “Olficio retexo.”

  The guard said something Evon couldn’t make out at this distance, looking down at the dog, whose head moved from side to side, up and down, and it shifted its weight as if coming to alertness. The guard looked around, his eyes passing sightlessly over the invisible crowd, then tugged impatiently at the dog’s leash. It strained against the pull for a moment, then, with a movement that in a human would have been a shrug, followed its master. Evon looked at Mistress Gavranter, who gave him a nod of approval. Evon felt like a fool for not remembering the dogs before. Pray the Twins this was the only mistake he’d make tonight.

  They slowly approached the front doors, the shielding magicians reshaping their spells to cover the groups from the sides as well as the front. Piercy’s observations had paid off; they had timed their approach to coincide with the moment both guards were at opposite ends of the building, around the corners. Piercy slipped out from behind the shield and pressed his ear to the door, nodded, then quietly pushed it open and went inside. Moments later he reappeared and beckoned to them. Evon and Mistress Gavranter dismissed desini cleperi, and leading a file of magicians and agents, Evon followed Piercy through the door.

  The entrance hall rose two stories into the air and seemed to extend all the way to the back of the house. Red and black tile made a geometric pattern on the floor, a trompe l’oeil that made the floor seem creased instead of flat. Creamy pillars marched around the room, supporting a gallery on the second floor from which someone could look down on the entrance or, if they had a very long pole, could tap the vast crystal chandelier hanging from the center of the ceiling. Dark halls led off the room on all sides, and two staircases ascended to the second floor on opposite sides of the hall. The walls were adorned with portraits of dark-bearded men and overweight women, all of whom glared at Evon’s intrusion into their territory. The hall was otherwise empty. Evon checked his watch. It was nearly ten o’clock. Twenty-four hours since they’d taken her. He tried not to think about the many delays. Surely she would know he’d come after her. Did she think he’d abandoned her? His stomach was in knots. He realized he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten—something along the route? He slowed his breathing and tried to concentrate. Time enough for self-recrimination later.

  Mrs. Petelter’s agents spread out through the room, disappearing down the halls, and Mrs. Petelter waved something that gleamed in Evon’s direction before following. A mirror. Contact me when you’ve secured the weapon, she’d said, and we’ll pull out. He didn’t actually believe her. She needed to capture Rayner Valantis to keep from looking like an incompetent, and she wasn’t likely to give up on that just because he told her they could leave. But he was willing to go along with the pretense so long as Kerensa was safe.

  Mistress Gavranter signaled to Evon to lead the way up the left-hand stairs. No one had argued with her when she’d said Evon would go first; some of them, no doubt, hadn’t wanted to be the one to draw enemy fire, and others were convinced by her argument that Kerensa would be more responsive to someone she knew than to strangers grabbing her. He had memorized the route and now took them along the second floor gallery toward the stairs at the back of the building, servants’ stairs that bypassed the third floor and took them to the servants’ quarters at the top of the manor. He cringed at every noise the magicians made, their heavy breathing and wheezing and one terrifying cough that ought to alert every person in the manor. But no one appeared.

  Evon had just turned to Piercy to ask him to look down the next cross-corridor when a door opened and a rectangle of light appeared on the dark red carpet ahead of them. A woman stepped out and saw them. Her mouth opened. “Desini cucurri!” Evon said in an urgent whisper, but two other people shouted the same words and the woman fell over in the face of a triple paralysis spell. Inside the room, people began exclaiming in surprise, and someone looked quickly around the doorway and shouted, “Frigo!” A woman cried out behind Evon, and he heard the sound of a body hitting the ground.

  “That’s it,” Mistress Gavranter said.
“To the stairs, everyone, and be prepared for lethal force.” She didn’t say whether she meant to expect lethal force to be directed against them, or for them to use lethal force, but Evon had already made up his mind on that point. He raced toward the far stairs, Piercy dogging his heels and half a dozen magicians following. The same Speculatus magician shouted, “Frigo!” again, but someone behind Evon said, “Retexo,” and he heard the high-pitched whine of a spell aborting.

  Halfway up the stairs, he heard footsteps running along the hall above toward them. He came bursting out of the stairwell at them at full speed, shouting desini cucurri, and wove through the falling bodies of nearly a dozen men and women before stopping to wait for the rest of the magicians to catch up. They were so slow it was driving him mad, but he had enough sense left to wait for them. Two were panting hard as they came off the stairs, and Evon told them, “Stay here and keep the stairs clear. We’ll be leaving in a hurry.” They nodded, and while they tried to look fierce, all they managed was gratitude.

  He’d gotten a little turned around in his attack, and as he took a moment to look around for the right path, he heard a woman shout, “Desini cucurri!” The balding man shouted, “Retex--” and Evon felt desini cucurri brush past him as he whipped around, making the left side of his face tingle and his heart beat faster at the near-hit. Odelia stood only a few yards away, smiling. “Evon Lorantis,” she said. “The more fool me, for not guessing you were part of this. You found the girl, didn’t you?”

  “Twice now,” he said. “I imagine it’s killing you, not knowing how I did it. How many traps did you lay along our path?”

  She began walking toward him, her black tiered dress swinging like a bell. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’ve almost got the secret. How long have you had her? A week? And you haven’t figured it out, or you wouldn’t need her.”

  Evon wondered why the other magicians weren’t attacking. She was distracted, she was taunting him, and they couldn’t get off a simple paralysis? He flexed his fingers and said, “I’m not as ruthless as you are, I suppose.”