I smiled back at that impudent, loathsome face. “You’re on fire,” I called out.
Only then did Simeon realize that the metal had burned through his clothes and was, in that very moment, beginning to singe his skin. With a look of terror, he emitted a scream that might have shattered a window or two of the Manse before he leaped into an ungainly dance: attempting to untie the armor at his sides, burning his hands, howling, trying again, shaking himself ineffectually, and falling on the ground. He was thrashing, screaming in pain, the movements succeeding only in burning him more.
I’d imagined that I would feel satisfaction at his defeat, but I surprised myself by feeling nothing of the kind. His howls were excruciating.
I turned my attention back to Clem. “Are you all right?” I asked.
She nodded. Then she smiled, and as I saw her thoughts, I felt a shock of relief. She wasback. Her will—her ferocious, determined will—was back. “What is he doing?” she asked. She wiped dirt from her lips, turned to the side, and spat.
“The ties burned off, so he’s out of the armor. He’s badly burned.”
“I can hear him,” she said grimly. She sat up and then, leaning on my arm, stood up.
Among the Cisneros men, I sensed a mixture of fury, impatience, and disgust. Norbert Trench had stepped forward and, against the rules, begun to treat Simeon’s burns. The screams stopped, to be replaced by long, breathless whimpers. They weren’t much better than the screams. “I thought,” Clem said in a raised voice, “that the duel was to the death.”
Karl Draken advanced onto the lawn and took up the armor, which had scorched the grass beneath it. At his touch, the armor returned to its ordinary silver hue. He pulled the glinting scales over his head. “Let us say,” he suggested, “that if you’re injured, you may also request medical help from any enchanter on hand willing to provide it.” He gave a mirthless smile.
Clementine, far from being upset at this absurd suggestion, took several steps forward. “Ah,” she said, matching his smile. “Then I’m surethatassistance would come from you. Since you’re in the habit of providing medical aid to young ladies in distress.”
Draken stared at her. He didn’t understand her meaning, and a flicker of curiosity lit his eyes.
Clem gave a small bow. “No doubt you assist so many that you can’t remember a single instance. Allow me to remind you. It was seven years ago, in Ipswich. You came across a family traveling to the seashore for the day. A father, a mother, and two daughters. The younger daughter was having an asthmatic attack. Andyou, very gallantly, alighted from your horse and cured her with medical enchantment.”
“I remember,” Draken said, his eyes lighting with satisfaction.
Clem smiled. “Then perhaps you also remember an encounter with that same family one year later, on the road to Gardner. Your thew lay in the road, pretending to be the victim of an accident. The luckless family came to her aid. The coach driver, who was very spirited, had his tongue torn out for his intervention. And my mother, Lydia Quiñones, also Lydia Quinn, gave her life so that you wouldn’t take mine. Or my sister’s.”
“Yes,” Draken said, looking very satisfied now. “A life was owed to me, or rather to the Society. Nothing in this life is given freely. Your father failed to understand that.”
“I’m glad we understand each other now,” Clem said, her eyes hard, “because on this day it’s your life that is owed to me.”
For the space of several seconds, they stared at each other across the lawn. I thought Clementine’s eyes would reduce Draken to cinders, even without the aid of enchantment, so furious was the glare she leveled at him. Draken’s spirit thew, Decima, stood beside him, but Draken ignored her. He was enamored of the Cisneros Steel, and he wished to make something worthy of this instrument that had cost him so much time and effort to create. Had he been less infatuated with his invention, he might have utilized simpler and far deadlier enchantments. He conveyed something to Decima with his thoughts, inclining his head slightly in her direction. In response, she raised her chin and commenced a series of chittering noises. Clementine watched her, unmoved.
After a long silence, a chittering response came from the trees just at the edge of the lawn. A small, dark, swooping shape plummeted toward Draken. It was a bat. As it dropped down, Draken extended his hand and murmured something under his breath.The bat fell to the ground, flailing madly. Draken’s methods had improved. It took only seconds for the bat, writhing with fierce energy, its wings flapping inelegantly, to transform. Its body and face became human while its wings remained bat-like, expanding to a span of fifteen, then twenty, feet. The face, neck, and arms had pale skin; the rest of the body was covered in dark fur. Her dark hair was long, tangled around bits of leaf and twig. Sharp, pointed teeth gleamed in a wide mouth, and her hands ended in sharp, curved claws. Her eyes were bulbous, slightly slanted. She advanced upon Clementine with a curious, twitchy energy.
She seemed less human than the moth fairies, and as I thought of them, an inspiration struck me. “A moth,” I said quietly to Clementine.
She glanced at me approvingly. “Perfect,” she said.
Illusions require joint casting, which we had practiced only through the summoning. But Clementine was nothing if not a quick study, and our minds had a single purpose. Within moments, the illusory moth, large and fat as a mouse, sat on the lawn just before us. Immediately, the bat creature’s eyes lit with excitement. It dropped to all fours, the wings folding silently like giant, leather umbrellas. Advancing quietly, it opened its mouth wide. The moth opened its wings and fluttered upward with hesitant, haphazard movements. Smacking its mouth, the bat flew off in pursuit.
For a moment everyone watched the dance overhead: the moth skittering left and then right, the enchanted bat diving fruitlessly after it. Then Clementine spoke, allowing the predator and her imagined prey to continue their capers. “I believe it was Orin Hornsby who taught you the method, wasn’t it, Draken? Of using leverage to gain thews for the Society members?”
Draken and Hornsby both turned their attention to Clementine. “After all,” Clem continued, “this manner of thinking comesnaturally to Hornsby. Using secrets against people, using medical enchantment to ply favors, forcing them to do what they otherwise wouldn’t dream of doing. Your habits, Draken, tend more toward brute force. You like the performance of it, and the adulation, which I quite understand. But once Hornsby demonstrated just how much could be gained by manipulating a person’s desire to save loved ones, a new door was thrown open. You could force women to take their own lives, and then take them as thews. The whole Society could have thews if they wished!” Clem gave a mirthless laugh.
Both men stared at her silently. Hornsby’s expression was hateful, while Draken looked merely curious.
“But then you realized the cost. Sometimes the desperation that leads a person to protect a loved one also leads to other, more extreme actions. Was it the loss of the Providence portal that tipped the scales, Draken? Hornsby overplayed his hand. I’ve heard the whole story. It started with a driver, Orvis Brown, who saw too much. He drove a man to the Providence portal, and saw that the man never returned. He was a roper, wasn’t he?”
Hornsby opened his mouth to speak, but then he clamped his mouth shut and grimaced.
“Orvis didn’t know anything about ropers. He only knew that a man had disappeared into the house. Before he could report it to the Office of Criminal Enchantment, Hornsby found Orvis and threatened him. Orvis’s wife, Irene Brown, offered her own life as a thew to spare her husband’s. And then Hornsby made a mistake. He accepted. But he had not counted on the Sor Juana Alliance. And he had not counted on Orvis’s grief, turned to fury.” Clem shook her head. “What a loss. And all due to Hornsby.”
Now both Hornsby and Draken were frowning, but still neither spoke.
“And so, when Hornsby noticed me at Commonwealth, he wished to avoid a similar derailment. He’d already fallen out of grace once. It was perceptive of you, Hornsby.” Clem smiled with condescension. “Most at Commonwealth barely noticed me,” she said with false cheer. “I also learned a thing or two from you, albeit not in the nature of extortion.” She gestured upward.
The enchanters looked back up at the skies, where the dark, conical shape of a tornado whirled over the trees, dipping up and down before veering sharply toward the oblivious bat creature. I could see now, as it drew closer, that it was made of pine needles. Ah! So it was Hornsby who had written the vicious messages; I should have known. I’d been too focused on Simeon to realize the truth: Hornsby was as much a villain, and far more inventive in his attacks. The whirlwind surged suddenly, enlarging and widening, swooping upon the bat abruptly and continuing uninterrupted, touching down upon the lawn. I could see the bat struggling inside the vortex. Every now and then a wing would shudder outward, but as the seconds passed, the movements of resistance grew weaker, and then the creature tumbled limply, like a fly caught in a savage web. Clementine gestured with her open palm, and the vortex began to drift toward the enchanters.
