The Cold Eye (The Devil's West #2)(49)

The horses shifted and shied as though they too felt it, the mule kicking fitfully. Isobel suspected that, like the dogs, only their loyalty kept them here when all other animals had fled.

How had the magicians caged such a thing, and why?

“Because they were fools,” she said, her words sounding hollow and flat within the circles. “And because they were mad.” Magicians dared where most would cower, because there was only one goal they reached for: to become more powerful simply for the sake of power. Farron had admitted it without shame. He would have consumed her, too, if she had faltered.

The spirit had been ancient and powerful. . . . Having been touched by the winds, she could near imagine how a magician might salivate over such a thing.

But Farron had also told them that magicians did not gather together, that when two met, they would destroy each other. Had he lied? Possibly: she had liked Farron but she would not trust him. Or perhaps something had made his words into a lie. Whatever had been intended, only one question mattered: should she continue? If she cleansed the bindings and released it—if she could release it—would that fix what they had done or worsen it?

This was no mortal thing to be read and understood, to be influenced, however skillfully. It was more, and greater, and Isobel felt the scratch of fear as she realized that the moment she pushed through the protection of her circle-and-loops, the moment she touched that presence again, despite her protections, it could easily destroy her.

That fear scratched deeper, cracking her confidence. Something had tried to keep her from this, had known she wasn’t enough to face it. Had shown her what was bound here, what would destroy her.

“You weren’t trying to stop me,” she murmured to it, as though talking to one of the cats that crowded the alley behind the saloon, half-wild but crowding for kitchen scraps. “I think you were trying to protect me, weren’t you? But I’m here now. Let me help.”

Kneeling again, placing her hand down against the grass, Isobel breathed in deeply once and then exhaled, sinking as deeply into the ground as it would allow her.

Something waited, just beyond the void, shimmering and alive. Isobel did not reach for it but waited. If she had eyes, she would avert her gaze; had she hands, she would fold them at her sides; had she form, she would stand tall, not proud but strong.

“I am Isobel née Lacoyo Távora, Isobel of Flood, the Left Hand. My blood is on the devil’s Contract, his sigil on my palm.”

Forever in waiting, encased in the void, fear scrabbling at her, the memory of those claws tearing at her, the sensation of nothingness, of being forever trapped until she lost all sense of self and name . . .

“I am Isobel née Lacoyo Távora, Daughter of Flood, Devil’s Hand, the cold eye and the quick knife, and this is my responsibility.”

Something moved within the shimmer, heavy and slow. If the earth could sigh, it would sound thus.

Come. Not a command this time, not an invitation, simply direction. It led her along the surface fissures, dipping deep into the earth, stroking along the roots that grew there, and she sensed the bindings that held the presence to the valley, deep bone and soil wrapped around it, smothering its flames, air pressing down over it, flattening its wings, and how they shivered desperately for release, revenge.

And each time it shivered, the earth did as well. She could feel it, her fingers curled around its tendrils, a quiver in the flesh of her leg, a tremor in the bone of her elbow, impotent rage finding the only outlet it could reach. The sky pressed on her, the bones reached for her, and she allowed it, felt herself flatten and fade.

we fight for power, she understood.

The haint had no voice save to howl. The shivering didn’t slow, the furious and frustrated anger sharp and clear as icicles, loud as hail against a wooden roof. It bit at them, battered them, trying to find a lie in their words, a weakness in their defenses it could lash out against. If the magicians had been mad, so too was their victim. Mad, and filled with the power it had scraped from earth and wind before it was caged. There would be no reasoning with it, no freeing it. It was ancient, and mad, and desired only to destroy.

Hold, the whisper asked of her, pressing her down further. Wait. Hold. It would hold forever, but Isobel could not. The haint sensed her weakness, claws scrabbling, tearing her inside out the better to feast on what was within, jealous and resentful; she had come to it and it would keep her, all that she was, for the price of what had been done to it.

Isobel felt it within her, howled her own rage, and as though summoned, the void flowed, molten and hot, pumping around and into and through her, forcing the haint back enough that Isobel could pull at that flow, drawing one swirl then another in pure instinct, looping in her thoughts; You will not consume me.

A desperate, flailing thudthudthud of hollow-boned wings battered at her, then there was a cold flare where her palm would be, and Isobel screamed, her eyes—she had eyes again and hands and form—opening to find herself covered in sweat, gritty with dust, still sitting in the middle of the infinitas warding, in the middle of Gabriel’s circle.

Beneath her, the presence raged, still trapped, still lost, but it could not touch her.

When she looked up, Gabriel was on his knees just outside the circle, his hat off and his face visible in the light . . . the fading light—how long had she . . . It didn’t matter, save that now she could feel the hunger rumbling inside her ribs, the ache that came from sitting too long without movement, the slow fade of the molten silver from her blood, until she was only flesh and bone again.