The Cold Eye (The Devil's West #2)(60)

Isobel shook her head, not understanding half of what he was saying, save that the owner of this badge, the man who had somehow convinced magicians to destroy themselves, had come from the East. On orders of their leaders.

Bitterness and bile rose in her, and she flung the badge away, hearing it land in the fire with a sick satisfaction, although she knew the flames were not enough to destroy it.

“Pushing, always pushing, if not Spain, then them. Can’t they leave us alone?”

Gabriel laughed then, and the sound was so clear, so pure, and so lacking in humor, it reached through her rage.

“No,” he said. “They can’t. They never have and they never will. Borders are uneasy things even at the best of times, Isobel. And to them, the Territory . . . It’s a fruit they want nothing more than to bite into and consume.

“But this . . .” He reached for a stick, using it to fish the badge out of the fire, then left it on the ground to cool off. She stared at it, half-resentful that he had rescued it, half-fascinated by it. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

She found it difficult to care. “He led them to their death.” A horrible, unending death she would not wish on any, not even the already-mad.

“Magicians can’t be led to anything, Isobel. You know that every bit as well as I. They can’t be controlled; they can’t even be properly aimed. Whatever they did, they chose to do. And they all paid the price.”

“Why are you defending him?” There was something in his voice, something that wasn’t grief, wasn’t anger. Isobel knew she could dig it from him, could study him and read it off his face, his body, but she couldn’t find the energy to turn and look at him.

“Everything’s paid the price,” she said instead, letting it drop. “The ancient one is trapped, the dead are trapped . . . this meadow, the entire valley, maybe all the way down to Duck’s settlement, who knows how far north . . . ruined.” Poisoned. The scraped lands would never recover, not while the haint—the haints, trapped together—remained. And they were too powerful to bind and ease into rest.

“The tremors?” Gabriel spoke her thought before she could.

She licked her lips, surprised to feel skin peeling from them, as though she’d bitten them raw and not realized. “If the cage holds. I do not think they will worsen.” She reached for certainty, but every certainty Isobel had held now felt like salt between her fingers, sliding out of her grasp.

And tangled in all of that, the memory of claws digging into her, trying to consume her. Claws—and the burning heat of silver, the spirit that lived here scraping out her marrow, curling inside the hollowed-out bones.

“There’s nothing more I can do here.” Admitting it hurt, an unaccustomed failure. “If I try again—I would make things worse.”

The presence, the trapped shape of the ancient spirit and the remnants of the dead magicians: they were aware of her now. She was a reminder of what they could never be again. To remain would be a taunt; it would be dangerous and cruel.

She should have heeded the warnings and never come here at all.





PART FOUR


FALSE CROSSROADS


It took Isobel longer to find the strength to stand than it did for Gabriel to pack up the remains of their camp. She watched him, uncertain in her own skin, shifting uneasily, curling her arms over her knees, her spine crackling when she moved, toes too thick for her boots, elbows and fingers awkward, as though they belonged to someone else, stuck onto her body as an afterthought.

She should get up, help Gabriel. His own wounds were still causing him pain; he paused after saddling Uvnee, placing his hand against his side with a wince. But she saw that the ache did not stop him from bending again to pick up the now-cooled bit of metal from the ashes, sliding it back into his pocket, and something within Isobel sparked with bitterness that he would touch it, claim it, the last remnant of the man who had caused all this.

Her hands slid down the fabric of her skirt, the cloth rough under her palms, as though to wipe something from her skin. She did not know if it were some remnants of the magicians, or the ancient spirit, or the deep bone whisper that lingered within her, or some stirring of all three, or if it would remain once she had left the valley or fade over time, only that she could still feel claws scrabbling at her, the wet, smudged smears of something left within, ground into her, impossible to shake or wipe loose.

She thought of her journal, the leather cover worn, the pages nearly half filled in, the basis of her reports for the devil, part and parcel of her contract. She should write this down, too. But she didn’t move, even though it was in her pack, within reach. It felt unpleasant, all this, and she would rather not touch on it, not even in her thoughts: too raw to put into words, too close to write down yet.

And she wasn’t sure what to write about her anger at Gabriel.

“We’re set.” Gabriel stood over her, blocking the sky, casting a cool shadow over her skin. He offered her his hand, and she took it, letting him help her to her feet, his hold lingering while she tested her balance. Her head no longer swam, and her knees held, so she nodded once at him and he let go, stepping away.

“All right?”

A weight of things asked in those two words, but she could only answer one. “I can stand.”

“Can you ride?”

She nodded and went to Uvnee, who for once held still as Isobel fitted her boot into the stirrup, as though aware her rider was not entirely steady yet. When she had the reins in her hands again, her legs wrapped around the rounded sides of her horse, the weight of the saddle against her backside, Isobel felt something give a little, the brittle crackling softening back to flesh and muscle.