The Cold Eye (The Devil's West #2)(68)

“My name is Isobel. And your trap is fading. Will you allow me to aid you?”

The marshal glared at her suspiciously, and Isobel suddenly understood the expression she’d seen more than once on the boss’s face, when someone took heavy losses at the table but refused to come out and ask what they’d come for, and end the game.

“They are not fugitives under the Law,” Isobel said, and there was more ice in her voice now, irritation surging again. “You have no right to hold them, even if you could.” The Law gave road marshals the right to bring those accused of crimes before a judge, to intervene in arguments between settlers, to negotiate quarrels between natives and settlers if requested to do so, but the Law, like the devil, held no sway over magicians. Only the winds themselves held that, and the winds did not care.

“Complaint has been made against them,” the marshal responded, and Isobel realized?—belatedly, annoyed at herself for the failure?—that the marshal was not alone. Two men stood behind the woman, far enough away that Isobel had not noticed them, faint shadows compared to the flame of the figures in the crossroads.

She narrowed her eyes at them, frowning. “What complaint have they made?”

“What right is it of yours to know?”

“You’ll dance all day if you keep this up,” Gabriel growled, and before she could stop him, he was striding past Isobel, the edge of his coat flapping behind him as he walked, hat in his hand, indignant, heedless of the magicians still pressing their will against the trap that held them.

The marshal did not back down but stared back, left hand dropping to the butt of the pistol at her waist, right hand reaching up to touch the space where her sigil rested.

Isobel had never considered that a marshal’s sigil might be more than identification, and called herself a fool even as her attention was drawn again by the crossroads, the impossible-to-ignore flickers of madness and sorrow growing fiercer as the trap lost power. Whatever Road medicine the marshal had used to construct it, the magicians were perilously close to erasing it—and when they did, they would consume each other. And, without thought, caught in that madness, anyone within reach.

Gabriel must have sensed her desperation, because he wasted no more time.

“Marshal, this is Isobel née Lacoyo Távora, the Devil’s Hand, and she ranks you in this regard. Stand down and let her aid you.”



Gabriel’s interruption was one of desperation, inserting himself where he had no right being, but the marshal had sense enough of her kind to not be a fool, for which Gabriel would ever be thankful. He could feel Isobel tense and then relax behind him as the marshal eased her hands away from her weapon and stepped back just enough to no longer be an immediate threat.

“Been a while since a Hand rode out of Flood,” she said, not taking her gaze off either one of them. Not a fool, but not fool enough to accept them at only their word, either.

Isobel stepped forward then, her left hand outstretched, palm up, so the marshal could see it better. She glanced once, then nodded, and Gabriel had cause to wonder if she’d seen the sigil in flesh before, the way she took it in stride once Isobel’d identified herself.

“So, what would you have done, Hand?” The marshal crossed her arms over her chest and eyed Isobel. “Unless you’ve some way to bind not one but two magicians and force them to answer questions . . . a honey pot seemed my only recourse.”

Gabriel should not have found her description of the trap amusing, but the visual—of the magicians as bear cubs with their paws caught in the sticky bait—forced him to press his lips together so he didn’t smile.

Isobel only scowled at the false crossroads, tugging at her braid with one hand. “How did you do it?”

The marshal—who had not yet given her name?—smirked a little at that. “Not all tricks are in the devil’s cards,” she said.

Isobel accepted that with a shrug of her own, circling—at what he hoped was a safe distance?—the two figures still stalking each other around the center of the crossroads. She paced them, then turned and walked the other way, going counter-wise.

That seemed to draw their attention away from each other, and Gabriel tensed, but other than one of them hissing at her when she drew close, neither made any move beyond that, and it seemed to Gabriel’s eye, at least, that they drew back into the crossroads, their movements slowing to an almost resigned pace.

He had no idea what she’d done and no desire to ask. Let them all keep their secrets; he wanted no part. He moved to gather Uvnee’s reins with Steady’s, rope-penning them with the mule. If they were truly panicked, it would be easy enough for them to pull up and run, but anything shy of that and the ropes would remind them to stay put.

Isobel circled around crossroads once more, then stepped away. Her hat hung from its cord down her back now, strands of hair escaped from her braid to curl around her face, and Gabriel thought that she looked very young if you didn’t know better.

“It will hold, for a while longer,” she said, and her voice was quiet, tired. “Enough time for us to talk, at least.” She turned and looked at Gabriel, the plea clear in her gaze; he nodded once and walked over to join them.

“Those two,” he said, tilting his head at the figures who had kept their distance. “You say they claimed insult?”

The marshal glanced at her companions, then turned back to them. Her arms were still crossed against her chest, but the rest of her pose had eased, and Gabriel was reminded suddenly of a professor back at William and Mary who would stand like that for the entire lecture. He’d been militia when he was younger, rumor said, and had forgotten how to sit down.