The Cold Eye (The Devil's West #2)(75)
LaFlesche chewed over her answer a bit. “My gram, she came all the way from the old world, didn’t stop until she landed in Junction and kitted an even dozen; she used to say that we don’t choose our way, the way chooses us. Not sure I believe that entirely—everyone’s spent time on the wrong trail at some point—but there are some things . . . I don’t believe the sigil chooses us, but I’m not entirely certain we choose it, either. Maybe it’s a meet-in-the-middle sort of thing? Like falling in love.”
“Wouldn’t know about that,” Isobel said with a shrug.
“Never fell nose over knees for a shy smile or a sideways look?”
“Not yet.” There’d been some good-looking boys back in Flood, but she’d thought them just distractions, and she knew better than to fall for a charmer at the card tables.
“Ah, well, there’s time. Just remember love’s a lovely thing but it’s not all that’s in the world, and you’ll be fine.”
Isobel thought about Peggy, whose husband had died of illness, and how that seemed to have set her free, and Iktan, whose wife was a tiny, quiet thing who never lifted her eyes to anyone but was always smiling like she had a secret, and Marie, who like the boss had a stream of lovers but none who stayed, and thought she’d have no trouble remembering that.
They fell silent for a while again after that until they came down a slope and to a small but strong-running stream, Steady’s hoofprints clear on the sandy mud on its shore. Isobel placed her hand out, halting the marshal when she would have waded into the shallows.
“If there were a danger, your mentor would have left sign,” LaFlesche said, a little irritated at being halted.
“Safe or no, it’s running water. You really wish to take them across without thinking this through?” Isobel stared at the road marshal in disbelief. Running water could break bindings; that was why most folk claimed land near creeks but didn’t try claiming the creeks themselves, no matter how much their crops or flocks might need it. Crossing a stream was the first thing you did if you managed to offend a magician, assuming you lived that long.
“You’re the Devil’s Hand,” LaFlesche said, squinting down at Isobel in what, in another woman, might be called confusion. “Surely a creek like this could not break his bindings?”
Isobel felt the faint urge to scream. She had done it, not the boss. His power but her action. And since she wasn’t entirely sure what it was that she had done, she had no idea if it could be broken by running water.
There was no way she could tell the marshal that. Not in front of the two Americans, not . . . not ever. The Devil’s Hand. She spoke for him—in their eyes, she was him.
Isobel had been raised to keep a clean mouth, but at that moment, she could have cursed Gabriel for riding off and leaving her alone with this.
The marshal took her silence for assent. “So, we simply stand here until—”
“No, hush.” Isobel was trying not to think, trying not to be distracted by the quiet singing of the water against stone, letting the sense of how rise up in her.
Help me, she asked the sigil, the whispering noise. Help me do this.
Once again, she was in the saloon, folding linens, sweeping floors, kneading bread, watching the boss deal out cards. Flickerthwack against the green felt. Flickerthwack the water against stones.
Magicians were wind, the binding was earth’s bone, the risk was water. Water wore against stone same as wind, but not quickly. Water could move stone, but not easily.
She ducked under the reins and stepped between the horses. The magicians were laid out so their heads were to the outside, their feet—one set booted, one bare and bloodied?—were to the inside. Part of her quailed from touching them, protested even being this close to the push and lure of the power trying to escape, but she forced herself to place her palms on their ankles, feeling the unpleasantly papery touch of skin even through cloth and leather, sinking deep the way she did to bone, finding the pulse within the rush of blood and the give of flesh, slowing it until it was slower than water, slower than the wind, slow as stone and bone, and she nodded once, her voice saying, “Now go.”
The water was winter-cold even through her boots, the thrumming of power trying to escape softened but not silenced entirely, and Isobel pressed forward, pressed deeper, keeping the binding intact despite the water washing over it, until they were on the other bank, someone bringing the horses forward, leaving her standing, stock-still and unutterably dizzy, only to fall to her knees.
“Isobel? Hand!”
She opened her eyes to see one of the men—Tousey, she remembered?—kneeling in front of her, his hand outstretched, LaFlesche’s hand round his wrist, keeping him from touching her. The other man, Anderson, was nowhere to be seen, and she’d’ve worried more about that if she could stop the bells from ringing inside her head.
“It’s all right,” she said, and both hands retreated. “I just . . . Water?”
Rather than a canteen, as she’d expected, LaFlesche disappeared and returned with a tin cup filled with creek water. She took it with a nod of thanks, then sipped, the water burning a path down her throat, then splashed what was left into her hands, pressing them to her face, the cold shocking her to full alertness.
“Do you need to rest?”
“No.” Yes, but not until Gabriel returned or they caught up with him.