Iron and Magic (The Iron Covenant #1)(79)

Hugh’s face shut down. The charming veneer vanished and only the Preceptor of the Iron Dogs remained.

“What happens when the beasts come for her?” he asked, his voice pure ice.

“We’ll fight them,” Jane said. “And if she dies, she’ll die as a Christian.”

Wayne walked over and reached for Deidre.

The child screamed as if cut. “No!”

Hugh stepped between them. Wayne locked his teeth.

It wouldn’t be a fair fight. Hugh would kill him with the first blow and then Deidre would see the rest of her family die.

An electric jolt of alarm dashed through Elara. Do I grab the child first, do I stop Hugh, do I stop Wayne?

Hugh looked at Deidre. “I know you want to stay here,” he said. “But you have a family. Your uncle loves you. If I tried to keep you here, your uncle would fight for you. He has no chance against me. He knows that, but he would do it anyway. You’re that important to him. I don’t want to kill your uncle. He hasn’t done anything wrong. You have to go with him.”

Elara moved, letting her magic spill out of her. Wayne saw her and stumbled back, hands raised. She swept Deidre up and gently brushed her tears off with her fingers.

“And if he ever mistreats you,” Elara said. “If he or your aunt ever hit you or hurt you, all you have to do is call to me. I will hear, and I will come.” She kissed Deidre’s forehead. Her magic touched the child’s skin, leaving a hidden blessing.

Elara took three steps and placed Deidre into Jane’s arms. “Take her now and leave. Quickly, before my husband and I change our minds.”

The Harmons ran for the truck, carrying Deidre. She watched them turn around and roll out, aware of Hugh standing next to her like a thunderstorm ready to break.

The truck left the gates.

Hugh turned and walked away without a word.





12





Elara leaned forward, rocking on her hands and knees, and sniffed the soil under the patch of wilting jimsonweed. It smelled moist, green, and alive. She sat back on her feet and pondered the thorny plants. Only yesterday, the patch was in good health, the stems standing straight, spreading the toothed leaves, and cradling white and purple trumpet shaped flowers. Today, the stems had wrinkled and shrunk, curling down. It was as if all the water had been sucked out of the plant, and it was dying at the end of a long drought. But the soil was moist.

Next to her, James Cornwell twisted his hands. A white man in his forties, he was of average height, but his arms and legs seemed too long somehow, his shoulders too narrow, and his frame too lanky. He wore a straw hat and he often joked that from the back people mistook him for a scarecrow. He was the keeper of poisons. If it was poisonous and they grew it, James was in charge of it. Normally he was upbeat, but right now agitation took hold of him.

“Never seen anything like this,” James said.

“Have you dug one up?” she asked.

He turned, plucked a plant from his wheelbarrow with his gloved hand, and held it in front of her. The root, normally thick and fibrous, had shrunk down, so desiccated it looked like a rat’s tail.

“What could do that?” James asked.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“The entire crop is a loss.”

He was right. Jimsonweed, Datura stramonium, wasn’t one of their most valuable plants. A powerful hallucinogenic, it belonged to the nightshade family, sharing ancestry with tomatoes, potatoes, and chili peppers, but also with belladonna and mandrake. Once it was used as a remedy against madness and seizures, but the toxicity of the plant proved to be too high and it was abandoned as soon as safer alternatives were found. Now it was mostly harvested to induce visions. They sold a small quantity of it every year to specialized shops and made sure it came with bright warning labels. It wasn’t a significant earner, but the sudden wilting was worrisome.

Elara glanced to the left, where a patch of henbane bloomed with yellow flowers. Hyoscyamus niger, also poisonous and hallucinogenic, brought in a lot of money, mostly from German and Norse neo-pagans. The plant was sacred to Balder, son of Odin and Frigg. Balder was famous mostly for his resurrection myth, detailed in Prose Edda, but the medieval text glossed over one important detail: Balder wasn’t a martyr. He was a warlord, proficient with every weapon known to ancient people. The neo-pagans prayed to him before every major obstacle, and henbane was a crucial part of those prayers. Henbane was too toxic to be grown and harvested by amateurs. It came with a big price tag.

If whatever killed the jimsonweed jumped to the henbane, they would take an expensive hit.

“What do you want to do?” she asked.

“I want it warded.”

“The henbane?”

He nodded. “I’ll put plastic up too, but I would feel better with a ward.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll tell Savannah.”

James twisted his hands some more.

“Would you like me to do it?” she guessed. “Now?”

“Yes?” he asked.

“Okay.”

“Thank you!” He reached into the wheelbarrow and withdrew a bundle of elm sticks.

The rapid thudding of a galloping horse sounded through the trees. Elara frowned. A rider came around the bend, emerging from the trees. Sam, wearing his Iron Dog black.