Chemistry of Magic: Unexpected Magic Book Five (Unexpected Magic #5)(86)

Will scooped up the shivering terrier pup, stroking its bristly coat and searching for injury. He thought he found blood, and the rear leg appeared hurt. That was a discovery he would not relate to the worried lady, but it raised his hackles. This was a pampered puppy, not an animal accustomed to roaming wild. Damage like this usually happened from human brutality.

“A puppy. She may be injured.” He held up the creature in the palm of his ungloved hand to show her.

“The child may be crying for her dog!” she exclaimed.

Will thought he might almost follow the path of that thought.

She reached for the bedraggled creature. “She’s small enough to fit in my pocket. Will that keep her warm enough for now?”

He would rather take the dog back to the house to tend it than chase after unseen, unheard children at the insane demand of a woman who heard what others did not. But the presence of a pampered puppy asked questions he couldn’t answer.

He fed the puppy from the treats in his pocket and let the terrier sniff the lady’s much sweeter smelling hands. It scrambled eagerly to reach her. She cuddled him in her lap, stroking him into calmness. “A child’s pet?”

“Possibly,” he said gruffly, climbing back into the saddle. Quelling his resistance to tamper with a strange dog’s mind, he probed until he saw the puppy’s scrambled, page-flipping thoughts.

He might not read textbooks with fluency, but he could grab scenes from a dog’s mind with enough accuracy to react in horror. Blood, unbelievable amounts of blood. And screams. And pain.

Unable, and unwilling, to explain those impressions, Will merely urged the horse into a trot, ordering Ajax to follow the puppy’s scent. He appreciated that the lady didn’t question his path.

His Malcolm sisters-in-law were nonstop chatterers, so he’d never thought of Lady Aurelia in the same manner as her cousins. Except he knew that her father was descended from one of the more mad of the Malcolm witches—one who heard spirit voices and saw ghosts. He didn’t think the puppy was a ghost or that the scene of carnage in its mind was from beyond the veil, but it was possible that the lady might be hearing more than was evident in the real world.

Double damn and twice the trouble.

With an inexorable sense of foreboding, he led the way in silence, through darkness, until they reached the bottom of the steep hill. Ajax yipped and raced toward the south. The cold night air nipped at Will’s nose, but this flat path was safer than the downhill one.

“I hear her!” the lady cried in a low voice. “We’re close.”

Will heard nothing human. He connected his mind to Ajax, sifting through the sounds and scents—until he heard a child’s quiet weeping through the dog’s ears. His stomach lurched, and he sent the lady a narrowed look. “Do you hear her in your head or with your ears?” he asked, cursing himself as he did. Ives curiosity often won over common sense.

“Both,” she said curtly, straining to hear the impossible.

She seemed agitated but didn’t do anything reckless like sending her horse galloping through the rocks to reach the invisible. He’d always known the lady as a cautious creature who seemed better suited to a fairy garden than the real world. Her reply proved him right.

“There, by those boulders,” she whispered, distracting his wandering thoughts.

The terrain she indicated was too rough for their mounts. Keeping an eye on Ajax, Will found a grassy patch by the creek not far from the boulders. He dismounted and would have followed the dog alone, but the lady’s impatient reaction forced him to reconsider.

“You’ll terrify her. Help me down.”

The night couldn’t be any weirder. Will clasped the lady’s tiny waist—he’d been right, his hands circled her—and lifted her down. She smelled of cakes and biscuits, weighed almost nothing, and he had a need to cradle her against him. At the notion, he practically dropped her and backed away.

She didn’t seem to notice. Removing the puppy from her pocket, she cuddled it in her arms, letting it sniff the air and whimper expectantly. Without hesitation, she lifted her skirt and cloak and picked her way across the stones toward Ajax, who had begun to yip quietly.

Feeling like an unnecessary appurtenance, Will tagged along. If the child had been crying, it wasn’t now. That did not bode well.