Cold Fire (38 page)

“Cat!” Drake strode over and pressed his lips to mine. I jerked away, ramming up against the back of the chair. He smiled. “No need to be so formal with me, darling. Why did you take so long to come to the Speckled Iguana? And then run away?”

I glared. “Can it be possible you think you have a grievance?”

Drake chuckled. “Must I tender my heartfelt apologies? Were you so hurt by my leaving you on the jetty? Weren’t you worried I would be arrested?”

“What makes you think I thought of you at all?”

“No,” he said thoughtfully, with a conspiratorial glance shared with Jasmeen, “I suppose there were other men to embrace.”

I leaped up and punched him, my fist slamming solidly into his jaw. He reeled back, caught himself. A hot spicy scent sparked in the air as his eyes lit and his mouth thinned.

The general said, “James, calm down. You clearly did not tell me everything. I strongly suspect your conduct in this matter deserves rebuke.”

“I want that cursed cold mage,” said Drake, his pale skin gone a blotchy red as he pressed fingers along his jaw. “You told me that if I fetched her and dumped her on the jetty, we would flush him out of hiding and catch him. Instead he escaped.”

I made a sound, like choking on the suppurating taste of my own naïveté. Bee dropped the teapot, which shattered on the tile floor, fragments skittering everywhere on a sheen of fragrant liquid. She looked as if someone had stabbed her.

The elegant woman spoke in a plangent tone, as if sorry to be witnessing such unpleasantness. “I shall let yee sort this out, Leon. Send for me.”

“Of course, Jasmeen.” He took her hand, pressed lips to her knuckles, and released her.

She swept out, gracious enough to close the door behind her to spare the rest of the household my histrionics.

“
How could you?
 ” I shrieked.

Bee burst into wrenching sobs. “You didn’t tell me this was all part of a plot to
trap
him!”

“Sit down,” said the general with no change of expression or tone.

I saw as down a narrowing tunnel a brick wall rushing to meet me. “
You used me to get to him!
 ”

Drake studied me. With a twisted frown that was almost more of a grimace, he looked at the broadsheet. “For information leading to the capture of the rogue fire bane, a significant reward. That’s all very well, but how are we meant to arrest him now he knows we know of him? He had to have been living somewhere, and yet no one turned him in. I find it difficult to believe a cold mage of so much power could have hidden his craft. The wardens followed those weather disturbances two nights ago, but they lost his trail, and now…nothing. No word. No whisper. No ice. No one will talk. We’ve lost him.” The corner of the broadsheet began to singe and crumple to ash.

“James!” said the general sharply.

Drake exhaled. Shaking flakes of gray from his hand, he stepped away from the table.

Cheeks wet with tears, Bee got down on hands and knees to sweep up the fractured pot with her hands. My flaring exploding rage collapsed as into a dagger of anger, honed and glittering.

“
You
,” I said to the general. “What did you do?”

The door opened and three women came in. Two cleaned up the shattered pot and spilled tea, while the third brought a fresh pot and poured four cups for the table. The general thanked them politely. They left without remarking on Bee, now slumped on the floor in the spread of her skirt, like a crushed flower.

The general went to the sideboard and uncovered a rasher of bacon and a plate of poached eggs surrounded by fried potatoes. He began to load up a plate as he talked.

“Beatrice assured me you were eager to be rid of the marriage. Now it seems you aren’t.”

He looked at me as with a question. I stared sullenly back, lips pinched shut.

“Jasmeen says he’s quite handsome and clearly madly in love with you. Youth, looks, and admiration are an intoxicating combination that is difficult to resist.” He returned to the table and set down a heavily-laden plate between a knife and a spoon. Then he steered me to the chair in front of the plate. “Sit.”

I did not sit. “I’ll never let you kill him.”

The general sat opposite me, touched the rim of a teacup to his mouth, then lowered it. “Ah! Still too hot.”

Drake put a hand on the back of my chair, as if to pull it out for me. I grabbed a knife. He retreated.

“Where you are under a misapprehension, Cat,” the general went on, “is in your belief that I want to kill the cold mage. What is his name again?” he asked Drake.

“
Fucking arrogant bastard
is his name. Was there another name that mattered?”

I waved the knife. “What has he ever done to you?”

The general spoke in the voice of command. “Cat, sit.”

I sat.

“James, you especially must learn to control that Celtic temper.”

Drake pulled a hand back over his hair, mussing it, then paced the length of the chamber.

“Cat, hear me out. First, I escape the prison where the mage Houses have held me for almost fourteen years. Quite without legal precedent, I note. I sail to Expedition because my army in exile has taken residence here, out of the reach of my enemies. The Council receives me with great interest, for they recognize that aiding me will open up trade in Europa. Then a man tries to shoot me. Suddenly the Council votes against my request for support, undermined from within. I hear rumor of another plot to assassinate me, one that may involve a cold mage who wields cold steel. Surely you understand I would be unnatural if I did not defend myself.”

I thought of how I had given Vai my sword that night in Southbridge Londun. He had killed two men rather than let them kill us. Blood on his hands. He didn’t want to kill again.

I thought of the two salters I had killed on the beach of Salt Island. Even as one begged for release. Even so. I would kill them all and more rather than let one bite me again.

I set down the knife. Let out my held breath. “Go on.”

He examined me as he sipped at his tea. “Yes, you do understand. Second, Beatrice has a most vivid dream of you and a man.” Briefly he looked so sympathetically amused, as if he had been caught kissing once, that I wanted to like him. But I knew better. “By the cobo hood gas lamp in the sketch, we were fairly certain we would find you in Expedition. Soon after this, Beatrice sketched you standing on a beach, little enough to go on. James approached me privately to tell me he recognized the beach, for he had been to Salt Island as part of his healer’s apprenticeship.”

Bee looked up, mouth a grim line. “You never told me that beach was on Salt Island!”

“I did not want you to worry, Beatrice. You can imagine our concern, Cat! Had you been bitten, you would have been doomed. We had to get you off the island as soon as you arrived. It was easy enough to arrange for James to go there and wait for you.” He took hold of my arm. He was a big man, and he had a strong grip. He slid my jacket sleeve up to uncover the scar. “But I was wrong. You were bitten.”

“Cat!” Bee scrambled to her feet, to come over to me, but the general raised a hand, and she halted, eyes wide, hands gripping the fabric of her skirt.

“Beatrice’s dream saved you, Cat. We saved you. Imagine what would have happened had James not been there to heal you!”

I pulled my arm away and tugged down my sleeve. “He didn’t heal me. No matter what he may have told you.”

“Then someone did. The salt plague is a terrible thing, as you now understand too well.”

“Better than you do.” Horribly, the aroma of the salted bacon had begun to snake its way invitingly down my throat. I licked my lips. He was watching me, perhaps waiting for me to explain how I knew Drake hadn’t healed me, but I kept silent.

He went on. “Nevertheless, I knew how to turn the situation to my advantage. Expedition is a city in ferment. Young men and women join radical circles and agitate against laws that vex them. People have new ideas about what rights communities ought to demand. Those outside the old city want assurance the laws will serve all equally. The story of this unusually powerful maku fire bane excited people’s interest. It’s a nice story, isn’t it? Having come to Expedition, the proud Europan lord is bitten by the local radical philosophies. Infested by them, he rebels against the chains that bind the unfortunate and chooses to join those who agitate against the privileges reserved for a few. He comes to see the justice in the complaints of the plebeians and propertyless and laborers. We knew he was here, waiting to strike at me, but we couldn’t find him.”

He raised the cup to his lip. The tea smelled of flowers.

Hands in fists, Drake muttered, “Dear Lady of Fire, must we hear this entire recital?”

The general lifted his gaze to follow the pacing fire mage. “
James.
”

With a look shot at me, Drake walked out to stand on the balcony.

The general returned his attention to me. “No one knew what this cold mage looked like, except he was a man of noble station, like to a prince in bearing and disposition. Because of Bee’s dream—it was the jacket more than the kiss—we realized it was the cold mage you were married to.”

“Bee knew what he looked like,” I said in a low voice.

She wiped her nose with the back of a hand. “I’m so ashamed, Cat. I tried to draw him, but none of the sketches looked right. I thought you truly didn’t care for him.”

“Because I would kiss someone like that if I didn’t care for them!”

She glanced toward the balcony, and Drake’s slim back.

“I didn’t kiss
him
like that!” I cried. “He got me drunk!”

The general turned his cup once all the way around before he directed his gaze toward the balcony. “James? Are you telling me you took the liberty of your isolation on Salt Island and used it to seduce this innocent young woman by getting her drunk?”

Drake turned, chin lifted as if he had absorbed another blow. “She said yes! She wasn’t that innocent, if you ask me.”

“There’s a tale you told yourself to justify your actions,” said the general in a disgusted way that made me understand why Bee liked him. He looked at me. “Cat, eat.”

The two poached eggs stared at me as if begging to be devoured in all their exquisite flavor. My stomach growled. Vai would urge me to eat. I set spoon to eggs.

“We realized you could lead us to the cold mage, if we laid our course properly. I thought if we could capture him, then we would persuade him that the mage Houses were mistaken in their goals—obviously he already thought so—and that he should join us.”

“What if he said no?”

“You have me there, Cat. I don’t intend to die. But I prefer allies to enemies.”

“You used me. You might as well have thrown me into the sea not knowing whether I was going to drown.” I set to work on the potatoes and bacon.

“We are not so careless. Whether or not James healed you, he did save you from Salt Island. For I assure you, you would not have left the island once you were bitten. The Taino are very strict about that law. We delivered you to Expedition. We didn’t realize none of the locals would talk. By then I had gone to Sharagua. We returned to Expedition only three nights ago.”

Which Kayleigh had told Vai. In fact, the general appeared to know very little about Vai’s situation.

“How did you track us down?” I asked.

“Early on, Jasmeen told me the radical leadership had been informed that a maku fire bane wanted to meet with them to discuss his mission to end the threat I posed to Europa. They didn’t want to meet with him because the first assassination attempt was so crudely done that some suspected it was meant to fail in order to raise sympathies for me.”

“So after all,” I muttered, spearing a piece of bacon as I contemplated Kofi’s suspicions, “they might have suspected the meeting with the maku fire bane was a trap. How odd!”

A smile flashed on the general’s face. “Spoken like Daniel. But after I left for Taino country, the radicals began to discuss more seriously the need to meet with a man who claimed to have the ability to kill me. Jasmeen heard from one of the young women some trifling gossip about the maku’s lost woman. The gal had turned up unexpectedly. Jasmeen sewed the pieces together. With her help, I arranged the meeting and raid the moment I returned to Expedition.”

I choked on the last of the bacon, but I forced it down. Then I picked up a roll, still warm from the oven, and I shredded it into tiny pieces.

“The wardens were not going to kill him, Cat. They were simply going to take him into custody and bring him to me.”

He returned my gaze with a clear, unguarded look. Either the man was a shameless liar, or he was so deluded that he believed everything he said. Or maybe, just maybe, he was telling the truth. “You make it sound as if the wardens are working for
you
.”

He drained his cup and, turning in his chair, addressed Bee instead of answering me. “Beatrice, the world has not ended, dear girl. Your cousin still loves you. Both of you have been sorely used, and it is no wonder you are angry. May I have some more tea? Do come eat.”

How any person could say these words and not sound condescending I am sure I did not know, but he did say them, and they were not condescending.

Beatrice brought over the new pot and sat next to the general instead of me. Drake eyed the teapot with longing. Meeting his gaze, I licked egg yolk and bacon grease off my knife. He grimaced before turning back to his view of the garden.

The general set down his cup, and Bee filled it.

“All has been resolved. Once the necessary ships and troops are fitted, the Council will release the arrested radicals into my custody. I’ll take them with me to Europa. Otherwise they would be hanged. Everyone benefits.”

“If that’s what you call benefit. Aren’t people afraid the Taino will invade Expedition?”

“That hasn’t been announced yet,” he said. “We’re keeping it secret for now.”

“What hasn’t been announced yet? An invasion?”

Bee’s face flooded with color. She downed a cup of tea in one gulp as if she wished it were rum.