Spiral Path (Night Calls Series Book 3) (28 page)

Was it me you waited
for, and can we go back inside now?

The Cat stood up. I took one step back, but he wasn’t paying
any attention to me. He was watching the maze. I caught movement and turned to
face the entrance.

I had been so busy cautioning myself to avoid entering the
maze that I hadn’t thought about something coming out of it.

At first it looked large, but the closer it came, the
smaller it looked, until it seemed to solidify into something about as tall as
I am, and as deep as I’m tall. It was as misty as the floor of the maze. Smoke
puffed bluish close to the ground by its front feet, but never rose to obscure
the creature.

Its legs were long and slender, the feet cloven, the form as
dainty as an Arab horse. Two things were different . . . the long wisps of hair
attached to its—his—chin, and the beginnings of a horn, no longer than my hand,
protruding from his forehead.

This foal was a unicorn.

My unicorn?

He was the reason I had come to Windward when I did, but I
had not had time to think about him much. He couldn’t be any older than . . . I
stared. He was months old, at the least. How could it be my unicorn, unless
they grow differently than horses?

Of course it made sense that they grew differently from
horses.

The tiny unicorn stepped out of the maze, walked right up to
me, and shoved his nose against my shoulder. He looked ghostly, but he felt as
solid as I am.

Remembering how easily I had been entranced, I wasn’t sure
what to do. Could a young one do something like that? Where was his mother, or
his aunt?

Somewhere out there was also a father, and that might be a
really big animal.

Allie!
The mind
voice was high, like a reed pipe.

I touched his nose.

Oh, I had felt soft things before, but none rivaled the coat
of a unicorn. Even through my gloves I could feel my fingers sinking into his
thick, soft plush. His mother had been sleek, but not like this . . .
or was that the deception of a spell?
Are
you capable of a spell yet, little one, or is this your true form?
His huge
eyes were the dark, dark water of his mother, a deep blue, like the elderberries
we harvested every year.

The foal paced sideways to look back into the maze.
Gift!

Hummmm. So was he offering me a gift, or was I supposed to
be a gift for someone else? My legs tightened, ready to spring.

Something was walking through the maze. It looked human . . .
or human-shaped. I stepped backward several paces, folding my palm over the
hilt of my hunting knife.

He stopped at the mouth of the maze, the wind behind him
lifting stray locks of dark hair and ruffling the fringe of his leather jacket.
In the pale moonlight, I could not be positive of what I saw, but if it wasn’t
Shaw Kristinsson, then it was a blessed good imitation. The same long walk, the
same alert, slight tilt to the head. Pale and dark, much the way Death had
shown himself to me in the remnants of Hudson-on-the-Bend.

But Shaw had gray irises, not black like Azrael’s eyes. They
could be very dark, but I knew the truth. Sometimes his gaze was as soft as
mist, and sometimes it threatened like a thunderhead. Now? His eyes were dark,
but not frightening. And the whiskers were gone.

So Shaw had decided to shave off his new whiskers. I
wondered if he’d done it because a girl he’d kissed had complained, and I found
myself ridiculously annoyed at the thought of that unknown girl. I even forgot
to be nervous.

How could I be sure? Was this a doppelganger?

My Good Friend, if he was close by, was silent.

“
Which
pattern has your mother used to create several quilts?” I said aloud.

He stared at me, the ghost of his smile hesitating. “Irish
Chain?” he said finally, his words a question.

That was a true answer. So unless something had been
watching me a long time, and was a shapeshifter, this was probably Shaw.

I stepped closer. “Hello! What are you doing out on such a
cold night?”

Shaw’s face relaxed, his smile growing until I could
actually see a flash of teeth. “I’m your postmaster.” Touching the horn buttons
on his deerskin coat, Shaw opened the top and pulled out a packet of something
wrapped in oilcloth. “Cory gathered up everything for you, and then let me
practice bringing things through a maze.”

It was a good-sized bundle. I extended my hand, but he held
on to it tightly. “It’s bulky. Let me take it to the door for you.”

Well, I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t supposed to go off the grounds.
After that business with the door in the stables, would the Livingstons want to
know about everyone who set foot on the property?

“
Cory
said that he would tell the Livingstons that I was coming,” Shaw added,
apparently sensing that I was concerned.

Well, someone could
have told me,
I thought, and then wondered how. How far could thoughts
travel? Not from Marta’s home to Hudson-on-the-Bend, and I was much farther
away from them than that. I suppose you could say that The Cat had told me.

I looked down at The Cat. He ignored us both, scalloping
against the leg of the unicorn in the arched back, twisty way that cats do,
even as he was touching noses with—

“
What is that?”
I said, my words strangled.

It took everything I had not to jump back. The pale
moonlight had bleached nearly everything in sight, but not the small creature
exchanging greetings with The Cat. The animal glowed with its own swirling
colors, flickering chicory blue and hints of purple coneflower. It was raccoon-shaped,
a bit like a small cat or fox, with a white mask and a dark-and-white-striped
tail. The body was very dark, and gleamed as if sunlight was making those
gorgeous pale colors—like looking through a tiny rainbow.

“
The
smoke?” I added quickly, clutching Shaw’s arm.

“
That’s
what I was following,” he said, setting his hand over mine. “I would have been
here earlier, but I saw it, and I had to see if I could get closer. It’s a
glenngarseea.”

“
A
glen-gar-see-a?” I repeated, not using the Spanish lilt he gave to the word.

“
If
my
Denizens of the Night
is correct,”
was Shaw’s answer. “You don’t see them very often. Not a lot is known about
them.”

“
It
hides in smoke?” I asked, loosening my death grip on his arm.

“
It’s
seen most often inside mazes and labyrinths. I was hoping to get a good look at
it, so I followed it around.”

“
So
you weren’t following the unicorn?” I said, trying to sound normal. Even
through two layers of cloth, Shaw’s hand was very warm.

“
Not
at first. But I followed the
glenn
around a corner, and there was the
unicorn. He seems to like you.” Shaw smiled as he spoke.

I considered telling Shaw that I did not want to hear any
unicorn jokes, but then he said: “He knows that you have a good heart. Someone
who is pure of heart can always attract a unicorn.”

I couldn’t really complain about that.

“
Have
you ever seen a hag?” I blurted out.

Well, that was unexpected.

Seems I was more upset than I knew.

“
Only
a drawing of one. Why do you ask?” Shaw replied, so of course I had to tell
him. When I started talking about green, slimy arms and water dripping on my
ritual circle, Shaw actually interrupted. “Start at the beginning.” He stepped
to one side, moving along the path that separated the house from the formal
gardens. I looked back. The unicorn, the
glenngarseea,
and the cat followed
in a straight line.

We had our own parade.

I hoped no one was looking out at us.

I glanced up . . . dark outlines filled the windows.

Oh, well.

I began my story with entering the ritual chamber, and did
not finish until I had tossed the last of the bloody water on the fire. Shaw’s
arm was rigid.

“
He’s
not careful enough of you.” There was no tone to Shaw’s voice—no rise and fall
of syllables at all.

“
Oh,
I don’t think he would have let me get killed,” I replied, trying to sound
cheerful. Truth was, I might have gotten hurt. But Marta thought this was the
fastest way for me to learn ritual protection. So here I would stay.

“
But
you could have been injured before he stopped the hag,” was Shaw’s answer. “I
doubt he expected you to fight back. Might be he was waiting for you to scream,
or break the circle.”

“
Break the circle?”
I probably sounded
like my Aunt Dagmar, she of the fancy airs and oh-so-proper behavior. Once you
start a ritual, if you’re going to break the circle, you might as well kill
yourself right there.

All right, that is an exaggeration . . . but
not much of an exaggeration. With a circle, your life might depend on being
either inside it, or outside it. When you invited Death, you stayed
inside
the circle. Because who knew what
else might show up?

“
You
could have called wind; you know how,” he said, his voice suddenly very soft.
Then, louder: “Remember that. Even inside. So you break a few windows. When
your life is at stake, you do what is needed. You can earn the money to pay for
windows.”

“
I’m
going to really work hard on my Latin,” I told him. “I want to learn as much as
I can as fast as I can. So I can get back to Marta.”

“
If
you need help, let me know. I’ll come to you,” Shaw said. “I am always near a
labyrinth.”

“
Let’s hope I don’t need too much help! You need to do your
own work, and there’s medicine as well as magic to study, right?” I asked,
looking up at him. He was actually taller than me now, by more than half a
head.

Shaw
smiled, faintly. “Yes. But I will always come. Allie, there’s something that
occurred to me that maybe Marta didn’t think to tell you. Practitioners use
wands when they do spells and most rituals. There are people with simple,
strong elemental gifts, who can do things just with their hands. But most
practitioners need their wands. You can get hurt with greater spells, using
your hands.”

So
careful, his speech, as if our audience could hear us . . . .

Wild
magic.

I
worked wild magic without a wand.

Hell, Hull and Halifax
.
I called Death without a wand. Marta let me do that!

Probably she did that to see if I
could
call Death without a wand. Everything a practitioner does has
more than one meaning.

It doesn’t matter if that practitioner is your teacher.

“I’ve already met a girl calling herself a salamander,” I
told him. “Some of the people here have very interesting gifts.”

“Write Marta and Cory and tell them what this fellow starts
teaching you,” Shaw said. “I have a spell to show you, if he doesn’t get around
to it quickly. It’s an Air spell, so you probably haven’t had it yet.”

“Which one?”

“How to wrap a spell within a spell. It’s simple, and
useful.”

Useful for hiding things, I bet he meant. He might as well
have said it aloud. Too late. I’d called Death without a wand; I’d already let
Tonneman know that I was stronger than many who used magic.

I said very softly: “I just realized tonight that sometimes
I can’t grab a whirling wind to protect myself. I don’t know this Eastern forest;
for a moment I was frightened.”

Shaw said, “Animals are similar all across the continent,
whether a black bear or a brown one. Indians are different tribes, but alike in
one thing—it’s safest to assume they don’t like colonists. You’ll learn how to
call wind up, although doing it from nothing is exhausting.”

The last was emphasized. Shaw had called wind up from
nothing.

That meant he’d done a ritual for weather, for Cory . . . .

“Maybe I’m finally getting scared about that test. Sometimes
I get scared in little pieces,” I admitted.

“Fear is a lot like courage. Sometimes you have to break it down
into little pieces to swallow it,” was his answer.

That sounded so sensible I felt myself grow calmer. The
light from a lantern had appeared at my toes, and I looked up. We were almost
to the kitchen door. I turned slightly, looking up at him.

“
It’s
a little late to introduce myself tonight,” Shaw said, “I’ll come back another
time and meet the Livingstons . . . and your cat. Without the
unicorn and the
glenngarseea,”
he added, glancing over his shoulder. The
unicorn and the odd magical creature looked at us both. The cat promptly leaned
into Shaw’s leg.

“
I’d
like that,” I blurted out.
I am such a
ninny
.
“I’ll try to be
braver.”

“
You’re
pretty brave right now,” Shaw said, his smile wider as he turned toward me. I
was on the house side, and had held on to his right arm as we walked. Now that
we were facing each other, Shaw shifted to grip the letter packet in his right
arm, and as he did so, he reached into his coat again.

I saw the handle of a wand.

I grew very still.

I’d missed something.

This
was
Shaw . . . but
worrying about that, I’d missed something else. No point in reaching for my
wand; I didn’t know how to use it yet. But that breeze in the maze? That I
could work with!

His grip on the wand was sure, ready to whip it out of his
coat. I hoped he’d just drop the letters, and took a step back.

“
You
concern is gratifying, but unnecessary,” came a male voice. “My presence here
was to protect a student of Windward. I am no threat.”