The Dragon Heir (14 page)

Woozy as he was, Seph couldn't
help thinking that Snowbeard was a remarkably good liar for one of the good
guys.

“Would you like something
to eat, honey?” Rachel asked. “I could whip you up an omelet, or some
soup,” she offered. “There's chocolate cake, and burnt-sugar
custard.”

Seph shuddered at the thought
of confronting food. Snowbeard creakily rose to his feet and took Rachel's
elbow. “Don't worry, my dear,” he said. “I know how very busy
you are. I'll stay here with Seph and we'll let him rest a bit, then I'll take
him on home. You're sure there are no more of Maddie's paintings in the
inn?”

“That's the only one I
found. Either she took them all back with her, or the burglar stole them.”

“Let's hope nothing was
stolen.” Effortlessly, Snowbeard ushered Rachel from the room. Moments
later, Seph heard her descending the stairs. Snowbeard shut the door behind her
and pulled a chair over to sit beside Seph.

“How are you
feeling?” The old man's face was set in hard, angry lines.

“Terrible.” And
confused and embarrassed. “I don't know what I …”

“What did you see in the
painting?” Snowbeard demanded, gripping his arm.

He's using Persuasion, Seph
realized, feeling the hot flow of power. He immediately resisted, reverting to
the habits of a lifetime. “The painting? I didn't get much of a look at
it. I was kind of dizzy on the way over here, from the mindquest, I guess, and
I just…why do you ask?”

Snowbeard studied him
suspiciously. “You took one look at Madison's painting and collapsed. I
want to know why.”

“I don't even
remember.” Seph closed his eyes as if searching his brain, but mainly to
avoid Snowbeard's keen gaze. What was the old man thinking, anyway? “What
did it look like?”

“It was a painting of Trinity
Harbor.”

Not the painting I saw, Seph
thought. He opened his eyes. “Er. Right. Now I remember.”

Snowbeard's grip tightened.
More Persuasion. “Don't lie to me. This is important for your own
safety.”

“How could a painting
make me pass out, anyway?”

“There are a multitude of
possibilities, my boy. Sorcerers can embed spells in objects. Certainly a curse
could be embedded in a painting.”

“So you think whoever
broke in here cursed Madison's painting?” Seph asked carefully.

“Curses are generally
embedded at the time the object is made. In this case, at the time the canvas
was painted.”

“Well, Madison painted
it. So that's impossible.” Seph looked Snowbeard in the eyes, daring the
Old Bear to challenge him on it.

“Not only that,”
Snowbeard continued as if he hadn't heard, “the curse, if that's what it
was, was directed specifically at you. It didn't affect Rachel or me, even
though I removed the painting from the room and she carried it down into the
cellar. Whatever it was, it was meant to kill. Had you been on your own, it
might have succeeded.”

“Curses and attack magic
don't work in the sanctuary. We know that.”

“Much   is   possible  
that  is   beyond   our  knowledge,”
Snowbeard said gravely. “You were
the one maintaining the boundary. You might be vulnerable to a powerful curse
directed at you or packaged in a different way.”

Seph knew where this was
going. He set his lips tightly together and waited for the punchline.

“Who knows what an
elicitor is capable of? No one. Madison has declined to join this war on our
side. Is it possible she has joined it on the other side?”

“No.” Seph said it
louder than he intended.

But why would she paint that
particular scene? She'd seemed totally traumatized at the time, and it sure
wasn't something he wanted to
remember.

“She suddenly leaves town
in the middle of the school term …”

“She had to.”

“It appears you are not
getting along as you once did…”

“Now, hold on.” Seph
propped himself on his elbows, fighting another wave of nausea. “Like I
keep telling you, and my father, and my mother, and every other person—Madison wants nothing to do with this war. Nothing.
She's not in this. Maybe she won't help us, but she wouldn't hurt us.”

“Iris mentioned that
Madison seems to be … in financial difficulties.”

Seph blinked at Nick. “I
know she's never had a lot of money, but … I could've helped her. All she had
to do was ask.”

“Maybe she preferred not
to. She's proud. The Roses have deep pockets. Any of our enemies could make her
rich.”

“No. I don't believe
it.” Seph rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. Madison wouldn't
hurt him. He knew she wouldn't. “I passed out. That's all. Maybe I
do have the flu. Try the simplest explanation for once. I'm sick of conspiracy
theories.”

Nick shook his head, agreeing
to disagree. “Regardless of the source of the attack, I fear you are
injured more grievously than you know. You lost hold of the boundary when you
went down. Try to pick it up again.”

“Right.” Seph took a
deep breath and extended himself into the sanctuary. Black spots swam before
his eyes, coalescing into a smothering darkness that threatened to swallow him.
He broke into a cold sweat, and let go, lying absolutely still until the
dizziness eased. It had been hard enough before. Now it was impossible.
“Sorry,” he said, feeling a little panicked. What if it didn't get
better? “I just need to rest a little.”

“Maybe,” Snowbeard
said, sounding unconvinced. “I'll take it for now. But we need to
determine exactly where Madison is and what she is up to. Perhaps that's
something Jason can do.”

Snow sifted down from the
treetops, glittering in the cold winter sunlight as Leesha stumbled down the
icy trail. She kept a tight hold of unnoticeable Jason's hand, both to keep
from falling and because he was the one with the sefa, after all.

“Where are we going?”
she hissed. “And who are we sneaking up on?” Possibilities swirled
through her mind. Assassins. Spies. Some kind of magical weapon being built in
the sanctuary.

“You'll see,” he
whispered back mysteriously.

“This better be
good,” she muttered. As far as Leesha was concerned, winter was nature's
way of telling you to stay indoors. All around, the snow was inscribed with
animal tracks. Who knew what was out and about? “Are there bears around
here?”

“Just little ones.”

Would bears notice an
unnoticeable person?

They clambered down into a
half-frozen creek, up the other side, circled a ravine, and pushed into a thick
stand of snowy pine trees. By then, she was gasping for breath. “Will you
slow down? My legs aren't as long as yours.”

“We're there. Wait till
you see. This is really cool.”

They paused under a pine tree
whose boughs swept close to the ground. The air was filled with a clean, sharp
scent, like room freshener. Stepping behind her, Jason gripped Leesha around
the waist and lifted her up.

Right in front of her face was
the teeniest owl she'd ever seen, no bigger than a robin. It was a brownish
color with white streaks radiating from its eyes and white splotches. Its tiny
feet were wrapped securely around a branch. It seemed to be sound asleep, but
as she watched, it opened its yellow eyes and blinked sleepily at her, then
closed them again.

Cautiously, she extended her
finger and brushed the ruff around its feet, holding her breath. It opened its
eyes, swiveled its head, then fluffed out its feathers and settled down again.

Jason lowered Leesha gently to
the ground, then leaned in for a look himself. They took turns watching the owl
for about ten minutes. Then Jason took Leesha's hand and led her out of the
pine grove.

When they were a safe distance
away, Jason disabled the unnoticeable charm and reappeared, grinning at her.

“What…what was that?”
Leesha asked. “I never saw an owl that little!”

“It's called a Saw-whet
owl,” Jason said, looking pleased at her reaction. “I guess they
winter around here. I saw it here the other day and looked it up online.
Supposedly their call sounds like somebody sharpening a saw.”

“Can't we take it home?
It is so cute. I want to keep it!” Leesha said.

“Well. If you want. But
these guys sleep during the day and eat mice, so you'd have to catch
them.”

Leesha shuddered. “Oh. So
now you're the great hunter?”

“Pretty much.” He
knelt, scraping together a snowball. “I guess bow-hunting season is over.
But snowball season is just beginning.” He stood and came toward her,
tossing the snowball in the air and catching it, eyeing her suggestively.

“Oh, no. Stay away from
me!”

Jason lobbed the snowball.
Leesha dodged behind a tree and the missile exploded against the bark. She
knelt and patted together a snowball of her own, but when she stood up, Jason
had disappeared.

“No fair! You are not allowed
to go unnoticeable.”

“No rules,” Jason
said from right behind her, stuffing a handful of snow down her back. She
whipped around and he stole a kiss, then leapt back out of reach.

“No rules, you say?
You'll be sorry.” The fight began in earnest, then. Although Leesha had
terrible aim, she found she could explode Jason's missiles with wizardry before
they hit their mark, which evened things up a bit.

By the time they called a
truce, they'd been racing through the woods for an hour, Leesha was actually
sweating, and it was getting dark. They walked back to the park pavilion hand
in hand. Leesha kindled a fire on the hearth to dry out their wet things, and
Jason heated up some cider. They sat side by side on the hearth, their backs
roasting, their fronts freezing.

Leesha was amazed at how much
she'd enjoyed playing in the snow. Images came back to her from when she was
little. She and Aunt Milli building snowmen in the yard. Cardinals and chickadees
circling the bird feeder, coasting down to eat out of her hand. Consulting Aunt
Milli's field guide to identify the rare birds.

“Come summer, we can move
out here,” Jason suggested, breaking into her reverie. “You know,
sleep in hammocks in the trees, live off the land.”

“You're totally insane,
you know that?” she said, thinking she must be a little crazy herself.

“We can be urban
guerrillas. Hold people for ransom. Trap squirrels and pigeons and steal picnic
baskets.”

“Listen, it takes a lot
more than that to keep me comfortable,” Leesha said. “Like hot
showers and manicures.”

Their conversations were often
like this. They flirted, dancing around the hard issues that lay between them.
But now Jason turned serious. He picked up her hand and examined it like he
could read her fortune in it.

“It would be cool … if we
could just … be together,” he said. “You know, without having to
worry about all this…political crap.”

“We can be,” Leesha
said, forcing a lightness she didn't feel. “Who cares about politics?
Let's run away. Where do you want to go?”

But the mood was broken. Jason
set his cup of cider down and rose. “I'd better go. It's getting
late.”

She gripped his hand.
“Stay a while?”

He shook his head.
“Hunters need their sleep.” He leaned down and kissed her. “See
you.”

Leesha followed Jason onto the
porch and watched until his slender form dissolved into the trees of Perry
Park. Unsettled, off-balance, she went back inside the pavilion, sat down next
to the fire on the stone hearth, and wrapped
herself in a comforter that stank of
woodsmoke. She'd wait ten more minutes before she started walking back to town
herself.

Who knew there were so many
back-alley places in a small town—like
the snack bar at the bowling alley and the study carrels at the public library
and the beach in the middle of winter. Who knew she'd be willing to spend time
in any of them? At first, she'd been focused on worming her way into Jason's
confidence. But then one-on-one, they could be themselves. And, now …

It seemed like everybody she
knew was either a hero like Jack Swift (not many) or a snake like Warren Barber
(many). Jack was so virtuous he made her feel … contaminated. Jason was in
between—wicked enough to be interesting,
and yet … he believed in things. He lived by a personal code of honor. Not that
she'd ever figure it out. Finally, Jason had a crooked, self-deprecating,
sardonic way of looking at the world that made her laugh.

She could use a few laughs
these days.

Poking at the fire with a
stick, she thought, You're not falling for this guy, are you?

Leesha looked up, startled,
when she heard a noise outside. She hoped it wasn't some kind of animal. They'd
put up wards to keep snoops away, but whether they worked on animals, she just
didn't know.

The door banged open and
someone said, “Well, well. I don't believe it. A babe in the woods.”

It was Warren Barber.

She was moving before he
finished, and so was he. She tried to slam him with an immobilization charm,
which, of course, didn't work, and he flung out a few attack charms himself. Those
went nowhere. While he was processing that, she tried to circle round him and
get out the door, but he blocked her path and tackled her, slamming her to the
floor. He pinned her to the flagstones with his forearm, his face inches from
hers. She found herself looking into his iced-over blue eyes, framed in bizarre
white lashes.

“So, what's up,
Leesha?” he asked. “You never call, you never answer your phone. I'm
feeling just a bit … abandoned, know what I mean?”

“Get off of me, you
perverted…pervert!” She shoved fruitlessly at his hands.

He brushed back her hair and
touched the band around her neck. “And when I tried to apply a little discipline,
nothing happened.”

“I disabled the
tore,” Leesha lied breathlessly. “You might as well take it
off.”

“Did you now? And did you
also disable my Weirstone, because I'm noticing some of my favorite charms
don't work.”

“I can't help it if you
have a performance problem,” she replied. “Can't you get
something for that over the Internet?”

So, okay, that was a mistake.

The pale eyes narrowed to slits.
He sat up and hit her, hard, in the face with his closed fist. Tears came to
her eyes and blood poured from her nose. It felt like every bone in her face
was broken.

You're going to pay for that,
she thought. I just don't know how yet.

Barber examined his fist.
“What do you know? This still works.” He looked down at her, his face
framed in shoulder-length, translucent hair. “I've heard that attack
charms aren't allowed here in Trinity, but I never really believed they could make it stick.
But now I'm thinking maybe the collar doesn't work so well in the sanctuary,
either, know what I mean? And I'm feeling like you're getting kind of blasé
about our agreement. That so?”

Agreement? Right. Leesha was
drowning in blood. She blew her nose, spraying droplets all over Barber's
shirt. “I told you. It's not easy. Everybody's always watching, and after
what happened before, they don't really trust me.”

“My patience is running
out. I have the feeling you're not trying hard enough. You need to get Jason
Haley out of the sanctuary and to someplace I can question him. You need to get
me the Dragonheart. How hard can it be?”

Leesha bit back a response.
There was enough damage to repair as it was.

“If you don't deliver,
I'll tell your Dragon friends who you've been working for all this time.
They'll kick you out on your butt, and then…” He circled her neck with his
hands and applied pressure until she was suffocating, prying at his hands,
squirming helplessly.

Finally, he let go, and she
sucked in air desperately, her heart pounding.

Barber smiled. “I'll be
around, even if they don't kick you out.” He touched the collar. “I
know where you are, every minute. Won't be hard to grab you in some back
alley.” His grin widened. “I'll stuff you in my car trunk and suddenly,
you're way out of town.”

“Wh—where are you staying, in case I need to find
you?” she asked, wondering how he could possibly move around town without
being spotted.

“Never mind where I'm
staying.” He stood, wiping his bloody hands on his jeans. “Someone
set a nasty magical trap at my old place. I'm wondering how they knew where I
lived. That better not happen again.”

Damn, she thought. D'Orsay
missed. He'd seemed so capable when they'd met at Raven's Ghyll.

Barber sat down on the bench
of the picnic table, watching her as if she were the subject of some kind of
violence experiment. “By the way, where's Madison Moss gone off to?”

That question took her totally
by surprise. “M-Madison Moss? How should I know?”

“You're supposed to be
the inside person, right?”

“You said to keep track
of the gifted. She's not.” Leesha paused. “Why do you care about
her?”

“You weren't at Second
Sister. When Leicester fired at McCauley, Madison Moss took the hit for him.
Leicester went down, and all the alumni went with him. That's the kind of
girlfriend to have.” He looked at Leesha and raised a pale eyebrow like
she should be taking notes. “Anyway, I paid her a visit, and her room's
all emptied out.”

“You paid her a
visit?” Leesha shivered at the thought of Barber skulking around town.
“Well, I heard she's gone, that she left town.”

“Any idea where she
went?”

'I have no clue. Maybe she and
McCauley broke up. All I can tell you is, these Smallsville girls are ecstatic.
They think they'll have a chance for a change."

Warren stood again. “Well,
Leesha, as a spy, you've been totally useless. It's your job to make me happy.
You have my number. You have three days to deliver Haley and the Dragonheart.
Let me hear from you.”

And then he was gone, and
Leesha could hear nothing save her labored breathing and the wild beating of
her heart.