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A mouth glimmered on the latch. “I like it when he does that. Can he make more pictures?”
“Obviously we are promised secrets and then denied them!” I snapped, giving the latch a dark stare, although both Bee and the mansa did stare at me, for they could not hear the latch. Rory yawned, looking amused.
Two eyes like silvery stitches winked. “The other cold mage drew illusions of your face while you were sleeping, when he thought you weren’t looking.”
Oblivious to the latch’s voice, the mansa went on. “Certainly these creatures have held their secrets close against themselves all this time. Servants ought not to act as if they are the masters. Such disrespect sows discord and disorder in the world.”
“It’s starting to get very stuffy in here,” remarked Bee to the air.
“Is that what you call a secret?” I said, to the latch. “I already knew that!”
The mansa frowned. “I have indulged the two of you for many days now. But this is truly more than I can be expected to endure.” He reached for the latch.
The gremlin’s mouth stretched until its line ran the length of the latch, ready to bite.
For an instant I was tempted to let events play out on the unsuspecting mansa, but instead I set my hand on the latch so he could not. “Do not forget, Your Excellency, that the coach and eru serve another master.”
“And you trust them?”
The latch licked my palm with its scratchy tongue, then said, muffled by my hand, “Can I help it if all I ever know about is what I see in here? I thought you were asleep and didn’t know he had done that.”
“I do trust them,” I said, removing my hand and giving the latch a stern side-eye glance.
The mansa studied me with a thoughtful frown. “Very well. In this, you have the advantage of me.”
Pressing my hands to my forehead, I breathed a soundless prayer to the blessed Tanit. “Blessed lady, let the righteous triumph and the wicked despair. Most of all, holy one, let me save his life and the lives of all those who do not deserve to suffer death at the hands of a man like James Drake. Not that any person deserves to suffer death in that wise, but you know what I mean.”
I sat with face buried in hands for a long time, in a daze of such weary anxiety that I felt rocked as in a boat crossing a rushing river. When my sire had stolen Andevai on Hallows’ Night, I had been more angry than fearful. My sire was not a creature of emotion. He was cruel in the way storms were cruel: They cared nothing for your vulnerability as they crashed through your life. If he wanted something, he had a reason for it that could be addressed.
But Drake’s reasons had melted in the fire of his resentment, the sense that what he had lost could be regained only through the pain and humiliation of others. He had turned in on himself until he had become a mirror that did nothing but reflect his grievances back into his own face. That made him dangerous, but it also made him vulnerable.
The coach slowed to a halt. The door was opened from the outside, and the eru set down the steps so we could get out. Gritty ash burned in my eyes. Sobs and screams billowed with the smoke. We had come to a stop in a hamlet of inns, stables, shelters, and outbuildings. Every building in the village as well as two flat-bottomed ferries were on fire, a roaring blaze whose heat blasted our faces.
“Get down,” said the mansa.
Bee had her head out of the coach, staring at local men who were beating at a fire as they tried to reach someone inside a house. They were so frantic they did not notice us.
“Sit down, Bee!” I dropped to my knees on the road.
The hammer of cold magic snuffed out every fire within sight, the flames sucked right out. The furnace heat turned in an eyeblink to the crackling of timbers buckling and the groan and smash of a wall toppling over. Every person in sight now lay on the ground. All except the eru. The mansa stared disbelievingly at the tall footman in his impeccable dress who appeared untouched by the impressive display. The eru offered a mocking servant’s bow that made the mansa frown.
“Dearest,” said Bee, clambering down, “are my eyes deceiving me, or have we crossed both rivers?”
Amazingly, we had reached the western bank.
Bee glanced up at the coachman, who sat upright and unruffled on the driver’s bench. “And yet why not? For it seems your goblin makers have their own secret magic.”
He removed his cap and slapped it against a hand to shake off ash. “Shall we go on? I am built for a steady, enduring pace rather than for speed. But we are not far behind them now.”
The eru turned to me. “Cousin, is it your plan to come upon them on the road? For if we continue in this direction, I think it likely we shall do so.”
“The fire mage has become quite powerful,” I said. “Can you aid us with your magic, Cousin? For I must believe that you and the mansa, together, ought to be able to kill his fire.”
“If Drake sees us coming up from behind, what is to stop him from simply killing Andevai?” Bee asked.
“Drake needs Vai. And Vai knows Drake needs him.”
The mansa surveyed the village. The locals scrambled into the cold ruins, seeking survivors. “I do not like to think of what a company of fire mages led by a man with no conscience can do to Four Moons House if he chooses to practice his revenge there before he reaches his homeland.”
