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“Lillian, I’m your husband,” said Rob. “Listen to me.”
“You’re a criminal,” Lillian told him. “You broke my laws, in my town, and I am going to execute you. Step away from my sister.”
Rosalind shook her hair away from her face. It flew back like gossamer. Lillian held out a hand to her. Rosalind did not take it, but she did move toward her twin. A look passed between them like a spark, fire traveling from Lillian to light Rosalind’s eyes.
Angela walked over to Kami and stood beside her like a guard. Holly came to stand at her other side, cupping Kami’s elbow. Kami had not realized how unsteady she was until she had some support.
“Ash!” Rob bellowed.
“I’m so sorry,” said Ash, and lifted his head. “Kami,” he said, “I know you’ll never forgive me. I can’t blame you. But I truly am so sorry.”
Wind and dust rose behind Rob, a small storm but large enough to envelop them all.
Lillian glanced at her sister and her son, and they both copied her as she lifted her hand. The storm dispersed, turning into dust motes that shone in the red light of the sinking sun.
“Rosalind,” said Rob, “you would never betray me.”
“If you kill her,” Rosalind said, her voice very low, “you kill Jared.”
“You don’t understand,” Rob told her. “I knew you didn’t, I knew you couldn’t, or you would not have done this. I made her cut the connection. I would never allow harm to come to Jared. He’s free.”
“Oh,” breathed Rosal
ind.
“Enough!” snarled Lillian, and lunged for Rob. She moved so fast she almost had him, but he had his knife, and he struck without hesitating.
Rosalind and Ash both screamed as the knife came down. The dust storm rose again, this time flying into Rob’s eyes, surrounding him. Angela dashed forward into the melee and hit Rob from the back with her chain. When the dust cleared, Lillian and Rob were circling each other. Lillian’s shirt was torn, a scarlet stain spreading down one side. But she had Rob’s knife.
“Your parents’ son after all, aren’t you?” she asked, and spat at his feet.
“And proud of it,” Rob snarled back. “I had such hopes for you, hopes that you’d understand. But I was deceived in you. I married the wrong sister. You are your parents all over again, those sanctimonious murderers.”
Lillian grinned. Seeing her with her hair coming down was somehow stranger than seeing her bleed. “And proud of it.”
Everyone was watching the confrontation. Kami was as fascinated by it as any of them. But she’d tried to become a skilled observer, trained herself to notice anything strange. She found herself looking around.
Nobody else had noticed the quarry was filling up with threads of insubstantial grayness, slipping out from the woods from every side. “Lillian!” Kami called out. “Watch out!”
Lillian glanced around, and Rob leaped forward. He did no magic: he just stepped forward, seized his wife’s hair, and cracked her head against the quarry wall. Lillian crumpled. Rob stooped to pick up his knife, while Ash ran forward and put himself between his parents. The quarry was like a cauldron of mist. Kami could barely see Lillian slumped on the rock. She grabbed onto Angela’s free hand and she, Angela, and Holly stood linked together.
“I could never have dreamed I would be so disappointed in you, Ash,” said Rob.
“Look,” Kami said softly.
Through the mist rising from the quarry, she could dimly make out silhouettes. People coming out of the woods from all sides.
“What the hell?” Angela whispered.
“They’re reinforcements,” Kami whispered. Now she knew what Rosalind had been doing down in the town.
Rob had failed to recruit Henry Thornton. But how many sorcerers had he succeeded in recruiting? Kami could not make out most of the faces through the mist, but she saw the two nearest her: a woman she had never seen before and Sergeant Kenn. One of the officers investigating Nicola’s murder.
Kami held on tightly to Holly’s and Angela’s hands and started counting sorcerers under her breath. She was up to twenty-six before Rob Lynburn spoke.
“Sorry-in-the-Vale is mine,” he said quietly. “You just don’t know it yet. I have more sorcerers than you, and we will do whatever it takes to get more power. Any of you Lynburns can come join me in the town tonight, and all this will be forgotten. Any of you who do not come … Well. This is a real sorcerers’ town now. And there are new laws.”
Rob looked from his wife’s unconscious body, to Rosalind, and at last to Ash, who stood trembling in front of him, “Those who turn traitor and break my laws,” Rob said softly, “will be executed.” He walked away, up the path of rocks Lillian had made.
