Ritual Magic

he had another arm. He wrapped it around her and put his face in her hair and breathed in deeply. “I don’t know what the hell has been happening. My father—”
    “Is okay. Carl’s holding a sleep charm on him because Pete told him to, or maybe Miriam did, so he can’t not do that. Uh—most everyone can’t move because Miriam told them to stop. Plus, they’re all compelled to obey Pete, and he’s compelled to follow the orders Miriam gave him before she died. And Friar—” She couldn’t see the man anymore. “He seems to be gone.” He’d been heading for the slope, but she’d looked away for a moment. Probably he’d vanished into the darkness . . . unless Cynna really had exorcised him. Would that send him to hell? To the realm where demons lived, anyway. Could Cynna do that to someone who wasn’t a demon? God, she wanted to think so.
    Friar had seemed to think it was possible. He’d run like a rabbit. She snorted at the memory, but sobered quickly. Six feet away, a long black knife lay on ground marked by black runes. All around her were lupi frozen in place because they’d been ordered to stop. And Hardy . . . she’d forgotten to check, and no one else was able to move. Maybe he was still alive. “I need to see about Hardy,” she said, pulling free from Rule.
    She was too late. She saw that right away. Maybe it had been too late from the moment Friar blasted a hole in Hardy’s chest. Probably. And she couldn’t have done anything differently, but regret squeezed hard at her heart as she looked down on the empty face that had held such life. Hardy looked peaceful still . . . but dead. No more songs.
    Rule had come up onto the deck with her, still holding Toby. He was asking Pete exactly what his orders from Miriam consisted of. Good. If they knew what they had to work around, maybe they could figure out a way—
    “Halt!” someone called from the upper deck.
    Oh, good, more company.
    “Who or what is it?” Rule demanded.
    “The Queen of Winter sends us here, with Isen Turner’s permission,” a man called back from somewhere farther up the slope. “Winter and the one you call Sam.”
    “Let—” Rule stopped. Scowled. “Pete, tell him to let the Queen’s people pass.”
    Apparently that didn’t contradict Miriam’s orders, because Pete repeated it. A few minutes later a man and a woman jumped down onto the upper deck. They looked oddly alike—brother and sister, maybe? Both were tall and rangy. He was darker; she was more striking, with an angular face, a stern blade of a nose, and warm brown hair pulled back in a braid. She wore a long tunic, a heavily embroidered vest that reached her knees, and baggy pants tucked into boots, all in shades of brown and gold. The tunic was belted in brown leather; a knife-size scabbard hung from the belt, partly hidden by the vest.
    Her shoulders were broad for a woman. His were broader. He wore similar clothing in shades of blue but without the vest, and he had two scabbards—one at his waist like hers that held a knife, and one fastened to a harness crisscrossing his chest that held one honking big sword on his back. His face lay on the ordinary end of attractive—pleasant but unmemorable—except for his eyes. They were a clear and startling gray.
    His eyebrows lifted above those clear gray eyes. “That was easy,” he said to the woman. He spoke ordinary American English.
    “You’re disappointed.”
    He glanced at her without answering, but his mouth tucked up in a small smile.
    Not
brother and sister, Lily realized. Not when he looked at her like that.
    “It’s here, then?” the woman said.
    “They have it.” He looked down at them. “I had expected a hunt, and I see you have the knife waiting for me. But you are much too close to it. You need to get away. Quickly.”
    “If you mean Nam Anthessa,” Lily said, “you might say it has us. Some of us. The woman who wielded it is dead, but the knife’s still enforcing her commands. I’m free and so are Rule and a few others, but the rest . . . before she died she told them not to move, so they can’t. Where’s Sam?”
    The man glanced at the woman beside him. She gave a small nod. He looked back at Lily. “On his way. He travels differently than we do. I was told Isen Turner was in charge of this land and people. I would speak to him, or to the one named Li Lei.”
    Rule spoke. “I’m Rule Turner. Under these circumstances, I can speak for my Rho, who is