Rusty smiled at her. “No, you don’t, Cambridge. You never have to ask.” She beamed up at him helplessly, so grateful, and he looked away and yawned with an almost-convincing air of lazy nonchalance. “I am going to spend the next couple of hours having a power nap before my next spy mission, though, and you can just run your errands all by yourself. What do you have to say to that?”
Kami stood on her tiptoes and kissed Rusty on the cheek. He started slightly and her lips caught mostly jaw and dark hair. “Sleep well, sweetheart,” she told him. “Thank you. I mean it.”
She did not say: I know you did this for me.
“I am also going to nap, but please do not demonstrate physical affection toward me,” Angela announced. “I don’t want to get feelings on this shirt.”
Kami found herself hesitating again. A smaller group could be in and out faster—and she did not want to think about what would happen to the people without magic if they were discovered. “Angela, you and Holly don’t have to come.”
Angela rolled her eyes. “Holly is coming, and I am too,” she said. “Don’t be more stupid than you can help. I refuse to ever let you wander off like an idiot into danger without me. Who knows what could happen?”
“I know what’s going to happen. We’re going to Aurimere,” Kami said, and felt her courage rise with every word she spoke. “We’re going to rescue Jared.”
“Kami, you have to wait,” Ash implored.
“Nope, don’t think so,” said Kami.
Ash and Holly had come quickly, walking together toward them, blond heads bowed close as they talked, under the shadows of budding horse chestnut trees. Holly had heard Kami’s story and glanced at Angela to confirm she was in, then nodded.
It was just the boys who were being wusses.
“We need to talk to my mother,” said Ash.
“I won’t,” said Kami. “She might not think it was worth the risk. And I’m doing this today.”
“I hate to say it, but I think maybe you should listen to Blondie,” said Rusty. “You don’t understand about Amber, Cambridge. She’s so scared of the Lynburns. It took me so long to get her to trust me, and even then all I could get her to do was talk. She’s not going to help us. She’s terrified of Lillian, so she might help her.”
“You don’t understand about me,” Kami said, sweeping both Ash and Rusty with a comprehensive glare. “Jared’s being tortured in there. And Amber’s going to help me. I’m not planning on giving her a choice.”
Amber went to riding lessons at noon every day, according to Rusty, and then came back to Aurimere to learn magic and dance attendance on Rob. Torture at night, Kami thought, human sacrifice in the morning, healthy exercise at noon. What could possibly be on the schedule for the evening?
Kami thought she would pencil in a surprise.
Are you with me or not? she asked Ash.
I’m with you, said Ash. For Jared. He paused, and added, It’s nice to … feel you be happier.
Ash felt happier too, and that made Kami feel guilty. Ash wasn’t used to being linked to anybody, and though she tried to keep her thoughts separate from his, her every emotion came at him like a storm for someone used to a lifetime of calm weather. She hadn’t been easy on him, and that had swayed him into a dark mood. Maybe it was her fault that they hadn’t both been happier.
First things first, though, and the first thing on Kami’s mind was the rescue mission. She could be kinder to Ash once Jared was safe.
For now, she and Ash were united, a pounding of anxiety and tension thrumming between them like a shared heartbeat. Holly was looking to Angela again, and Angela was waiting, her body tense to spring. She saw Kami’s glance and gave her a nod.
“I’m with Kami,” she said.
Kami nodded approvingly. “Because we are best friends forever.”
“Also the longer we leave Jared there, the crazier he’s going to get,” Angela remarked. “Let’s face it, he was not the mayor of Sanityville to start with.”
She said it with a certain measured amount of fondness, and she had looked genuinely sickened by Rusty’s story. Kami was glad: she had never been quite sure how Angela felt about Jared.
It was warm for the first day of February, or maybe it only seemed warm because Kami was sweating, her skin hot and clammy at once. The budding trees offered her no useful shade, and having her friends around her did not help. Maybe Angela would understand what she had to do. Nobody else would.
What are you planning to do? Ash asked.
Kami heard light footsteps coming up the path to the manor.
I’m sorry, she told Ash. Don’t stop me.
Amber Green came into view, kicking up dust as she walked. She was still in her riding clothes, hair shining bright as a new penny in the sun under the black velvet of her hat.
Kami thought of the penny she had sent Jared when they were children, which he always wore around his neck. She thought of her mother, allowing terrible things to happen out of fear.
This girl had actually done terrible things; whether from fear or desire for power, Kami did not care. She had lost her claim to Kami’s pity when she picked up the knife: Kami had someone to save, and she had to stop Amber and everyone else from hurting him.
Amber halted when she saw them all standing under the shadow of the trees. She had a riding crop and a purse in her hands, and she dropped both in the dust.
Maybe she was scared enough, or foolish enough, that she did not think of the crop as a weapon. Maybe, as a sorcerer, she knew her best weapon was having her hands free.
“Hi,” she said uncertainly, her eyes flicking uneasily from Ash’s face to Kami’s—the magical threats—and finally landing on Rusty, not in appeal but with the realization of betrayal and a promise of vengeance.
Kami recalled having no magic and being cut up and scared by this girl. Rusty had been brave to approach her, and clever to get her talking. Rusty didn’t have any magic: Amber would have seen him as helpless.
But Rusty wasn’t helpless, and he had led her to this moment.
“I’m going to give you a chance,” said Kami, taking a step toward Amber. “I know that you hate all of this, and I know that you’re scared. But you must see that Jared needs help. He’s scared and alone and in pain, and that is partly because of you. You have a chance to save him. Will you take it?”
“Rob would kill me,” said Amber, taking a step back.
Kami could feel her trying to call the wind to her aid. Kami quelled it with a thought, easy as blowing on the hot air rising from a cup of tea.
“We’ll make it look like we forced you,” she coaxed, being as sweet as she could, for Rusty’s sake and Holly’s sake and Ash’s sake, and for her own sake too. She did not want to hurt Amber.
But she would if she had to. For Jared’s sake.
The wheedling made Amber’s eyes narrow, as if anyone who tried persuasion rather than force must be weak.
“I can’t risk it,” she said with sudden decisiveness. “Jared isn’t my problem. And you’ll be sorry that you tried to make him my problem,” she added to Rusty.
Rusty met her narrowed eyes with a level gaze. “I don’t think I will be sorry.”
Amber looked at Ash, the Lynburn, again, and then took several steps forward, pushing past Kami.
Kami caught her wrist. “You’re the one who’s going to be sorry.”
Amber tried to break Kami’s hold on her wrist by yanking it away. Kami held on, and Amber looked down at her, both surprised and almost offended.
“I gave you a choice,” said Kami. “Now I’m taking it away. If all you listen to is force and fear, you can be afraid of me. You’re going to help Jared.”
Amber made heat hit Kami’s face in one fast stroke, as if Kami had been slapped by a fire.
“I’m not.”
Kami’s fingers bit into Amber’s wrist so hard that Amber let out a soft cry of pain. And then Amber gave no more cries.
Her hair crackled as it began to slowly burn, the fire licking blue and scarlet in the winter sunshine. And from her lips issued a faint gurgling sound, the sound of water filling her lungs, bubbles forming on her mouth as flames surrounded her hair.
Kami, what are you doing? Kami, stop! said Ash, and Kami felt his horror course through her, saw it reflected on the faces of the friends she loved. Ash’s horror met her own, horror built on horror until it was a towering nightmare feeling, but she refused to be stopped.
Amber hit out wildly at Kami with her free hand, and Kami grabbed that hand too, stepping in close with both Amber’s wrists bound in Kami’s grasp.
“Which is it going to be, sorcerer?” Kami asked. “Drown or burn?”
Amber shook her head frantically, and Kami let the flames cool and the air filter into Amber’s lungs so she could speak.
“Fine,” Amber rasped. “Fine, I’ll help you.”
“Thank you very much,” said Kami.
Chapter Four
The Lady of the Lake’s Riddle
Passing through the flames and over the threshold of Aurimere at last did not feel like a victory. Kami was terrified for all of them as they stepped through the fire and she felt its heat on her skin, making the ends of her hair curl up, crisp and brittle.
She looked over at Angela, who seemed to be immune to sweating.
“How are you doing with the whole ‘enveloped in fire’ bit?”
“Basically how I feel every day when people ask me to do unreasonable things,” said Angela. “Things such as get up early or talk to them in a civil manner.”
“People are monsters,” said Kami, and by then they were standing in the cool stone hall of Aurimere.
“Everyone’s a monster,” Amber said bitterly. “Given the incentive.”
They had tied Amber’s wrists with a skipping rope, all they had to restrain her. They did not seem like captors to be dreaded, Kami thought, but then she remembered the look of fear she had put in Amber’s eyes and the cry of pain she had wrung from her lips. She could not blame Amber, after all, for bitterness.
Aurimere was still austere and intimidating, with an arched stone ceiling like a church and windows with diamond panes alternating ice-white and blood-red. Kami had thought the place would be more altered, now it was occupied and invaded by evil. She almost expected to see Lillian Lynburn come down the broad walnut flight of stairs, serene mistress of the house. Aurimere stood untouched, indifferent to good or evil. Aurimere would be the same when they were all gone.
They heard a step in the corridor on the floor above, and Amber looked as if she was going to die of terror.
“Which way?” Kami asked, keeping her voice calm.
“Not far now,” whispered Holly, reassuring and sweet.
Kami’s confidence and Holly’s comfort together seemed to work: Amber squared her shoulders and marched across the floor. They all followed her, through the records room and along another corridor, going on until they were looking up at the flight of the stairs leading up from the little hall beside the library.
The stairs were narrow, and gleaming with red from the room above. It felt as if they were ascending into hell.
There was a break in the stairs where they turned. The group paused there, and Kami felt Ash’s unease in her mind, his memories of having run thoughtlessly up these stairs a thousand times.
There was a stretch of polished wooden floor, a light above that looked like a star caught in a golden net, and a wall that bore a black and white mural in mosaics.
The mural showed Aurimere, in the distance but unmistakable, and in the foreground it showed a woman standing by a lake. Even in black and white, the woman was obviously a Lynburn: she held her head like a queen, despite the hair tumbling long, heavy, and laden with river flowers down her back, and her face in profile was both disdainful and pitiless.