Page 19

The witch picked up a wooden paddle and started stirring something in a caldron over the fire. It smelled . . . surprisingly good for a potion. The old woman saw my nose twitching.

“Beer,” she said shortly.

“You’re brewing beer?”

“Of a sort. But I add brooklime, watercress and spoon wort, along with sugar, cinnamon and juniper berries.”

“That . . . doesn’t sound like beer.”

“Mebbe not. But if you get the scurvy, girl, and yer skin turns yellow, and yer legs get weak, and yer gums are eaten up wi’ tumors, ye’ll be glad of it then.”

“Thy skills are both boundless and artful,” Mircea said gallantly, peering into the pot. “With each new concoction a masterpiece of health and flavor.”

“God’s little toe, but you’d try the patience of a saint,” the old woman said, scowling, and shooed him away from her precious brew. “What d’ye want?”

He tried on an innocent face. “Mayhap merely to enjoy your company. I was in town—”

“Ye used to be a better liar.”

“—and thought of you. How you were kind enough to help the Senate with that little problem, a few years back—”

“Not a few! And not that they gave me much choice!”

“—and of your knowledge of so many facets of the magical arts.”

She snorted. “Magical arts. As if any were allowed to practice them these days. Did ye not see what I’ve been reduced to?” She jabbed a thumb back at the shop. “The ward’s not there for the demmed Apothecary’s Guild, nor the College of Physicians, neither. Them I can handle. It’s the thrice damned Circle puttin’ me out o’ business!”

“Yes, I had heard that they were being . . . difficult.”

“Difficult?” she had been stirring her brew, but at that she turned to stare at him. “Difficult? I’ve been here for close to a century, serving local families for generations, and do they care? Or about them that’ll suffer if they chase me off, as they have so many others? Difficult, he says.”

She shook her head in disgust.

“Yet you seem to be surviving,” Mircea pointed out. “And while this may seem intolerable at the moment, you must know that the Circle will have to reach an accommodation with the covens eventually—”

“Their ‘accommodation’ is t’wipe us all out! And some of us don’t have centuries left ter wait, in any case.”

“Then perhaps I could be of service to you in this matter,” he offered. “The Senate’s wishes carry weight even here, and your shop is a small one. An exception could be made—”

“Exception!” She had gone back to her brew, but at that she slammed the paddle down on the built up, stone side of the firepit and turned to glare at him. “Why should we need an exception? We were here first. I’ll tell ye the exception I need—for the Circle and all their wretched crew to leave these shores and ne’er return!”

“And yet, we live in the world that is,” Mircea pointed out. “Not always the one that should be. And I would trade a favor for a favor.”

She eyed him narrowly. “What sort of favor?”

I had noticed that the vampire’s carefully crafted, pretty speeches tended to go away when he wasn’t concentrating on being charming, leading me to believe that he was naturally far more straightforward than he liked to let on. And this was no exception. “I was wondering if you could identify this,” he said simply, and brought out the jewel.

Even in the shadows under the pergola, it shone. Not like it had on the witch’s hand, when it had glowed as brightly as a torch. But softer, gentler, yet not like a normal stone. More like a piece of the crashing sea, somehow captured in crystal. Watery light spilled out of it, casting silver ripples on the rough old boards of the pergola, the worn bricks of the house, and the old woman’s face.

Which didn’t so much as flicker.

And my apprehension level suddenly shot through the roof.

She not only didn’t move to take it, she barely glanced at it, and a deliberately disinterested glance at that. Something that had me looking around in alarm. That was a potent magical item and should have received a far bigger response.

But it hadn’t.

“Dory?” Mircea said, reading me more than her.