Wizards Daughter

43

Richard's voice was barely above a whisper. "Yes, yes, that is the knife I saw her plunge into your heart."

Rosalindsaw herself holding that knife as it dripped blood-white blood. What if it was indeed a portent? What if something happened, something utterly catastrophic, and she did kill Nicholas? No, it wasn't possible, it simply wasn't. But what was possible, what was fact and she and Nicholas had to embrace it, was that there was magic at work here, ancient magic. She thought of all the Celtic names of the wizards and witches in the Pale. She thought of Taranis, the Dragon of the Sallas Pond, who'd been Sarimund's confidant of sorts. His was a Celtic god's name as well, and he'd claimed to be immortal. What if they were the same beings, but they'd somehow ended up in a different time, a different place? And somehow they'd spilled over into this world? Were they trying to come back, only something terrible had happened and they were stuck in the Blood Rock fortress? What if they wanted her to kill Nicholas because he'd descended from Captain Jared, who hadn't paid his debt to her?

How could such a thing be of help to them?

It didn't make sense. She'd been born almost three hundred years later, well beyond Captain Jared's time, surely a god would know that. But then again, maybe there were boundaries on ancient wizards and gods, restricting them to certain skills in a certain time, a certain place. Maybe they weren't all-powerful or omniscient.

It was time to act, she thought, time to discover what this debt was all about, time to learn who she really was, maybe what she really was. The possible what scared her to her toes.

She heard Richard Vail ask Nicholas, "What is the knife doing here?"

"This knife appears to have many incarnations," Nicholas said, and she admired his ambiguity.

"Lawks," Aubrey said, rubbing his hands together, "wait until I tell my friends at Oxford what is happening in my family-ghosts and knives in a vision that really exist. But wait, Richard, are you certain you never saw this knife before? It did belong to Grandfather; it was in this room when you were a boy, wasn't it?"

Richard still stared at the knife, as if mesmerized. "I don't think so, but that was a long time ago and I was young-" He shrugged and tried not to look frightened.

"Nicholas is not our family," Lancelot said to Aubrey, "not really. Our father detested him, claimed he was a bastard, but since he was the image of himself, he couldn't very well prove it, now could he?"

Richard said, almost as an afterthought, "Shut up, Lance."

Lancelot puffed up and looked ready to yell, when his mother said, "It's all terribly unfair, but, at this moment in time, Nicholas is the head of the Vail family."

"Unfair to whom?" Rosalind asked. "Richard is the one who has been disloyal to his brother. I mean, trying to kidnap me, surely not a very praiseworthy thing to do."

Miranda said, "And why should he be loyal to this unwanted stranger? Gone when he was but a boy and he only returns to collect his dead father's title. What sort of son does that?"

Nicholas said, eyebrow arched, "One that is disowned, perhaps, madam?"

Miranda shouted, "It's still not fair, do you hear me?"

"I don't think it was particularly fair for someone to try to kill me when I was a little girl," Rosalind said. "What do you have to say to that?"

"I have to say you are probably a harlot's brat and her drunken lover took a cane to you, deservedly so, that's what I say."

In a flash Nicholas was not an inch from his stepmother's nose. He looked intimidating, dangerous, and ruthless. In a voice so soft no one could hear what he said except Miranda and Rosalind, he said, "Listen to me, you vicious old bat, you will never insult Rosalind again or I will ruin you. Do you understand me, madam? No more new gowns since there will be no more money, no more entree into society. In short you will be ignored and ostracized."

"Ruin me? Ha!"

Nicholas smiled down at her, and that smile surely had to freeze Miranda to the bone. Was the woman mad? Had she lost all sense, to bait a man like Nicholas?

"Heed me, madam, for I am quite serious. Not only will I ruin you, I will ruin your three sons."

Miranda opened her mouth to blast him when Aubrey said in a loud voice, "I say, Mother, I don't wish to be ruined. I don't wish to be booted out of Oxford. As for Lance, he loves his new waistcoats and his horses. Hmm, and our butler Davy as well, I think. Please rein in your tongue."

"I pray this bastard meets a foul end," Lancelot said, his hands clenched, his pretty face flushed.

Rosalind clapped her hands. "All of you will listen to me now. We have an unusual situation here and it behooves us to figure it out, not fight and insult each other. Nicholas is the Earl of Mountjoy. Get yourselves over your disappointment for it grows very tedious to hear the lot of you whine and complain and curse Fate. Now, Nicholas and I need to attend to some matters that don't involve any of you."

To her relief, Mrs. McGiver arrived in the next moment to show the Vails to their bedchambers. Rosalind assigned Marigold to attend the Dowager Lady Mountjoy. "Stick close to her, Marigold," Rosalind said close to her ear. "She will complain endlessly, but you keep smiling and tell her you will see to everything, all right?" She dropped her voice another ten degrees. "She isn't to be trusted."

When Nicholas closed the library door a few minutes later, he turned the big brass key in the lock, then called out, "Sir, are you in here?"

No answer.

"Captain Jared, we need you," Rosalind said. No answer.

She turned to Nicholas. "Why did you invite them to remain?"

"This vision of Richard's and his identification of the knife made me want to keep them close. I have this inescapable feeling they're all a part of this, whatever this is. I've learned over the years that having your enemy within your reach gives you a better chance to survive than having one lurking unseen in the shadows."

She stepped up to him, went onto her tiptoes, and whispered against his ear, "Nicholas, I know how to get us to the Pale."

He stared at her, nonplussed. "Why are you whispering?"

"I don't know, it simply seemed the thing to do. My own vision of Sarimund last night before the whiteness awoke me-remember I told you he was chanting something? I didn't hear the distinct words, but they somehow remained in my mind. The words he was chanting, they're crystal clear now."

Nicholas wasn't surprised, not after she'd read the Rules of the Pale when no one else could. "Why now, I wonder?"

"Because time grows short," Rosalind said. "Everything is happening very quickly now. Listen."

Look in my book The pages are free Follow my directions And come to me.

"Free pages?"

"Yes. Don't you see? I couldn't read the final pages of Sarimund's book that Grayson found in Hyde Park and then I was unable to read the final pages of the shortened book here in your grandfather's library because the pages simply wouldn't separate. Sarimund is telling me I can now open them, so that makes them free."

She laid her hand on his forearm. "Nicholas, you and I are evidently the two main performers in a strange play. I do not want to cut out your heart. I really don't. I am very fond of you."

He kissed her. "We are performers, you're right about that."

"To work. Let's begin with freeing the pages in your grandfather's book," Rosalind said.

Rosalind's fingers hovered over the pages, then, easily, she turned the page. Both of them froze for an instant, aware of an unknown that was close-or was it somehow Sarimund whose spirit floated above them? Perhaps Sarimund was slapping her in the face, but she couldn't feel it because those slaps were behind veils of time, too thick for anything to come through. She was afraid to read the page, afraid of what it would do. She looked over at her husband. "What if-"