Cinnamon Smoke
Clay had endured a great many uncomfortable meals in his life, most of which had come during the past months alone: supper with Kallorek and Valery, breakfast with Lilith and Matrick’s host of illegitimate children, cold eggs and sausage on the morning Jain had robbed them (for the second time), not to mention a banquet hosted by cannibals. This particular breakfast, however, was chief among them.
They ate dry biscuits and jam, though Clay suspected the biscuits had been made with salt in place of flour, and the jam was filled with bitter seeds, one of which had lodged itself between two of his teeth and was threatening to hang up curtains.
Moog brewed tea and then settled down to pore over the contents of Shadow’s many pouches. Gregor and Dane sat together (as if they had any choice in the matter) and discussed the curious dream they’d shared the night before. Matrick wolfed down his food before promptly falling back asleep, while Ganelon didn’t bother to get up at all. Kit sat cross-legged beside the fire, staring down morosely at the broken halves of his batingting.
Clay felt bad for the ghoul’s loss, but considering he’d discovered yesterday that the adversary against which the band had pitted themselves was in fact the Heathen himself, the loss of an instrument—even a rare one—seemed a petty thing.
Gabriel had buried Shadow at dawn, using Vellichor’s rounded blade to dig a shallow grave in the crumbling earth of the courtyard. Clay wondered if Vespian would have minded the legendary sword being used as a shovel this one time.
Now Gabe sat exactly where he had the night before, chewing slowly on his biscuit and glaring across the fire at Sabbatha. The daeva appeared not to notice. Shadow’s weapon—the scythe he’d called Umbra—lay across her lap. She acted as if it was hers by right, and although Clay found that unsettling for any number of reasons, he wasn’t about to try to take it from her.
No one said much of anything at all, which suited Clay just fine. He’d been content to merely sit and enjoy his salt cookie in uneasy silence, but then Sabbatha went ahead and ruined everything.
“Who is Larkspur?” she asked.
After a stretch of what Clay might have called apocalyptic awkwardness Ganelon, who apparently wasn’t sleeping after all, finally answered. “It’s you,” he told her, rolling onto his back and rubbing at the rough whiskers on his face. “Your last name.”
Clay watched the daeva’s face carefully, looking for some outward signal of distrust, but she only nodded thoughtfully. “I was wondering why it seemed familiar,” she said. And then, after a moment, she matched gazes with Gabriel. “I’m sorry I killed the druin. I didn’t think you’d want him alive.”
“Not just a druin,” said Gabe quietly. “One of the few of his kind left in all the world. I killed one myself once, remember? It’s a burden I would have spared you if you’d stopped to listen.”
“He was too dangerous,” she insisted. “We couldn’t let him go—he would have come after us eventually. Or did you plan on bringing him along? Tell him about Rose and hope that black heart of his was still beating? Be careful making friends out of enemies,” she warned, “lest they remember why they didn’t like you in the first place.”
Clay felt the appalling weight of irony drag his jaw toward the ground, but Gabriel only smiled placidly.
“As you say, Sabbatha.” The tone in which he’d said her name sounded like provocation, and Clay saw the feathers on the daeva’s back ruffle in annoyance. She opened her mouth to retort, but was interrupted by the sound of Moog clearing his throat noisily.
“Um, Gabriel?” asked the wizard. “How would you like to speak to your daughter?”
Clay and the others sat to one side, as spectators. Matrick insisted he wanted to watch despite looking as though he might fall back asleep at any moment. Using some sort of powdered herb he’d found in one of Shadow’s bags, Moog fashioned two rectangular patches on the ground, six strides apart, one of which had a flagstone at the centre upon which Gabriel was instructed to stand. The wizard sat between them, scratching out runes on a pair of sticks. When he finished he scrambled to the fire and plunged them both into the glowing coals.
“Shadow was a smoke wizard,” he explained. “An illusionist of sorts, and a very powerful one. Hence those shades we fought earlier, and the magic he used to conceal that scythe of his. Also, did you see his … um … face, after he died?”
Clay had, briefly. It was strikingly different from what they had seen before: hard angles and jutting cheekbones, pallid flesh crisscrossed with a web of pale scars. The skin beneath his mouth had been stained black, as if he’d eaten a necrotic heart for breakfast and hadn’t bothered to wipe the blood off his chin.
“Smoke wizardry has any number of uses,” Moog was saying. “Most of them are harmless, though a few, as we saw, are very dangerous indeed. Some are extremely useful. I once knew a young witch who could walk through walls, though unfortunately she could fall through floors as well. Poor lass broke her neck when she—”
“Moog,” snapped Gabriel impatiently.
“Ah, sorry. They’re ready, I think.” He withdrew the smouldering sticks from the fire, using one to set the empty patch alight, and the other to ignite the patch beneath Gabriel. A wave of flame licked across either panel and went out, leaving a bed of bright red embers and a scent in the air that smelled faintly of—
“Cinnamon?” Matrick said, sniffing the air.
“Cinnamon, yes,” Moog confirmed. “It’s not essential for the ritual—I just thought it might be a nice touch.”
“It smells delicious!” exclaimed Dane. His hideous smile stretched from ear to deformed ear.
He didn’t say as much, but Clay agreed. It reminded him of the buns Ginny used to bake and then slather with sweet, sugary icing. His stomach growled despite the salty biscuit he’d fed it half an hour earlier.
Steam began to rise up around Gabriel. He shifted nervously on his flagstone and pushed a strand of soiled hair from his face. “Will she see me?” he asked.
The wizard nodded. “Yes, she will. But not clearly. You’ll be indistinct. Smoky, sort of. Something like those things we fought last night.”
Gabe nodded. He was hard to see for the haze around him. An hour-long minute ticked by. Matrick’s chin drooped to his chest and Clay nudged him awake with an elbow. All of them watched the air above the empty patch, waiting.
At last a shape began to materialize in the smoke, then a man’s voice spoke as if from behind a muffling curtain. “—a disaster,” it said. “The roof collapsed, killing everyone inside. Thankfully the tunnel was blocked, so we needn’t worry about the creatures using it to enter the city.”
“Thankfully? Vail’s bloody cock, Freecloud—that was our best chance to get out of this hellhole.”
Clay didn’t recognize the voice, but Gabriel did. He gasped as her ghostly apparition formed above the opposite patch. “Rosie!”
“Rosie!?” The figure whirled. “Who the fuck—”
“Rose, it’s me! It’s Dad!”
Vague as her image was, Clay could almost see the incredulity on her face. “Dad? What are you doing here?” She took two steps without moving and extended her hand toward the spectre of Gabe as it appeared to her.
“Don’t touch it!” blurted Moog, and Rose withdrew her hand.
“Who is that?” she asked.
“It’s Uncle Moog, dear. Do you remember me?”
“Uncle Moog? I … of course I do. You used to sneak me cookies after Mom had gone to bed.”
The wizard clapped. “Aha, yes! I’d completely forgotten about that! Gods, but Valery was a tyrant when it came to—”
“Moog,” Gabriel cut him off. “Please. You said we haven’t much time, right?”
“Right. Sorry.” Moog pretended to lock his mouth closed and ushered Gabe to go on speaking.