I looked down. “What’s wrong?”
“That’s what I’m asking you. You’re looking . . . grim.”
“Your son just sold me into slavery! How am I supposed to look?”
Rosier yawned. “He didn’t.”
“Oh, so I’m imagining this?”
“No, but there’s something else going on.”
“And you know that how?”
He shrugged. “Emrys hates slavery. I don’t know what he’s up to—I never know what he’s up to—but he’s planning something.”
Yeah, something he couldn’t let me in on. Something he couldn’t talk to me about for five seconds. Something he didn’t trust me enough to—damn it!
“Get some rest,” Rosier advised, eyeing me. “You might need it later.”
“You get some rest!”
“Good idea.” He curled up under my skirts and went to sleep.
I jolted along in the cage, getting progressively more angry and miserable by the minute. And not just because of Pritkin. But because the rain was coming down harder now, drumming on the wooden roof and dripping off the sides. And making the dips and holes in the so-called road fill up with water, so that we got splashed every time a wheel hit down.
Not that it mattered. The wind was pretty much ensuring that we were all soaked to the skin anyway. Causing me to hug my knees, trying to preserve what body heat I had left. And making the thin shift I was wearing all but transparent. But it wasn’t outraged modesty that caught my attention, and had me blinking down at my chest in confusion.
It was the necklace.
Specifically, Billy’s necklace, which I wore so often that I tended to forget I had it on. But it was hard to ignore now, giving off a puddle of warmth against my icy skin, its central ruby glowing faintly through the halter’s loose weave. And nestled heavily between my breasts as usual, despite the fact that it had absolutely no business being there.
The merchant had handed me over to a crabby old woman with black teeth and a harassed look. Who had dragged me into a tent, stripped me, and pawed through all my stuff. She’d taken everything, including my beat-up tennis shoes, my caked-with-mud T-shirt and shorts, even my underwear.
Yet she left me this?
It was even weirder when I realized that the necklace was heavy gold, set with a central ruby that acted as a talisman, along with several smaller ones on the sides. And while it was undoubtedly ugly as sin, with scrolls and flourishes and rococo doodads, it was also worth more than anything I’d seen in this entire country. Hell, for all I knew it might be worth more than the entire country, at least in this era, considering that most of what I’d seen of Wales consisted of mud and weeds.
Yet she hadn’t taken it.
I clasped it through the damp material, wondering if I was imagining things. But I could feel the weight in my palm, and Billy’s presence inside, just as I had in the suite. Too drained and exhausted to talk to me, or even to wake up from the stasis ghosts fell into when low on power, but undeniably there.
If I was imagining things, I was doing a good job.
My bracelet was sliding around my arm as well, but I’d half expected that. No one could remove that thing for long. But the necklace . . . I took it off all the time, since it was uncomfortable to sleep in. And if it had any special abilities to come find me again, they’d never shown up before.
I thought about it for a minute, and then I poked Rosier. “Do you see anything?”
He opened a heavy-lidded eye and looked at me blearily. “What?”
I showed him my front. “Do you see anything?”
He scowled. “Did you wake me up for this?”
“I’m serious!”
He sighed and muttered something that sounded like “women.” “Yes, they’re very nice. Can I go back to sleep now?”
I frowned. “What are very nice?”
“Oh, all right. They’re better than nice, if you like that sort.”
“What sort?”
“The big pillowy sort. I’ve always been more partial to the teacup variety myself.”
I stared at him for a moment, and then I poked him again, hard. “We’re not talking about my breasts.”
“What, then?”
“The necklace!”
“What necklace?”
I stared. “You really can’t see it?”
“See what? What are you blabbering about? Can’t you see I’m injured?”
“He barely scratched you—”
“He almost put a boot through my brain after his mongrel tried to devour me! I’m in a delicate condition! I cannot have these sorts of things happening! And you are supposed to protect me. I would like you to know that I consider this a failure on your—”
I stopped listening, in favor of remembering that Gertie hadn’t taken the necklace, either. At the time, I’d just assumed that was due to it not being a weapon. But a friendly ghost was a useful thing to have, as I would have expected a fellow clairvoyant to know. Yet she’d let me keep him.
I started looking around under my skirts and wrenching around, trying to see behind me. The knot of women crowded a little farther away, like they were afraid I was having a fit, while Rosier stopped his diatribe in order to scowl. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for something.”
“For what?”
“For that,” I said, stopping at the sight of a small green tail poking out from under my right knee.
I stayed very still, or as much as possible in a creaky old wagon with no shocks. And, for once, the tiny creature didn’t scurry off. Instead, slowly, tentatively, a small snout poked out to match the tail. And, above it, bright black eyes gleamed in a stream of moonlight, looking at me timidly.
“It’s okay,” I told it softly. “You can come out.”
It did, slowly, slowly, pausing every inch or so to look around, as if a hawk was going to swoop down out of the sky and snatch it up. But I thought that unlikely. Somehow I doubted even a hawk’s eyes could see it.
Rosier’s sure couldn’t.
“Have you lost your mind?” he asked, staring from my face to my—as far as he was concerned—totally uninteresting knee.
I ignored him some more and held a finger down to the little green lizard. It hopped on board, the iridescent hide flowing smoothly from the skin of my knee to the back of my hand, then scurrying through my fingers and across my palm, before finally finding refuge under the ball of my thumb. And then disappearing altogether, when Rosier stuck his nose into the mix.
He thrust the stubby proto appendage to within an inch of my hand and then turned to look at me accusingly.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s nothing—”
“Don’t give me that! You tell me what you’re doing right now! We are in sixth-century Wales—”
“I know where we are.”
“Then you know this is not the time for you to have a mental—”
“I’m not having a mental anything.”
“—breakdown, or to keep secrets from your partner!”
“Oh, we’re partners now?”
“Just tell me!”
“I was going to, if you’d give me a second,” I said, exasperated. “It’s a ward.”
“What?”
“A. Ward. One Mac made. He’s a friend of Pritkin’s,” I added. “Or he was.”