Once they were ready, the old man whistled, and a pony nearly as old as he, black-and-white and tough as old roots, came to his side. He rode it without saddle or bridle, legs wrapped around its sides and a hand on the simple halter, and for the first time since he was a boy, Gabriel felt awkward in the saddle.
They rode all day without speaking, their guide ahead, Isobel and Uvnee to Gabriel’s left, the mule behind, up steep, backtracking trails and through narrow valleys that, just as the old man had said, were devoid of life. Overhead the occasional bird circled, but it never swooped, and the grass underfoot never rustled with the passing of small game. Once, up against the sheer rock face, Gabriel was certain he saw movement that might have been goats, but they were too far away to be certain; they might simply have been rocks, shaped and colored to confuse the eye.
No wonder the ghost cat had attacked them. No game underfoot, and too ill to flee from the hills, they must have seemed like a gift, delivered into its lair.
“Forgive us, little cousin,” he said under his breath. “But I had a greater wish to live.”
And if they couldn’t find game for themselves at some point, well, there were still supplies in their packs, although with three of them, it wouldn’t last for long. He’d survived on grubs and roots once. He’d rather eat the mule.
The trail took a turn up again, and he leaned forward slightly, trying to take some of the press off his ribs. Sleeping rough and riding up mountains might not have been the best way to heal, but once Isobel went chasing after whatever this was, he’d had no choice but to follow.
Isobel turned to look at him, obviously wondering what he found amusing. Her hat—brand-new not so long ago?—was now sun-bleached and worn at the brim, and there was a dip over one side that made her look oddly rakish. But the stubborn line of her jaw and the set of her mouth were familiar. It wasn’t puzzlement or annoyance?—she was upset.
He kneed Steady closer and spoke softly. “Tell me.”
Her gaze flicked ahead to where the old man and his pony rode, seemingly unaware he had companions, then back to him. “How do you know . . . How do you know if a Contract’s been broken?”
He almost laughed again, then realized that she was serious. “Isobel. You can’t break a Contract. That’s what makes it a Contract. What’s bitten you, to even wonder that?”
“I can’t . . . I can’t touch anything. I’ve been trying. Ever since . . . I’ve been trying,” she repeated. “I can only get so far, and then it stops me. And I thought . . . I was afraid that meant . . .” Her voice dropped almost too low to hear. “That the boss’d decided he didn’t want me anymore.”
He was about to tell her, again, that she was being foolish, when her choice of words stopped him. “It?”
She frowned at him, clearly not having realized what she’d said.
“You said ‘it.’ Not ‘something’: ‘it.’?”
Her shoulders lifted in a shrug, a one-sided flip he recognized from his own movements. “It,” she agreed. “Does it matter?”
He had been trained as a litigator; word choice mattered. But he let it go for now. “To calm your fears, if the devil were to cast you aside, you would be in no doubt of it. But he did not. He never throws away a thing of value.”
She gave him a wan smile at that, but it was better than she’d looked before.
“That settled . . . are you all right?”
“Gabriel.” Now she sounded exasperated, which suited her better. “No, I’m not all right. Something dragged me?—us—all the way up here, I can’t feel, and I don’t know what to do, and now we’re following some old native who won’t even give us a name, to somewhere we don’t know, to find we don’t-know-what that’s doing we’re-not-sure-what, on the chance that maybe I’ll be able to stop it from doing whatever it’s doing, and I can’t even . . .”
She ran out of breath, or words, and heaved to a stop, her jaw tightening again. She stared over Uvnee’s ears, reins tight in her fingers, and shook her head, a tic jumping in the side of her face. “No. I’m not all right. But it doesn’t matter, does it?”
No. It didn’t. That was the other thing about being of value to the devil, he supposed, and thought again of the exhaustion in the eyes of the Jack, unable to stop save at his master’s order.
“What does it tell you?” He glanced at her left hand, and her gaze followed suit without prompting.
“It’s quiet. I don’t think it knows either.”
Gabriel didn’t like that. The sigil was more than a sign of who she belonged to; it was her connection, the conduit of whatever power she wielded. More, it had warned her of danger before. For it to be silent, when she needed it . . . The devil’s hold only extended the length and breadth of the Territory, be it by his own decision or another’s. Maybe they were too close to the borders . . .
No. Her mark had flared when they were in the Mother’s Knife itself, in places once ruled by the Spanish. Here, he should be able to reach her.
“I can’t feel,” she had said.