She twisted slightly, and he let her go, stepping back a pace. “How do we do this, then?”
She had no idea. “Take the horses a bit farther off. In case?—” She looked at the roped-off ground where the grass had died, where she could still see faint traces of steam rising from the ground, even if Gabriel couldn’t. “In case something happens.”
He nodded, neither of them discussing what that “something” might be. Her relief at not having to explain was measured by a desire that he would stop her, refuse to let her do this.
She knew he wouldn’t, that wish only the remnant of her fear, burnt to ash but still clinging to her skin. Something here had scraped power from the Territory. Scraped it, taken it . . . and kept it here. By what, or for what purpose, she could not tell, but even if the haint had not lingered, that much power threw things off-balance, perhaps enough to shake the ground, scare away those who lived near it. A magician might claim it, or a marshal might drain it, but neither of those were here now.
And the haint . . .
She felt again the aching, sorrowful rage, and shuddered.
“Salt.”
Gabriel, in the middle of moving the horses and their packs to the requested distance, reached into her pack and tossed her the cloth-wrapped bundle that contained what was left of her salt stick. She held it in her hand, weighing it against how much she might need, then walked to where she’d felt the presence most strongly before, at the edge of the browned, dying grass.
The last time she’d done anything like this, she’d been driven by something other than her own will, the knowing of what to do rising up from within her when she needed it. She felt none of that now, as though she were still cut off from the bones, the deep stone, leaving her bare and alone.
“Boss? A little help, please?”
She waited, a breath caught in her chest. No whisper filled her ears, no sense of what to do slipped into her thoughts, only her palm, itching, and the weighted awareness of something lurking, tied to this meadow, this ground. Not the haint: something deeper, warmer. A whisper of resignation, then a tentative touch of strength, protection, belonging, followed by the tingling prickle of the wind over bare skin.
Isobel exhaled. Something had changed. She didn’t, couldn’t stop to question it; whatever had responded wasn’t the boss, but it was enough to know that she had allies here, somehow.
She crumbled some of the salt into her hand and started walking out a circle, then stopped. “No.” She licked the salt off her palm, then took a few steps back and handed the stick to Gabriel, who, finished with the horses, had been waiting, watching. “Draw it around me.”
His gaze flickered from the salt to her, then he picked up where she had left off, leaving a faint, glistening line of salt in a circle just outside where she’d roped off, white against the grass where the dead turned to green again.
While he did that, Isobel walked inside the circle, letting an awareness of the protection he was laying down flutter against her skin. She was within, contained but not constrained, the warding silent until something came to rouse it.
“Be at ease,” she whispered to whatever watched them. “Be at ease; I bring no harm.”
Dead grass above, something seething below. Isobel worried her lower lip between her teeth, not-thinking, not-feeling, simply walking, careful of where she placed her steps, watching where the steam rose in narrow tendrils, then faded into the clear. Walking an inner circle until she felt the sense of whatever had attacked her ease: not gone, but no longer quite so vigilant, so tense.
Salt around them and silver within. For cleansing, every child learned. For protection. The buckles on Gabriel’s belt, the ring on her finger, the coins they carried in their pockets. Polished bright. Crumbled salt and polished silver, rising from the waters and the deep bones. But they were tools, only tools. Were they the right tools?
What else dealt with power?
Isobel reversed her steps, tracing the circle widdershins.
The lands they’d ridden through had been scraped dry. A crossroads gathered power, became dangerous, and needed to be cleansed on a regular basis. Every child knew that. But a crossroads drained would seek to refill itself. A land that had been scraped dry . . . what would it do?
There was something she was missing, some detail she hadn’t been able to glean. The quakes, the missing animals, the slaughtered buffalo, the haint lurking . . . She could feel the thread connecting them slide across her fingers, and she realized she’d veered from the circle she’d been walking, creating a new pattern within: the double-ended loop of the Devil’s infinitas.