Gabriel’s patience broke. Pulling Isobel up with him, he shifted enough to draw their attention from each other, the dramatic flourishes he’d learned to use in front of a judge rushing back with his ire. “Enough! You are wiser than we, none gainsay that, but if you will insist on only back-clatter and manipulations rather than useful advice, you can both be gone and be damned!”
The Reaper hissed and lofted its massive wings at him, their shadow rising taller than he stood, but not even that could pause Gabriel once he started. “Whatever her Bargain with the devil, it is her Bargain. That is the Law. Whatever your purpose in counseling her, you would be best served to come outright and state your intent so that she may judge your advice fairly.”
Even as he spoke, Gabriel wanted to laugh at his presumption: spirits, demons, magicians—those with power said very little plainly and took direction not at all. But his anger seemed to have taken them aback, as though they’d forgotten that he?—or she?—might have an opinion at all.
And then they were gone, only the harsh sound as the raptor took flight as indication that they had not simply faded into the air like morning mist.
A hissing laugh broke the stunned silence that followed. Gabriel kept Isobel behind him as he turned to find the source, having to look down into the grass to locate it.
This snake was the length of his arm, flecked in yellow-brown scales, with the tail poised but still as it considered them, its head raised up out of the grass. The long pale tongue flickered out, and it slid closer, skirting the edge of the salt circle much the same way the others had, though Gabriel got the feeling that if the snake wished, it would simply slide over the warding without hesitation.
“What now?” He was out of patience with the medicine world.
Isobel slipped from behind him, casting him a sideways look that was part exasperation and part amusement, then went down on her knees again, to be on more even ground with the snake, trusting that it had no intention of lunging at her to strike.
To be fair, none of them had offered violence at any point. Not toward her, at least.
“Have you come to offer conflicting advice as well?” she asked, her voice light but shaking with exhaustion. “Or merely to watch for your own amusement?”
“Issssss there a differerenssssse?”
“The boss took lessons from you, didn’t he?” Isobel muttered.
“He hassssss known ussss well,” the snake admitted. “Little cousssssins. You have come a long way.” The rattler shifted, its scales brushing through the grass. “How far yet will you go?”
Isobel lifted her hands as though asking the winds for answers. “Gabriel was right. You all talk around the problem, make it sound like you’re being helpful, but you’re not.”
More hissed laughter. “No. We are not. We tell you only what you already know but will not let yourssssssself hear.”
She lowered her arms. “I’m listening now.”
“Then I do not need to sssssssay anything,” the snake told her, and its tail rattled once before it dropped into the grass and slid away.
Gabriel licked too-dry lips and ran a hand over the scarred side of his face, casting a glance up into the clear blue sky and the hills rising around them, as though expecting yet another form to appear. Nothing did. He summoned all of his irritation, his frustration, and his exhaustion into one word. “Sssssnakes.”
Isobel clamped a hand across her mouth and bent forward, her shoulders shaking with what could have been either tears or laughter.
He wouldn’t judge her for either.
Isobel’s limbs felt loose, her skin too cold, her bones too hot. Gabriel had gotten her out of the circle, had broken what remained of the warding and scattered it properly, then seated her by the fire, which he’d built back up, and put a kettle of beans and dried venison to boil. But she’d been aware of all that vaguely, as though through a fog, until the smell of the broth reached her nose, and the thought of warm food woke her stomach, suddenly aware that she was deeply, painfully hungry.
The sky was darkening, the air cooler. How long had she been sitting here? How much time had she lost?
Isobel could still feel the press of the ancient spirit, like a bruise on her skin. If she touched it, if she looked at it, she thought it would overwhelm her. So, she looked at anything but. She looked at the fire crackling around the coalstone, eating the kindling and grasses she had gathered the night before. She listened to the horses shuffling and breathing, the crunch of their teeth and the swish of their tails. She smelled the scent rising from the jacket draped over her lap for warmth, deep and smoky and sharp, with an unrecognizable flavor that she could only identify as being Gabriel himself.
Gabriel. Panic hit her, until she was able to identify the noise of him settling the horses for the night, his voice speaking softly to them, calming them. They might not know what was happening, but horses were prey, not predators, and they knew when something dangerous was nearby.