Shannon Delany - Weather Witch

“Test. Her.”

Catrina and Rowen both stepped forward.

“Be brave, Jordan,” Catrina said. “Yes. If you are so certain—test her. Before us all. Prove you are correct or leave this house.”

Rowen’s head lowered, but he caught Jordan’s eyes.

It was the surest way to prove her innocence.

The Warden released her but when the Tester drew his blade, Jordan pulled back, “No” tumbling from her lips as well.

Catrina stomped forward and looked Jordan in the eyes.

So many eyes were on her, so many intense stares seeking her out she had no idea who to turn to. So she chose the one closest. Catrina. Her best friend. The same one who had introduced her to Rowen. The girl who was so much like her sister … Jordan swallowed again and nodded.

“I will hold your hand,” Catrina offered. “It will only be a little cut—nothing that will mar your perfect skin for long,” she assured. “Surely it will not leave her scarred, will it?”

The Tester said, “One can never tell.”

Jordan trembled. All she had were her looks … and her rank.

The sky rumbled overhead and everyone jumped.

“But what harm is a small scar when it proves you’re innocent?” Catrina said, so close to Jordan’s face their noses nearly touched.

“Yes,” Jordan agreed. “Yes. Hold my hand,” she asked so gently the crowd stepped forward to hear. “Test me so my mother’s good name might be restored.”

Catrina clutched her hand and the Tester changed his position ever so slightly, the knife glimmering. Jordan closed her eyes and bit down on her lower lip, her fingers going white around Catrina’s as the blade nipped her right forearm.

Sparks flew up from Jordan, Catrina fell back, her face contorted in horror, and above them all the heavens opened and dumped rain until there was no noise save the rush of water.

Catrina trembled, clutching at Rowen, and Jordan fell to her knees, sobbing the one word on everyone’s lips—No.

The downpour stopped as fast as it had started and the brief silence that followed was somehow more deafening.

“The girl is seventeen, is she not?” the Tester asked.

Nods came from all around.

“The Astraea family is hereby found guilty of Harboring.”

“Noooo!”

The Wraiths swooped in with a keening cry, and, grasping Jordan by her arms, lifted her to her feet once more. Although her shoes scraped the floor, for a moment she stood only by the Wraiths’ will, her legs loose as rubber beneath her starched petticoats. Her eyes squeezed shut and tears trembled on her lashes, threatening to fall. But she drew in a ragged breath, found her feet, and forced her eyes open under the realization that this might be the last time she ever saw her home.

Her family.

Her friends.

Her Rowen.

“No!” Rowen shouted. “You cannot take her…” He protested, lunging across the space between the party guests, the Wraiths and the rest of them. “She is my—”

Meal-ticket, Jordan thought. If he were honest, that’s how the sentence would end. We are not lovers, we have never even kissed … And the idea they might exchange promises had set her nerves trembling just two hours before as she was laced into her gown by her best friend.

The Wraiths paused, their fingers tightening on Jordan’s upper arms as they hauled her farther from him. The Wardens cracked their canes’ butts against the floor in unified warning.

Rowen worried them. Jordan might have snorted at the idea had snorting been acceptable ladylike behavior. As it was not, she merely tilted her head in her best imitation of appropriate curiosity. It was imperative she maintain some dignity even when being placed under arrest.

But the idea of Rowen being worrisome to Wardens and Wraiths?

Rowen? The man best suited to matching the buttons on his waistcoat to whatever pocket watch he wore on a given day? Rowen—the one who could only duel with a sword if he stood on a designated piste?

Rowen, to whom “alpha” was merely the beginning of “alphabet”?

She had known him since they were five and six and the only thing worrisome about Rowen was his willingness to sneak alcohol into the teetotalers’ punch bowl and dance like a mill worker. Or curse like a sailor for the sake of making her blush. Or sing a song he’d heard attending a minstrel show …

“You cannot take her,” he repeated, fiercer than she’d ever seen him.

His mother stepped forward, resting a hand on his arm.

He shook it off and took another step.

“Do not act the madman!” his mother scolded. “Let her go.”

Jordan raised an eyebrow. So that was how it would be now, yes? The accusation made, her family’s reputation already tumbling to ruin not even ten minutes since the Wardens’ arrival.

A few guests slunk toward the door the Wandering Wallace’s assistant held open for their escape. Best not to be remembered as having attended this particular party. Rank by association meant being part of the wrong group at the wrong moment might mar your standing irreparably.

Jordan should not have blamed them, as she herself would have been among the first to sneak away in similar circumstances. Still, she blamed them whether she should or not.

“You cannot take her,” he insisted. “I haven’t given her her birthday gift yet.”

Don’t do it, she thought, scrunching her face up to be as unappealing as possible. Don’t dare ask for my promise now—it would be social suicide …

With one more step he was toe-to-toe with her. He leaned in—down, she realized, suddenly struck by Rowen’s height. She was certainly no delicate flower but Rowen was … a tree by comparison. His shock of blond hair brushed against her forehead and his lips found hers with a homing ability she would have never imagined in someone who got turned around window-shopping!

When his lips moved against hers the panic filling her head died away to nothing and she was left with only silence. And sensation.

That was when he sneaked his fingers into the heavy folds of ruffled lace trimming her sleeve and pierced the fabric there with something cold.

Her eyes popped open and she gasped but he hardened his kiss as his hands drifted back down her arms and paused to clasp her wrists. Pressing his cheek to hers he whispered, “When you are alone and only then—look. Someday you will learn to more readily wear such a thing in such a fashion.” He broke away then, resting his forehead against hers, his eyes searching her own.

“Now,” the Tester snapped, and they dragged her out the front door of her family’s mansion.

The last glimpse she had of her seventeenth birthday party was of Catrina stepping up to Rowen and slipping her hand around his to lead him away from his view of Jordan.

His taste on her lips, Jordan understood a new way Rowen might yet prove worrisome.

The doors closed behind them and Jordan’s vision faded in the grip of night. She stumbled on the wet herringbone walkway, only held up by the Wraiths’ fierce and biting fingers. They tugged her forward a moment until she remembered the quality of her shoes and forced her feet to catch up with the rest of her so as to not scuff their brocade satin.

The smell and the impatient stomp of a beast with shoed feet announced another presence even before she glimpsed them under the soft glow of the street light.

Horses.

A carriage was hooked to them, its body rounded and trimmed in molding that reflected the wavering light. Tall wheels and high windows glinted.

Even she had only ridden in a carriage drawn by real horses for weddings and funerals. Horses were a dangerous commodity with the Wildkin War still raging. Their meat was a Merrow delicacy so few made it over the sea in anything but a Cutter or an airship. And any that had the misfortune of grazing near a body of salty water … Jordan shivered. Bloody trails marking the disappearance of an entire herd of horses by the bay made it known that Merrow—at least when hungry—could slither more than a quarter mile on land to pull a horse back to a watery end.

When the other water-loving Wildkin joined the Merrow cause in some strange sense of watery camaraderie, not even freshwater was safe. There might be no magicking allowed in the New World, but the beasts that existed here naturally (or stowed away to cross the Pond) seemed happy to thrive as fiercely as if magick had given them birth instead of the natural world.

Jordan watched the horses—might one be something more sinister in disguise? It had happened more than once according to Catrina. Wealthy men had lost more than pride when a Pooka replaced a horse in a herd and allowed itself to be ridden or hooked to a carriage.

But, noting the heavy adornments of metal and bars on both doors and windows, Jordan realized her transport was both carriage and cage.

Philadelphia

The doors closed and Rowen looked down at his hand, his gaze lingering on Catrina’s fingers, wrapped round his own. He yanked free of her and, taking a step back, nearly trod on his own mother.

“We really must be going,” his mother said in a stage whisper so loud the entire party heard. “It is not appropriate for us to be seen in the company of such…” She paused, letting the sentence hang so anyone might fill in the blanks.