Shannon Delany - Weather Witch

She pressed her face to the bars, watched the goings-on of the Grounded with more fascination than she’d ever spared anything but her clothing and her hair, and set her mind to plot out an escape plan. As soon as she could find a way to escape from her cuffs.

She could do this, she thought. She could rescue herself or die trying. And if she succeeded perhaps she could return to rescue the others. She swallowed hard and forced down the fact she really would prefer someone else doing the rescuing.

She was, after all, a lady held prisoner in a tower …

Was such a rescue not exactly the sort of mission heroes aspired to succeed at? Where then was her hero? Where was Rowen? Did he simply no longer care a whit about her?

Her good hand wrapped around the bars and she steeled herself against the idea that the one young man she had taken a vague fancy to no longer desired her company.

And that she would need to become her own hero and never again wait on rescue.

En Route to Holgate

Rowen was still having little luck with the horses. He had seen them both a distance away as they grazed together, but they wanted no part of him—especially Silver with his battered and still bloody sides. Ransom seemed less concerned with Rowen’s occasional attempts at approaching them, but given the choice of indulging in lush summer grass or being ridden into danger?

For a hungry horse there was no choice to be made.

A bird alighted on a tree branch nearby and, appraising Rowen with a cock of its head and a quick glance from its beady black eyes, determined he was no threat and so puffed out its fluffy breast and began to warble a tune.

Rowen sighed and sank down against the tree trunk.

When he’d been a child he’d heard stories—nursery tales and lullabies of places the birds sang nothing except a single note. Of a place where there was no song in the world except a single prophecy of such dark sacrifice it leeched all the music from people’s souls. Of a time all dreams and nightmares came from a mystical dreamland tree that became poisoned and started to tear apart the world with a dark magick that brought nightmares to life. But the magick was defeated by a young man—Marnum—a hero who found that music was the earliest magick and reintroduced it to their world. A hero.

It was always some damned hero.

Some golden-haired godlike young man with all the tools he needed and all the right answers at all the right times. A hero who instinctively knew how to conquer evil and face down temptation.

Hell, Marnum would probably have kept from ruining his clothing as he adventured.

Rowen looked with disdain at his boots (covered in mud and an oozing green slime that reminded him distinctly of … something distinctly unpleasant) and his pants—he’d torn even his buckskin breeches.

He was no hero. He was a filthy, fumbling vagrant.

A man like Marnum—a real hero (even if he was just a legend)—always got the girl.

A man like Rowen … All he’d probably get was the plague.

He sniffled and rubbed at his nose. Yes. There. Right on time (since nothing else ever seemed to be). The potential beginnings of the plague. He tested out a cough, listening intently to the end of it. No wheezing.

Yet.

Well. As it was only a matter of time before he died, he might as well make the most of his death by dying in the cause of rescuing Jordan. He had no other place to return to, no one else who might wish to see him now.

He was a most unwanted wanted man.

He looked at the bird, still merrily trilling away with no concern about his proximity. And the damned thing was right. He was no threat. Except to himself.

The bird let out a shriek and dove for the bushes as something larger rocketed through an opening in the canopy and landed right on the branch the little one had been seated on. The branch wobbled beneath its weight and Rowen looked up to see a hawk scanning the area around him.

He dragged out his sword and sketched in the dirt around him a moment before he thought better of it. He already needed a good whetstone to sharpen his blade; he’d best not dull it further.

He set down the sword and tugged off one of his boots, turning it upside down to empty it. A pebble bounced out of it. And a small stick. He needed his spatterdash gaiters to better protect his feet. He slipped his boot back on.

He needed his saddlebags. He needed his horse. He needed to be ready to get Jordan when they released her. He dragged himself back to his feet and the hawk took off.

He set out to find the horses and this time succeed with getting them back and on the way to Holgate.

Holgate

It was true that Jordan Astraea seemed to be an anomaly in the world of Weather Witches. No other Witch had held out as long as she had—no other Witch had continually insisted so vehemently that she was not what Bran knew her to be.

Perhaps he was losing his touch. Perhaps the appearance of his doe-eyed daughter had caused him to go soft. He shook his head and looked at the child once again seated not far from his feet. Yes, he was gentle around her, but was he too gentle at his job? Surely not.

So Bran found himself doing something he seldom did: he dusted off the dustiest of his books and began to do some more thorough research.

He traced all sides of her family tree, pored over each family members’ physical and mental descriptions. She was, as completely and truly as any child might be, the very definition of what should happen given the union of an Astraea and a Wallsingham. And if she was exactly as she should be … she should not be a Weather Witch. There were none in either of her family lines.

Witchery could be traced as clearly as the results of Darwin’s work aboard the HMS Beagle. It was very much like the split in the evolution of a species. There were clear connections. Lines connecting Witches like a spider’s web. Except in the case of Jordan Astraea. So much of her was directly from her father, from certain physical features to attitudes. Too much of her was him for Bran to dismiss her claims of innocence. And if she was his offspring, then there seemed no way she could be a Witch.

He sat back in his chair and scrubbed a hand across his face. No Weather Witches or magicking of any discernible type anywhere in her background and all signs pointing to her background being what she claimed.

He groaned and Meggie hopped up, asking, “Are you well, Papá?”

He smiled, assuring her that most indeed he was, though the truth of the matter was that the thought of doing what he did to Make Weather Witches—doing that to an innocent who was truly Grounded—his stomach clenched. The idea made him ill.

A siren sounded, blaring from the corners of the compound’s walls and making Meggie jump into his lap. “There, there, little princess,” he said, pressing his hands over her own smaller hands. “It simply means we have airships inbound.”

The noise stopped and Meggie twisted round in his lap to look him square in the face. “Can we see the airships, Pápa?”

He nodded. “Yes, yes, I think that’s a most excellent idea. We can watch them dock tomorrow before lunch, I expect.”

She clapped her little hands together and slipped off his lap. “That sounds wonderful!”

“Good. But now, let’s straighten things up and prepare for bed.”

Meggie returned the books to any shelves she could reach and patiently held out the ones she couldn’t reach for Bran to return himself. She straightened the papers on his desk and put things in their proper drawers and then waited for her father to say it was a job well done. Which he always did, even if he still fixed a few small things himself afterward. The library’s door closed behind them and they returned to their private chambers to find Maude already preparing for bed.

“You two are late,” Maude scolded, but it was a soft and joking tone she used. She grabbed Meggie and quickly helped her change, running the brush through her hair a dozen or more times so that her hair had a gloss that made it look remarkably like moonlight. Maude cleared her throat. “It is time for a bedtime tale,” she began.

“And this time, I shall be the tale-teller,” Bran said, stepping in.

Maude smiled and sat on the edge of the bed with Meggie, delighting in the story Bran told, which included a pantomime of dancing bears and assorted animal noises. At the story’s conclusion, both Maude and Meggie were laughing and clapping.

Bran took a bow.

Together the two adults tucked Meggie in and kissed her cheek and forehead.

It was then that Bran realized something was missing. “Where is your bed?” he asked Maude.

She wove her fingers together before her and looked out from beneath her eyelashes at him. “I did consider what Meggie had suggested regarding your far-too-large-for-one bed. And considering that I hear the snoring nightly all the way in here, I think I might somehow adjust to the noise being—a bit closer?”

Bran blinked at her. “Oh. Why, yes, of course.” He motioned to the bed and followed her, curious.

She closed the door between Meg’s room and Bran’s and turned off the remaining stormlight.

Bran stood there beside the bed and in the dark, both literally and figuratively. He heard the rustle of fabric and the sound of cloth hitting the floor. “If I asked you to leave here with me and Meggie, would you?”