Chapter 13 #3
“Oh, forgive my rudeness,” the gentleman said and tipped his head chivalrously. “I ought to introduce myself. My name is Mortimer. Lancelot Mortimer. Lately come across the channel.”
Luna nodded. “Pleasure.”
“And do you have a name, sweetheart?”
She hesitated for just a breath. Then: “Smith. Jane.”
“A delight, Miss Smith.” The gentleman leaned forward slightly, extending his hand.
And Luna stared at it for a solid five seconds.
How rude would it be for her not to accept such a simple gesture of goodwill?
How many times had this poor fellow been rejected from even the most basic polite interactions, all due to a deformity he could not possibly help?
Auntie Arabella’s voice seemed to ring in the back of her head: “A little kindness goes a long way.”
With a short expulsion of breath, she reached out, accepted his hand, and gave it a quick shake.
Instantly, she regretted it. In that brief moment of contact, something sharp bit the center of her palm, like a pinprick.
Did he just mark her? She withdrew again, afraid to look, afraid to betray her awareness of what he had done.
Afraid any move she made or didn’t make would be the wrong one. Fear swirled in her gut.
A sudden loud clatter signaled the approach of the trolley.
Luna breathed out a sigh of relief, gazing out beyond the shelter.
A small queue of passengers had gathered on the sidewalk outside the shelter, lining up to board.
The sight of them made her feel marginally safer.
She stood, then shivered. After all, she couldn’t have this man trailing after her.
With a quick glance back, she caught his one good eye.
“Where are you off to, Mr. Mortimer?” she asked.
“Oh, I have business in Westside,” he answered, folding his hands atop the dome of his skull-headed walking stick. “The next trolley is mine, I believe.”
With a nod and repressed sigh of relief, Luna offered a little smile.
“Well, welcome to Ballycastle,” she said.
“And good luck.” She stepped out from under the shelter then and joined the back of the short queue.
If she could make a flying leap onto the trolley and let it keep speeding on its way without stopping, that would be ideal.
But it huffed and puffed to a standstill, and the conductor stepped down, looking grumpier than usual.
“Miss Smith?”
Luna sucked a short breath through her nostrils.
Carefully schooling her face into blandly pleasant lines, she turned to find Lancelot Mortimer standing by her elbow.
He wasn’t a large man—his mismatched eyes were nearly on a level with her own.
But up close, that sense of anti-glitter was much stronger, and she had to resist the urge to recoil.
“Did you sense a . . . disturbance earlier today?” he asked, dropping his voice conspiratorially.
Her stomach knotted. “A disturbance?”
“Yes. In the reality veils.” He tipped his head, his good eye boring into hers. “It was almost as though someone had stepped outside of time and back in again.”
Luna blinked several times. Then, drawing her head up slightly, she said, “I know nothing of magic, Mr. Mortimer. I’m not the one to ask about such things.”
“Indeed?” The corner of his mouth tilted mildly.
“Well, then never mind. I only mention it because a working of that scale could only be wrought by a sorcerer of special magnificence. I’m curious to know how such a person manages to get by in a place like Ballycastle, where the anti-sorcery laws are so stringent.
” He nodded gently. “No need to worry your head about such matters, Miss Smith! No doubt the wardsmen will come down hard upon whoever it was, and the city will be made safe for all.”
With those words, he tipped his hat and walked away, leaning heavily on his walking stick. Apparently no longer intending to wait for the next trolley after all.
Luna watched him go, unable to tear her gaze away until the conductor roughly barked, “Next!” and she realized it was her turn in line. Hastily she faced forward, fished out her coin purse, and murmured, “One fare, please.”
Her ticket secure, she found an empty bench at the back of the trolley and slid into it.
There she sat for some moments, heart racing, breath coming in short.
When she twisted to look out through the windows, she spied no sign of Lancelot Mortimer and his melted face anywhere.
Part of her wanted to believe she’d invented the entire interlude.
But when she looked down at her palm, there it was. A mark—small, black. About the size of a bug bite. Stinging.
“Oh, Green Mother!” Luna whispered and tried to rub it off with her sleeve.
It wouldn’t budge. Panic looped in her gut.
Was it some sort of spell? A tracking spell, perhaps?
If so, she couldn’t return to the boardinghouse.
Or the shop. She couldn’t go anywhere safely, not if they were tracking her.
Oh, how could she have been so careless?
Auntie Apolonia always told her she was too impulsively compassionate, without a thought for potential consequences, only Luna had never thought it a real vice.
After all, was it possible for one to be too kind?
But this one act of kindness—not even kindness, really, merely politeness—may have just compromised everything.
A little ripple of movement drew Luna’s eye.
The next moment, in a twirl of green tendrils and purple petals, the violet crawled out from her apron pocket and onto her lap.
It curled its leaves around her fingers and peered up at her from several sweet, round faces.
Then, before Luna could do anything to prevent it, it climbed into her palm and she felt .
. . something. Something magical taking place.
Some sort of energy exchange which she could not explain.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, too soft to be heard by any of the passengers around her.
“What are you—oh!” She caught her breath.
For the violet began rapidly to wilt. Its little petals withered up, turning black, and its leaves shriveled and dropped away, one after the other, into her lap.
In less than five seconds, Luna cupped a dead plant in her hands.
But the mark on her palm was gone.
“Oh!” She choked on a sob, tears brimming and spilling out onto her cheeks.
The violet had eaten the spell. Somehow, it had taken that sliver of dark magic right out of her, giving its life without even being asked.
“But you were a brave little thing in the end, weren’t you?
” Luna whispered, tears dropping on the rapidly-disintegrating bits of leaf and stem.
After a little while, she turned her head to stare out the window at the streets of Ballycastle slipping by. The dome of Saint Agatha’s flashed, and she heard the cathedral bells ringing out the hour. She bit her trembling lip, forcing down yet another sob.
You should leave tonight, her own voice whispered in the back of her mind. And it was the truth. If this altercation wasn’t evidence that her enemies were closing in, she didn’t know what was.
But her ticket was for Wednesday morning.
And it was nonrefundable. She didn’t have the money to pay for another, not without dangerously compromising her chances of survival wherever she ended up.
She had to have something left over for food and shelter.
Oh, why did she purchase that ticket so far in advance?
Because if you didn’t, you would have found a way to talk yourself out of going, that voice in her head answered sternly.
It was true. A pre-purchased, nonrefundable ticket had seemed like an important security measure at the time. Security against her own wayward heart and wishes.
Luna gazed down at the little dead violet.
How effective had it been in removing that tracking spell?
Would this stranger, this Lancelot Mortimer, be thrown off her tail?
He had the name of The Arcane Bouquet, but it was a big city.
It could take him some time to figure out what it was and where it was located.
She breathed out slowly, the expulsion of air gently stirring the dried up leaves.
She was going to have to risk it. She was going to have to wait.
Just until Wednesday morning. Surely she could survive until then.
The trolley clattered across the bridge of the Bally River, carrying her on to Lower Eastside. As they crossed that sparkling water in the sunset glow, Luna quietly stretched her hand out through the window and let the remains of the violet drift away in a cloud of dust.