“Good, then, good,” LeFel said. “Mr. Shunt, help the boy eat.”
“No,” Wil said. “It’s poison, boy. Don’t eat it.”
But Mr. Shunt had already scooped up a spoonful of the mush and shoveled it into the boy’s mouth, like a bird stuffing a chick. The boy chewed, swallowed, and opened his mouth again.
Wil Hunt shifted, his heavy chains clanking. “Leave the boy alone. Do what you want to me—I’ll take on whatever debt that child owes to you. Let him go, or so help me, I will tear out your throat.”
LeFel rolled his head against the back of the chair. “You, cur, are less than a gnat to me. And a bothersome gnat at that. I tire of you.” He picked up the hourglass and dropped it on the floor at his feet. He lifted his foot and smashed the hourglass with the heel of his boot.
Wil Hunt yelled out, in pain, in rage.
LeFel watched as he twisted, stretched, molded back into the form of an animal, a mindless beast. He lay there, whimpering in pain.
LeFel turned his heel upon the glass and gears, assuring it was crushed to dust.
“You are no matter to me now. Mr. Shunt,” he said. “I believe it is time to invite the witch to join us. Bring her to me.”
“Alive?” Mr. Shunt breathed, the empty spoon balanced in the air by just his thumb and pointer finger, the rest of his fingers flared out.
“Yes,” LeFel said, “alive. For now.”
Mr. Shunt scooped one last mound of oats into the boy’s mouth. He tipped his fingers to the brim of his hat, and then ducked back through the doorway, dissolving into the darkness.
LeFel closed his eyes, letting the sound of the wolf’s pain and the boy’s quiet sobbing fill him as no other nourishment could.
The crash and thrum of the steam matics outside the carriage was interrupted by a knocking at the door. He walked to the window, wondering who among his workers would dare bother him without invitation. He pushed aside the brocade curtains and squinted against the afternoon light.
There, on the steps of the carriage, was a small matic. Its portly copper body was balanced on spindly spider legs covered in dirt and dew and pine needles. The dual springs on the top of the device pumped puffs of steam out the side vents. It had been running all night, the fire within it nearly gone.
“No.”
LeFel opened the door, and the little matic rattled in, coming to a rest at his feet, its spindly legs tucked beneath it.
Using his handkerchief, LeFel lifted the matic to study the alarm trip.
This was clearly the ticker he had left at Jeb Lindson’s graveside. And it was also very clear that Jeb Lindson was no longer dead.
LeFel yelled, his fury cursed in a language that could blister the sun. He hurled the ticker at the wall, shattering it like a glass bell, pieces bursting apart on the floor, the embers that once drove it gone to ash beneath the heat of his words.
The wolf pushed onto its feet, head low, ears back, teeth bared. The boy, fallen once again under the effects of the drugs, did not stir.
“You will not stand in my way, dead man,” LeFel said. “Not between me and the witch’s powers. If death will not take you, I will tear you apart myself.”
LeFel took up his curved cane and strode across the broken bits of metal to the boy. It was time he be of use. It was time to introduce the boy to the creatures LeFel kept locked away in the adjoining carriage.
LeFel paused above the cot the boy lay upon, then bent close to his ear. “Come, little dreamer,” he whispered. “Time to bleed.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Cedar Hunt gauged just how quickly he could draw his own gun against Cadoc Madder, and judged it to be a losing proposition.
“Have a seat, Mr. Hunt,” Cadoc said again.
“I’ll stand, if it’s just the same,” Cedar said.
Cadoc pointedly looked down at the table where the arrow Cedar had touched still glowed faintly, then back up at Cedar. “Stones say you’re hunting,” he said, slow, as if each word were sorted out from among too many others.
“Stones are right.”
Cadoc tilted his head, looking Cedar up from boots to hat. “You plan on killing what you’re looking for?”
“I plan on taking back that which has been stolen. If it means violence, I’ll not shy from it.”
Cadoc nodded. “Stones say that’s true.”
Alun tromped out from the other room. “He’s a guest of mine, brother Cadoc,” he said. “You can put that blunderbuss away.”
If Alun was surprised by his brother’s sudden appearance, he didn’t show it. Alun carried a thin wood and leather box held together with brass tacks. The wood between the tacks was dark with age, as if the box had been weathered by salt air or worn down by ten thousand fingers and a thousand hands.
“One of these should suit your need, Mr. Hunt,” Alun said. He placed the box on the center of the table, flicked the brass locks, and lifted the hinged lid.
The box was lined with black velvet that caught shadow and light like the night sky drinking down starlight. Three clean slashes of silver filled the box. Three tuning forks, each smaller than the next, nestled in the darkness there.
“And which one is for sale?” he asked.
“All of them. For the right price,” Alun said. “We’ve other things to keep our hands busy than tuning forks, don’t you say, Cadoc?”
Cadoc, still standing behind Cedar, hmmed in agreement.
Cedar knew the longer he stayed in the cavern, the more daylight, and Elbert’s chance of survival, slipped away. He drew just one finger along the tines and down to the handle of the first fork. It was finely wrought, but something about it didn’t seem right. He’d learned long ago to trust his gut when it came to such things. So he touched the second fork, this one scrolled with a billowing etching along the handle that reached almost up to the tines.
He lifted his finger and finally rested fingertips on the smallest of the forks. Darker than the others, it was carved so that the tips of the tines flared out, sharp as an arrowhead. It looked more of a weapon than a tuning fork. He lifted it out of the box and struck it on the edge of his wrist, then set the handle against the wooden box. A clear tone rang out, louder than such a small instrument should be capable of.
Suddenly the walls, the stone, the pipes—the chamber itself—resonated with the bell tone and added to it the sound of pipe, drum, and harp, a rising, rushing tide of music not from this land. It was a call to battle, a shout, a joyous reel. Not at all the dark, sour song left behind in the boy’s windowsill, this song stirred his blood and made him want to shout, to dance, to weep.
Heavy hands pressed down on his shoulder, guiding him into a chair. As soon as the tuning fork was taken off the wood and out of his fingers, the music died, not even an echo of it left in his ears or thoughts.
He blinked. How long had he sat there, transfixed? Long enough that his eyes and mouth were both dry. The brothers were staring at him, curious smiles hidden in their beards.
“Aren’t you an interesting man?” Alun murmured.
Cedar glared at the tuning fork lying silent on the tabletop. “I can’t use something that strikes me dumb every time it sings a note.”
The brothers exchanged a look; then Alun puffed his pipe and locked the lid of the box back down. “These forks are tuned to catch the trail of the thing you hunt. Most men only hear the old song faintly. You, Mr. Hunt, are apparently not a common sort of man.” He pulled a thin length of leather braid from one of his many coat pockets. He threaded it through the eye hole in the fork’s handle, then knotted it into a loop. “Maybe you shouldn’t listen quite so hard.”
He held the leather braid out on the crook of his thumb. “Give it a try.”
Cedar took the fork again. No music. He struck it, this time against his sleeve. He pressed the handle to the wooden box. Just one sweet tone rang out—a perfectly tuned A. The song, if it had been there, was faint as reeds in a distant wind.