The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway (mobi ebook reader .txt) 📗

Arkady’s display of self-indulgence, willing himself to stay still and calm. He felt himself shift into battlefield mode, his intention focused narrowly on the problems at hand. The first problem was Arkady and how to play him for information. “Oh,” he said, his tone sarcastic. “So Miss Percy is Ofan now? First the crazy earl and now that charming girl?”

Arkady pointed his cigarette at Nick. “She is his granddaughter. And the talent is sometimes inherited. My daughter had it, and so does your Julia. We were watched, that day we all went to Castle Dar, Nick. It was not that ridiculous earl who dueled with me. It was someone else. Someone very powerful but untrained. I found a secret closet. I saw the candles, the holes drilled through the wall. The air reeked of time play, I tell you. Who was it who hid there? I tested the servants and it could not have been any of them. Which means it was either Julia Percy or your spinster sister.”

“You’re mad.”

Arkady shook his head. “Oh, no. That earl is mad, but I? I am only very angry. When I arrive tonight in London I seek them. I stop time as I go. If I find her breathing, blinking, living in a moment that I have stopped . . . then I know.” Arkady put the cigarette to his lips and drew, hard. Nick watched the glowing tip flare hot and bright.

“What happened?”

Arkady blew the smoke out slowly and tapped ash onto the Axminster carpet. He shrugged. “I was a fool. The other night at dinner, I might have begun to suspect, but she charmed me. Those dark eyes . . . almost they made me cry! And today, again, I did not think. If she is Ofan, she can feel me coming. So she escapes. I find a room with your sisters, frozen. But no Julia. She felt me coming and she ran down a back stairway out through the stables. She is gone into the night. I start up time again. I tell your sisters that the little Julia, she went to bed. I go out to find her. But the crowd is huge, and there is the shooting. . . .” He shrugged.

Nick swallowed his fear. Just as he’d learned to do it in Spain, during raids. Put the fear aside. Then three deep breaths to come up with a plan. Three calm breaths, and then action. At the end of the first breath he knew he had to trick Arkady into believing he was on his side. At the end of the second breath, he knew that he had to somehow get to Alva and enlist her help without Arkady’s knowing. And at the end of the third breath . . .

Nick held that third breath and felt his heart beating. He held it until he wanted to gasp. Nothing came to him. He let the breath out in a long, silent sigh. He took a fourth breath. This wasn’t Spain. Julia was alone in an angry crowd, in London in 1815, without a weapon, perhaps without money. . . . He thought, for some reason, of her thin slippers.

Arkady eyed him. “I see you struggling with your feelings, Nick. You can’t hide them from me. This is because you still love the girl?”

“I don’t love her,” Nick lied. “I am concerned for her, and for the Guild. And I’m thinking, damn it, so shut up.” Nick ground out the words to keep from shouting them. “We need to get her back. For the Guild.”

“Indeed we do.” Arkady put his cigarette to his lips, then lowered it without taking a drag. “And when you say the Guild, Nick, I hope that is what you mean. I hope your new girlfriend the lovely golden lioness and your old girlfriend the little brown mouse have not conspired together to make an Ofan out of you.”

“Just shut up and let me think.”

Arkady bowed. “Please, my lord. Think.”

Nick turned his back to Arkady and stared at the fire. Think. He concentrated on the leaping flames. Julia could manipulate time? Could this be true? And if it were true, would that keep her safe? But how could she have that power? Nick breathed through the fear and thought about his lover. She must have run from Arkady because she believed it was the safer course, and if she was Ofan then she had some defenses. Nick had to trust her choices and come up with a plan that left Arkady behind.

At his feet, Solvig snorted in her sleep. The huge dog lay on her side, her nose and paws twitching. She was hunting something in her dreams. Hunting . . . hunting! Solvig was a terrible guard dog . . . but perhaps she could hunt.

“Solvig,” he said out loud. She woke and her droopy eyes found his. She lumbered to her feet and pressed her nose into his hand. Nick turned to Arkady. “The dog,” he said. “She will find Julia.”

Arkady crossed his arms. “It is possible. We must give her something of the girl’s for scent. It could work. Let us go immediately.”

“Not you. You can’t come with me. For God’s sake, man, she’s terrified of you. She trusts me. I must go alone.”

Arkady scowled. “She trusts you, does she? But do I? How do I know you will bring her to me?”

“The girl’s life is in danger. Our first priority must be to find her. Then, I promise I will bring her to you. You can perform your Ofan tests on her. I think you’ll find that she is just a nice young lady from Devonshire, much like any other.”

“No. She is Ofan. Or worse. What she did to me at the dinner table . . . the way she made me trust her? It was like nothing I have ever experienced. It is true, I am susceptible to beautiful women. But this Julia Percy, I am not attracted to her. She is too young, too innocent—not like your lovely sister—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Nick snapped his fingers for Solvig. “Enough! Go to the