Casting Souls Read online

  “Soothing thought.”

  He smiled faintly. “I’m not well-versed on constructs. I never had one.”

  She studied him. Since he was still shirtless, it was easy to see the evidence of what she had done. He looked all right, though a little pale. “Are you upset with me?”

  He had glanced toward the door, but returned his attention to her. “Because you made me human?”

  “Did I?” she whispered.

  “I can no longer feel the mundane iron around us, and soul iron might as well be a lump of silver for all I can do with it.” His eyes had taken on a distant look, but he blinked, refocusing on her. “On the plus side, this boat no longer makes my skin crawl.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “The feeling the boat gives me?”

  “Do be serious.” She fought to hold back the tears that threatened. Why did she keep screwing everything up? “Are you mad that I made you human?”

  “Honestly?” His eyes met hers, and she suddenly noticed how blue they were. It was subtle, but they were no longer the blue-gray color he’d inherited from Esme. “I’m not angry,” he admitted. “A little out of sorts, but not angry. It hasn’t fully sunk in, but…” One corner of his mouth crooked upward. “I’m not going to turn into metal.”

  If he was human, that was true. She sighed.

  “Seriously, I’m not angry,” he said. “I don’t think you meant for this to happen.”

  “No, not like that.”

  “What would have happened if you had only stopped my devolvement? I would have gone through life forced to hide what I was—much like my father. I didn’t want to devolve into a thing, but being part way there wasn’t much better.”

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “You can’t be part of the world like that. Neither the human world, nor the world the ferra created for us.” He shrugged. “I guess the more I think on it, the happier I am.” He suddenly smiled. “I think I’m going to like being human.”

  A tear slipped down her cheek despite herself. “That’s so good to hear.”

  “But I’m not so sure how Dad—or the others—will feel about this.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be pleased. He’s done so much to see that you were saved.” So many horrible things, but she wasn’t going to tell him about that.

  “The ferra didn’t like it.”

  “I just don’t understand them. Why do they seem to want to keep you as you are?”

  “According to legend, we were once the perfect race. They want that back.”

  Briar frowned. Hadn’t Grayson told her something similar?

  A key rattled in the lock, and Briar stilled. Had Lucrezia come to finish her off? She’d probably make her guardsman shoot her again.

  The door opened and Briar tensed, not sure what to expect. She didn’t expect Agatha. By the way she slipped into the room and closed the door quietly behind her, Briar suspected she wasn’t supposed to be here.

  “Good, you’re awake,” Agatha whispered. She set her fiddle atop a nearby dresser, then pulled a slender penknife from her pocket before she hurried to her.

  Briar sat quietly while she severed the ropes binding her wrists. When Briar rose to her feet, Agatha pulled her into a hug.

  “Liam said you could survive soul fire,” she whispered, “but four blasts?”

  “Unfortunately, the powerful ones knock me out.”

  Agatha squeezed her tighter.

  Briar decided not to let the emotion sidetrack her. She’d deal with that later. She stepped out of Agatha’s embrace. “Where’s Lock?”

  “What—”

  “Grayson’s construct,” Briar clarified.

  “He was placed in a soul box.”

  “A what?”

  “A box made of soul iron designed to hold constructs that aren’t under direct ferra control.”

  Briar gritted her teeth. “Where?”

  “They won’t harm him. I’ve got to get you out of here.”

  “I’m not leaving without him.”

  “They were discussing whether to kill you.”

  Briar crossed her arms. “I’m not leaving without Lock.”

  Agatha frowned. “Be sensible.”

  “Get Tristan out of here. I’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t want to leave you to do this alone,” Tristan spoke up.

  Briar offered him a fond smile before facing Agatha once more. “Well?”

  Agatha considered her. “I doubt you can even open a soul box.”

  “Then I’ll take it with me. Where is it?”

  Agatha sighed.

  “Aunt Agatha?”

  “Lucrezia’s cabin. She has guardsmen,” she added.

  “Perhaps you could distract them.”

  “My Italian isn’t that good.”

  Tristan cleared his throat, then rattled off something Briar didn’t follow at all.

  “Was that Italian?” she asked him.

  “Sì.” He grinned.

  Briar turned to Agatha. “There you go.”

  “We don’t have time to stand here and argue.”

  “Then cut Tristan free and tell me which room is Lucrezia’s.”

  Agatha glanced at the young man, but made no move.

  “You don’t intend to cut him free?” Briar asked, shocked that kindhearted Agatha would even consider leaving him behind. “These ferra plan to send pieces of Tristan to Solon. You’re going to just stand by and let that happen? He’s human now.”

  “I don’t want any harm to come to him, but you must understand, he’s the key to stopping Solon.”

  “I’m the key to stopping Solon. I can do for the others what I did for Tristan.” Her excitement ignited as the realization struck. She really could save the others, and maybe Grayson, too.

  Agatha’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t respond.

  “What is it?” Briar asked. “Don’t you want me to help them?”

  “Like that? No.” Agatha’s blue eyes met hers. “Making the males human is no different than killing them. It won’t save the race.”

  Briar opened her mouth, about to tell her that Liam was trying to make her his assassin, but stopped. She didn’t want to cause a rift between the two of them—even if she was feeling less than generous toward them both at the moment.

  “And why do you want to save the ferromancer race?” Briar asked.

  “Because we were once the perfect race, but something went wrong. Since then, we have been waiting for those with the necessary power to return the race to its former glory. A soul singer and a drake.”

  “Even I’ve heard that fairy tale.”

  “Fairy tale or not, you cannot imagine the excitement when a little boy in the London stronghold built a dragon construct. You see, we already had a soul singer, and she was in her prime.”

  “Lucrezia.”

  Agatha nodded.

  “Poor Grayson. That woman is nuts.”

  “True, but personality notwithstanding, he was destined to be hers—until we lost him—or so we thought.” Agatha smiled. “Then you found him, and took his construct.” She shook her head. “I was so astonished.”

  “Liam wasn’t. He wanted to kill Grayson.”

  “He’s hunted the deranged so long that I’m afraid he tends to shoot first. Then there is his love for you. He wanted to spare you from the hunter’s life.”

  Again, Briar bit her tongue to keep her comments on Liam to herself.

  “It took a lot of convincing, but I finally got him to agree to let you keep your ferromancer. The taking of a construct is no small matter, and for you to take a drake by accident…” Agatha pressed her lips together and blinked several times. “Then Liam told me you were a soul singer,” she finished in a whisper. “I confess, I regretted tellin
g Lucrezia that you were headed to Cleveland.”

  “You sent her after Grayson?”

  “I did it for our race—not to hurt you.”

  Briar frowned. “You keep claiming that race as your own.” She gripped the skirt of her green gown and made herself continue. “How are you part of that race, Aunt Agatha?”

  Agatha didn’t look away. “You’ve heard of your grandmother, Melinda Traherne?”

  “Yes.”

  “She was my granddaughter.”

  Briar stared at this woman she had known her whole life. “You’re my—”

  “Great great grandmother.”

  “You’re ferra.”

  “Yes.”

  Briar turned and paced away, the soft rustle of her gown the only sound in the room. “You and Liam—”

  “Do not accuse us of lying. We never lied to you. We kept your ancestry from you because we truly believed you were human. You felt human to Liam and me. When we discovered that you weren’t, we were both taken by surprise.”

  Anger curled Briar’s hands into fists as she remembered that day at Agatha’s house last month. “What about when I visited you at your home? You touched the necklace that was Lock, then teased me about an admirer. You had to know it was a construct. Why all the deception?”

  “I was trying to get you to tell me what you knew. I didn’t want to reveal anything if you were ignorant of what it was. I also feared that some ferromancer had taken advantage of you.” She lifted her hands, then let them fall. “I’m sorry.”

  Briar rubbed a hand over her face, then noticed Tristan quietly watching the exchange. “As much as I would like to yell at you, Tristan and I need to go.”

  “Briar, he—”

  “No, I will not leave him behind.” She held out her hand. “Give me the knife and go, or tie me back to that chair.”

  Agatha studied her for a moment, then nodded. Stepping around behind Tristan, she severed his bonds.

  Once the ropes were severed, he immediately got to his feet, rubbing his wrists. He eyed Agatha cautiously, but if he had any hard feelings toward her, he didn’t voice them.

  “Where’s Lucrezia’s cabin?” Briar asked.

  “The deck below us. It’s a large cabin on the back of the boat—”

  “Stern,” Briar corrected.

  “What?”

  She waved away her question. “Never mind.” Crossing to the dresser, she picked up her fiddle case, then walked to the door.

  “Let me go first,” Agatha said.

  “You’re going to help us?” Briar asked as she stopped beside her.

  “I love you. I don’t want to see any harm come to you.” She didn’t wait for a response before pulling open the door and glancing outside. Their cabin opened onto a narrow balcony.

  Agatha held up a hand, signaling them to wait. After a glance in both directions, she stepped outside. Crossing to the rail, she repeated this look to either side, then waved for them to join her.

  “The rear stairs are less exposed.” She gestured toward the stern of the boat.

  Briar stepped out, then moved quickly past Agatha in that direction, keeping her step light. When she reached the end where the balcony continued on around the stern of the boat, she pressed her back to the wall and peeked around the corner. A shorter expanse of balcony stretched to the far side of the boat, but there was no one in sight.

  She leaned back and found Tristan pressed against the wall beside her, Agatha bringing up the rear. “Clear,” Briar whispered, then darted across the deck to the stairs. These were more narrow than the ones she had taken when she first came aboard. Hopefully, these weren’t used as much.

  Briar started down, keeping to the inner rail so she could look over the side, eyeing both the next flight of stairs and what she could see of the deck below them. It looked like these stairs opened onto an observation deck that overlooked the paddlewheel.

  A hand on her bare shoulder caused Briar to jump, but it was only Agatha stepping up beside her. “Lucrezia’s room is the first door on the far balcony.” She pointed toward the port side of the boat.

  Agatha hurried past her and continued down the next flight of stairs to the deck. Briar was about to follow when Agatha’s voice carried up to them.

  “Ciao,” she greeted someone, a man. Then she dropped into another language, her tone cheerful.

  “Sounds like she knows Italian pretty well,” Tristan whispered.

  Briar sighed, but didn’t comment on another of Agatha’s deceptions. “What are they saying?” she whispered.

  “He said he’s been hoping to meet with her,” Tristan answered in the same low voice.

  Briar grunted, but kept her comments to herself as the Italian man continued, his tone growing more serious. She was about to ask Tristan for a translation when the man abruptly switched to English.

  “The first of the unholy constructs appeared just after Franco went missing.”

  Briar met Tristan’s wide eyes. Lucrezia’s guardsman was talking about the chimera.

  “Are you saying—” Agatha began.

  “Then she forced Durante to put Gino to death. Durante is her oath-sworn. He could not refuse.”

  “She told us the chimera was an old one, preserved by her family since the Middle Ages.” Agatha sounded scandalized. Perhaps the ferra didn’t sanction making chimera—though they seemed to have no problem with using them.

  “She lied, my lady.” The man added something else in Italian.

  Agatha answered him and the two began to move away.

  “He has asked to exchange information in a more private setting,” Tristan translated. “He fears Lucrezia will overhear and he will be the next to be made into a chimera.”

  “I should have killed that crazy woman when I had the chance,” Briar muttered.

  Tristan stared at her.

  “I truly believe she’s insane, and I know she’s a murderer.” Briar didn’t mention that the one killed had been Tristan’s mother. She started down the stairs. “Come on.”

  Tristan followed without a word, glancing in the direction Agatha had gone.

  Briar cut across the observation deck, and as she had before, pressed her back to the wall when she reached the corner, then peeked around it. This balcony was a little wider than the one above them, but just as deserted. Perhaps the docked boat didn’t have a lot of passengers on board at this time, or maybe the ferra had rented the entire boat. Not that it mattered. Briar was just grateful for the lack of people.

  She led Tristan along the balcony to the first door. Trying the knob, she was surprised to find it unlocked. Was a guardsman waiting inside?

  “Stay alert,” she whispered, then pushed the door open. The cabin was much more spacious than the one she and Tristan had been secured in. No surprise. Among the ferra, Lucrezia was more or less royalty.

  Briar held her breath as they stepped into the room. She half expected Lucrezia to be lounging inside, or half a dozen guardsmen, but the room was empty.

  She carefully closed the door behind her. “This is too easy,” she whispered to Tristan. “Lock can’t be here. She wouldn’t leave him unguarded like this.” Could this be more of Agatha’s deception? Her stomach clenched at the notion.

  “Maybe we got lucky. Over here.” Tristan didn’t wait for her comment before crossing the room to the armoire against the far wall.

  She hurried after him, arriving just as he gently pulled open one door. The cabinet was empty except for the silver cube resting on the bottom shelf. It was perhaps four inches square and looked solid.

  “Is that…” What had Agatha called it?

  “A soul box?” Tristan supplied the name. “I think so. It feels odd.”

  “You can still…sense things?”

  He looked up. “A human wouldn’t?”

&n
bsp; “No. I don’t.”

  “Huh.” He turned his attention back to the box and reached a hand toward it. Just before his fingers brushed the shiny surface, a bolt of red light arced across the space.

  Tristan gasped and jerked his hand away. Then stumbled back, his wide eyes on the box. “Soul fire,” he whispered.

  “That’s unexpected.” She studied him. “Are you all right?”

  “It only brushed me, but I wouldn’t want to put my hand on that thing.”

  She eyed the innocuous-looking box. “I guess it’s guarded after all.” Did she dare touch it, or was the soul fire strong enough to knock her out?

  “Yes, it is.” Tristan chewed his lip.

  “Can you tell if Lock is inside?” If she found a way to take the box, she didn’t want to learn later that she had the wrong one.

  “You’re more likely to sense him than me.”

  “All right.” She moved closer, bending until her face was level with it, though not too close. “Lock? Can you hear me?”

  She leaned in, listening. A faint scraping sound came from inside the box, followed by a muffled screech.

  “He’s in there!” She straightened. “Help me find something to put the box in. A bag or—”

  “A pillow case?”

  “Brilliant.”

  Tristan hurried over to the bed and picked up one of the pillows. A moment later, he rushed back to her, the silken bag in hand. He had almost reached her when he stopped. That’s when she heard the rapid thump of footsteps moving along the balcony outside—heading this way.

  “Quickly!” He passed her the bag.

  Briar dropped it over the cube, open end down. Nothing happened. Tristan had to nearly touch the cube before it shot soul fire at him. Maybe it required human contact—or near contact to activate.

  It took a bit of maneuvering, but she managed to slip the pillow case over it. Gripping either side, she scooped the make-shift bag upward, taking the soul box with it.

  A shadow obscured the light coming from beneath the door. There was no window to climb out, and no good place to hide. Briar grabbed Tristan by the wrist and pulled him over by the door.

  Her grip on Tristan’s arm tightened as the knob turned. She considered braining whoever stepped into the room, but if she did a poor job of it, they would have her. Better to let them walk in, then slip out the door behind them. Hopefully, the open wardrobe cabinet would catch their attention.