Page 4 of The Lighthouse Keeper

In a misguided attempt at conversation, I gallantly offered to take the upper bunk.

“Unless we take on quite a few more passengers, we shouldn’t be required to share.”

I gave her a sparkling smile. “You’re probably right.”

“And since we aren’t wed, I hardly think we should so much as discuss sharing accommodations.”

She sounded so prim, I had to fight to keep from laughing. I could have said her virtue was quite safe with me but had just enough sense to see that she might take it as an insult. Shewasquite safe, however. My tastes ran fast in another direction.

Which was ironic, really. I might have been able to keep my inclinations a secret from my family, but if they’d ever found out, they would have cut me off as surely as they had for witchcraft.

I’d apparently been destined to be a Fairchild in name only.

“Are you the oldest child?” I asked. She had the air of authority I associated with my oldest sister.

“Pardon me?”

“The oldest. Are you the oldest child in your family?”

She blinked, clearly weighing her response. “Again, I’m not sure we’ve reached this level of familiarity, but as we’ll be working together, I see no harm in answering.”

She paused until I prompted her with an, “And…?”

“Yes.” Her head tilted slightly. “And I suppose you are the youngest?”

I laughed at that. “Excellent guess.”

“I should have known.”

Her tone did not invite further conversation. With little else to distract me, I rifled through the packet of papers Madam Munro had sent with me. “I wonder if some of this is for you,” I murmured, trying to make sense of a diagram of… cloud patterns?

“She gave each of us what we need to know,” Miss Barnes murmured back without looking up from the book she’d opened, her incurious tone daring me to continue.

C’mon, you went to Harvard. Figure this out.

I examined the diagram more closely. The abstract circles and random dashes and arrows failed to resolve into something that made sense, so after a moment I set it aside. Then next page contained a detailed description of the Ferox Cor.

“Gold amulet studded with rubies and emeralds, housed in a small box. Doesn’t sound all that threatening.” I spoke insistently, perhaps rudely, but we needed to find a way to work together.

She didn’t look up, but she paused in the middle of turning a page. “Keep reading. A necromancer created it over five hundred years ago, imbuing it with the ability to grant the holder unlimited power.”

“Lord.”

“They say, though, that the Cor has its own will, and whoever claims it will eventually be turned to evil.”

“This seems a lot more complicated than keeping the peace with the city council,” I muttered, mostly to myself.

“Yes, it does seem odd that Munro sent someone so obviously ill equipped to the task.”

That brought me up short. Miss Barnes continued to read, ignoring me completely. Almost despite myself, I sent a puff of power in her direction. The book she studied so assiduously turned into a squawking chicken for just long enough to make her jump out of her seat.

She stumbled, but when I reached up to help her, she pushed my hand aside. “If you think you’ve got any real defense against my magic, you’re mistaken.”

Water trickled down onto my head. I glanced up at a small, dark cloud that had suddenly formed. Snickering, I took a coin from my pocket and gave it some power. A sturdy black umbrella opened up, protecting me from her magical rain.

She scowled and flicked a finger. A gust of wind hit me, strong enough to blow the umbrella inside out. That was a mistake. It was one thing for us to tease each other with magic, quite another to upset the mortals who rode the train with us.

The couple who rode behind me yelped at the gust of wind.

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