would never let a girl enter. So I became ‘Gunther,’ and I won them fairly and rightfully.”
His eyes narrowed, and . . . something in his expression made her blood run cold. This was not going as she had thought it would . . .
But she was not fourteen anymore, and she was not defenseless anymore either. She felt steel settle into her spine. She was not going to be a victim this time; she concentrated a moment on summoning her allies of Air.
Within moments she had a half a dozen, all what she called “night-sylphs”—creatures that looked much like her childhood friends but were . . . more capricious. Not openly malicious, but their humor was darker, and a little cruel, and they were far more curious than the sylphs that came by day. They circled around the room a moment, then settled on the rafters. They were semitransparent, though of course they were completely invisible to anyone not an Elemental Magician; all had batwings and long, thick, dark hair, long enough that it dangled far past their feet and they were virtually clothed in it. Like her hair, when she didn’t cut it frequently. They stared down at the Captain and Giselle, waiting, with a look of keen expectation on their faces. Unlike the sylphs of the day, the night-sylphs thrived on high emotion, and there was plenty of that here.
“Well,” the Captain said, his voice boiling over with menace. “We’ll just see how much of a woman you are. And if you are lying to me, the first thing I’ll do when you’re inducted is to have you beaten within an inch of your life.”
He doesn’t care which I am now, because either way he’s going to get something he wants . . . he thinks.
He got up, moving far more quickly than she had expected for such a fat man, and straight-armed her into the wall, knocking the breath out of her.
And she knew what was coming next. He’d yank open her coat and vest, and tear open her shirt, expecting to prove she wasn’t a woman. And as soon as he saw she was—well, there she was, a woman in man’s clothing, who presumably had no men to protect her, and all alone with him. And what proper woman would be cavorting about in men’s clothing anyway? Only loose ones, like that notorious writer, George Sand! Even people who were illiterate knew about women like that!
The devil take you, she snarled in her mind. I need no man to protect me!
“Take his breath!” she shouted to the night-sylphs above her. There was a flash of puzzlement in his eyes—well, this was not the reaction he expected. But there was no time for him to do more than have that instant of puzzlement. Because the night-sylphs reacted immediately to her order.
Quicker than the tick of a clock, they dove down on the captain and enveloped his head before he even had a chance to respond to what must have seemed to him like the cry of a mad person, wrapping their long hair about his face and neck. He couldn’t see them, of course, but he could most certainly feel what they were doing. They could not do much in the physical world, but they most certainly could make air move, and they made it all move out of his lungs.
She could see his head through them. He clawed at his throat, trying to gasp, and unable to. His eyes bulged, and he staggered backward, tripped, and fell behind his desk. The padded carpet meant he didn’t make much of a noise, and it seemed he wasn’t thrashing. But then again, his ramming her into the wall hadn’t brought his men running into the office to see what the matter was, so perhaps they were used to violent sounds coming from within.
Sadistic bastard. She felt her mouth forming a silent snarl. Well, he had just taken on an opponent that was going to give him a taste of his own back.
But she didn’t want to kill him, after all, so she added, quickly, “Once he is unconscious, give him his breath back,” and turned her attention to getting herself out of those irons.
She closed her eyes and concentrated all her attention on her hands and wrists. The irons had been made for a man’s bigger hands and thicker wrists and were very loose on her. Loose enough that she was certain she could get them off.