camp, was intended to keep everyone in his or her bed. No wonder the wisps had had a hard time waking her. She knuckled her eyes and took deep breaths of the chill, damp air, and forced her mind to clear.
!!!! said the wisps, dancing urgently and madly. And they flashed an image of . . . someone, someone male by the outline, walking into the ruins. Well, that certainly woke her up! It looked as if all of Rosamund’s fears were justified. But who could be the idiot stupid enough to go strolling into the ruins in the middle of the night? And why was he awake, and not the rest of the camp?
Now fired with urgency of her own, she unbolted and opened her door and jumped down into the grass next to the horses, who themselves were so deeply asleep they didn’t even snort. And that was even more alarming. If even the horses had been sunk into sleep . . .
A mere heartbeat later, she heard Rosamund snatching open the door of her vardo and held up her glowing hand to give her fellow Master light to see by. Rosamund nodded her thanks and swung herself down out of her wagon, dropping down beside Giselle, a coach gun in one hand.
Giselle shivered in the chill, damp air. The scent of old, dead leaves and pine needles hung heavily around them. “Do you know who—” she began not even bothering to whisper, because clearly you could fire off a cannon through the camp and not wake anyone.
“Captain Cody,” Rosamund bit off, her face full of annoyance and anger. “Damnation! I warned him—”
“I believe he was singled out,” said Leading Fox, coming around from the side of Giselle’s vardo, walking so silently neither of them had heard him. “I do not think your warning made any difference. He has just enough magic to be susceptible, and not enough to protect him. We should have thought of that and taken steps. I blame myself. I could at least have left an owl with him.” Fox had an owl on each shoulder, and three more hovering above his head.
Rosamund bit off another curse, and thrust the coach gun at Fox. She reached into the vardo and brought out a pair of hand-crossbows. “Can you summon more than just those little things?” she asked Giselle. “They won’t be of much help, but if we are up against ghosts, Air is the best power to use against them.”
Well, if they are not afraid to come. . . . Giselle shut her eyes and gathered Air Magic around herself, calling it down out of the sky, envisioning it collecting around her like an ever-thickening cloud. Then she tried to summon any Air Elemental that might be within reach, thinking how much they needed help right now. If this was a case of spirits or ghosts, Rosamund’s Earth Elementals would not be of much use, but Rosamund was right, Air would be. She felt the summons whirling out of her impelled by the Power of Air, and hoped there was something nearby besides her three wisps that might be brave enough to reply.
Something . . . several somethings at least . . . answered wordlessly. She continued to call.
When she opened her eyes, she felt a little faint with relief to see a good dozen sober-faced night-sylphs, at least as many pixies, and several dozen of the tinier Air Elementals, all of them—well, all the ones near enough for her to see—looking determined. The night-sylphs, all of them, were armed with what looked like swords of glass. The pixies and the tiny ones were armed too, if not with knives and miniature swords, then with their own long claws. The pixies were creatures the size of dolls, but with strange attenuated bodies and long limbs, mostly clothed in colorful rags, and with dragonfly wings. Their joints were knobby, and their faces more than a little animalistic. The smaller ones—Mother had never called them anything but alfar—were also winged, but looked half-human and half-insect, with touches of bat and bird.
She glanced at Rosamund, to see if she could see the little army. Evidently she could, for she nodded with satisfaction and hoisted one of her crossbows. “Now we need to run,” the Earth Master said, “or at least as close as we can without breaking our necks—I don’t—”
But as if to answer her, the wisps zoomed in front of them and began glowing with all