hardly noticed when the moon slid behind the clouds and darkness fell like a blanket. Having roamed the mountains most of her life, she had no difficulty keeping to the path, and was not unnerved by the scrapings, squeaks, and hoots that surrounded her. But when there was a huge pop and a flash of dazzling white light, her heart stopped in her chest. She spun, balling her fists.
“Dag?” she called. “Is that you?”
“Of course it isn’t.” A man’s voice, irritable. A spare form held up a pine stick that glowed with magical incandescence. “He was asleep in a corner when I left. Your absence took the steam out of him. Make your love spells pretty harsh, don’t you?”
“Mr. Stanton?” Her voice was high with disbelief, then a ferocious whisper. “What are you talking about? Love spells?”
“Oh, please. I was riding back from Dutch Flat last night, and I saw—” He stopped abruptly, evidently reconsidering his words. “Well, it was obvious at the dance tonight. Your lumberman smelled like a French whorehouse just burned down. Ashes of Amour, I take it? You used far too much lavender.”
“You … saw me?” Emily hissed. “Under the Hanging Oak?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
“But I was …” Emily choked on the words: naked as a beggar’s toes.
“All right, so I may have glimpsed you,” Stanton said. “Briefly. But with your hair all undone, I certainly couldn’t see …” He paused. “Anyway, I rode on immediately. I certainly had no wish to watch you lay a trap for some poor male to blunder into.”
“You dirty spy!” Emily was hot with embarrassment.
“I make no judgments.” Stanton’s tone implied that he didn’t have to, that judgment had already been passed by eons of respectability and decency. “Of course, it represents an egregious breach of professional ethics, but he is the richest man in Lost Pine, and not missing any limbs or digits, so I can understand—”
“Oh, yes, I’m sure you understand completely,” Emily snarled. “You’re so all-fired insightful. See if you can guess what I’m thinking right now.”
Stanton didn’t venture. Rather, he picked up another stick from the ground and said, “Lux.” The branch flared to light with a loud pop—the same sound that had startled her a few minutes earlier. He handed it to Emily. To her surprise (and slight regret, for her fingers were stiff with cold) she found it gave off no heat, and rather glowed as if illuminated from within.
“Thank you,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“I guessed you’d take it upon yourself to check on things at the Old China Mine. And not knowing the way to get there, I decided that following you would be the best way for me to get there, too.”
“Why do you want to go up to Old China?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I can’t let a female with such dangerously antique notions about magic—not to mention such a questionable code of ethics—face a pack of zombie miners alone.” He paused. “Pap couldn’t go, and none of those drunken sots back there would be any help.”
“Then you believe Besim was telling the truth?”
“Of course,” he said. “Half of Besim’s Cassandra, the half about you casting spells on people without their knowledge and being a büyüleyici kadin—that translates as ‘bad Witch,’ in case your colloquial Turkish has gotten rusty—was entirely accurate. Knowing that, I have every reason to believe the other half. Or at least to believe that he believes the other half. I still maintain that Corpse Switches do not fail.”
“Well, I don’t want company,” she snapped, turning on her heel. Especially not your company.
“You may not want my company, but you need my help.” Stanton’s long legs easily matched even her most rapid strides on the rough path. “I have studied with professionals who have done years of necromantic research. You haven’t the least exposure to modern theories of revivification or devivification—subjects with which I have practical experience.”
“This is my job,” Emily said. “Besides, you’ve got a whole new crate from New York to open. Why dirty your hands with real magic?”
“And what would you know about real magic?” The scorn in his voice made her want to punch him. “Lives may be at stake. Perhaps you could curb your pride and think about that?”
Emily clenched her teeth. Insufferable.
“Suit yourself,” she hissed.
Emily and Stanton reached Old China two hours past midnight.
Shacks and mine gear glowed stark white in cold moonlight, and everything was graveyard-still. In a mining camp that used live labor, this