speak to Stanton again. She doubted that her silence represented any kind of a punishment, but it certainly suited her better. Just outside Colfax, off the main road to Auburn, they came across a pleasant meadow where the horses could graze on juicy new spring grass. Leaving Romulus with Stanton, Emily wandered off to answer the call of necessity. Following the sound of rushing water, she discovered a lively little creek at the foot of a timbered hill. She knelt for a drink.
Tucking her gloves into the pocket of her buffalo coat, she felt the rasp of the comfrey Pap had given her, and something else, something cool and smooth. It was a coin, one of the gold eagles Stanton had paid over. Emily clutched it in her hand, a wave of affection for the old man warming her whole body. Swiftly, she transferred the coin into the silk pouch around her neck for safekeeping.
“I’m going to make it right, Pap,” she murmured. “I promise.”
When she came back, she saw that Stanton was no longer alone. He was speaking with three men by the side of the road. They were all dressed in solemn, dusty black and were mounted on skinny rib-sided nags that swished their tails with boredom and annoyance. The only words Emily caught were Stanton’s:
“I’m afraid not. But I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Good day to you, brother.” The man who had been speaking looked down at Emily, and tipped his hat. He had a thin face, with prominent, knifelike cheekbones. “Sister.”
When they had ridden off, Emily finally broke her self-imposed silence.
“Who were they, and what did they want?”
“No one, and nothing.” Stanton watched after the men until they were well down the road.
Then, Stanton unpacked food from the saddlebags, and Emily spread her skirt over the grass, stretching out her stiff legs. The farther they traveled down the flanks of the great Sierras, the warmer and more fragrant the air grew. It felt very much like spring now; everything around them smelled of juice and sap and growth. In Lost Pine, on days like this, she would be out gathering fresh herbs for charm work. They were under a Taurus moon now, good for collecting items to be used in spells that required fortitude—potions against drunkenness, nostrums to ease the pains of childbirth, elixirs for those who had difficult journeys to undertake … She sighed, feeling homesick already.
She watched as Stanton poured cold coffee from a flask into a tin cup. He waved his fingers over the cup and the liquid warmed to steaming.
“Is it really worth dirtying the Mantic Anastomosis to have hot coffee?”
“Don’t nag,” he said.
“But you said yourself that the increased use of magic is harmful, and causes Aberrancies. So shouldn’t people stop doing so much magic?”
“I said that was one theory,” Stanton clarified. He poured sugar into his coffee from a waxed-paper bag. “But magic is building this country, Miss Edwards. Will you ask the government to surrender its military Warlocks? The police to do without their Warlock investigators? And what would industrialists do without fashionable Warlock secretaries to light their cigars?”
Stanton swirled the coffee in his cup, took a sip. Grimacing, he added more sugar until the liquid took on the consistency of molasses.
“Useful things will be used,” Stanton said. “Advancements come with costs. No one ever said manifesting a nation’s destiny wouldn’t hurt a bit.”
“Well, the kind of magic Pap and I do doesn’t hurt anyone,” Emily said.
“Except poor stupid lumbermen.”
Emily glared, and contemplated saying something cutting. But how could she? Stanton was right. She stared at her hand, at the stone glittering in the sunlight.
“Poor Dag,” she whispered. “Before we left Lost Pine I touched him. I touched his face. Why didn’t it help? Why wasn’t the magic extracted, like it was with the zombies?”
“The zombies were animated entirely by magic.” Stanton chewed on a thick piece of bread, which he’d buttered and topped with even more sugar. “The stone absorbed the magical energy that drove them. But it seems not to affect magic that has already worked its way into a living creature’s life force.”
“That’s a shame,” Emily said.
“Not really. If the stone worked like that, you’d most likely be dead.”
“Instead of on a road to San Francisco, trying to rescue a man who loves me so much he hates me?”
Stanton looked at her as he tore another hunk from the now-ravaged loaf. “Still feeling guilty, are we? I’d have thought you’d be over that by now.”