Chapter 2

DALLIN HAD never liked coming down to the gaol wing of the constabulary, set dark and dank in the basement of the great building where justice ground its wheels above and in the light of day. It was dim and moldy, the only light the oily flicker of smoky gas lamps set in sconces too few and far apart. And even though the interrogation rooms were set more toward the center of the cellars, at least fifty feet down and around the corner of the wide corridor to the left, still Dallin wrinkled his nose at the smells that breathed from the cell wing, permeating every pore of stone and brick: piss and vomit, stale liquor and fear, rancid heat from new fires built on the bones of the old. Death leached in somehow, snaking its darkling spice into brick and mortar, and Dallin shook his head at himself. They'd not lost one down here in seven years, and that had been the old caretaker who'd tripped over his own wash bucket and broke his tosspot neck. No angry ghosts. Still, Dallin couldn't help the slight shudder as he slipped his holster from his hips and handed it over to the bailiff.

Beldon turned the book on the table with his wide, callused hands and handed Dallin a pen. "Sign in."

Dallin bent to comply but couldn't help a sideways glance as Beldon looped the belt around the holster, eyeing the cool metal inside it with greedy appreciation. "From Booker's in Wedgewood," Dallin offered. "A pretty sum, but it comes with proof and papers from Oxnaford."

"And it sings?"

"True and sweet as a virgin lass on her wedding night."

Beldon snorted. "Your witness is in there." He jerked his head toward the heavy wooden door in the center of the stone corridor. "You'd best step along. Payton didn't wait for you."

Dallin frowned. "Payton? What's--"

"He's the one signed him in," Beldon cut in. "Couldn't've stopped him had I wanted to."

The discomfort in Beldon's glance gave Dallin pause. "You wanted to?"

Beldon sat back as he slid Dallin's revolver carefully from hand to hand. "He spoke of having another go at the 'poof enchanter.'" He said it with a disapproving curl of his mouth but hitched his shoulders in a 'What do you want from me?' shrug when Dallin glared. "His words," Beldon said. "But I wasn't keen on the way he said 'em. The lad was already bruised a bit going in, but...." Another shrug. "I made sure Payton knew someone would be counting them on his way back out. I've bent my ear, but so far I've heard nothing to move me down the hall."

Dallin merely nodded and tightened his jaw. He only just remembered to offer a curt "Thank you" over his shoulder as he made his way down the corridor.

He was almost hoping to surprise Payton in midblow or something when he swung the door open. He liked Payton only a little more than he liked Elmar. Both men were rather too fond of the more sordid aspects of their jobs than was decent; both men looked upon their constant striving to earn the responsibility of carrying a sidearm as a goal and a right to be had rather than the somber, ofttimes distasteful duty it was. But Payton was merely lounging on one of the wooden chairs, his handsome face smiling easily, perfect white teeth bright even in the dim of the lamps.

"Ah, Brayden, I wondered when you'd spoil my little chat." Payton waved over the table. "You've not met this"--he cleared his throat with a shrug that was a bit exaggerated, but still theatrically elegant--"gentleman." The inflection made it all too clear that the intent was in direct opposition to the word itself.

Dallin said nothing, only pointed his gaze toward the huddled figure on the other side of the table. Dark hair worn long to his shoulders, but clean and kempt, hid the man's face, and he had yet to look up. The shoulders were hunched, an attempt at smallness, perhaps, but Dallin could see that the build was lean and lanky. Height was not readily apparent, but the hands that stuck out from the ends of sleeves too long and loose were long-fingered, red and roughened with new chafing and calluses. The posture was one of resigned defeat, but there was nothing abject about it. Dallin sensed a hum beneath it all, an alert watchfulness that belied the weary set of the shoulders and hang of the head.

"Says his name's Calder." Payton tipped his chair onto its back legs with a laconic smile. "What was that first name again, Calder?"

"Wilfred" was the soft answer. "Wil." The voice was quiet, nearly gentle, so why did Dallin get the impression the name had been shoved out from between clenched teeth?

"Mm." Payton peered up at Dallin. "Wilfred Calder. Wil. From Lind." He rolled his eyes. "Wilfred Calder, this is Constable Brayden. He's to be your new friend, because frankly, you've bored me." The chair thumped as Payton stood and moved aside to let Dallin have it. "I've got nothing from him we don't already know. You handle it, Brayden." The tone had changed from pleasant and conversational to cool disregard. "P'raps you speak the same language."

Dallin let the slur go, but not the insolence. "Since it's my case," he said levelly, "I suggest you should not have been questioning a witness without my presence to begin with." He kept his voice even but allowed a slight edge of menace into the tone. "See that it doesn't happen again."

Payton's cool look turned sour. A glare he couldn't possibly back up kept wanting to stretch at his face, but to his credit he kept his expression to mere calculation. Dallin let him look. Dallin had rank and seniority, his size, and Jagger's ear; Payton had what passed for charm, his looks, and Elmar for a friend. Dallin gave him a moment to draw his own conclusions.

Thwarted, Payton turned his ire on the witness. "Wake up there, Calder, and give the constable his due respect." The word curled up in sarcastic mockery. Dallin ignored Payton's bit of a smirk but took a step forward when Payton gave a light cuff to the witness's ear. "Look up and greet your new friend--he's likely the only one you'll have here."

Calder flinched away from the blow but shot a murderous glare up at Payton. Dallin only just kept from snorting. It died in his throat when the man turned his head and leveled his gaze with Dallin's.

It was like looking inside a liquid pool of verdigris, deep and dense, murky depths shifting with swirls of sage and emerald. Almost as though the black ink spots of the pupils lay buoyant, gently poised atop a shifting well of malachite. Not just looking at Dallin, but *seeing* him--seeing him profoundly, and into depths Dallin himself had never plumbed.

'I know you,' he thought, grasping at a purling wisp of recognition that slipped through the saner fingers of reason. 'No. No, I don't, but... why does it feel like I should?'

The face should have been pale, but layers of sunburn flaked about the nose, one atop the other, and a thin swarm of new freckles flecked the high cheekbones, as though the man had spent his life locked up in a dark room and had only recently got his first bite of the sun--and the sun had bitten him back. The features were sharp and angular, too thin and too young, but the eyes took all youth and buried it beneath darkling depths of years and sorrows this man could not possibly have lived. Dark circles bloomed beneath green eyes, and a bruise flowered and purpled along the right cheekbone, swept up past the temple and into black hair. None of it served to mar the comely features; none of it took away the sheer beauty.

Disturbed and disoriented, Dallin tried to pull his gaze away--couldn't.

Is this what those men saw just before they'd come to blows? Was this witchcraft, as they'd claimed? Or merely the animal reaction of men confronted with something they'd never seen before and perhaps wanted to possess? A reaction, Dallin was dismayed to find, to which he himself didn't seem immune.

'Stop looking at me, stop seeing me.'

Dallin shook his head, opened his mouth--a greeting, an introduction, he didn't know, just something to shock him out of his own absurd stupor--but he was suddenly, embarrassingly mute. He rubbed at his eyes to cover it.

The movement brought Calder to action--he leaped from his chair, stumbled a bit as he backed over it, and then pressed his back to the far wall. Payton was instantly on alert. He took a step, but Dallin shot a hand out and held him back.

Calder was taller than he'd thought, Dallin realized with the small part of his normally analytical mind that was still working. Wider too.

'He was only trying to make himself small, unthreatening. Remember that later--you might need it.'

Payton was the first to recover, shrugging out of Dallin's grip. "Sit down, sir." He took a step forward, request and warning both.

"Aire," Calder breathed, eyes locked to Dallin, disregarding Payton completely and vibrating now as though his bones would shake loose. "Gniomhaire!"

Payton snorted. "Oh, you're from Lind, all right." Disgusted now, he stepped around the table to right the chair. "I asked you to sit down, Mister Calder. I won't ask again."

Calder only kept staring, didn't even seem to hear. "Guardian!" He spat the word like it tasted bad.

They all three stared--Dallin and Calder at each other, Payton shifting his glance between them. The fear and betrayal in Calder's eyes mystified Dallin. People reacted to his size; it was a natural thing, double takes and instinctive backward twitches. Dallin had been used to it since before he'd sprouted his first patchy bit of beard. In the line of work he'd chosen--or had chosen him, depending on how one looked at it--it was sometimes a handy tool. Useful, and therefore useable. Still, this seemed a bit extreme. What have I ever done to you? he wanted to ask, and only just kept himself from actually voicing the question out loud. Instead he stood silent, staring into eyes that seemed to swallow his sense, set him swaying.

Bewitched. Calder wasn't beautiful, Dallin decided. Those oracles he had for eyes just made one think he was. Even the fear was beguiling.

Dallin was still staring, trying not to feel so off, and only came back to himself when Payton cleared his throat.

"You will agree, Constable, that the witness has turned hostile and presents a danger to himself and the constabulary officers." Payton held out his hand. "May I have your manacles, please?"

The benevolent, sympathetic part of Dallin's mind registered the flare of panic in Calder's eyes at the prospect of restraint. The rational part of it understood immediately the advantage of that fear.

Dallin tore his gaze away from Calder, blinking, then stared down at Payton's open hand. Reluctance swept him.

Dallin could break Calder in half if he really wanted to. Shackles were hardly necessary. Anyway, the anticipatory gleam in Payton's eye filled Dallin with vague disgust. He almost refused just for the pleasure of spiking the smarmy git. Still, it would take hours of steady pressure to get the same level of discomfort the mere threat of confinement had brought. Dallin calculated that carrying out the threat would ramp up that discomfort and save them all some time and trouble, perhaps trip this Calder into anxious confession before lunchtime. And considering the raised hackles at the back of Dallin's neck, the swarming sense that something was going on right beneath his sight but not where he could see it with his eyes, magic seemed all too likely at the moment.

He handed over the shackles, their wide cuffs etched with charms and suppression spells. Dallin had always thought those engravings a silly pretension--now he only hoped the engraver hadn't been asleep on the job.

The snap of the metal over his wrists seemed to pull Calder back to the room. His eyes widened, gaze turning bright with dread for a moment, before it deliberately dulled and sank to the floor. His shoulders hunched again, and he bowed his head. A perfect imitation of submission, but Dallin had no delusions. The calculation in his lack of resistance as Payton all but threw Calder into the chair and the limp defeat of his posture all but screamed buried defiance, calm cunning.

"Well, that was the most excitement I've seen in months." The light in Payton's eyes and the near pant as he breathed reminded Dallin again why he didn't like this man. "I think perhaps I'll stay after all."

"No." Dallin's voice was calmer than he'd expected it to be, but his nerve endings were jittering, keeping the hairs at the back of his neck at rigid attention. "I don't think you will." He ignored Payton's glare, merely stepped to the door, hauled it open, and stared, expectant. He'd like to think the flat look was a handy reminder that if Payton didn't do as he was bid, Dallin could very well make him.

It worked. Payton loosed a small growl under his breath, then lifted his chin, straightened his coat, and swanned to the door. He shot a sour sneer over his shoulder. "Don't think I won't--"

"You're not leaving me in here alone with *him*, are you?"