Madame Celeste Gearhart's Arc

Chapter 8 of 24

The bell screamed at dusk. Celeste dropped her pestle and spun toward the workbench. Her clockwork crow beat its brass wings and shrieked with it. Someone had touched the totem. But no crew came. The alarm meant only one thing, and Gideon had warned her of it. Mei-Ling had come herself. The cottage door swung open before Celeste reached her cane. Mei-Ling ducked under the low frame, peg leg thudding on the root-grown floor. Earrings caught the candlelight. Her one eye swept the table, the bones, the dull ghost-silver in its brass cradle. She had sold Celeste that stone. Now she smiled like a woman collecting more than a debt. "You built a fence around my prize," Mei-Ling said. She rested one hand on her sword. "Clever. But I don't need to carry it out. You'll carry it for me." Celeste gripped her cane and did not step back. "You owe me nothing. I owe you. So take the favor you're owed and leave the totem." "The totem is the favor." Mei-Ling drew the blade an inch. "Free it from your little trap. Walk it to my boat. Or I gut you and pry it loose myself." Celeste's mind raced over the wiring beneath the table. The trap bit any hand but hers. Mei-Ling knew that. She would force Celeste to disarm it first. So Celeste bought a breath. She limped to the bench and laid both hands on the cradle, as if to unbolt it. Instead she pressed her palm flat to the ghost-silver and spoke a binding word. The stone woke cold under her fingers. She did not lift the totem. She reached through it. The spirits inside stirred, and she flung her will outward, toward the water, toward the pirate's moored boat. Mei-Ling frowned. "What are you—" A groan rolled up from the landing. Wood cracked. The spirits Celeste commanded seized the pirate's boat and tore it apart at the seams. Boards splintered. Rope snapped. The hull sank into the black river with a long, wet sigh. Mei-Ling wheeled toward the sound, sword high. When she turned back, Celeste stood ready, the crow perched on her shoulder, cold light crawling over her hand. "I channel the dead across the water," Celeste said. "I just proved it on your boat. Come closer, and I do it to your bones." For the first time, the pirate's smile broke. She measured the witch, the stone, the ruined boat. Then she backed to the door. "You've made an enemy who doesn't forgive," she said. "I'll come again with more than a sword." "Swim home first," Celeste said. Mei-Ling vanished into the fog. Celeste sagged against the table, heart pounding. She had kept the totem. But she had spent her secret. Now Mei-Ling knew exactly what the totem could do, and she would return prepared to take it whole.