The Stone of Shadows. R. A. Finley

stench of a laboring engine. A surprising, worrisome boom—the lowering of the drawbridge for the vehicles on board, their motors already running, emitting their own noxious clouds. People, their voices adding to the tumult, emerged from the shelter of waterfront shops, parked cars, and the terminal itself.

      He blinked stinging eyes and, fighting sensory overload, contemplated the growing crowd below. Add to that the number of passengers amassed at the ship’s rail and the sum total could equal disaster. Too late, he returned his attention to where it should have always been: Leticia at her table by the window. Only she wasn’t at her table.

      She wasn’t anywhere he could see.

      Dread settled like gravel in his stomach. With so many people as cover, she could slip away in one of the waiting cabs or, worse, hand the relic over to someone with Cormac none the wiser. He’d have no trail to follow at all then. Slim chance, indeed. He scanned the area near the hotel, just across from the pier’s exit. Was Leticia still inside, hiding, waiting to make her move? Or had she already made it, already blended in with one of the groups milling about the entrance to the hotel’s pub?

      A worker’s shout heralded the securing of the gangway and the potential for disaster doubled, trebled, as the exodus began.

      Damn her—and damn him for not anticipating this.

      At the pier’s exit, people scattered like billiard balls in a well-executed break. Some veered towards the parking lot while others rushed to jump into the vehicles currently fighting for space with those leaving the ferry. By far the largest number, a mix of passengers and the pedestrians who’d come to meet them, cut through the congested traffic in the street to walk into the town proper. Even with the visual acuity of a raven, it was impossible to track every person, every movement. He was fighting something like panic when a flash of familiar colors drew his eye.

      Leticia’s scarf.

      Maybe. It was gone before he could be sure, swallowed in the stream of people going up Bridge Street.

      He took flight. Thankfully, it was easy to locate the jewel-toned swirls in the midst of so many drab grays and browns. It was almost as if the locals hoped to blend in with the stones of their buildings. Leticia, with such garishly dyed cashmere fluttering about her neck, couldn’t have blended less.

      He contemplated that as he circled to keep her in sight. Didn’t she want to lose him? Not exactly a reassuring thought, if she didn’t. Had she gotten rid of the relic already—given it to someone in the crowd, or hidden it somewhere for one of her Society cronies to pick up? Had she become merely a decoy? Cormac felt his heart stutter, choking on a flood of adrenaline until he noted the way Leticia clutched her timeworn satchel to her side. It was an unusual gesture for her, and a revealing one. His heart settled into a more assured rhythm.

      This would end here.

      He flew to a solitary tree at the end of the long block, well ahead of Leticia’s part of the crowd. Mostly sheltered from the wind by the buildings, its gnarled branches were hosting a conspiracy of ravens and made it the perfect place to hide.

      Or not, as it turned out. His landing set off a chorus of harsh protests from several territorial juveniles. And, as he prepared to do something about that, one of the elders noticed Cormac’s eyes—blue-gray instead of raven-brown—and set about making a spectacle, which the rest enthusiastically joined. They clucked, they cawed, they scrabbled and hopped, jouncing branches and raining dried leaves onto the sidewalk below. People looked up—some intrigued enough to stop. The flow of traffic slowed, drawing even more attention Cormac’s way.

      He screeched, his fury palpable enough to scatter the flock. In a confusion of flapping wings and scolding chatter, they regrouped, then flew high overhead, west toward the Peedie Sea.

      A bell jangled somewhere to his right, and he looked over in time to see Leticia enter a narrow stone building at the start of the block. The post office. Its door closed sharply behind her.

      He flew to the building’s sole window—a high thing, less than a foot wide, set next to the door. The ledge was too narrow but he gave it a shot anyway, beating his wings while his feet scrabbled on the crumbling masonry. Leticia’s back was to him, blocking his view of whatever was transpiring between her and the clerk…until she took something from the counter and, turning slightly, tucked it into her satchel. A booklet of stamps, it looked like, and what was probably a receipt.

      Stamps? This outing couldn’t be so innocuous as that. Why wait all day to run an errand—and time it with the arrival of the last ferry? While carrying around the relic, no less. Before he could theorize, she turned away from the counter and began walking back toward the door.

      Cormac flew up to the roof, out of sight, to wait. She, more than any of her Society, knew of his knack for taking raven form. She had to have noticed the ruckus in the tree.

      Most shops had or were nearly shut, their proprietors busy turning out lights and pulling down metal security gates. The last of the ferry passengers, with nothing to interest them, were moving quickly through the area.

      The bell announced Leticia’s exit, and Cormac peered cautiously over the rain gutter, watched her wave to the clerk as the door closed. Instead of moving away as expected, she paused, still facing the building, to adjust her scarf. He held himself motionless, hardly daring to breathe, but she didn’t so much as glance up. Apparently satisfied, she turned away and continued up the street. Whatever her plans, they were taking her towards St. Magnus, not back to her hotel.

      With a few pedestrians still near enough to cause trouble, Cormac forced himself to hold back, to observe. Did she plan to return the relic to its hiding place? Add her own wards to the considerable craft that already protected the building? Until help from her Brigantium arrived, it would be the wisest thing for her to do.

      He couldn’t let her.

      When she turned left into the alleyway behind the cathedral’s walled grounds, he pursued. Trees had been planted along the interior side of the high wall, their bare, twisted branches overhanging the entire path. He landed on one, timed it so Leticia was directly below. She, with her gaze once more intent on the cobblestones, didn’t appear to notice.

      This was it. Complete isolation, distracted prey.

      With his heart pounding triple time, Cormac initiated the shift and dropped. Illusion vanished, replaced by truth. Behind Leticia, his own booted feet hit the pavers. At the sound, she startled and began to turn. He didn’t want that. Didn’t want to see what loss looked like in her eyes.

      “Don’t, love,” he said, surprising himself, then planted both hands against her back and shoved. She stumbled into the wall opposite, her cry of shock morphing into one of pain. Belatedly, his hands registered the feel of her. The thin, light bones.

      He’d forgotten, for a moment, that her appearance was no illusion. That she was no longer the woman he’d met all those years ago. Leticia McDaniel had grown old.

      As she crumpled, her knees buckling, fingers scrabbling on the rough, vine-covered bricks, Cormac wrenched the satchel from her arm—pulling her entirely off balance—and ran. Above the hard pounding of his steps, he heard the slap of her hands on the pavement, her soft moan. He kept running. Regret served no purpose. He would not look back.

      Nearing the alley’s exit, he reached into his coat pocket, found the chip of stone he’d taken from the Bishop’s Palace, and triggered the spell to send himself there, several circuitous blocks distant. Far enough to prevent Leticia from reaching him in time—even if she were able.

      He arrived at the ruin in the span of a blink and, disoriented, let his head drop forward and his eyes close. He used his Sight to make sure he was alone. Tourists would’ve been asked to leave hours ago, but a guard or caretaker could still be poking about. Worse, there could be someone else like him—someone up to no good. But his search turned up no other presence. He allowed himself to relax a little, to turn his concentration toward breathing slow and deep while his body adjusted to its new surroundings.

      Icy