“Quit your howling, Sheriff,” he called to the dog. “I’m all right.” He patted his friend’s wrinkly head and started back to town.
Chapter 3
Briar scrubbed at the carmine paint she’d spilled on her quilt when she’d cursed the teacup, hands shaking from the adrenaline rush of working so quickly. She kept paint supplies tucked beneath her pillow for emergencies, but she hadn’t been sure that would work. Carmine lake, a bright red made from crushed insects, was an excellent explosive. Transferring the curse to the second cup had been the difficult part.
According to the Law of Resonance, the third law of curse painting, a curse applied to an object of emotional significance could affect a person from a distance. The stronger the emotional connection or the lengthier the contact, the stronger the curse. But a single curse could also affect multiple inanimate objects that regularly came in contact with each other. Some said the same principle was at work.
Briar remembered an early lesson in a stuffy art studio a few blocks from the sea.
“The phenomenon is called Inanimate Resonance by certain third-law theorists,” her father had said after using a single curse to set fire to two books that had spent years tucked together on a dusty shelf. “Others believe the effect is a function of the Law of Wholes. The objects become as one, and that’s why a single curse can touch them. At least two schisms have occurred in the Hall of Cloaks over this distinction.”
“Which theory do you believe?” Briar had asked, more interested in her father’s brushwork than his words. His curses always worked the first time, something she had struggled with back then.
“The only thing that matters is that it works.” The light of the burning books flickered in his large eyes as he turned toward her. “You are learning practical curse painting, Elayna Rose. You must use every tool at your disposal regardless of what some academic from the Hall calls it. Petty schisms have no bearing on us.”
Briar had opened the studio window to release the smoke from the books while her father extolled his singular approach to curse theory. She could still hear his heated voice, though many years and many miles separated her from the lesson. She had known, even then, that her father and mother’s attitudes toward curse painting were different from other mages. But their paintings were prettier and more effective than the work of other mages too. She hadn’t yet realized how dangerous it had been for them to ignore the Hall’s oversight.
The lesson about resonance had stuck, though. When Archer had threatened her, she’d scrawled an explosive curse onto the teacup in her lap because it was usually stacked on top of the one she’d given to him. With a flick of her brush, the carmine explosion had transferred from one piece of clay to the other. The distraction had given her enough time to paint a more elaborate jinx on the slim wooden chair rung she kept under her pillow, using a mixture of verdigris and malachite. The two shades of green had worked together to hurl the chair across the room—an example of the Law of Wholes at work.
A few drops of paint had seeped into the rags around her injured wrist. Briar dabbed at the red-and-green smudges, trying not to jostle her arm too much. She had always thought the county sheriff or someone from her old life would force her to use her hidden defenses. She hadn’t expected a threat in the form of a fast-talking thief. Had Archer stumbled upon Winton’s house at the right moment, or was he searching for her specifically? Even if he wasn’t connected to her old life, he’d found her too easily.
Briar breathed in the smells of dry thatch and oil paint, the smells of home, to calm herself. The job offer had tempted her more than she liked. She needed the gold, but that wasn’t what drew her in, nor was the prospect of rescuing the fair damsel. Lady Mae probably enjoyed just as much comfort in Lord Larke’s castle as she did in her father’s manor—more than the blacksmith’s daughters experienced, certainly.
No, it was the challenge that tugged at Briar, calling like a siren. The thief wanted her to perform serious magic. It was no petty revenge. A sophisticated enough curse to cut through a licensed mage’s defenses would take preparation, study, and a great deal of power. It would require picking apart another’s magic at the seams and blowing the pieces to bits. The idea of all that destruction lured her, singing to her soul in a way she hadn’t experienced since settling in the cottage.
Challenges had enticed Briar’s parents too. They’d pursued their destructive magic ardently, disregarding the laws and regulations governing most art mages. They had never accepted limitations, something that had made them exceptional artists. But human decency had fallen by the wayside too often in favor of pursuing their next artistic challenge, the next beautiful curse.
Briar had worked hard to distance herself from that attitude and the actions that accompanied it, actions that still hounded her memories and troubled her sleep. She’d tried to live by a new code since escaping to the outer counties, vowing not to inflict physical harm beyond discomfort—itches and rashes were fine—never to make a poor person poorer, and to seek justice when the king’s law failed. But she wasn’t immune to the siren call of real curse magic.
Briar scowled at the painting of the wheat field on the easel. This Archer character had a lot of nerve to march into her home and shatter her efforts at a good, calm life with a powerful temptation. It was little wonder she’d cursed him with such violence when threatened.
She returned to the window to make sure Archer and his dog were really gone. Darkness cloaked the street beyond her garden gate, and the woods hummed with evening sounds—rustling branches, crickets, the hoot of a lone owl. Despite his bluster, she didn’t think Archer would actually go to the sheriff. He seemed intelligent—and far too confident for his own good. She wondered exactly how he planned to use an illegal curse painter to break into Larke Castle. It would be a fascinating challenge …
“No. Stop,” she told herself sternly. “It doesn’t matter.” She swept up the clay shards from the teacup and began preparing a simple meal of brown bread, hard cheese, and vegetables from her garden. She sliced carrots with her belt knife, the rhythmic chopping sound filling the cottage. “You are not going to get involved.” If she was ever going to make her new life worth what it had cost her to start over, she couldn’t get anywhere near that kind of scheme.
A knock came at the door again. He doesn’t give up, does he?
She left her knife on the table and went to peek through the curtains. Instead of Archer, the blacksmith who had hired her to curse Master Winton was standing on her doorstep, twisting a felt hat in his muscular hands.
Briar yanked open the door, planning to pull the large man inside so they wouldn’t be seen together, but as the light from her doorway flooded the stoop, she realized he wasn’t alone.
Sheriff Flynn stood on one side of the blacksmith, and Master Winton himself stood on the other. A fourth person lingered in the darkness behind them.
“Evening, ma’am.” Sheriff Flynn leaned his hairy forearm on the doorway. His belly bulged over his sword belt and strained at the buttons on his shirt, and his face was just handsome enough to be dangerous. “I understand you’ve been up to mischief.”