Briar forced an innocent smile. “I beg your pardon?”
“Oh, it’s pardon she wants now, is it?” Winton exclaimed. “The little witch. Arrest her, Flynn!” Sweat patches spread under the arms of his purple silk coat, and his flaxen hair stood on end above his red forehead, as if he’d worked himself into a fury on the way from the village.
“What’s this all about?” Briar asked, playing dumb on the off chance they were fishing for information.
“There’s damage been done,” said the sheriff. “Up at Master Winton’s house.”
“What kind of damage?”
Winton gave a wild laugh. “What damage? How dare you!”
“Patience, friend,” Sheriff Flynn said. “We have to do right by the king’s law. Little lady, you didn’t have anything to do with Master Winton’s house collapsing, now did you?”
Briar ground her teeth at his condescending tone. Little lady? The sheriff leaned on her doorframe like he owned the place, making it impossible for her to reach for her hidden paint supplies above the lintel. Not that she should be cursing anyone right at that moment.
“His house collapsed?” She widened her eyes, hoping she looked concerned and a bit simple rather than deranged. “I don’t see how I could have anything to do with that, Sheriff.”
“I find it hard to believe myself,” the sheriff said. “But this ain’t the first complaint I’ve had about your … line of work.” He straightened, tugging up his sword belt. “I can look the other way when it’s a man’s trousers ripping in the street or a woman’s prized flower garden dying, but this is different.”
Briar struggled to maintain her innocent expression, surprised the sheriff knew about those little curses. She thought she’d been so subtle.
“Maybe we can work something out,” she began. “I don’t know anything about Master Winton’s house, but for those little—”
“Don’t let her get to you with her doe eyes, Flynn,” Winton hissed. “I know your kind, witch. We don’t need the likes of you in this village, with your larceny and your vandalism.”
Briar blinked. She had never engaged in larceny in her life. She wondered how long Archer’s merry band had been thieving in that particular county. Archer. Had he truly summoned the sheriff, as he’d threatened?
She eased forward so they couldn’t cross her threshold, resisting the urge to glance at her hidden paints. “Doesn’t the king’s law require proof that a crime has been committed?”
“Aye,” Sheriff Flynn said. “Is that paint on your wrist there?”
Briar’s fingers twitched. “If you’re accusing me just because I dabble in the occasional—”
“It’s no use, lass,” the blacksmith interrupted, looking down at the hat in his calloused hands. “I told Master Winton you were talking about him in the market, about how he charges too much for linseed oil and the like.”
She stared at him, stunned. “You what?”
The blacksmith refused to meet her eyes. “I reckon you took it too far.”
“Too far?” Briar asked indignantly. He was right about that part, as she truly hadn’t meant to knock down Winton’s house, but she couldn’t believe he would betray her. She’d given him a discount and everything.
She wanted to curse the blacksmith halfway to High Lure, no matter how many starving children he had. She wanted to seize those work-roughened hands and cover them with so much carmine he—enough. She stamped hard on the destructive urges pulsing through her. It wasn’t the time.
She studied the men on her doorstep, assessing her chances. She still hadn’t gotten a good look at the fellow lurking behind them. One of Lord Barden’s retainers, perhaps?
“What happens now?” she asked, stalling for time. “You’ll take me before Lord Barden?”
“Ordinarily, yes,” the sheriff said slowly. “But in this case, you hurt a friend of mine. I don’t see as how we need to involve his lordship at all.”
“That’s more like it,” Winton said. “She’ll just curse her way out of Barden’s dungeon. This calls for more permanent measures.”
Cold dread crept through Briar’s body. “I can leave town,” she said. “You’ll never hear from me again. I swear it.”
“Afraid it’s too late for that.” Sheriff Flynn rested a hand on his sword and stepped over the threshold.
“But—”
“I don’t reckon you have a thousand crowns to pay for Master Winton’s new house?”
“A thou—”
“I wouldn’t touch her money if it were a million!” Winton said. “I want vengeance not recompense.”
Briar backed away from them. Did she have time to grab her hidden paints? Her knife on the table? The men were blocking the only exit from the cottage. If I can reach the paint chest, I might be able to—
Then the sheriff stepped aside, revealing the man who’d been behind him. He was middle-aged, with a pinched, narrow face and sleek brown hair. A long, well-worn cloak embroidered with the gold sigil of the Hall of Cloaks hung down his back, and his arms bore the swirling tattoos of a fully licensed voice mage. Briar drew in a sharp breath, her pulse spiking.
No. Not like this.
The sheriff cleared his throat with a wet gurgle. “Mage Radner, you are hereby authorized to execute this woman.”
The cloaked mage nodded formally. “It would be a pleasure.”
Briar was already moving when the voice mage opened his mouth and spoke the magic words.
She dove for her paints as the first spell shot across the cottage and struck the table, bursting into a shower of sparks. She landed on her knees by her box of supplies, gasping as she jarred her injured wrist.
I’m not going down like this.
The voice mage advanced toward her. Briar fumbled at the clasp on the paint chest. It was stuck. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and she threw herself out of the way as Mage Radner shouted another incendiary spell. It hit the paint box, which exploded in a riot of color. Vermilion, azurite, yellow ochre, indigo. The paints splattered across the wood floor, mixed with splinters and broken glass. Briar grasped for anything she could use as the mage stalked closer.
“You haven’t a whisper of a chance against me,” he said hoarsely.
“Then where’s the fun in it for you?” Briar asked.
“This isn’t about fun,” the mage said. “You’ve an unhealthy attitude toward mayhem.”
“So I’ve heard.”
He unleashed a string of phrases unintelligible to any but a voice mage. Briar rolled away from the blast, her palms slipping in the paints. Verdigris, bone black, umber.
Her jars of spare linseed oil ignited, and smoke began to fill the cottage. The flames spread fast, drinking up the oil, licking at the quilt on her bed, rising toward the thatched roof. She gasped, choking on smoke, and scrambled back from the blaze.
Mage Radner remained calm. He didn’t laugh as she crawled away from him. Some mages gloried in their power. They would have loved dominating an injured curse painter as she made her last desperate effort to survive, but this mage was composed, calculating. He terrified her—but she wouldn’t let him beat her.