When they were out of sight, she dismissed them from her mind. They might return, and she’d have to keep an eye out for that, but in the meantime, her concerns were with the ones still in the house.
The building in front of her was a large, dim bulk in the fading light. It belonged to Linea, the Lady of Abern; she retired there occasionally for foxhunting and parties. Now, however, it lay empty, and the Cousins had appropriated it for their own use.
A faint, almost imperceptible pull had drawn Mirage there, leading her on when the tracks she was following became too faint to trust. She suspected it was the same connection that had led Miryo to her. And it had brought her here, to the forested fringe around the house, but now it had failed her.
Not completely; she could tell that Miryo was in the house. But there was nothing beyond that. No sense of her double’s specific location.
Mirage gritted her teeth. Not good enough.
She closed her eyes and focused on the sensation she had been following. It was weak, and hard to pay attention to; it faded whenever she directed her attention to it, like a light so dim it only shone in peripheral vision. But Mirage was determined not to accept that. She concentrated on thoughts of Miryo: her appearance, her voice, the way she behaved. The ways in which she was different from Mirage. The strange feeling Mirage got every time she went to do something and found Miryo had done it already.
Give over, Void it. Where is she?
There.
Mirage’s eyes shot open. Western end of the house, top floor but below the attics. Not quite on the corner.
Now she just had to find a way in.
She hummed the way she had heard Miryo do, but felt nothing. Not surprising; it would have been too much to ask that she be able to sense any alarm spells. She’d have to walk in blind, and hope to outrun pursuit.
Wait. Think about that. There weren’t any witches there when you were ambushed. You’re lucky there weren’t; one spell and you would have been out of your saddle, on the ground next to Miryo. So if there weren’t any witches there, will there be any here?
That seemed downright stupid. Why not send a witch to help capture them? Miryo couldn’t cast reliable spells, but she could still wreak havoc trying. Why wouldn’t they send someone to deal with that?
“The doppelganger is anathema to us. It is destruction and oblivion, the undoing of all magic. It is the ruin of our work, and the bane of our being. It and our magic will never coexist, and its presence threatens all that our powers can do.”
She heard Miryo’s voice, recounting Misetsu’s words, as if her double were standing next to her. Mirage actually jumped, then made herself be still.
Could that be it? If I’m a danger to them, and to their magic... they may be afraid to put a witch anywhere near me.
If that’s the case, there may well not be one in the house.
She couldn’t be certain her logic was correct.
But does it matter?
Not really.
Mirage would go in after her double whether there was an alarm spell or not. She considered that, and found it acceptable. Stupid, but acceptable.
She stood there in the shadows for a moment longer. Exhaustion permeated her body; she’d driven herself hard to get here. Mist was in poor shape. Mirage was in worse.
But she had been even more worn down before, and she knew how to deal with it.
Mirage closed her eyes and went inside.
There was a place within her, one she had found years ago, when she first made the commitment to be more than an ordinary Temple Dancer. It had served her well during the extra training she put herself through. When she went to Silverfire, it was all that had kept her going during the days when the students gave her the worst they had, when the masters demanded more and faster progress from her, to prove her right to stay. There was a place inside where she could go and not feel pain or weariness, where she could put them aside and focus on the task before her. It was an internal emptiness, a clean space where all of that melted away. Mirage closed her eyes and found that place. She took three slow, deep breaths, and felt her exhaustion drop from her. Her muscles were loose, relaxed, but ready to leap into motion. She could be tired later. Right now, she had something she had to do.
Mirage opened her eyes and looked at the house. Miryo was in there.
She began to run.
The stable lay at the house’s southeastern corner, and the shadow of its wall made a good hiding place. Mirage cursed the weather for clearing; the moon was bright, and made sneaking in more difficult. But she had gotten this far without any sounds of alarm, and she thanked the Warrior for that.
Inside the stable, she made a quick count of horses. Five of them, all with Starfall’s markings. Did that mean five Cousins? They might have lost some horses along the way, either at the stream or in tripping over fallen bodies. Well, assume at least five. And hopefully not more than ten.
She left the stable and ghosted around its side, into the shadow of a huge tree. There weren’t many lights in the house, and most of them were clustered up near the top of the western end, where Miryo was being held. Unsurprising.
Still, there might be Cousins lurking elsewhere in the house; she couldn’t see the windows of the northern side. And Mirage didn’t relish the idea of wandering through the entire place, trying to find staircases to get her up to the top.
The answer was right in front of her—or rather, above her. The tree’s branches overhung the southern wing; they would give her an easy path to that roof. Then she could find a way to climb the wall of the main body of the house, and thus gain the roof. If nothing else, she could break in a window there; she’d at least be closer to her destination.
Mirage grasped the branches and swung herself up into the tree.
She landed, cat-soft, on the roof, and ran along it to the shadow of the higher section. Still no alarm. And there was a drainpipe, right in front of her, which led straight up, and looked sturdy enough to climb.
Lucky for me Linea’s not a fanatic about security.
The drainpipe took her up to the roof without trouble. She ran along its crest, staying as low as she could; all it would take was one Cousin outside and looking up to give her away. But she made it to the house’s western end, and slid carefully down to the edge that overhung the top-floor windows.
She could hear Miryo’s voice, muffled through the window. Mirage glanced down and scowled. Someone—probably one of the Cousins—had nailed the window shut. She could care less about Linea’s opinion of the modification, but it meant that getting into Miryo’s room would not be quick. And she couldn’t afford to be slow.
After a moment, she slid sideways, to the next window. It too had a light—both of the ones flanking Miryo’s did—but she could hear no voices.
Mirage lowered her head until she could peer in.
A woman was in there, sitting on the floor. Her back was to the window, which was encouraging; she was sharpening a sword, which was not. But she had left the window open a crack, and Mirage, eyeing the gap, calculated that she could get in quickly enough to take down the Cousin without a prolonged fight. She hoped.
Through the window, take her down. Then next door, hope there’s not more than one Cousin in there. If you’re lucky, it’ll go quietly enough that the others won’t know what’s happened.
If you’re not lucky—you’ll deal with it.
Mirage took a deep breath, held it, then expelled it slowly. She grasped the gutter, tested to be sure it would hold her weight, and then swung her legs down, placing her toes silently on the windowsill. The Cousin had not turned around. Mirage lowered one hand and grasped the window’s edge.