A Reckoning of Wraiths (The Trove Arbitrations Book 3) by Amanda Creiglow

Author:Amanda Creiglow [Creiglow, Amanda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Waldron Lake Books
Published: 2021-11-30T05:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

A Persuasion

With Gigi gone, I’m less protected from the wraiths. Luckily, they don’t seem interested in me. I’m not part of the battle they’re playing out. Do they fight in the afterlife the necrowizards made for them? Are they happy that the veil is thin enough that they can come all the way through and reenact the battle where it originally happened, like the most dedicated of larpers?

The thought would be a lot more charming if their arrows weren’t quite so real. Or if the few times warriors take it into their heads to attack me, the attacks weren’t so blood-curdlingly realistic. But the question of whether wraiths have enough of a capacity for intention that my amulet works against them is answered when an axe swung with full power at my head feels like a kindergartener’s wiffleball bouncing harmlessly off me.

After that, I become less worried about dodging the arrows, allowing them to hit me if they feel like it. More often than not, arrows that look like they’re going to hit me end up missing, anyway. Whether that’s my amulet coming into play or Aloysius’s luck, I don’t know.

I just know that I can’t think out in the open like this, and I need to think. Max’s life depends on it. I’m pretty sure it does, anyway. Unless he has some super-secret way of calling in his masters, which is almost worse. Maybe a little backwards, but whatever.

When I get over a little ridge and find a hollow that will hide me, I start being able to sort through my options. I can’t walk the Crossroads back. I don’t know anyone in Glasgow. I could call Wilbur to come here, but even if that weren’t putting him in danger from the wraith battle around me, what could he do? Lend me moral support in the cab on the way into town while we wonder together if Max is dying?

I want to call Max. Tell him I’m working on his problem. Ask him if he has any ideas. But I don’t know what he’s doing right now—what spells he’s using to keep the wraiths at bay or how delicate the Right Mind required for them is.

Or if he’s even alive anymore. It’s entirely possible he’s a skeleton by now—a wizard interred forever with a god. Or at least until someone notices the hole we made in the floor of the Tron Theatre that we didn’t worry about patching.

Think, Elizabeth. Think. I sure hope he’s alive. I send the thoughts harder, though I have a feeling it’s in vain. Aloysius will hear my prayer, sure. But he’s hardly likely to intervene to save a wizard’s life. Too bad I don’t have a powerful supernatural creature hanging around to extort. That worked great last time—up until it didn’t.

I have to cover my mouth to stop a rough laugh from ripping its way out and alerting all the wraiths around me to my presence. Of course.

I dig into my pocket, looking for the card that Claude gave me on Saturday.

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