He raised an eyebrow interrogatively, but he obeyed with alacrity, plucking a spark of cold fire out of the air. My sword woke; I drew the blade into daylight. Folk did gasp and murmur, but the mansa frowned as he glanced toward the mirror and then back at me.

“Can you walk after him through the spirit world? Surely not, Catherine. You might vanish for weeks or months…” He trailed off.

In a silence weighted by every gaze following me, I approached the mirror. With so many cold mages in the entry hall, magic rippled in its depths. Rory’s reflection shifted back and forth from cat to man. Bee stared fixedly, her dreaming eye alight on her forehead. As for me, my own reflection glared back at me. Was this the face Andevai had seen and fallen in love with the day I had walked down the stairs and he up them to where we had first met on the landing? Hard to imagine! I looked as if I meant to bite someone.

I would find him! And I would make James Drake pay!

I nicked my skin to draw blood, its smear bright on the blade. I thrust my sword into the mirror, up to the hilt. The cold steel cut a gateway between the mortal world and the spirit world. I parted the lips of the gate as I might part a curtain. A murky night hid the spirit world from my eyes. But I still had my voice.

“Let those who are bound to me as kin come to my aid!”

An icy wind kissed my nose. Like distant thunder my sire’s voice laughed mockingly. A bee sting flamed as an ember on my hand, then faded. Wet noses prodded my arm and a rough tongue licked my face as the breath of cats warmed me. The creatures of the spirit world could not cross into the mortal world except on Hallows’ Night… or in my wake, as Rory had.

“May blessings bring quiet sleep and plump deer to you and yours, Aunt,” I said politely, “and let me assure you that your son is well and behaving himself as much as he can. But I seek my cousin eru and the one she travels with. If they will cross with me.”

An eerie arc of day broke over the land. In its wake rolled a coach and four. The coachman drove right for my outstretched arm, and I grabbed at the harness and flung myself backward to draw them with me.