Night Rune (Prof Croft Book 8) by Brad Magnarella (best e reader for academics txt) 📕

a portion of the pelts, the pelts and makes the clothing here, for the colonists.”

“That’s smart,” Bree-yark said.

“It won’t take much for me to enchant them,” Caroline whispered behind me. “They could row us right to her.” When I hesitated, she added, “It will save time. The other option is a twelve-mile roundtrip slog.”

The boats were making their way swiftly downstream. They’d be even with us shortly, though a quarter-mile offshore.

I turned to Gorgantha. “Can you lure them in closer?”

A couple minutes later, a thick Dutchman in the front boat shouted and pointed ahead. The paddler opposite him was also Dutch, while two American Indians—Algonquins, Caroline had confirmed—rowed in the rear.

Gorgantha waved back at them from midriver. She then dove underwater, making sure to lash her tail. The crest of her fin created a V-shaped wake as she angled back toward shore. By now, all of the rowers were talking excitedly. Paddles dug in, and both boats began veering toward us.

Nicely done, G.

I waited until the boats were less than fifty yards out before hardening the air behind them and pulling them in. With fresh shouts, the men tried to back-paddle. One of the natives even rose as if to dive into the water. But Caroline’s enchantment met them, and the men settled down and drew their oars in.

As the boats’ hulls scraped onto the rocky shore, Caroline walked out to meet them. Gorgantha emerged from the water and stood beside me.

“How was that?” she asked.

“Perfect,” I said, clapping her muscled back.

At the edge of the water, Caroline spoke with the men. As they climbed out and began transferring pelts from the canoe to the pile in the Dutch boat, I stared, wonderstruck, at another piece of living history. The tall Algonquins wore leather tunics and leggings, as well as thick capes that appeared to be bearskin. The two blond Dutchmen were in pantaloon boots and wide-brimmed hats.

When they’d moved about half the pile, the six Algonquins boarded the canoe, making use of the extra space. They shoved back into the water and were soon paddling upriver, ghosts once more.

“I’m sending them back to their village,” Caroline said. “That leaves two spots with them.” She indicated the Dutchmen, who had returned to their own boat.

“All right, huddle up,” I said, waving in Gorgantha, Bree-yark, and Malachi. “Caroline and I will go to New Amsterdam for Seay, but your job here is going to be just as important, if not more so. You can’t let anything happen to him.” They followed my pointed finger to Arnaud, whom I’d sat against the cave wall. “No Arnaud, no getting home. Got it?”

I had strong reservations about leaving him, but with the extreme cold depleting his energy, I couldn’t risk taking him along.

“You can count on us,” Bree-yark said. “Right, Gorgantha?”

When she agreed, he smiled with all his teeth: extreme pleasure in goblin.

“Anything else we should know about New Amsterdam?” I asked Malachi.

“It’s small, easy to get around—only fifteen hundred people or so, or so. Oh, but there is one person you should watch out for.”

“Who’s that?”

“The vampire Thorne.”

“Of course,” I muttered. Fucking Arnaud.

“He operates the biggest counting house on the waterfront.”

I’d been hoping he hadn’t arrived in the New World by this time. Avoiding him in the crowds of 1861 had been easy, but with only fifteen hundred in the settlement, our cover was going to be scant.

“What’s he going by now?” I asked.

“Tristan,” Malachi replied. “Tristan Thorne.”

“Okay, thanks. We’ll keep our heads down.”

“The glamours I have in mind should help,” Caroline said.

The cold wind off the river made my face and hands hurt, but my fur coverings and the work of rowing warmed the rest of me. Caroline and I had taken the front positions, the Dutchmen the rear where they could steer as well as row.

Caroline’s hair was glamoured into a long black ponytail that complemented her russet features. A bearskin, like the ones the men had been wearing, covered her body. She was saving on fae power by remaining female—wives occasionally accompanied their husbands on trading errands, she’d said. And I was the husband, glamoured into a strapping Algonquin. It was a smart glamour, even if it felt like I was being a little disloyal to Vega somehow. I retrained my gaze downriver.

“Remarkable, isn’t it?” Caroline said, panting lightly.

“Rowing the Hudson in 1660? Can’t say it was on my bucket list.”

Caroline had estimated the year based on the population size. Now her laughter sent up a small plume of fog. “Mine neither, but as a former scholar of New York’s urban history, it’s surreal to be living it. I feel guilty for admitting that.”

“Don’t. I’ve caught myself gawking more than once.”

“Glad I’m not the only one,” she said. “These pelts, for example. Just think—they’re the economic foundation of what will become one of the wealthiest, most vertical cities in the world.”

I glanced back at the pungent heap of furs. “Beavers, huh?”

“‘Soft gold,’ the traders called them.”

“Listen to you, Prof.”

“It’s Sooleawa,” she corrected me.

My Algonquin name was Makkapitew, which knowing the Caroline of old, was very likely an inside joke.

“‘Former scholar,’” I quoted her. “Does that mean you’re not coming back from sabbatical?”

“I guess it depends on how everything turns out.”

I’d steered the conversation there intentionally. “We’re going to defeat Malphas.”

“Even so, the faes’ memories are long. Our kingdom could remain fractured. I may have no choice but to return to the city, go back to teaching.”

“As a cast out?”

She nodded solemnly.

“You love him, don’t you,” I said after a moment. “Angelus.”

“It took time, but yes. I do.”

“But he’s the one possessed.”

I’d harbored the suspicion ever since encountering him in Faerie. Not only had he tried to alienate me from Caroline, but he’d flown toward Crusspatch’s refuge on the rocs following our encounter. And when I’d asked Caroline if she knew the fae who had fallen under shadow, she’d said, “Well enough.”

She’d wanted to protect him. An instinct born from love.

Caroline glanced over with her dark, native eyes. “Yes.