Weather Witch by Shannon Delany Page B

You know her better than anyone. You were her friend first. You introduced us—”
    “And I am so awfully sorry for that, Rowen. I nearly brought you to your ruin because I made a poor choice of a friend.”
    “No. Do not do that. Jordan isn’t perfect.”
    “ Wasn’t perfect,” Catrina corrected.
    “Why are you putting her in past tense? She’s not dead.”
    “She must be to us, ” Catrina said with a discerning pout. “What is your family’s motto?”
    “Justice foremost.”
    “And that is what this is, dear Rowen. Swift and terrible justice, but justice nonetheless. Imagine if she had been allowed to continue unfettered? What a danger to society might she have become? We have enough problems with the Frost Giant lurking about the streets, but a full Weather Witch?”
    Blinking at her, he wrapped his fingers around the staircase’s broad wooden banister so he wouldn’t wrap them around her slender neck. “They are wrong. Jordan is no Weather Witch and they will discover their mistake soon enough and make things right.”
    “Then how do you explain the storm she summoned—or the sparks the Tester’s touch and Test elicited? How, Rowen?”
    He shook his head, hair flopping into his eyes again. “I don’t know. Yet. Maybe these things happen. Maybe there was another Weather Witch there that they somehow overlooked but it appeared Jordan was the likeliest candidate. Maybe it’s really me! Or maybe,” he said, leaning down to be on eye level with her, “maybe it’s you .”
    She hopped back from him as quickly as if he’d belched. “Don’t be so absolutely ridiculous!”
    He descended onto the first step.
    “She is gone, Rowen,” Catrina insisted. “And we are both better for it. Now you have a better chance at raising your rank.”
    He turned and looked at her, his eyes the coolest blue yet. “What do you mean?”
    “Be honest with yourself, Rowen. You were pursuing Jordan because you want to step up—not for any other reason. You’re a social climber like the rest of us. You never wanted Jordan—and why would you—she’s as petty as she is pretty—”
    He bounded back up the stairs and touched his nose to hers. “Stop now before I stop you.”
    Her mouth opened. And closed wordlessly.
    “She is our friend.”
    “She was a poor substitute for what a real friend should be and you know it,” Catrina challenged. “She whined, she worried, she put herself first—even to our detriment. Showcasing herself the way she did! That you cannot deny. But now she’ll understand what it is to be last. She will be better for being humbled.”
    Rowen’s eyes were mere slits. “If I ever find that you are connected to her family’s ruin…”
    “Rowen! You are insane! Why—”
    “It sounds like you have plenty of why .”
    “We both do—and so do most people in this city, if you’re honest with yourself. But what could I possibly have done to make a Tester get a wrong reading? The proof is in the pudding.”
    “Only if Cook makes it with sufficient alcohol,” Rowen snapped. “This will be corrected. You’ll see. Jordan is innocent.” Without another word he stomped his way down the stairs and into the kitchen.

 
     
    Chapter Six
     
    Why fear death? Death is only a beautiful adventure.
    —CHARLES FROHMAN
    Philadelphia
    Chloe scurried around John, patting at him and rearranging the cloth covering the burden he carried. “No, not over your shoulder, cradle her—it. Cradle it, ” she said, adjusting the long thin shape wrapped in blankets and a quilt and held awkwardly in John’s arms. “We must be quick.”
    John nodded, following Chloe’s bobbing candle as she moved quickly down the back hallway to the servant’s quarters. It was the original stone house that the Astraeas built on the Hill and it had been, at one time, quite the talk of the town with its hundreds of flat field stones arranged and mortared on edge to create a multitude of different patterns and designs—at the