Wild Hunt by Margaret Ronald

close to Elizabeth’s throat. (Elizabeth, for her part, looked even more annoyed with me. I could almost hear her thinking, One more damn thing to worry about. )
    Things might have gone all to hell if the third thug, the methodical one, hadn’t been in such a hurry to comply with my orders that he dropped the jar he was holding. Camphor spilled out from the broken jar in a glutinous wave, and the scent of it hit me like a pickax between the eyes. I bent double, gagging. “Run!” yelled the thug I’d hit. I tried to stand up and shake off the sensory overload, but the second guy whacked me on the back of my head with his bag as he ran past, and I lurched forward, banging my knees on the concrete floor. Gray sparked across my sight. To top it off, the last guy out knocked over one more jar as he ran—pickled cabbage—throwing another sucker punch at my already vulnerable nose.
    I staggered to my feet and ran after them, but didn’t make it halfway down the hall before I heard the Jeepstart up and drive off. Bastards. As I paused, fuming, Elizabeth yelled at me through her tape.
    She had it nearly off by the time I stumbled back into the room. “Give me a hand here, Hound,” she said through the last of the tape, pushing it off with her tongue. “Get the ropes.”
    I tried to respond, gagged on the camphor scent again, and stumbled around to the back of the chair. Crappy knot tiers, all of them; the Boy Scouts would have thrown them out for this (well, after throwing them out for all the other reasons first). “Sorry,” I said as I tugged the last knot free. “That turned out to be a pretty lousy rescue.”
    Elizabeth shook her head, dislodging the last bit of tape. “I can’t believe you threatened them with the police. Do you know how laughable that is?” She rubbed the red spots at the corners of her mouth. “My father said you were something of an innocent, but he didn’t say you were an idiot.”
    My head throbbed. “Maybe because I’m not,” I snapped. “Look, what was I supposed to do? Walk away from a break-in? I thought I could help, and yeah, they got away, but we both saw them. You can give a description to the police—”
    Elizabeth got up from the chair, dusting off her skirt. “They broke in,” she said as if explaining to a child, “on the orders of someone who, I would guess, doesn’t answer to the police. How many magicians do you know who’d even bother to provide an alibi instead of just warding off their work?”
    I was silent a moment. Shit . “You’re sure?”
    “Don’t question me on this, Hound. Okay?” She picked up the tape and wadded it up, sighing as she scanned the mess the thugs had made. “I know what they were looking for, and only magicians would bother with it. God, I just packed up half of this stuff; I can’t believe I’ve got to go through that again…” She turned and saw my expression, and her own softened a little. “I’m all right, Hound. This is just the sort of thing that’s been going on lately.”
    “Lately?” The word stuck in my throat.
    “Yes. Lately.” She bent to pick up the clothesline, wound it into a loose coil, and dropped it on the counter. “I know you think you did a good thing. I’d even agree with my father that, on balance, getting rid of the Bright Brotherhood was probably good for everyone in the long run. But we knew where we stood with them, even if that meant we were at the bottom of the heap.”
    “But that can’t—You can’t possibly prefer that.”
    “Did I say we did? But now there’s no solid ground. New talent comes in, they don’t know or care what the deal is or who’s got arrangements with whom, and they figure the best thing to do is jump in feetfirst.” She circled the counter and pulled open a drawer, then snapped her fingers and brought out a box instead. “I’m surprised no one’s tried to take you out yet,” she added as she stowed away the rope that had been used to bind her. “Maybe they