Read Online Heart and Soul by Sarah A. Hoyt - Free Book Online Page A

make his way across and take command?
    But instead, he stood at the opening for a moment, poised. He looked over his shoulder at her, his eyes full of calculation. And then…and then he jumped, changing into his blue dragon form and flying away.
    Jade ran after him by instinct. “Stop him,” she screamed at no one in particular. “Stop him now!”
    She was met with incredulous stares. Those who understood that she wanted Minister Zhang stopped were doubtless too smart to show it. Everyone knew Zhang was fearsome in both forms and, though they might not have the slightest idea what he’d done or why Jade wanted him stopped, they would surely not want to face him in combat.
    “Stop him,” she said, again, but despairingly, and then turned back to the Englishman, who was still standing where he’d been, looking blank, like a man who is about to lose consciousness. She felt him do something, magically, but she wasn’t sure what it could be, as she surged over to him, demanding, “Did he get both jewels? Did he? Answer me.” She’d only seen Zhang pick up one of the jewels, but she thought he might have taken the other one before she arrived. At least, she could not imagine why else he had left like that, in one swoop, declaring his lack of loyalty to his sovereign and to the people of the Dragon Boats, where he’d been born and raised.
    But the man, looking at her, dropped his saber and took his hand to his heavily bleeding shoulder. “Now I lay me,” he said, “down to sleep…”
    The words were familiar to Jade, the words of a prayer her mother had taught her in distant childhood. Jade hesitated, then shook her head. “No, the jewels,” she said. But the man fell to his knees and then onto his face. She could see him breathing, and she could see the sea of red pouring from his shoulder. She bent down to search him. He wouldn’t be alive long and, besides, the Dragon Boat people lived by stealing things from the carpetships. If he still had the other jewel, it would do him no good, and it could save her people.
    But as she turned him over, she felt his magic. He’d left it on, intent and focused, as people might leave a magelight burning long after they’d fallen asleep. His magic was powerful, strong, though utterly alien to her. It felt somewhat like her mother’s magic. But her mother had been a lady of small magic, whose ability to do any useful work had been further impaired by what she ironically called a proper education. As Jade understood it, the exclusive academy her mother had attended made sure that the young ladies in their care learned how to keep house with magic, and how to help their children should they experience health difficulties. And little more. After all, as Miss Austen had ironically pointed out in the person of her odious character Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice, a young lady who was as proficient in magic as those gentlemen who might court her would undoubtedly strike everyone as unnatural and unfeminine.
    This man’s magic was neither unnatural nor feminine. It seemed to be as much a part of him as Jade’s own dragon magic was a part of her, and yet he seemed powerful enough to keep it going even after he lost consciousness. And what the magic did—even as it ate away at his remaining strength—was keep the carpetship flying toward their destination in Africa. She could feel its currents, its determined force.
    Jade took only a few seconds to realize that without this magic the carpetship would have already fallen, careening down and killing everyone aboard, her people included, since this was the carpetship flight magician. There had been raids when this had happened and Dragon Boat people were lost. And if Zhang knew he’d attacked the carpetship magician, he didn’t care what happened to the ship.
    But he knew, of that she was sure. If he’d not gotten both jewels—and she had a sense he hadn’t—only the fear of the crash to come had kept him from doing so. He