Burning Lamp by Amanda Quick Page B

her all evening, she thought. But her senses were more agitated than ever. If she were back in the American West she would have been looking over her shoulder for a mountain lion or a rattlesnake or a man with a gun. But this was London and she was surrounded by respectable, well-dressed people. In London respectable people did not carry guns. Except for her, of course.
    Perhaps her uneasiness was linked to her promise to work the Burning Lamp for Griffin Winters. It was bound to be a dangerous experience for both of them. Her intuition warned her that failure could be devastating.
    If I had any sense I would have called his bluff, she thought. Just let him try to find another dreamlight reader.
    But she had spoken the truth when she had told him that he was very unlikely to find another talent who could manipulate and control dreamlight as well as she could. Sending him off to find someone else who could work the lamp would have been tantamount to consigning him to whatever fate awaited him.
    He had known that, she thought. Yet he had walked out of the attic rather than meet her terms. One had to admire such a gallant nature, even when it manifested itself in a villain. She had encountered any number of so-called gentlemen who would not have acted so nobly in such circumstances.
    Rubbish . She must not allow herself to be seduced by romantic fantasies, she thought. Griffin Winters had not walked out of the attic because he was governed by his gallant nature. The truth was that he had called her bluff.
    It served her right, she thought. In future she must not allow him to manipulate her. She would work the lamp for him, as agreed, but she would not allow him to play on her sympathies again. Above all she must not let him see that she was attracted to him. He would use that knowledge quite ruthlessly.
    She forged a path through a gaggle of elderly matrons waiting for their carriages and started across the street. Her anxiety was growing stronger. She rarely raised her talent when there were a lot of people around. For one thing, in a public place like this there were bound to be any number of disturbing prints layered on the pavement. In addition she ran the risk of brushing up against another person, which would result in a stiff jolt of unpleasant dreamlight energy. She was still recovering from the encounter with Luttrell’s enforcer. The last thing she needed was another dose of someone else’s dreams.
    She was so tense now that when she caught a fleeting movement at the corner of her eye she nearly screamed. She whirled, her cloak swirling around her, to face the threat.
    The young boy standing beside a carriage horse ducked his head apologetically.
    “Sorry, ma’am,” he said. “Didn’t mean to frighten you. Just trying to keep the horse calm. Old Ben, here, gets nervous in crowds.”
    “Old Ben and I have a good deal in common,” she replied.
    The boy grinned. “Watch out for the pickpockets, ma’am. They’re always about in busy places like this.”
    “Thank you for the warning.” She smiled, even though he could not see her face through the veil. Turning, she started again toward her own vehicle.
    Her intuition was screaming at her now. She stopped fighting it and opened her talent. The pavement was suddenly illuminated by the eerie ultralight and the strange shadows cast by the radiation from the residue of decades of dreamprints. More prints fluoresced in icy hues on the sides of carriages. She concentrated on those that appeared both fresh and disturbing.
    It was a formidable task. When she was fully in her senses energy sizzled in the atmosphere around her. Dreamprints glowed with lust, anger, pain, fear, anxiety and, most worrisome of all, spiking rage. Those endowed with her unusual ability generally saw far more of the world and of human nature than they wanted to see.
    She paid especially close attention to a trail of prints that displayed the twisted currents of fury. They were being tracked