Silver on the Road (The Devil's West Book 1) by Laura Anne Gilman

expected to feel different.
    “Congratulations, my dear,” the judge said, and she took the hand he offered, smiling up at him when he shook it this time, the way he might another man. “You will give credit to your Bargain, I am certain.” There was something in his eyes, a flicker of something deep and troubled, and then it was gone, even as he turned to offer his hand to the boss as well.
    Izzy, left alone, looked down at her hands, and . . .
    She did feel different. The uncertainty she’d been hauling was gone, and . . . She tilted her head, listening to something running under the two men’s voices. She could tell every movement within the saloon, the hum of voices, the move of bodies, the flickerthwack of cards and clink of glassware, the swallow of throats and the beating of hearts. It pressed against her, squeezing everything out of her untilshe began to panic, fingers splayed as though to push back against empty air.
    “Isobel.”
    The boss stood in front of her, his hair tousled as though he’d just run a hand through it, disturbing its earlier stylings, and the sense of pressure faded.
    “Yes, boss?” She relaxed her fingers and waited; now he would tell her what her duties would be, what she had to learn, what responsibilities she would have.
    “Come with me.”

    Gabriel had spent much of the day with the devil’s right-hand woman, a terrifyingly efficient woman named Marie who would have put the dean of the College of William and Mary to shame. If your plans were suddenly rucked off course, he could think of no better soul to straighten it again.
    “Ah, about that,” he had said when she handed him the route they were to take. “I do have . . .”
    “Obligations, yes. We have taken those into consideration as well.”
    Of course they had.
    She had deposited him at the bar an hour before, but the glass in front of him was the same pour he’d started with, never mind that it smelled much the same quality he’d been drinking the night before. There were days you wanted to numb your thinking, and others you wanted it keen, and there was no doubting which sort of days he’d be having going forward. Behind him he could hear the hum of conversation, the sound of cards being dealt and drinks served, and his spine itched with the need to turn around, keep an eye on all corners of the room, note who was where and doing what, as though he were caught in a crossroads.
    He should have been on the road already. He’d had a schedule, an agenda. . . .
    “Mister Kasun.”
    He hadn’t heard the man come up alongside him. Of course he hadn’t. Gabriel gave his drink one last, final swirl, then turned to face the man who’d tossed his entire life into chaos.
    “Sir.” If the man had a surname, he’d never heard it used. “Boss,” most called him in public. Or “sir.” The girl was with him, dressed more soberly in a plain brown dress, her hair pulled back in a single braid. She had a plain enough face, he’d noted before, but the bones were strong, her mouth full and well drawn, and her eyes dark-lashed and expressive. Right now, they showed nothing but a faint curiosity and a flicker of apprehension.
    “Isobel, you’ve met Mister Kasun.”
    “Briefly, yes.” She offered him her hand, and he took it. She had a firm grip, with soft calluses at the fingertips and along the heel. No stranger to regular work, then. Good.
    “I’ve decided to take him up on his offer to mentor you. You’ll leave tomorrow morning.”
    Gabriel would’ve rather run backward onto a saguaro than say a damned thing just then. Those expressive eyes were expressing something more than apprehension, the sort that a single bit of tinder could spark into something ugly for man and beast.
    “You . . . what?” Her voice was soft. She didn’t shriek or yell or bring any attention to herself, and yet there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that she was somewhere past shocked and well into hopping mad. Suddenly, that