Spellbreaker

CHAPTER 10

If all three of Elsie’s employers ever demanded her attention at once, she would be in quite a pinch. As it was, Mr. Kelsey was preoccupied, the stonemasonry shop was in shape, and Ogden was busy, giving Elsie a rare chance to redeem herself to the Cowls.

The letter that had been tucked into her things after her dinner at the duke’s residence had not mentioned the door spell at all, to her surprise. Instead, she’d been given another task. She was to disenchant a carriage that had been hired to transport local poachers to court. It was a time-sensitive matter, and so Elsie moved quickly, even when it meant cutting through traffic or overpaying a cab driver to run his horses wild. Her personal funds were depleting quickly, but the Cowls hadn’t sent coin for travel in their last missive. Perhaps this was to be her punishment.

Not that it mattered. If no one intervened, men, boys, would be hanged for hunting animals on land owned by rich men. They just wanted to feed their families, and yet the neck of a human was priced the same as that of a pheasant. If Elsie could help them escape, she would do her part. Whatever it cost. She yawned, so many short nights catching up to her, but sleep was hardly important.

She went to London and found the public carriage house in question; the man she presumed ran it sat just outside, a newspaper in his hands and a cigar in his mouth, his hat pulled low to keep out the sun. Elsie walked past him, casual, before glancing over her shoulder and slipping inside the carriage house.

She nearly bumped into the tack on the wall and quickly sidestepped it, hiding herself among the vehicles stored within the space. The first spells she sensed were those on the wheels of a hansom cab. However, she doubted the Cowls would have sent her to intervene if the vehicle in question were a self-propelling carriage. Disabled by a spellbreaker, it wouldn’t be able to leave the carriage house much less be used for transporting anyone. So she moved on, searching for a vehicle with strengthening spells, bars, anything to denote the kind of vessel that might deliver “criminals” to their doom.

The farther into the carriage house she stepped, the darker it became, and everything began to look the same. What a bother.

Elsie persisted in her search, knowing the driver and authorities could come at any moment. Finally, she found it—a carriage bolstered by glowing runes of protection and fortification, which she pulled apart like hot ribbon candy. They pulsed light once before fading, like the last drag on a cigarette.

Voices at the front of the carriage house sent gooseflesh over her arms; Elsie hid behind a cab and held her breath. To her relief, they didn’t come any nearer. A vehicle was pulled out and driven away, and the man in charge resumed his reading of the day’s paper.

Holding her skirt close to prevent sullying it, Elsie carefully tiptoed her way toward freedom. Just as she stepped into the light, however, the caretaker looked up, his eyes beady and questioning.

Elsie put her hands on her hips. “I don’t suppose you rent omnibuses?”

He looked at her like she was mad. “Omnibuses? What does this look like, a rail station?”

Acting offended, Elsie turned on her heel and stalked away, going around the back of the carriage house to access the road home. Having spoken of omnibuses, she was reminded she could save a penny or two by taking one, and so she headed toward the market, eyes searching for one.

She’d just reached the sprawl of shoppers when a familiar voice reached her ears and stopped her in her tracks. She turned slowly, searching the crowd until she saw his face.

Alfred.

Alarm rushed up her limbs like a swarm of termites. She hadn’t seen him in nearly two years. He didn’t look any different, except for his hair. The ginger locks were a bit longer, styled differently. He was only one shop down from her, walking to a carriage with two heavy bags on his arm. A smile split his freckled face. It sent a knifepoint into the center of Elsie’s chest.

“You don’t have to carry those.” The handsome stranger who would later introduce himself as Alfred hurried across the street, outstretching his hand, offering to take the sack laden with canvas.

Elsie flushed at his approach and stuck her nose up. “Good sir, I am perfectly capable of carrying my own things, else I would not have purchased them.”

But she had let him carry her bags. And walk her to a carriage. And ask her name and where she lived, starting something he would kill just as easily months later.

Elsie blinked, coming back to the present just in time to spy Alfred’s companion, which only twisted the metaphorical blade piercing her breast.

The widow. The one they’d met when Alfred had taken Elsie out to dinner for her birthday. But . . . not a widow anymore. Not by the way they touched each other, shared a carriage, and—yes, that was a ring on her finger, wasn’t it?

Heat spread from her ribs, clawing down her legs and arms before turning to ice. So the woman hadn’t been a passing infatuation. Hadn’t left him for the weasel he was. He’d married her.

Married her.

Alfred turned just then, meeting Elsie’s eyes for a split second. She panicked. There was no use hiding. What would she say? What would—

But he merely stepped into the carriage and shut the door.

Her lips parted. He’d . . . He’d seen her. And he hadn’t cared. He hadn’t given her so much as a nod. A tip of the hat.

A breeze swept her hair as the carriage passed. Elsie thought she heard an “Excuse me” behind her, but she couldn’t bring herself to move, so the old woman huffed and stepped around her.

The past bubbled up like hot tar. Oh, how it hurt to be left. She had been abandoned by her mother and father, her siblings, and never—not one single day—had she forgotten it. All of them had left her, a child unable to care for herself, with strangers who’d been foolish to show a sliver of kindness. None of them had ever attempted to find her.

They’d seen something in her, something Elsie still had not discovered, that was unacceptable. And they’d fled from it. Alfred had done the same. He and Elsie had courted for months. Talked about marriage. Family. A future.

And then he’d left as abruptly as her parents had. Somehow, he’d seen that bit of her that was detestable, and he ran from it. Ran right into the arms of another woman, who now lived the life Elsie had once dared to imagine for herself.

The conclusion was inevitable.

She was unlovable.

Tears blurred her vision, but she blinked them away. The sound of trotting horses broke her reverie. Blast it! Her vision cleared just in time to see the omnibus leaving, the enormous carriage’s horses pulling into the thoroughfare. It was full to the brim, people crowded within and on top, but the two tiny platforms on the back were free.

Somehow Elsie summoned enough sense to run after it and catch the pole on the omnibus’s back end, planting her feet on the right platform. Gripping the pole until her knuckles blanched, she rode with her face in the wind, letting it dry her out until her eyes burned.

She felt stiff as a wooden board by the time she reached Brookley, grateful that the stonemasonry shop sat near the edge of town and not in the center of it. The last thing she wanted was attention. Her head was hollow, her hands sore.

She saw the squire’s cabriolet on the street by the front door. No. The last thing she needed was that man inside her home.

She stalked past the carriage, only to stop when she heard the spell on his horse’s flank—a chirping spiritual spell that would allow an aspector to speak to the animal to better train it. The same spell the post office used on its post dogs. Elsie unwound it with a flick of her finger and trudged inside through the side door. Let him think the spell was haphazardly placed and came off on its own. It wasn’t an uncommon issue.

“Elsie! Where have you been?” Emmeline said as Elsie started up the stairs. “The dressmakers put up a new display, and I thought it would be fun to stop by and—what’s wrong?”

Elsie couldn’t summon the will to pretend everything was all right. Not yet. Shaking her head, she said, “It’s nothing. I just . . . need to think for a moment.” She slipped into her bedroom, grateful Emmeline didn’t try to follow after. She closed the door, tore off her hat, and fumbled with her chatelaine bag. Coins and a fan had spilled onto the floor by the time she got her hands on her handkerchief.

She caught the tears just before they rolled down her face.

Sitting on the edge of her bed, Elsie chided herself for crying. She’d already recovered from this. It wasn’t the loss of Alfred that bothered her, precisely. She was better off without him, though the night he left her still stung. It’s not right, Elsie, he’d said. You and I. It’s been fun, but I’ve found someone actually suited to me. And he’d taken his umbrella with him to leave her soaking in the downpour just down the street from his house, miles away from her own. She’d been sick with fever for two weeks after that, sick with heartbreak even longer. But Elsie was a strong woman. The Cowls knew it. Ogden knew it. Even Mr. Kelsey knew it.

Yet the soundest logic in the world could not heal her old wounds. It could not silence the voice that insisted she was unlovable. Unlovable. Unlovable.

She sobbed into the handkerchief until there wasn’t a dry spot on it. Until the room began to grow dark. When there wasn’t a stripe of energy left in her, she flopped onto her pillow and stared at the wall, her eyes dry and aching, her throat tight.

She didn’t say anything when a knock sounded on the door. Nor did she protest when it cracked open, revealing Ogden in the doorway.

“Oh, Elsie,” he said, warm and sad. “What happened?”

She merely shook her head. She couldn’t speak even if God demanded it of her. A frog would be better understood.

Ogden stepped into her room, leaving the door ajar, and shoved her knees over so he could sit on the edge of the bed. Just like he had when she’d first arrived there. He had acted the part of the father she couldn’t remember, reading her bedtime stories and telling her old fables. It was his fault she had an addiction to novel readers.

She’d wondered, back then, if he was as lonely as she was.

She hid her face in her stained handkerchief.

“Someone say something to you?” he guessed feebly. Elsie was not prone to hysterics, especially not in front of other people. She refused to be the seed of someone else’s gossip. “The Wright sisters?” he tried again.

She shook her head.

“Might as well tell me, or I’ll stay here all night, and the neighbors will talk.”

A sore chuckle popped up her throat. Anyone who really knew Ogden knew any scandal between them was nigh impossible.

He touched her elbow. “Not the squire?”

“No.” Her voice was raw and childish. She hated it.

Ogden waited.

After a few almost smooth breaths, she said, “I saw Alfred.”

She needn’t explain further. She’d been employed here, just as she was now, during their courtship. Emmeline, new and excitable, had suggested ideas for the wedding dinner and Elsie’s dress almost daily. Ogden had stressed over finding her replacement. They, too, had been shocked when it ended faster than night turns to day. She’d dedicated herself more fiercely to the Cowls than ever after that. This was just a painful reminder of where her loyalty belonged.

“Oh, Elsie.”

She shrugged. “Just for a minute. Doesn’t matter. H-He didn’t think twice of it.”

He rubbed her arm briskly like she’d bruised it. “I’ll have Emmeline bring dinner to your room.”

I’m fine, she wanted to say, but her throat burned with the lie.

“With some warm milk,” he added.

God help her, she really was eleven again.

His hand stilled. “You’re a bright young woman, Elsie. You have no idea the things awaiting you in this life.”

And oddly . . . she felt better. They were simple words, but they carried a strange power. A firm assurance she didn’t quite understand. She thought she felt . . . but no, that was a hair tickling her face. She brushed the thing away. It would take hours to pull the pins out of the knots she’d made of it.

Ogden patted her elbow and stood from the bed. She heard him linger at the door for several seconds before closing it.

Elsie fell asleep before Emmeline could bring her a tray.