Spellmaker

CHAPTER 7

Late that night, after Emmeline went to bed, Elsie rapped on Ogden’s door.

She waited a long moment before he opened it, his hair mussed. “Sorry to wake you,” she said, “but I have an idea.”

Ogden sighed. “You didn’t wake me. I don’t sleep like I used to.” He glanced down the hallway to Emmeline’s room. “Let’s go downstairs.”

Shielding her candle, Elsie led the way to the kitchen. She understood Ogden’s predicament—she was pulling later nights and earlier mornings as well, kept awake by tumultuous thoughts with no end, wondering what happens if and what happens now. Yet she still felt sorry for him. His will was freely his own after ten years, and he seemed only to be suffering for it.

She lit two more candles in the kitchen before settling down, pulling a shawl tight over her robe. Ogden sat across from her, rubbing the thick stubble on his cheeks.

“I keep playing it over and over. Juniper Down, I mean.” She kept an ear attuned to the stairs, listening for any creaks in the wood that would signal Emmeline was up and about, but the house remained quiet. “The American said he knew my name from newspapers and magazines. Articles I’d published. But I’ve never published a word in my life.”

Ogden nodded. “I remember.”

Leaning closer, she asked, “Is there a way to look up newspaper articles by author?”

Ogden straightened.

“He said they were in Europe and the States. Some of them had to be published in England, surely.”

To her relief, Ogden nodded. “Yes, in Colindale. There’s a repository there with newspapers dating back decades. If they’ve been well archived, we should be able to look up your name.”

Excitement pricked her like needles. Perhaps they could unfurl another part of this mystery. “That’s not far from here.” North London, if she was right.

He nodded. “We can go in the morning.”

She bit her lip. “I can go. You have the squire’s deadline—”

“I’ll go with you,” he reaffirmed. “If the squire complains, I’ll just make him think he extended.”

Elsie paused. “You can do that?”

Ogden simply looked at her.

“All right.” She stood, careful not to let her chair scrape on the floor. “It will be a good place to start. First thing in the morning.” She turned from the table, paused, and turned back. “Ogden?”

He snuffed one of the three candles. “Hm?”

She debated with herself a moment, but it was better to risk offense than to keep on wondering and fearing. This was one worry she could kill here and now. “I need you to promise me you will never make me think differently than I do. Not without my asking.” It was a bold statement to make to one’s employer, but in all truthfulness, Cuthbert Ogden was much more than that now.

His lip quirked. “I don’t think I could, without you noticing.”

“But you could make me not notice, couldn’t you? Like before.”

He pressed his lips together and leaned his chin on his hands. “Perhaps. But you’ve grown in strength, Elsie. Your skills are . . . impressive.”

“Still,” she pressed, trying not to preen with the compliment. “I need you to promise me.”

“I promise you.” A sliver of volume leaked into his voice. “I promise you, Elsie, over my parents’ graves, and my own. I’ll never influence you with magic.”

The hidden opus spell tucked beneath her sash grew heavy. She thought about the horrible things Merton had manipulated her into doing, and about Bacchus, whose understanding and patience surely had limits—limits she was pushing. But she had no idea how much of her life such a spell would erase . . .

“Unless I ask you to,” she added in a soft voice.

He raised an eyebrow. “Unless you ask me to.”

Content, Elsie retrieved her candle and made her way back upstairs, leaving Ogden to ponder alone in the light of only one.

The British Museum’s repository for newspapers was an unremarkable and unassuming building, lacking in any refined architecture or color, but Elsie was hardly interested in its exterior. Ogden held the door for her, and she slipped inside, almost immediately being greeted by rows and rows of books, drawers, and shelves. At least they were notably organized.

After a moment, Ogden pointed. “This way.”

Elsie followed him. “Did you spy into a curator’s mind for that?”

Ogden gave her a flat look and pointed to a sign indicating newspapers and their dates. Feeling foolish, Elsie followed.

Only problem was, she didn’t know precisely what dates she needed. How long had it taken the American to sniff her out? Still, if the articles weren’t indexed by name, it would be a nearly impossible task to sort through even a year’s worth of newspapers. Especially since she doubted the curators would permit her to simply take whole stacks of newspapers home to rifle through.

An older gentleman strode by, glancing once at her and Ogden before continuing on his way.

“Here.” Ogden pointed in the direction from which the man had come, to a wall full of tiny wooden drawers. Elsie had to remind herself not to run as she approached. There were drawers organized by date, by region, and—

“By author,” she whispered, touching the handwritten surnames on one of the drawers. She quickly reviewed the display, dropping to her knees to reach the C’s. She pulled out one that read, Calladine–Cook.

Ogden crouched beside her. The drawer was much longer than she had thought. Hundreds of cards were crammed into it, all handwritten, some in different penmanship and colors of ink. It made her think of aspecting, but there were no spells to be found here. She carefully separated the cards with her nails, one by one. She found what she was looking for fairly quickly, thanks to the magic of alphabetizing.

Her name, Camden, Elsie, was scrawled along the top. She pulled the card out. It wasn’t very full, boasting only three article titles. But locations were listed for each, and she and Ogden quickly divided them and began their hunt. Elsie ended up in a section for Irish newspapers, and in the time it took her to find the correct one, Ogden had already pulled both English papers. Instead of moving to one of the tables near the entrance, they set the papers atop the card cabinets.

“Here,” Ogden said, pointing to an article. “It’s on the front page.”

Elsie leaned close to him, reading, Valuable Items Stolen from American Estate.

“Hmm,” she hummed.

Ogden glanced at her.

“Why would that make the front page of a London newspaper?” She pointed to the large letters spelling out the Manchester Guardian. It was dated April 5, 1887. Eight years ago.

Both of them hushed as they read the article. It was short, not even continued on a later page. And it was incredibly vague, never actually stating what had been stolen from which estate. One line was curious, however: The inquirer would gladly pay a high price for the black birds. It felt like it meant something. There was nothing else about birds in the article. The effect was jarring.

Ogden pulled out the other newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, in which Elsie’s name was printed on the second page, under a headline reading, Spiritual Aspecting Across the Pond. Again, the article was brief unto the point of meaningless. It had been published last year and had a typo in it: A shame if things were to take a Turner and end entirely.

“I could have written something better than this,” Elsie commented, flipping back to the front page.

“For such bad journalism written by a nobody—no offense,” Ogden offered, “the author, presumably Lily Merton, must have paid a good sum to have the articles put at the front. To make them more noticeable.”

Elsie pulled up the News Letter, the Irish paper, and sure enough, the article with her name was on the front. The Dangers of Intercontinental Travel, it read, the headline accompanied by a photo of a wealthy person’s home, though the photo had no caption. This article was the briefest of them all. It spoke of dangerous voyages from Boston, but there was little else of substance. It was four years old.

Elsie tapped her fingers against the cabinets. “This isn’t helping at all.”

Ogden pulled a sketchbook from the satchel at his hip. “Let’s copy them down.” He tore out a page for her and then took the Irish article for himself, going as far as to sketch out the faded photograph of the house. Elsie copied the aspecting article in pencil, reading over it thrice to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, and then transcribed the American estate article beneath it.

“There have to be more.” She carefully folded the page, not wanting to smear the graphite. “There has to be something that made him come find me. Some kind of code. Something we’re not seeing.”

“We need to look further. American newspapers, perhaps.”

Elsie shook her head. “It will take a month for a letter to reach a repository over there.”

“I’ll use the spirit line.” Ogden closed his sketchbook.

The spirit line was a messaging system developed by spiritual aspectors in the seventeen hundreds, shortly before the American Revolution. Aspectors across the sea—Iceland, Greenland, Canada—could link up with one another, casting spiritual projections that could carry news faster than a ship, or even a telegraph network.

“It’s so expensive, Ogden,” she whispered.

But Ogden shook his head. “It’s an expense I’m happy to make. You just might not be getting much pin money this month.”

Elsie let out a long breath. “I’m more than happy to contribute. Thank you.”

They returned home later than planned, as they had to stop in London to make arrangements for the spirit line. Ogden sent messages to the Library of Congress in the United States, as well as libraries in a few select European countries. Elsie winced at the number of pounds he exchanged for it; they might be eating cabbage for dinner the next few weeks. The sooner I become a profitable spellbreaker, the better, she thought.

And it seemed Irene Prescott agreed, for Elsie found a telegram from her on her bed when she arrived home. Miss Prescott wanted to meet in London tomorrow—she really didn’t heed the fact that Elsie had to work—to begin their training. There was a second message on her nightstand from the enchanted pencil. Her stomach did a little flip at the familiar penmanship.

I’m hoping to interest you in dinner tomorrow at Seven Oaks. More interrogation from the duke and duchess is to be expected, but I guarantee Mrs. Abrams will be conspicuously absent.

Elsie smiled.

“Emmeline, would you do me a favor?” The newspaper articles weighed on her, and she ached to examine them again, more closely.

“Sure, what is it?”

“Run to the post office and reply to Miss Prescott.” She handed Emmeline the telegram. “Ask her if she’d be willing to meet me at Seven Oaks in Kent for training. Tell her I can provide an aspector.”

Emmeline grinned knowingly. “Gladly. And what about that?”

She pointed at the newest novel reader sitting on Elsie’s pillow. Elsie had completely missed it.

She paused, thinking of the story of the baron and his rubies. “You take it, Em,” she offered, and the maid’s eyes lit with delight. “I have a few personal things to see to first.”