Spellmaker

CHAPTER 8

Bacchus, being the gentleman he was, sent a carriage for her just after lunch the following day. Elsie put on her second-best dress, as Bacchus had last seen her in her best dress, and she certainly couldn’t repeat the fashion twice in a row. She polished the buttons down the front and put on a smart hat, hoping she would look presentable for the evening’s dinner with the duke and duchess. She had bumped up in society—or she would once she completed her spellbreaker training—but the promotion still felt pathetic when cast in the light of the true peerage. She still worried over bumbling the details of the engagement as well. What if she said something contrary to the story Bacchus had laid out? What if the duke and duchess discovered Elsie was marrying their dear Master Kelsey only to spare herself from the gallows?

Guilt gnawed at her as she rode to Seven Oaks, and she did her best to push it down. The housekeeper escorted her to a drawing room, where Miss Prescott and Bacchus already awaited her. Their small talk ceased upon her entrance. Elsie’s eyes went first to Bacchus, who stood from his chair, polite as always. He was wearing the same blue waistcoat he’d stripped off in Ipswich so she could remove the temporal and physical spells embedded into his chest. Her cheeks warmed at the memory. The sun was high and not coming directly through the windows, and the lighting made his skin look darker. His hair was pulled back into a folded tail just above the nape of his neck.

Miss Prescott wore a smart violet visiting dress that was notably finer than what Elsie had donned, and her light hair was meticulously curled and pinned.

“I do hope I’m not late.” Elsie spared another glance to Bacchus.

“Not at all,” Miss Prescott replied. “I was early. I always am.” She clapped her hands together and turned to Bacchus. “Master Kelsey, where would you like to begin?”

He simply gestured to the low table between them. “Here is fine.”

“Excellent.” Miss Prescott dug through a large bag on the floor, and Elsie, feeling awkward, crossed the room to stand beside Bacchus.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“I’m interested to see what you can do,” he replied, and though he didn’t laugh, she could hear the sound of it edging his words.

Elsie rolled her eyes. “I beg your pardon, but this is hardly funny—”

“Here we are.” Miss Prescott set a small tin dish and a bottle of water on the tabletop, then knelt beside it. Bacchus pulled up a chair for Elsie, who gratefully sat, before kneeling across from Miss Prescott.

“Master Kelsey and I have discussed his repertoire, and I think we’re set.” Miss Prescott poured a third of the bottle into the dish. “Now, Elsie, I want to discuss runes with you. You see, every spell has a rune.” She reached down and pulled out a thin book, passing it to Elsie. She flipped the cover open, and an assortment of runes peeked up at her. They were organized by color: blue for physical, red for rational, yellow for spiritual, and green for temporal. Elsie recognized nearly every single one—hardening spells, softening spells, emotive manipulation, luck, aging of plants, and so on.

And then remembered she had to act like this was all new to her.

“Aspectors can’t see these runes”—Miss Prescott gestured to Bacchus—“and technically we can’t, either, unless it’s a physical rune. Each discipline of magic has its own flavor, so to speak. Physical runes you can see, which makes it that much better for our first lesson to be with a physical aspector. Spiritual runes are auditory, temporal runes are olfactory, and rational runes are tangible, in a sense. You’ll understand what I mean when we get to those.”

Elsie glanced at Bacchus, who seemed interested in the lecture, but perhaps he was simply better at pretending. I know, Elsie wanted to say, yet she forced the words into her stomach, where they boiled and popped. Miss Prescott was going to cover every single basic premise of spellbreaking, and Elsie would have to take it all in without complaint. Because if she complained, then her story was flawed, and she would go to prison.

“Miss Camden?”

Elsie’s eyes shot to Miss Prescott. “Oh, yes, it’s incredibly interesting!”

Miss Prescott smiled. “Now, I’ll show you what I mean. Master Kelsey, if you would freeze this.”

Bacchus leaned over and touched his hand to the dish. Magic tickled Elsie’s senses as the water froze and pulsed with a glimmering blue rune. Changing the state of water was a novice-level spell. Bacchus could have placed a stronger enchantment on it—a more complicated rune that would be more difficult to break—but he’d gone for the simplest option, knowing Miss Prescott would expect to start with something elementary.

Elsie could have untied that rune with a sneeze. Instead, she said, “It’s so lovely.”

“Isn’t it? I’ve always thought so.” Miss Prescott slid the dish to Elsie and then began explaining how the rune held, and how spellbreaking could be applied to it, and how all spells were like an algebraic equation—

Algebraic . . . what? What nonsense. Elsie had always seen runes as knots to be untied, not numbers to calculate. Miss Prescott was making it far more complicated than it needed to be. The sum of this and the division of that to determine where to start . . . Elsie just tugged at the thing until she found a loose end. She highly doubted counting and equating would make the process any faster.

She’s still talking, she thought with dismay. She was overexplaining. Even Bacchus would know how to pull the spell apart at this point.

“Now, find the same rune in the book,” Miss Prescott said.

Trying not to grit her teeth, Elsie opened the book. She found the novice freezing rune right away, but acted like it took her a moment. “Here is it.”

“Very good. Now, I want you to study the rune, do the calculation, and tell me where you think you should start.”

Elsie resisted the urge to grumble. Top right, she knew. But she paced herself, her remaining patience slowly unraveling, and played along.

It took another quarter hour, a quarter hour, before Miss Prescott let her try breaking the rune. And again, Elsie purposefully made a mistake and started over before turning the ice back to water.

And then she had to do it again. And again. And again.

Elsie was going to lose her mind.

The lesson lasted two hours, with Bacchus hardening a tea cake and turning a coin translucent, all novice physical spells. Each and every time, Miss Prescott explained how it all worked, and each and every time, Elsie played the unknowing yet fascinated child, enough so that Miss Prescott praised her as she cleaned up her supplies. They bid farewell, and Elsie waited several minutes after the spellbreaker’s footsteps left the room before crossing to the far corner, where a tapestry of a field of sheep hung along the wall.

Bacchus followed. “Bravo,” he said.

“That was the most maddening thing I’ve ever had to do,” she hissed. “Even as a child, I would have thought it ridiculous.”

His lip quirked into a smile. “But you performed well.”

Elsie folded her arms, annoyed at the way her wrists were starting to itch. They hadn’t broken any large spells, but she’d unwoven more small ones than she could count. “She said years, Bacchus. That I’d be training for years. I can’t do this for years.”

“Perhaps you will be a very quick learner.”

“But I can’t.” She dropped her arms. “I can’t be a quick learner, Bacchus, because I can’t give them any reason to suspect.”

The smile faded. “I suppose that’s true.”

Sighing, Elsie looked out the window. There was a nice walking path down below, along with a garden sporting orange and pink flowers. Beyond that, Elsie knew, were the woods she had crept through the night Bacchus had caught her in an act of illegal spellbreaking. The assignment had been to break a spell on the servants’ door. She’d thought she was freeing them from an oppressive master, but in truth Merton had sent her there to strip the house of protections, probably with the intention of killing Bacchus. Thank God he’d stopped her. Thank God he’d given her a chance to redeem herself instead of turning her in to the authorities.

“But why did she want you?” she wondered aloud.

“Pardon?”

“When the Cowls—Merton—sent me to dis-spell the servants’ door.” She gave in and scratched her wrists. “You were only an advanced aspector, and a new arrival. You didn’t know her previously. So why was she after your opus?”

Leaning forward, Bacchus set his elbows on his knees. “Perhaps she wasn’t. The duke has an opus. Passed down from . . . his great uncle, I believe. A temporal one, in a locked glass case in the library. If Merton was collecting opuses to strengthen her hand, that might have been her target.”

Elsie nodded. “She must have seen it when she was visiting with Miss Ida.”

“Perhaps. All opuses are documented by the atheneums; she might have viewed the records there. We may never know for sure.”

She rolled her lips together, trying to imagine an alternate history to the one that had played out. Would she still be a pawn beneath Merton’s thumb if Bacchus hadn’t stopped her that day? She shivered at the thought.

“I’m glad you caught me.” She studied a vase on a nearby table, so she didn’t see his reaction. “Even more so that you let me barter my way out.”

He snorted, drawing Elsie’s eyes back. “You were certainly unexpected. And wily.”

She smiled at him.

He waited a beat before carefully saying, “The other option for your spellbreaking predicament is leaving.”

Elsie glanced at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean we could hire a spellbreaking tutor in Barbados. Fudge the timeline. Wait a few years for your certification. Skip the rudimentary stuff.”

Elsie blinked. Barbados. She’d never been anywhere tropical. What would it be like to live there?

What would it be like for Bacchus to have her live there? With him? In truth, she’d never considered it. She’d never allowed herself the fancy of marrying Bacchus before the whole jail conundrum unfolded; she’d been sure he’d sail off without her and that would be that. And now . . . now she was so concerned about their ruse and about the possibility that he might hate her for it that she hadn’t considered anything beyond the marriage ceremony.

“We couldn’t.” She turned away. “Not while Merton is still at large.”

He nodded.

She rubbed the bridge of her nose, a sudden headache starting there. Now she was keeping him from his home, too. “Bacchus, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”

But the door opened just then, revealing the butler. “If Miss Camden is ready, the duchess would like to meet with her.”

Elsie threw an apologetic look to Bacchus. One she hoped read, I’m so sorry I dragged you into this. I’m so sorry I’m a burden. I’m so sorry you’re stuck with me.

But Bacchus said, “She is,” and took Elsie’s hand in his. Her stomach warmed in response. “I’ll see you when you’re done.”

He kissed the back of her hand, the press of his lips sending sparks like a fire spell up her arm. Her voice got lost somewhere between her throat and her tongue, so she simply nodded and allowed the butler to see her out, her hand pulling too slowly from Bacchus’s.

Once in the hallway, she checked the back of her hand for a spell; she could swear she felt something powerful pulsing against her skin, but there was nothing. She rubbed it, hoping to diffuse the aching that had begun just over her breastbone, but it was no use.

The duchess greeted her kindly and had her sit on a plush settee, an assortment of menus scattered across the table before them. “I wanted to secure everything and have the dinner right away, since I understand you two are in a hurry.” She winked. “No cousins this time.”

Voice still caught, Elsie nodded yet again.

“Oh, my dear”—the duchess reached toward her—“has something happened to your hand?”

Realizing she still clutched the appendage, Elsie dropped both hands to her lap. “No, nothing.” She flushed. “Nothing at all.”

The duchess had not been fibbing when she’d said she wanted to move things along, for the weekend following Elsie’s training with the spellbreaker, Bacchus and Elsie’s engagement dinner was served.

Or it would be shortly.

Bacchus found himself walking the grounds of Seven Oaks, around and around the mansion, his hands clasped behind his back, or fidgeting with his waistcoat, or combing through and rebinding his hair. The last few weeks had gone by in a blur, and he was still trying to orient himself. Plan. Make the road ahead as straight and easy as possible.

He had made the offer to take Elsie to Barbados, but she wouldn’t be able to give him an answer until Merton was taken care of. He knew that women raised in English households and English weather might not take to the sunny, humid climate, especially when wearing English fashions. But he hoped Elsie would succumb to the beauty of the island as he had. Would the island grow in her heart the way it had in his? Would she be willing to take off her shoes and walk its beaches, or watch the sun set over an endless sea?

Yet it was just as likely that they would stay in England. Perhaps not indefinitely, but for a while. Master aspector work was far more plentiful here than the islands, unless he wanted to take frequent commutes to the States, which he did not. In truth, he’d wanted the master ambulation spell only so he could continue to care for his plantation and its employees, but his future had changed in unexpected ways. He would have a wife, and eventually a family to rear. He had been mistaken about his polio. He had new options, and new responsibilities.

That, and Elsie’s entire life was in England. Not family, no, but friends, colleagues. She was close to Mr. Ogden and Miss Pratt; she’d even inquired about inviting them to the dinner tonight, but there was a certain decorum about these things, and in the end, she’d feared overstepping her bounds.

He’d glimpsed the dark side of her heart, the fear and sorrow left by her family’s abandonment and the callow treatment of this former beau of hers. Bacchus had no wish to extend the shadows. No, he wanted to lift them entirely. He wanted to see her smile and hear her laugh. Genuinely, as she had not done since that disastrous dinner when Abel Nash had tried to take Bacchus’s life, and Merton, the secret crook, had run free.

The sound of the duke’s carriage reached his ears as he came around the west side of the house. From his vantage point, he could see it coming down the road, and his stomach tightened. Straightening, he made his way toward the gates, though the carriage beat him to it, horses trotting up the lane and pulling in at the front of the house. Two servants came out to intercept, but they spied Bacchus and he waved them away so he could open the door himself.

Elsie gave him an uneasy smile, then let him take her gloved hand in his. She was wearing his favorite dress, the light cerulean one that almost matched her eyes. He thought that was a new hat with it and wondered if he should comment on it.

“Was your ride agreeable?” he asked instead, escorting her to the house, linking her arm through his.

“Wonderfully uneventful.” She brushed off her skirt. He could feel her pulse through her elbow, however, and it wasn’t precisely calm.

“You’ve dined with them before, Elsie.”

She let out a false laugh, then sucked in a large gulp of air and let it all out at once. “I know that.” She stuck her nose up in that proud way of hers, as though she could convince herself and all the world that she didn’t possess a single nerve or worry.

He guided her up the stairs, where one of the servants opened the door for them. Elsie pulled toward the dining hall—the smaller one, as the first was still under repairs—but Bacchus guided her off to the right, where the hallway curved. He stopped near a painted replica of the queen’s gardens, shadows dancing on the image as the candles flickered in their sconces.

Elsie looked at him, wide-eyed and curious.

He cleared his throat, his own nerves suddenly making themselves known. “I wasn’t sure when to give you this, but you might as well sport it, given the night’s event.” He fished into his pocket and pulled out the green ribbon in there, tied around a ring. As he began to unfasten it, Elsie grew very still.

“B-Bacchus, I don’t need a ring.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

He slid the ring off the ribbon—it was a golden band with a large, circular sapphire, surrounded by a braided loop that made it look almost like a flower—and held it up between them. “Every bride needs a ring, Elsie.”

She lifted her hand as though to touch it, but her fingers cowered at the last moment, curling inward like a dying insect’s legs. “It looks expensive.” Now she did whisper. Heaven forbid a passing servant discover Bacchus wasn’t cheap.

“I would give you my mother’s ring,” he said, reaching for her left hand, “but she never had one.”

Elsie didn’t resist as he took her hand. He slid the small ring onto his pinky finger, down to the first knuckle. Then he tugged on her glove, one fingertip at a time, loosening the lace until it came free. It was only a glove, he knew, but something about it felt deeply intimate. Her hands were soft against his, her nails neatly trimmed, her fingers quivering so slightly he almost didn’t detect it. But he did.

He slid the ring onto her fourth finger. It was a little large.

A soft chuckle came up her throat. “I’ll eat seconds at every meal until it fits.”

He smiled. Gently pinched the ring and let a novice spell flow through him with master control, a spell that, little by little, shrunk the band of the ring until it fit snuggly around her finger. Turned her hand over so that the sapphire sparkled in the candlelight. “It suits you.”

She flushed in an oddly provocative way, and Bacchus forced himself to step back and turn his thoughts elsewhere. “I believe we’re expected.”

Elsie nodded, her eyes still on the ring. She looked so guilty Bacchus almost felt as though he’d done something wrong.

He hadn’t. Yes, the circumstances were unconventional, but he intended to marry her. He wanted to marry her. The magistrate simply . . . complicated things.

Surely he wasn’t a fool for thinking she felt the same way. If she didn’t give a farthing for him, she wouldn’t have pushed herself in front of a bolt of lightning pointed at his person. She wouldn’t have refused to abandon him in that warehouse on the docks. Surely the kiss she’d given him on his cheek hadn’t been merely in farewell.

And yet she’d become so stiff around him lately, so apologetic, Bacchus had started to question it. Perhaps he wasn’t what she’d expected—he was aware he didn’t fit the mold of a typical English gentleman. But he could make a comfortable life for her. Protect her. Laugh with her.

He just hoped she realized it as well.

He guided Elsie to a sitting room, where the other guests awaited them—the Duke and Duchess of Kent and their daughters, Ida and Josie. The duchess had also invited the duke’s brother, the Earl of Kent, and his family to even out the numbers. Bacchus introduced Elsie to all of them: the earl himself, Lady Lena Scott, Mr. Allen Scott, and Mr. Fred Scott, the latter two being Ida and Josie’s cousins and roughly of an age with Elsie.

Elsie took the introductions quietly and graciously, and then they walked in to dinner, Bacchus taking the seat to the duke’s right, and Elsie sitting beside him.

As kidney soup was served, Bacchus found himself recounting his and Elsie’s false meeting story to the duke’s family. When that conversation grew stale, Elsie asked after Miss Ida’s pursuit of aspecting. Given what the duchess had said about the unlikelihood of such a pursuit, he suspected she’d mentioned it only for lack of anything else to say.

“I think I might give it another year before I decide, which I know isn’t best,” Ida said. “I’m a little old to train already. But, Elsie, I hear you’re a spellbreaker! Do tell me all about it.”

Elsie faltered only once before spinning a half-true story about seeing spells on the duke’s stone walls, and then launched into the details of her lesson with Miss Prescott. When the attention turned to the earl’s latest hunting expedition, Bacchus leaned over to her and said, “At least Miss Prescott provides you with ample dinner conversation.”

She smiled at her plate, twisting the sapphire ring on her finger. The servants brought out a roasted forequarter of lamb beautifully wrapped in pastry. Elsie did a poor job of keeping the surprise from her face, though it was Bacchus’s understanding that she’d helped select the menu.

When the meal was finished, the duke announced, “I think we might enjoy some port and sherry.”

The duchess clicked her tongue. “Not for long; tonight is about Miss Camden as well.”

Miss Josie suddenly choked on her wine, barely getting a napkin up to her face before spewing it over the table.

“Josie!” the duchess exclaimed. “What’s come over you?”

The poor girl mopped herself up. “I’m sorry. It’s nothing, really.”

The duchess’s stare was penetrating.

“It’s just . . .” She looked sheepish and glanced at her cousins. “It’s just . . . well. Mrs. Elsie Kelsey.”

Elsie touched her forehead and sighed.

Bacchus paused as the cousins tittered. “I hadn’t realized.”

Recovering, Elsie pasted on a smile and stood, the men quickly following her lead for etiquette’s sake. “It’s fine. I shall simply go by my middle name.”

Miss Ida asked, “And what’s that?”

She rolled her lips together, and so quietly that Bacchus was sure he was the only one who heard, she answered, “I don’t remember.”

Fortunately, the duchess came around the table and clasped Elsie’s elbow. “I think it’s marvelous. Come now, ladies, let’s leave the gentlemen to a short bout of port, shall we?”

Bacchus let out a breath, grateful for the duchess’s reprieve. However, as Elsie came around the table toward the exit, she froze suddenly behind the duke’s chair, causing the duchess to stagger back a step. Her gaze shot immediately to the back of the duke’s head.

“Whatever is wrong?” the duchess asked.

Elsie cast a somewhat alarmed look at Bacchus, which made him tense. What? he mouthed, but she didn’t respond. Instead, she shook her head and said to the duchess, “Forgive me. New shoes.”

The duchess laughed. “Always a bother, aren’t they?” and they continued on to the sitting room.

Once Elsie left, Bacchus forced himself to sit down, but his thoughts were firmly fixed on her and whatever she’d sensed.

“No worries, lad,” the Earl of Kent said beside him, pouring himself a drink. “She’s not going far.”

Bacchus did not drink, and indeed was relieved, fifteen minutes later, when the duke honored his wife’s request to keep the men’s visit short. “Let’s go entertain them, shall we?” he asked, and started the march for the sitting room.

Bacchus found Elsie immediately upon entering. She stood by the mantel, having a conversation with Lady Lena Scott and one of her sons. Upon seeing him, she said, “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve just decided what flowers I would like at the wedding, and I must tell Bacchus while he’s in a pleasant mood.”

It was obviously a rehearsed excuse, but her companions chuckled and let her go. She met him in the corner of the room, out of earshot of the others.

“What’s wrong?” Bacchus asked, lowering his head to hers.

She bit her lip, glanced over her shoulder. “What spell is the duke wearing?”

Bacchus lifted his head, brows drawing together. “Pardon?”

“The spell on the duke. What is it?”

Bacchus shook his head. “The duke doesn’t have . . . ,” but he stopped himself. Elsie of all people would know. “What did you sense?”

“Something strong,” she whispered. “Not a smell or a sound, so it’s rational or physical. I mean, physical spells are visual, but sometimes I just feel them anyway, like with you, but not like a rational spell, of course, just something else deep down—”

He placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her spiraling explanation. His thoughts swam as he considered. “Are you sure it’s not a temporal spell? He had a temporal aspector here recently, if you recall.”

Temporal aspectors could alter time’s effects on things; they could strip the rust from iron or the wrinkles from skin. But Elsie shook her head. “Temporal spells have a certain . . . flavor, to quote Miss Prescott. It’s not that.”

“Then what—”

Bacchus suddenly felt sick. Enough so that he put his hand out against the wall to steady himself.

Worry flashed across Elsie’s face. “Bacchus?”

The duchess noticed. “Are you quite well?”

Catching himself, Bacchus stood to his full height and straightened his waistcoat. “Of course. If you’ll excuse us a moment.”

The earl’s wife gave them a knowing look, which Bacchus promptly ignored as he ushered Elsie into the hallway. He strode down it, nearly too quick for her to easily keep up, and around the corner.

“Bacchus—” Elsie was growing breathless.

He stopped suddenly, standing in the sliver of shadow between two sconces. “The duke was recently ill.”

She studied his face. “Yes, you mentioned it.”

“He was recently ill immediately following our trip to Ipswich. Extremely ill. His recovery was nothing short of miraculous.”

It took only a moment for Elsie to understand his meaning; he knew when she did, for her face lit with sudden horror.

“Elsie”—he gripped both of her shoulders—“could he be receiving energy from a siphoning spell?”

She worked her mouth. “I . . . I don’t know. I-I’d have to see it to be certain.”

Releasing her, Bacchus stepped back and wiped a hand down his face.

“Bacchus, he’s like a father to you. Do you really suspect he might be the one behind it? The . . . ‘polio’?”

It hadn’t been polio, of course. Bacchus had merely spent a decade thinking it was. Someone had placed the physical siphoning spell on him without his knowledge, hidden beneath a temporal spell he had mistakenly thought was keeping him well. “The timing is suspect, and I don’t know of any other spell he could have that isn’t temporal.” His hand formed a fist, and he pressed it against the wall, resisting the urge to burst through it with his knuckles. “I need to know.”

“I can try getting closer,” she suggested, “but if I can’t see it . . .”

Bacchus let out a long breath. What would he do if his suspicions were true? If the man who had been like family to him for so long had actually been robbing him of his health and vitality since his adolescence?

“Bacchus.” Her voice was soft as smoke, and her hands came up to his face, gentle but firm, cradling his jaw. He looked down, meeting her eyes.

“Be patient,” she pleaded. “Don’t jump to conclusions. Maybe I was wrong.”

“Do you really think you were wrong?”

She didn’t answer. “I’ll figure it out. Get closer if I can. Just . . . distract yourself in the interim, all right?”

Distract myself.

Her hands still lingered on his jaw. They were close together, half a pace apart, the hallway quiet, empty.

His gaze dropped to her lips. He could certainly think of one way to distract himself.

She flushed again, searching his face, then promptly removed her hands, self-consciously touching her mouth as though she’d left food there. Misinterpreting him, likely. She’d done that often, ever since being arrested. Like her confidence was still imprisoned in Oxford.

Damn Merton. She’d made it so much harder to straighten Elsie’s crippled wings.

Sighing, Bacchus straightened. “Do what you can, but don’t risk yourself on my behalf.”

She looked at him apologetically. Fidgeted with the ring on her finger.

He offered his arm. “We’d best head back before they think I’m robbing you of your maidenhood.”

Elsie blushed redder than the carpet.

It was a comely sight, yet Bacchus could not bring himself to smile.