Spellmaker

CHAPTER 15

The gray-cast sky finally gave in to a miserable, misty sort of rain. The kind that caught on the breeze and got everything wet. It was cold rain, despite the summer. English rain was one of the things that made Bacchus miss home.

He had no jacket and no umbrella. Instead, he cast a spell on the air around him, curving the rain away from him. Scanning the park, he spied a few people running for the shelter of trees. A barouche passed by, its driver quickening the steps of its horses.

Bacchus had been here two hours, with no sign or word from Elsie.

After the carriage passed, he crossed the narrow path and approached a chestnut tree. Leaning against the truck, he pulled out his bespelled blue pencil and a piece of parchment, which he lay across his raised knee. If he leaned it against the tree, the pencil on Elsie’s side might end up scrawling across her wall or furniture instead of the paper she was supposed to leave beneath it.

Are you well? he wrote simply. Then he waited.

And waited.

The magic on the linked pencil didn’t take—no grip touched its bespelled wood. Bacchus was a patient man, so he remained in that stance for several moments longer, the rain increasing in power, then decreasing until it was little more than fog. Still no response. She usually didn’t take this long to respond.

And so Bacchus strode out of Hyde Park, feeling uneasy. His mind circled around some irrational fears, some personal doubts regarding Elsie’s affections for him, but he cast them aside. He would not feed them. No use in torturing himself over what was likely a misunderstanding.

He’d driven himself here in Master Hill’s cabriolet, thinking perhaps Elsie would enjoy a ride before they headed to Seven Oaks, where he was due shortly. But after Bacchus cared for the horse and pulled out onto the main road, he drove to the post office rather than Kent.

“I’d like to send a telegram,” he said upon opening the door. The young man behind the counter, no older than fifteen, gave him a look that was half fear and half awe; Bacchus was a head and a half taller than he and darker than the heavy freckles bespattering the lad’s nose. No matter. Bacchus was used to being received in such a manner.

Fortunately, the boy gave him no problems and handed him a pad of paper and a pencil. “Write it out here. The cost is—”

“I don’t care.” Bacchus scratched out, Is Elsie well? She was meant to meet me at Hyde Park. Kelsey. Below it, he wrote the address of the stonemasonry shop.

“Send it to the Brookley post office.” He slid the paper to the boy and dropped his coin pouch beside it. “To anyone present in the household.”

The lad nervously smiled and took the requisite coin and the letter before disappearing into the back room where the telegraph was kept. Bacchus took his purse back and stood at the door of the post office, peering down the road in the direction of Hyde Park, as though he might catch Elsie running up it at any moment. He thought to return there to wait for her, but with luck someone at the stonemasonry shop would send a swift reply.

The postal employee returned a few minutes later, but after acknowledging Bacchus with a nervous nod, he continued to sort through a stack of letters. Bacchus waited at the door for another quarter hour before sitting in one of two chairs crammed into the small foyer.

Leaning back, he folded his arms and continued to watch the road through the window. It felt later than it was, thanks to the rain. He watched a drop on the pane grow heavier as others joined it, until it could no longer cling to the glass and wound its way down the window.

Another quarter hour passed before he heard the telltale clicking of the telegraph. He stood, and the lad rushed into the back and out of sight. Bacchus massaged his knuckles anxiously. When the employee returned, he said, “I didn’t write it down. Thought you’d just want to hear it.”

Bacchus nodded.

“‘E left over three hours ago. Not seen?’ Sorry, the cost is per word, so sometimes people aren’t very specific—”

Bacchus didn’t wait for the boy to finish. He swung open the post office door and rushed into the rain, not bothering to enchant it away.

Bacchus burst into the stonemasonry shop just over an hour later, his hair dripping from the ride. Emmeline squeaked and dropped the broom she was carrying, then turned toward him with a hand over her heart.

“Oh, Master Kelsey!” she exclaimed. “You scared me . . .” She watched him shut the door behind him. “Elsie isn’t with you?”

The question strummed a chord of fear within him. “You sent the telegram?”

She nodded. “She left”—she glanced to the clock on the wall—“coming on five hours ago, now.”

Bacchus pulled the tie from his hair and shook it out. “Did she say where she was going?”

“She told Ogden she was doing something with the Duke of Kent.” Emmeline’s voice grew quieter.

Mr. Ogden strode in just then, his expression tight. “You haven’t seen her.”

“No. We were to meet at Hyde Park. I waited two hours. I wrote her before sending the telegram.”

“Oh,” Emmeline chimed in, “with that magic pencil?” She picked up the broom and hurried out of the room, taking it with her. A moment later, she returned. “She didn’t take it with her. Your message is on her bedside table.”

Bacchus worked his hands. “Did she seem upset? Did she take anything with her as though planning for a longer trip?”

Emmeline and Mr. Ogden exchanged a glance before the latter answered him. “No, just her reticule.”

That chord of fear began to sing, spreading cold prickles across Bacchus’s skin.

Mr. Ogden said, “I’ll send Emmeline to check locally. This isn’t like her. And with Merton . . .”

He didn’t finish the thought, only left to grab his coat.

The first thing Elsie observed was the stone beneath her—the coldness of it against her cheek and its hardness beneath her shoulder and hip. The second thing she noticed was the darkness, save for a single enchanted light in the middle of a low stone ceiling. The third was the awful taste in the back of her mouth, followed by the dryness of her tongue and rawness of her sinuses.

She pushed herself up, head pounding. For a brief moment, she thought she was still in prison and everything else had been an oddly detailed dream. But as she blinked and gained her bearings, swallowing to moisten her throat, she realized her surroundings were completely new to her.

It looked like a cellar, all dark stone walls, about fifteen feet across and ten feet wide. When she stood on shaky legs, the ceiling pressed against the top of her head. No windows.

“Hello?” she asked, and the stone swallowed her voice. She peered at the small, bright light in the center of the room. The ground beneath it was packed dirt, but closer to the walls it turned to stone. In the back of her thoughts, she noted she probably wouldn’t be able to dig herself out.

Which was when she realized she was trapped.

“Hello?” Panic grazed her voice. She walked to one corner, her legs weak, then to another, where she found a small loaf of bread and a bottle of water. She stared at them, memories from her incarceration pushing to the front of her mind. Then she crossed the room again, looking about more carefully this time, and found a cellar door in the ceiling.

Standing on her toes, Elsie pushed on it, gingerly at first and then as hard as she could. She heard heavy chains rattle from the other side. She slammed her fists into it once, twice, three times. It still wouldn’t budge.

“Help!” she screamed, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Someone, anyone!”

Was it night already? No light seeped around the edges of the door. She screamed at the door again and again.

“Help!”

“I’m trapped! Someone help me!”

“Please, anyone!”

She screamed until her throat grew raw and her voice choked. Coughing, she crossed the small space to the bottle of water, sniffing it before raising the cool liquid to her lips. Before she took a single sip, the faintest buzz prickled her ears. She paused, straining to hear it. It was barely there . . . incredibly well hidden. So much so that she had to turn the bottle over in her hands, ear pressed to the glass, to find the spiritual spell attached to it.

She didn’t recognize it. It was so tightly wound, so small . . . What was it for? Something to make her feel full, or maybe hungry? Something to calm her?

She pressed her hand to the spell and suddenly felt fatigued despite her forced rest. Her eyes drooped . . .

Wrenching her hand away, Elsie ground her teeth. Really, Merton? A spell against a spellbreaker? But it had almost worked. She considered taking the spell off, but perhaps it would be better if her captors thought she hadn’t noticed it. After all, she hadn’t noticed Ogden’s spell for years. Let them think they had the upper hand.

Tentative, Elsie took a sip of water, but the liquid itself wasn’t enchanted, only the bottle—right at the base of the neck where she was most likely to grab it. Gripping the bottle’s bottom instead, she drank half of its contents.

“It’s no use, so you might as well save your strength.”

Elsie whirled around at the voice, nearly dropping the bottle. A ghost stood near the light—no, not a ghost, but a projection. A fuzzy projection, lacking detail and color, which meant the spiritual aspector casting the spell was some distance away.

Even so, Elsie would have recognized this particular aspector anywhere.

“Merton,” she spat, setting the bottle down and standing, pressing her crown into the stone overhead. If Merton was fuzzy, that likely meant Elsie was fuzzy to her, too. So Merton probably couldn’t see clearly enough to know whether Elsie had touched her sleeping spell or whether it was working. Elsie would have to talk carefully to avoid giving herself away.

“Are we dropping titles now?” the apparition asked. “I worked very hard for that master, I’ll have you know.”

“Yes, all the way from the workhouse.” That gave the projection pause. Good. “What do you want?” Elsie grasped her anger, preferring it infinitely to fear, then tried to make herself sound tired. “Where am I?”

“I’m giving you another chance, dear,” Merton replied. “I really would love to have your company. I’ve grown so fond of you.”

Elsie shook her head, disbelieving. “You say you’re fond of me, and yet you’ve had me incarcerated, drugged, abducted, and now caged in some . . . some cellar?”

The faded ghost shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d listen if I came to you in person.” The words were a little garbled, but Elsie understood them.

She rubbed a chill from her arms. Merton must have noticed, because she said, “There should be a blanket in there. I don’t want you catching cold. Why don’t you rest? You must be exhausted.”

Elsie choked back a scoff, then feigned a yawn. “Who is your puppet now? The physical aspector?”

The features on the blurred face shifted just enough for Elsie to detect a frown. “That’s the problem with the powerful ones. They so like to fight back. Your artist did the same for the first few months, you know. Until he finally gave in and cooperated.” She sighed. “Although he didn’t have the dexterity necessary to accomplish all I needed. I never was fond of that ruffian you left all over the Duke of Kent’s dining room floor.”

Stomach acid burned in Elsie’s gut. She referred to Nash, Ogden’s “business partner” and the man who had carried out Merton’s murders. “You talk about murder like it’s a cup of tea.”

“Oh hardly, my dear. But it is necessary. You’ll understand soon enough.”

Elsie paused, sensing an opening. “Couldn’t you help me understand now? If you want me to come with you.” She barely remembered to sound sleepy.

Another frown. “No, dear. I don’t trust you just yet, and I’ve been planning too long to have it all upset now. But a few deaths are nothing compared to the lives I will save, I’ll say that much.”

Elsie wanted to goad her, and Quinn Raven’s name danced on her tongue. But any advantage they currently had—and it didn’t feel like they had much of one given she was once again a prisoner—would be demolished if Merton learned Elsie had met the very man Merton had been pursuing for years.

No. If Merton wanted Raven so badly, Elsie could not help her find him. And who knew what sort of methods Merton—or her puppets—might enact to get the information from her. Or from Bacchus, Ogden, Emmeline, or Irene.

So many are involved now, she realized. She had to keep them safe. Thank the Lord Reggie was still in the dark.

“Let me out,” Elsie pleaded, clasping cold fingers against her breast. “I’ll talk with you, face-to-face. I’m not armed.”

The projection laughed. “Oh, I know.”

It was then Elsie realized her reticule was gone. Her pockets were empty. Even her hat was gone, and her hair fell freely in uneven curls about her shoulders, every last hairpin stolen from it.

Panic seized her as she pressed her hands to her corset, but the slight rise of the opus spell gave her some relief. Relief that she still had the spell, however useless in this situation, and relief that the man who’d taken her hadn’t undressed her. Then again, who would think an unsuspecting woman would hide anything beneath the boning of her underthings?

Straightening her spine, Elsie repeated, “Please.”

“Not yet, dear Elsie,” Merton said, familiar. Elsie wondered how much of her life Merton had witnessed through Ogden’s eyes, if any. She didn’t understand how the control spell worked, only how to untie it. “I’ll keep you safe until I’m ready for you. You’ll have ample time to consider my offer. It’s not like you’ll be giving anything up. A lousy job working at a stonemasonry shop? A family who left you behind? An unwanted marriage?”

Elsie did not feel the need to correct the woman. She merely scowled, hoping the expression came through their murky connection.

“You won’t starve,” the spiritual aspector promised. “With luck, it won’t be long now.”

Elsie’s chest tightened. Won’t be long? Until what? What did Merton plan to do? As close as they’d come to piecing the puzzle together, she still didn’t know.

The ghost began to fade. Elsie had to keep her talking. “Which workhouse was it?” she blurted.

Merton paused.

“Which one did they take you to?” she reframed.

Several seconds passed. Elsie was sure Merton would refuse to answer, but she said, “Abingdon-on-Thames, of course.”

Elsie stiffened. Same workhouse as herself.

“Is that how you found me?”

Merton sighed, but it sounded weary rather than exasperated. Until now, the woman had chosen her words carefully. But perhaps Elsie could convince her to talk more openly. If she managed to create the illusion of a bond between them, something Merton might want if she’d truly wished to adopt Elsie, she could use it to her advantage.

“I’m a spiritual aspector, of course. I have the ability to help those with less.” She cupped her hands together. “I visited all the local workhouses, leaving blessings where I could. Where I was allowed to.” She scoffed. “And of course I went back to Abingdon. I know what it’s like, dear Elsie.”

“I never saw you.”

“If you did, you wouldn’t remember. They rarely let me interact with the children. As for finding you”—she tilted her head—“you nearly found me. I was nearby when that fire lit. I came quickly to help. I asked questions. Your name came up.”

Elsie bit her lip. She’d told two children about the rune. She’d always assumed they hadn’t tattled on her. Then again, a spiritual aspector could elicit the truth from anyone with a spell.

“I saw myself in you.” She spoke quietly. “Young and impoverished, no one to turn to, with untapped talents.”

Elsie dared to reveal her hand—if Merton thought she could trust her, perhaps she’d release her. “Duchess Morris said you won sponsorship in a lottery.”

Merton frowned—or at least Elsie thought she did. It was hard to tell, blurry as the projection was. “Yes, there was a selection for aspectors nearby. I walked nearly eight miles to get there. I had promise, but not as much as the postmaster’s son.” She scoffed again. “A boy who had more than anyone else in the village. Whose profession was guaranteed. I didn’t even have a pair of shoes to wear.”

Elsie held her breath, waiting for the story to unravel.

“The recruiter took me in, but I had to beg the sponsor to choose me, Elsie.” Merton looked her squarely in the eyes. “He easily could have sponsored two, but such a thing was absurd to him. It was so obvious I was destitute, that I had nothing, but he made me beg for his help. For his money. Even then, he only relented because I agreed to siphon a portion of my pay to him after I reached my mastership. Of course I agreed. I would have agreed to nearly anything. I hadn’t eaten all day. I was desperate.”

A portion of her pay. Duchess Morris had said Merton had supported her sponsor in his later years. Had that support been forced?

“That’s terrible.” And it was. Elsie needn’t pretend.

Merton nodded. “The rich are entitled, Elsie. They always will be. He was entitled, and his children were even more so. When he died, they took me to court to try to force me to continue paying the estate. So they could live off my earnings in addition to their inheritance.”

Elsie’s chin dropped.

Merton waved a blurry hand. “It didn’t take. I could afford a good solicitor by then. But you must understand, Elsie. The problem is so much greater than what you’ve seen. We are at war. Not across country borders, but in our very streets. The lower classes must fight for everything. Food on their table, employment, right of way, their very dignity.” Her voice was strained. “We even fight each other. If there’s one pattern history teaches us, it’s that the rich start the wars and force the poor to soldier them.”

Elsie took a deep breath, then another, processing all of it. She didn’t want to agree with Merton about anything, but there was no denying the cruelty of the class system. She’d experienced the pain it caused firsthand. It didn’t surprise her that Merton saw it as war. Merton had grown up in war. And seeing it that way would help her to sanction violence. Murder.

“Once you marry that spellmaker, you’ll become just like them. Complacent to others’ struggles. It saddens me that I have to explain this to you,” she added.

Mention of Bacchus made her stomach clench. Was that why he’d been one of Merton’s targets? “No, I understand.” She approached. “I do understand you. Please, come speak to me in person.”

But the projection shook its head. “I know you do, dear, but not enough. Not yet. All you need is a little more time, hm?” The image began to fade.

Pulse racing, Elsie ran to her. “Merton, wait! Lily, listen to me—”

The projection puffed away like smoke, leaving Elsie alone once more.

Setting her jaw, Elsie moved to the far wall, running her hands along the stone, searching for anything—gaps, loose rocks, spells. She searched high and low, then scoured the next wall, finding a knit blanket tucked into the shadows beneath it. She ignored it. Investigated the third wall, then the fourth, and finally picked over the floor.

Nothing. Nothing.

So she returned to the locked basement door and screamed as loud as she could, deep into the night, until she tasted blood.