“Yes,” he said, “we will talk.” He slid his arm around Charles’s shoulders and aimed him for the door. “We will discuss many, many things.”
Charles felt those long, strong fingers brush the top of his arm.
Pleasure slave, for men
. “Yes,” he croaked, and let the Catalian lead him into the hall.
But they both jumped when, once they left, the door slammed shut behind them. Charles watched as Timothy turned back and tried the knob, but he knew even before the handle refused to turn that it would be locked.
* * *
Back at the cottage, Emily Elliott stood in doorway of her kitchen, staring at the empty pallet before the hearth, the notebook she had gone to fetch hanging loosely at the tips of her fingers.
Emily had served as an assistant and servant to her sister and the Morgan for almost eight years now, and as a consequence she had seen many strange and unsettling things. It did not upset her when the ghostly forms of the four elements bore an unconscious man into her kitchen as if he were nothing but a feather. It
unsettled
her, but it did not upset her. When her sister channeled the power of the heavens and made lightning crackle from the tips of her fingers, when roses bloomed on her command, when wounds knit themselves back together, Emily did not so much as blink. But never in all that time had she walked four paces out of a room, then come back to see that, without so much as a stirring of the air, a patient had vanished completely.
Emily came forward slowly, glancing about the room to see if he might pop out from behind a table or from the pantry. He did not. She noted the window was still closed and the latch in place. She saw the bolt on the back door was firmly thrown. When she reached the pallet, she nudged the blanket back with her toe, bracing herself to see some horrid, shrunken form of him, but there was not so much as a speck of dust. No rat, bat, or even cockroach scurried past her, either. In fact, until she had lifted them, the blankets had looked entirely undisturbed, as if the man beneath them had somehow simply melted into nothingness.
The notebook fell from Emily’s hand, but she paid it no attention as she backed into a chair and sank, her arms moving protectively around her middle.
What was she supposed to do with this? Where could he have gone?
How
could he have gone? She’d watched Madeline lay down the enchantment herself. He should have had a difficult time leaving the house to use the privy. And yet he hadn’t just left, he’d disappeared.
Emily hugged herself tighter. She’d have to go out to the workshop and tell Madeline, which would mean interrupting her meditation. And as testy as Madeline had been lately, Emily would probably be blamed for losing him. Her shoulders slumped forward, and her stomach knotted. She hadn’t needed this tonight. It had been a long, wearying day, full of strange news and gossip she didn’t want to think about—that was
before
Madeline had told her the Perrys were back in the parish—and all Emily wanted to do was huddle beneath her blanket in her room with a mug of tea and wish the world away. She had been waiting impatiently for her sister to come back into the cottage so she could escape, but now,
now
she would not only be yelled at but would also have to help search for the missing patient.
Movement out of the corner of her eye broke her gloomy reverie; she turned, almost relieved, waiting to see Charles Perry standing there. But it was not, in fact, Charles Perry. Something stood beside the pantry door, but it was not Madeline’s patient and not a man or even a woman at all.
It was a ghost. Then it moved, and she saw that it was, in fact, four ghosts.
Emily rose. “You,” she said, astonished but not alarmed. “What are
you
doing here?”
They were tall, so tall their heads almost scraped the ceiling, all but one who came only halfway to the others’ shoulders. They were thin and pale, a sort of luminescent gray-blue, and they had no eyes, only black sockets where their eyes should be. Their thin, fleshless lips smiled, however, and the smallest one waved. The ghosts themselves were not a shock; Emily had seen them countless times before. It was just that she had never, not once in all her life, seen them appear outside of the abbey grounds.
The ghosts continued to hover, smiling, waiting for something, it seemed, but with a patience that undid Emily as much as their unorthodox appearance.
“Has…something happened?” She glanced down at the pallet. “Do you know about this? About him? Where he has gone?
How
he has gone?”
The ghost in the center, who seemed slightly larger than the others, drifted forward, still smiling. This was the closest Emily had ever been to them, and she found that close inspection in fact made them look a little grisly. Normally she sat on the mossy rock in the courtyard ruins of the abbey and watched them, feeling warm and comforted when they chanced to wave at her as they drifted down the long stone corridors. It was different to see them up close. What had looked like soft, normal skin appeared leathery and alarmingly decayed from only a few feet away. Emily was not frightened, but she did stiffen as a ghostly hand reached out and touched her cheek. Where the misty finger stroked, her skin felt cold. The ghost looked sad, and Emily reached up and put her hand over the ghostly one, ignoring the chill as she looked up into those wide, sightless eyes.
A hard rap on the front door startled her, and she turned her head away, lowering her hand again. She felt the cold touch retreat, and when she turned back to the ghost, it was gone. So were the others.
The knock on the door came again, insistent.
Emily glanced down at the pallet and then at the back door. Then she grabbed her sturdiest pan from the wall and headed down the hallway as a third knock began to sound.
“Open up! Open up at once!”
Emily stopped with her hand on the cover of the peephole; she kept it in place and rested her forehead against the door instead because she recognized the voice. Her heart began to beat faster, and she shut her eyes, sending up a fleeting, silent thanks to the Goddess.
He’d come
. Emily ran a trembling hand through her hair and smiled, blushing, as she opened the door to Alan Lennox.
She forgot both the ghosts and the missing Mr. Perry in his presence. It made her dizzy, how clean and pressed and handsome he managed to look even at this hour. But she faltered as he did not return her smile. In fact, he looked down at her with no trace of emotion at all. He glanced briefly at the pan in her hand, raised an eyebrow, then lowered it again before pushing past her into the foyer. Taking off his hat and cloak, he handed them to her.
“I must see your sister, Emily,” he said. “At once.”
Emily held the cloak and hat close to her chest, letting his scent fill her senses, comforting her. “Madeline? Why—”
“Where is she?” Alan had already ducked into the parlor, found it empty, and appeared in the foyer again to glare at Emily. “She isn’t in bed, I hope.”
Emily glanced at the clock on the wall, which read almost midnight. “She is in her workshop,” she said, dazed. “But she doesn’t—”
“Thank you,” Alan said, reclaimed his hat and cloak, and ducked back out the door.
Emily set the pan down on the table by the door and followed him. He had already cleared the bushes and was heading to the garden gate, the heels of his riding boots clipping smartly on the stone path as he moved.
He had barely looked at her. He had stood there, proud and cool, every inch the magistrate’s son, which was only fair because that was what he was. It was just that little more than a week ago he had stood in that same place in the parlor, that aristocratic mouth turned up in a charming smile as he slid the smooth pads of his fingers over her wrist, the wrist he held as he led her gently up the stairs.
Emily gathered her skirts and hurried after him. “Wait,” she cried. “Alan, wait, you can’t rush in there; she’s in a trance—”
“She’s in trouble, is what.” Alan didn’t slow his pace. “There was an alchemist at the inn, and he caused a great deal of damage. He conjured some sort of beast that breathed fire, and he spawned a riot that prompted the host to complain to Father, who sent me out to see what the devil is going on. People are upset.
I
am upset. I am being quite rude to Lady Balastor and her daughter in my absence, and all because
your sister
, the Apprentice, cannot keep this parish’s magic in check!”
They were halfway across the garden now. Alan kept going, heading for the gate that led to Madeline’s workshop and the moor, but Emily stopped. “Lady Balastor?”
Her daughter?
Alan was fumbling with the gate; when it would not give way immediately, he kicked it and swore. He turned back to Emily and threw up his hands as if this too was her fault. “What good is the tithe we pay to the pair of you if you cannot keep the peace?”
“It isn’t Madeline who brought the alchemist here,” Emily said, though with less heat than she would have liked. She had seen Lady Balastor’s daughter; she was pretty and elegant. And rich. She was very, very rich. Emily thought again of the rumors she had heard, and the knot in her stomach tightened.
“It was her charm that failed to keep a magician from nearly burning down the inn!” Alan jiggled the gate again and turned to glare at her. “It’s no wonder the Council is delaying Sealing your sister! She is clearly too incompetent to be a full witch!”
That
broke Emily’s stupor. “Madeline is entirely competent.” She finished crossing the yard, lifted the gate a quarter of an inch before she pulled the latch, and swung it easily outward. She turned her face to Alan’s and regarded him as haughtily as she could.
You are being very rude
, she told him silently because she was not brave enough to do it aloud. She tried to tell herself that this was just his way, that he was overset because his father had interrupted his evening, and she tried to tell herself it was no consequence that said evening had involved the lovely, wealthy, unmarried daughter from a neighboring parish.
She tried, but it wasn’t working.
She followed him out onto the moor, but she stopped as she saw the soft flicker of blue-gray appear again, this time in the shadows behind her sister’s workshop. The ghosts were there, the same ones she’d seen inside the cottage. The tallest ghost beckoned to her. It was not smiling.
Alan was already banging on the door. “She isn’t answering,” he shot back at Emily. “And there is no light inside.”
Sometimes she works in darkness
, Emily thought, but she did not say so because the ghosts were
all
beckoning now. The smallest had drifted out into the moonlight and was reaching for her. It looked terrified.
Clicks and whines were echoing against the fog, coming up from the lake. Emily took a step back toward the house. “Alan, the lake—the fog is too high. We must go back.”
“I’m not leaving without giving your sister a piece of my mind!” He banged again.
The chittering from the lake became louder. The ghosts became even more frantic, all of them coming toward her now.
“She is not here,” Alan said angrily, and then Emily saw a shadow move across the fog, heading for him.
“Alan!” she cried out or tried to. She managed to open her mouth and form the
A
, which turned into a gasp as a hand closed over her mouth.
An arm wrapped around her waist soon after, dragging her back toward the hedge.
The shadow reached Alan; Emily tensed, helpless to do anything but watch it raise its arms and bring something down heavily on Alan’s head as Emily’s captor dragged her farther into the cover of the bushes.
The ghosts saw her, glanced at one another, and then they winked out again.
The sounds from the lake became sharper and louder, and the fog reached out like hands over the top of the ridge, closing Madeline’s workshop in mist.
Emily felt warm breath against her ear.
“That’s the alchemist from the inn.” It was a male who held her, which she had surmised, but his accent was formal and strange, more proper even than Alan’s. The hand that had held her waist extended out before them, gesturing to the workshop. “He followed that one out here. I followed him.” He reasserted his hold on her waist and lowered his voice to an even quieter whisper. “I saw him stun three men at the inn yard. He isn’t someone to mess with.”
Emily had been too disoriented by everything to fight back yet, but at this information, she all but yielded in the stranger’s arms. He said nothing more, and they watched together in silence as the alchemist came out of the mist. He scanned the bushes for several moments, then fished for something in his pocket. Emily held her breath and whispered prayers in her mind as she felt her charm warm against her chest. It held; the alchemist turned away from them and stepped over Alan’s still form before placing his hand over the lock.
“Will your sister come out?” the stranger who held her whispered. “Is she even inside?”
The alchemist cursed and held up a stone, which he pressed against the door to the workshop.
Emily reached up and pulled the man’s hand away from her mouth. “I don’t know,” she whispered back. Emily didn’t think so. Madeline would have come out by now. She opened her mouth to say so, but the noises from the lake were so loud they were almost deafening, and the fog was creeping up around them. She couldn’t even see the alchemist at the door any longer.
“We need to leave.” She gestured at the house. “It isn’t safe here.” She looked at Alan, unconscious on the ground, and she prayed to the Goddess that he had remembered his charm and it would be enough.
“I must see your sister,” the stranger said. His hold on her waist tightened. “When is she going to come out?”
“I don’t think she’s going to,” Emily said.
“I think it will encourage her a great deal when she realizes I hold her sister captive,” a voice said from the mist.
The alchemist.
“Run!” Emily cried and ducked away, dragging the stranger behind her.
That is, she tried.
She
disappeared into the fog. The stranger remained where he was, frozen by the alchemist’s command.