A dog made of stars leapt into the air, absorbing the Sorcery. It was a hound—not the scrappy spaniel she favored.
Which meant . . .
Benjy was there even before the dog vanished, his clothes spotted with rain and a storm swirling in his features.
“I told you I should have gone to the door with you,” he grumbled, as Canis Major flashed in the air, erecting a rudimentary barrier in front of them.
“I’m sorry!” Hetty cried out, as magic clashed with magic. “Where’s Eunice?”
“Safe. I sent her to the others.” Benjy grabbed her arm and nearly lifted her off her feet.
Benjy’s other hand shot out, and the loose bricks on the floor stacked themselves in front of them.
“How did that not stop him?” Benjy said, as brick dust flew over their heads.
“It’s Sorcery,” Hetty said. “None of this will hold for long.”
Benjy didn’t even blink.
“Then get the wand. I’ll distract him.”
Without explaining anything more, Benjy darted across the room. Star-speckled wolves and foxes trailed after him.
Clarence swore, and struck back at once.
He called out incantations, the growl in his voice making each bellow sound like a curse. Benjy darted through the piles of brick and lumber lying about, moving moments before the magic struck.
Get the wand, Benjy had told her, as if Clarence didn’t have a death grip on it.
But Clarence wasn’t paying attention to her, so she had that to her advantage. With a glance toward Benjy, Hetty slapped her hand against the ground, fingers curled into a familiar star sigil. Her magic took the form of a sweeping Swan. It soared majestically toward Clarence, only to vanish inches from him.
Of course he had a barrier set up. Otherwise this would have been too easy.
Benjy was still darting around the building, narrowly dodging the blasts coming from Clarence’s wand. His spells were doing just enough to lessen the damage. But they wouldn’t last for long. Benjy hadn’t made a full recovery from the other night, and his slower movements were proof of that. He wouldn’t last much longer without taking another hit.
But did she really need to take it from Clarence?
No, she realized. All she needed to do was get him to drop it.
Hetty ran from the safety of the crumbling brick wall and flung the Phoenix sigil into the air.
As she tightened her hand into a fist, the Phoenix fell apart, releasing a spell that negated the magic Clarence drew around himself.
Clarence didn’t drop his wand, but he froze in place.
In that moment, Hetty closed the distance between them. As soon as she drew close enough, she jammed one of her hairpins into his hand.
Clarence dropped the wand with a yell.
Hetty kicked it across the room.
The thrill of victory was still on her lips as something cold and sharp bit into her neck.
“Stop!” Clarence shouted, but his words weren’t directed at her. “I’ll slit her throat!” He pressed harder and twisted Hetty’s left hand, keeping her from drawing any more sigils. “She’ll be gone before you even get to me.”
“Ignore him!” Hetty urged. “He’s trying to manipulate you!”
“Drop the magic,” Clarence commanded. “Take three steps back.”
A muscle jumped in Benjy’s cheek. His arms fell to his sides, and the sigils swirling around him faded away.
“Let her go. Whatever this is about, she’s not involved. She didn’t even know about the boxing bets.”
“Boxing? Is that what you think this is about? It was never about the money.” The knife slipped away from Hetty’s throat. “You really are a fraud!”
“He isn’t a fraud,” Hetty snapped.
Clarence chuckled as if he hadn’t heard her. “Money, boxing . . . is this all you managed to piece together? I thought you two were supposed to be great detectives. The mighty conductors! You don’t know anything.”
“Charlie’s actions put you in debt,” Benjy said. “Isn’t that why you killed him?”
Clarence laughed. “What does money have to do with anything? I have more than enough of that stuff, and it can’t do a thing to bring back the person I lost.”
Benjy was quiet a moment. “Who did you lose?”
“His first wife,” Hetty said, as a conversation she should not have forgotten suddenly returned to her. Not only did the contents of such a conversation echo in her mind, she saw once more the anger that had filled Clarence’s face when they had spoken at the excursion. “Sofia.”
The knife pulled away by the smallest amount from Hetty’s throat as she said the name.
“Yes,” Clarence whispered. “Sofia, my love, my first wife. The one you left to die. She escaped with others during the war, pressing on when you didn’t show. She died when she could have lived. Then for years I had to endure staying in your company, listening to everyone sing your praises. Rhodes never leaves a passenger behind! Rhodes brought everyone safely home.” His grip tightened on Hetty’s arm. “It’s all lies! And the stories just kept growing. Growing bigger and bigger, and you didn’t deserve any of it. I had to do something.
“But then I remembered your little pastime,” Clarence continued. “Grave robbing is condemned by all, so if you were caught doing it, people might wonder what else you were lying about. That maybe these deaths, these cases you solve, were stories no more real than the tales your wife makes up. It was a good plan, except I needed help. That was my mistake. If you want something done properly, you do it yourself. But Charlie knew a man with access to a cemetery. A man eager to make money.
“Charlie did have massive debts, but he didn’t owe me money. I’m not a fool to give it to him. I was a fool to trust him. Charlie had been willing to sell you down the river with the boxing matches. My plan was not much different. But he didn’t like it. Charlie actually got cross with me over his role in all this, as if he hadn’t begged me to be a part of it.
“So he met with me, told me that he was going to tell you everything. I couldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t let him ruin all my plans just because he finally decided to be honest for the first time in his life. He turned his back and . . . well . . . then I had a mess to clean up. A mess that only grew because he turned into a coward.”
“You killed Charlie,” Benjy said. “You killed . . . all of them . . . for that? No one even knows about the deaths!”
“But they will. They’ll learn what you did to Charlie. To Stevens. And especially to young Alain Browne. There will be a note attached to your body!”
Clarence’s grip shifted on her arm.
Hetty braced for the knife, but Clarence shoved her to the ground.
As she fell she saw Benjy rush forward and Clarence flick his hand—
Benjy was in the air. Upside down, he hung like a bat as ropes snapped down from a wooden beam to wrap around his right foot. Another rope had captured his arms, drawing them back. He twisted, swinging around, but his movements soon became small and constrained as the ropes tightened around him.
“No!” Hetty lifted her hand, but light streaked in front of her, forming a cage of magic around her.
“I’m sorry,” Clarence said, dusting off his clothes, “but I have no choice. It’s the only way out of this.”
“It wasn’t his fault!” Hetty cried. She pounded on the barrier, sending sparks of magic flying. It didn’t budge, but she kept on even as it felt like her hands would shatter. “He didn’t know!”
Hetty’s eyes were locked on Benjy. Whatever spells Clarence had set, they had missed. Benjy was dangling by his foot. And the ropes around his hands weren’t taut. He was still alert. He could break free if he had enough time. He could do it before Clarence stopped toying with him.
A chance was all he needed.
“I know he’s your husband,” Clarence said, shaking his head, “but how can you defend—”
“It was me! It’s my fault Sofia’s d
ead. I’m the one who said we shouldn’t go!”
“You?” Clarence swung around to her. “You said not to go?”
“All those trips. I’m the one who decided where we went. I’m the one who said who we took with us. I made all the decisions. He had no idea about Sofia.” She swallowed, exaggerating her remorse to draw him in to her tale. “But I knew.”
She had Clarence’s complete attention now, and under the weight of his stare, she struggled to keep talking.
She’d managed to break that binding spell earlier because she’d broken his focus. She’d need to pull off that trick one more time.
“You knew?”
“I knew. I knew about them all—about John and Emily and Paul and Edward.” The names flowed off her lips, choosing whatever came first to mind. The names didn’t matter. They just had to sound right. This was a story, after all. A story she embellished and spun around her to keep Clarence distracted.
And it was working.
“You knew?” Clarence repeated, and the ropes overhead trembled. “You knew and you didn’t do anything!”
With those last words, the ropes holding Benjy vanished.
Benjy fell.
But before he hit the ground, Benjy flung a spell directly at Clarence.
Clarence was knocked off his feet, but Benjy hit the floor first.
He hit it at an angle. The building shook. Hetty heard something snap, followed by a moan.
The boundary that had been imprisoning Hetty disappeared. She started to run to Benjy, but something floated in front of her, having fallen from above.
A scrap of fabric, spotted with blood . . . and the Virgo star sigil glowing among her stitches.
The band Clarence had ripped from her, with its magic still in play. Benjy must have found it back at the Loring home.
He had kept it with him. Had it protected him?
Hetty grabbed the band and activated the first spell her fingers found. The Crow soared forward. And just in time, too. The star-speckled bird snatched the rope Clarence hurled at her, seeking, no doubt, to string her up as he’d done Benjy.
The spell shook the rope back and forth in its starry beak, until the Sorcery vanished in its grip.
The other sigils stitched into the band burst forth as well.
The Eagle. The Dove. The Crane. The Swan. The Peacock. All glittering like starlight as they fluttered around her like true birds.
The final star sigil that emerged was Virgo. Resplendent in a long flowing dress and an elaborate jeweled headdress mounted atop a crown of braids, the woman made of stars was shorter than Hetty. Her eyes were as black as the mysteries of the night skies, but her features were what Hetty always imagined Esther’s to be after all these years.
Virgo smiled at Hetty and stepped forward, shielding her from the hexes that flew, seemingly at random, from Clarence’s wand, as he bellowed the same incantation over and over. Virgo batted each one away with her hand, taking the blows until the spell unraveled.
Clarence’s rage had so consumed him that he didn’t seem to notice. The Eagle and the Peacock battered him with sharp pecks, but he pushed past them, all of his fury focused on Hetty.
“If I’d known it was you, I wouldn’t have needed to kill Charlie. I wouldn’t have needed to do anything. Rhodes has a mountainous reputation to chip away at. But yours is made of books and stories, and only needs a good match to destroy it.”
“You didn’t have to do any of this,” Hetty said, as the Swan batted aside another hex. “You could have just posted a nasty letter to the papers. Started a rumor or two. You didn’t have to kill anyone. You didn’t have to hurt Eunice.”
“I told you! Keep my wife’s name out of your mouth!”
He raised his arm with the wand. But this time when a spell burst from its tip, it wasn’t directed at her. The hex flew at Benjy, where he lay groaning on the floor clutching his arm.
“No!”
Hetty commanded the Crane to intercept, and the bird crashed into the bolt of Sorcerous energy. The collision was a brilliant array of golden light.
Hetty shut her eyes.
When she opened them again, Clarence lunged at her.
Unprepared for this non-magical attack, Hetty swung out her arm. Her nails scratched along his face. He howled, and a fist caught her under the chin.
Hetty fell back to the ground, banging her head against the floor. When the world stopped spinning, Clarence stalked toward her again, drawing a gleaming knife.
He stepped on her left hand, keeping her from working any last spells.
“This ends now. You—”
But whatever foul thing that would have rolled off his tongue never came.
A bang filled the air.
Clarence stopped moving, staring down at himself. Instead of blood, ice sprouted from his right shoulder, jagged and long like a crystal.
Clarence staggered and then tumbled to the ground as ice coated his body.
Standing in the doorway behind him was Penelope. Smoke wafted from the dainty pistol held in her hand.
She was not alone. Behind her were others: Thomas, Darlene, and, for some strange reason, Pastor Evans.
Hetty stared at their worried faces, too confused to ask what had brought them here, let alone at the right moment.
She was just glad, so very glad, to see them.
“Penelope,” Hetty said as her friends rushed to her side. “Good thing you finally put bullets in that gun.”
PHOENIX
40
IF THERE WAS ANY HOPE that the whole thing would remain a quiet and ugly secret, it died the moment the newspapers reported the wand.
That detail kept tongues wagging all over town, as shock, anger, and, in some cases, disgust captured everyone’s attention. Like any good tale, though, more than one version of it emerged, and Hetty heard plenty of variations with small details changed or removed. But in all the tellings, no matter who told them, one detail stayed the same. Clarence Loring, owner of the Good Tidings Catering Company, had been arrested in possession of a wand.
Possession of a wand was a hanging offense in the South, but in Philadelphia, Clarence would rot in jail and never see a day in court. It also meant that his once sterling reputation was in tatters, and every terrible rumor that Clarence had tried to ascribe to Benjy had been deflected back onto him.
But that wasn’t the worst of his crimes.
“Shouldn’t you be upstairs resting?” Hetty asked, as Eunice picked up the knife she had just dropped. “I have more than enough help.”
“It’s not really about help,” Penelope said. She rolled another improperly peeled potato toward Hetty. “It’s to bear witness. You’re cooking, and no one has ever seen that before.”
“Not true,” Darlene said, and dropped more potato skins into the bin. “She’s cooked before. But no one’s lived to tell the tale.”
Her friends snickered around the table. The loudest laughter came from Eunice, though the tears that prickled in the corners of her eyes indicated pain more than mirth.
When Hetty had first entered the Loring house, Eunice crept out moments later, the rain cloak hiding her so well that it had fooled Benjy for a few blocks. But she had stumbled, and Benjy caught sight of her. When he turned Eunice around he saw a blackened eye, a split lip, and a bruise in the shape of a handprint wrapped around her neck. Eunice told Benjy about Clarence breaking the clock, and finding bloodied and torn clothes that weren’t his, and—most important—that Clarence was still in the house and thus Hetty was in danger. Benjy brought Eunice to Oliver’s house where she’d be safe. He went back to the Loring house and then tracked Hetty using the trail of magic she’d left behind.
Penelope and Darlene were there to greet Eunice when she arrived. The sight of Eunice’s face had spurred them all to action, although they found Hetty and Benjy less by following a trail and more by Darlene’s well-placed reminder of the building George, Charlie, and Clarence put money into.
Eunice jo
ked that what had happened to her was worth it. She also refused to let Penelope heal her. Her face, Eunice claimed, was the proof of what Clarence had done. Horrible as it was, she wasn’t wrong. Without Eunice’s battered face, no one else would have believed their story.
“If you’re going to be like that, I’m just going to let you do all the work,” Hetty declared.
“You won’t do that. You’re only doing this because you’re bored,” Darlene said. She frowned as she adjusted the knife in her hand. “You’ve been in hiding.”
“Not hiding,” Hetty said, as the peel curled into a neat spiral around her left hand. “Just wanting to avoid gossip. I’m used to hearing terrible things being said about me, but good things, it turns out, are no better—I feel like I’ve got spiders crawling along my skin. It makes me nervous that when I really do mess up what you’ll think.”
“Just remember,” Penelope teased, “you can hardly go lower in our opinion.”
“I feel so much better,” Hetty retorted as she rolled her eyes.
Penelope waggled a finger at Darlene. “Are you still peeling the same potato? Hetty’s on number eight and even Eunice, who just got here, had done three more than you.”
“It’s not a race,” Darlene grumbled.
“Hetty,” Thomas said, as he popped his head into the kitchen. “Have a moment to spare? I need a voice of reason, and I suppose you’ll have to do.”
This got more giggles from her friends, but Hetty ignored them as she followed Thomas out into the hall, suspecting she already knew what this was about.
Oliver tapped his foot against the floor as his desk hovered in the air behind him. When he saw Thomas with Hetty in tow, he scowled. “I told you not to bother her.”
“We needed another opinion. Benjy gave a vague one on purpose.” Thomas turned to Hetty. “Did you want to keep this desk, or can we take it?”
There had been several big changes in the days since the incident with Clarence. Eunice was now living with Cora and Jay. She quietly sold off her household furnishings and gave away the others as gifts, such as the piano, which had found a new home within these very walls. Isaac Baxter vanished after news of his many outstanding debts went public, and the political club he founded disappeared with him. Sy Caldwell quit the forge following Benjy’s departure and was trying his hand at a new career. And Marianne had quietly left for Nashville, with an even greater sorrow in her heart.
The Conductors Page 37