Thieves' Quarry (The Thieftaker Chronicles)

by Jackson, D. B.

  The British fleet was on the move. The vessels were still arrayed around Castle William, but several had sweeps out. Others were already far enough from the fortress to have raised sails, and were now cutting across the harbor toward the city. Rickman had been right: The occupation would begin within the next day, perhaps this very night.

  At least a hundred men and women were standing with Ethan on the wharf, and another dozen or two had gathered on the street behind them. Yet they were all so still, so utterly silent, that Ethan could have closed his eyes and convinced himself that he was alone.

  “Won’t be long now,” one man finally murmured, breaking the silence. Others nodded their agreement.

  “Let them come!” one young man cried.

  People looked at him, but no one responded.

  Ethan turned and started back up from the wharf. He hadn’t gone far, though, when he felt power hum in the cobblestone. It wasn’t a strong spell and it seemed to have been cast from a distance, but he sensed the conjuring spreading through the city like a ripple in the surface of a pond.

  He was still too close to the crowd watching the ships to pull out his knife and cut himself. Fortunately, he had the mullein. He took out the pouch, removed three leaves, and spoke a warding spell under his breath.

  His conjuring whispered in the street, an answer to that distant spell, and Reg stared at him, insubstantial in the late-afternoon light.

  A few seconds later, the other conjurer’s spell reached him, coiling around his legs. Another finding spell. It felt much like the conjuring Mariz had used to locate him earlier, and Ethan wondered if Sephira had already learned that Gant was still alive. He didn’t expect that he would have to wait long to find out.

  He strode away from the crowded wharf, following Ann Street back toward Union, but halted before he reached the busy intersection. He preferred to face Mariz and Sephira where he could use his knife to conjure. And he had no intention of luring them closer to Kannice and the Dowser.

  As he expected, Mariz reached him a short time later, though surprisingly the conjurer was alone.

  Mariz stopped a few paces from Ethan and glanced around, a sour look on his thin face.

  “It was you?” the man asked, sounding genuinely disappointed.

  “Who else would it have been?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Ethan smiled thinly. “I don’t answer to you, Mariz. Or to your boss.”

  Spectacles looked like he might argue, but instead he shook his head and turned to leave again, back the way he had come.

  “Who were you looking for?” Ethan called after him. “That finding spell would only have worked on a conjurer. Who did you think you would find here?”

  “Stay out of my way, Kaille,” Mariz said over his shoulder. “This is none of your concern, and I see no need to involve you. But if I have to, I will kill you.”

  “I think you’ll find that more difficult than you imagine.”

  Mariz flashed a quick grin and continued away.

  Ethan watched him go before making his way to the Dowser. Who had Mariz been looking for? Had another conjurer come to Boston? And if so, what did he or she have to do with Gant?

  Ethan faltered in midstride.

  Was Gant the conjurer? Sephira and Mariz had been interested in the Graystone, and Ethan felt certain that they were looking for Gant, just as he was. But it had never occurred to Ethan that Gant might be a conjurer, too. Ethan had used spells during his one encounter with the man, but his conjuring had been too inept and too weak to have much effect. Gant was able to escape without resorting to spells of his own. At the time, Ethan assumed that Gant didn’t possess any spellmaking abilities. But what if he had been mistaken?

  He wondered for the first time if there had been not two but three conjurers on the Graystone. He could dismiss as mere coincidence the presence of two spellers on the ship, but not three. Maybe Sephira hadn’t brought Mariz to Boston because she wanted to match the man’s power against Ethan’s. Maybe she faced a more significant danger.

  By the time he reached the Dowsing Rod, the sky had begun to shade to a dark, brooding gray, and Beacon Hill and the spire of West Church were dark silhouettes against the clouds. Ethan entered the tavern and was embraced by the warm scent of baking bread and some sort of savory stew. There were few people inside—it was early yet—and he spotted Diver right away.

  Ethan crossed to the bar, tossed a half shilling to Kelf, and made his way back to where Diver was sitting, sipping an ale and reading the Gazette.

  Seeing Ethan, his friend set the paper aside.

  “Where have you been? Kannice was asking after you last night and I didn’t know what to tell her.”

  “I spent the night at Castle William,” Ethan said, knowing that this would leave his friend speechless.

  He wasn’t disappointed. Diver’s mouth fell open, but he couldn’t manage a word.

  Kelf came to the table bearing a cup of ale, a bowl of beef stew, and a round of bread. “Hereyago, Ethan,” the barkeep said, running the words together as always. “Anythin’ for you, Diver?”

  “Another ale,” Diver said, still staring at Ethan.

  Once Kelf was gone, Diver leaned forward. “What were you doing out there?”

  “It’s a long story,” Ethan said. “And I’m not sure how much I can tell you right now.” The tavern was filling up, and Ethan didn’t want to be overheard. Besides, trusting in Diver’s discretion was never the best idea, as he had been reminded two nights before. “It’s enough to say that I’ll be working on behalf of the Crown for the next few days.”

  “The Crown?” Diver said, admiration in his voice. He nodded, his lips pursed. Ethan hadn’t seen Diver this impressed in some years, probably since he had worked for Abner Berson.

  Ethan picked up his spoon and began to eat.

  “Well, I’m sorry to say that I can’t tell you much,” Diver said. “I’ve looked for Spectacles the past two days, but I haven’t seen him. I’m not even sure he’s in Boston anymore.”

  “His name is Mariz,” Ethan said between mouthfuls. “I think he’s from Portugal. I know he’s working for Sephira. I saw him right before I came here.”

  Diver blinked. “Oh.”

  Ethan grinned. He would have walked through fire to save Diver’s life, and Diver would have done the same for him. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t occasionally enjoy a laugh at his friend’s expense.

  “He found me, Diver,” Ethan said. “He managed to use a sleep spell on me, and the next thing I knew I was at Sephira’s house.”

  “Busy day.”

  “Very.” Ethan sipped his ale. “Tell me this: Have you heard anything about Simon Gant coming back to Boston?”

  “Gant?” Diver said, with a shake of his head. “Don’t even joke about something like that.”

  “I’m not joking.”

  Diver frowned. “I thought Gant was dead.”

  “He’s not, although it seems possible that someone went to a good deal of trouble to try to kill him. I’m almost certain that he’s somewhere in the city, and that Sephira is looking for him.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she is,” Diver said.

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “You heard the same things I did. They had some kind of falling-out. And Sephira isn’t the sort to forgive and forget. If he’s alive, he’d be smart to get as far from here as he can.”

  Ethan took one last spoonful of stew and set his bowl aside. Leaning in, he asked in a low voice, “Did you ever hear anything about Gant being a conjurer?”

  Diver considered this. “Not that I recall. But didn’t you have dealings with him?”

  “I did, but that happened a long time ago. He didn’t use any spells against me. He didn’t need to.”

  Ethan sat back again and reached for his ale.

  “There you are,” he heard from behind him.

  He turned in his chair and smiled. Kannice was making her way to their table, a di
shrag slung over her shoulder, candlelight shining in her auburn hair.

  Reaching Ethan, she stooped and kissed his cheek. “I missed you last night,” she whispered in his ear.

  “I missed you, too.”

  Kannice straightened and cast a cold look Diver’s way. “So are you going to tell me where you were?” she asked, turning her gaze back to Ethan. “Or are you going to make me guess?”

  “Diver didn’t believe me when I told him. I’m not sure you will either. I spent the night as a guest of the British army at Castle William.”

  “You were arrested?” she asked, her voice rising.

  Ethan frowned. “I was employed. But thank you for showing such faith in me.”

  Diver grinned; Kannice merely scowled.

  “You’re working for the Crown?” she said, arching an eyebrow.

  Kannice had always shown far more sympathy than Ethan for those who opposed Parliament and His Majesty the King on everything from the Stamp Tax to the Townshend Duties. During the Quartering Act crisis in New York a couple of years before, Kannice had cheered efforts by the colonial assembly to deny troops access to publick houses and other private property. Now, with occupation imminent here in Boston, she feared that she and other tavern owners would be forced to provide housing and food for countless regulars.

  She knew that Ethan had served in the royal navy, and she tolerated his Tory leanings, just as he did her Whiggish sympathies. Apparently, though, supporting the Crown was one thing; working for the king’s men was quite another.

  “Aye,” Ethan answered, careful to keep his tone neutral. “And if I could tell you why, you’d understand.”

  “I see.” She crossed her arms over her chest, her expression growing remote.

  Kannice was as kind and generous a woman as Ethan had ever known, and she loved him deeply—more than he deserved, he sometimes felt. But when she wanted she could be as cold and hard as a New England winter.

  “You’re going to have to trust me, Kannice,” he told her. “This isn’t about politics.”

  “All right,” she said, sounding skeptical. “You boys enjoy your ale. I have work to do.” She turned on her heel and walked away.

  Ethan glanced at Diver, who had the good sense to keep his eyes trained on his tankard.

  After a few moments, Diver said, “Tell me more about Spectacles.”

  He was probably more interested in breaking the silence than in hearing anything Ethan could tell him, but still Ethan was grateful for the distraction.

  “Mariz? He’s an accomplished conjurer,” Ethan said, and drained his ale.

  He raised a hand and caught Kelf’s eye. The barkeep nodded and began to fill another tankard.

  “And,” Ethan added, “he’s not afraid to use his craft. He set up detection spells around Henry’s shop, so that he would know when I went home. He attacked me with that sleep spell. And just before I came here, he used a finding spell.”

  “What did he want with you this time?”

  Ethan tapped a finger to his lips, thinking. “That’s just it. I don’t think he was looking for me at all. He was disappointed when he realized that his casting had found me. He wouldn’t tell me who he had been trying to find, but I think it was Gant.”

  “So,” Diver said, speaking softly, and looking around to be sure that no one was listening. “Do you think that Gant and this guy Mariz are fighting it out to see who gets to be Sephira’s speller?”

  “No,” Ethan said, shaking his head. “There’s more going on here than that.”

  “Well, did one of them have some connection with whatever it is you’re doing for the Crown?”

  “I think so. But I don’t know—”

  Ethan stopped and stared at Diver, his mind racing. How had this not occurred to him earlier?

  Kelf brought him his ale and set it on the table with the usual “Thereyago, Ethan.” Ethan didn’t say a word.

  Once the barman had left them, Diver asked, “Are you all right?”

  “I’m an idiot.”

  “Why? What’s happened?”

  Ethan looked around, trying to decide how best to make up for his foolishness. A cheer went up from the men at the front of the tavern, and Kannice and Kelf came out of the kitchen bearing another tureen of steaming hot stew, which they placed on the bar.

  “I’ll be back,” Ethan said, standing and stepping away from the table.

  “Ethan, what’s going on?” Diver called after him.

  Ethan didn’t answer. He needed someplace private, someplace where no one would see him, where he didn’t even have to worry about a chance encounter. He strode across the tavern, grabbed Kannice by the hand and started to drag her toward the stairway leading up to the second floor of the Dowser.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “Just come with me. Please.”

  Her expression darkened, and she began to resist. “Ethan—”

  “I need your help, Kannice,” he said, his voice low and tight. “And it can’t wait.”

  Some of the men at the bar were laughing now.

  “He’s a bold one, isn’t he?” one man said in a loud voice, drawing more guffaws from the others.

  Ethan looked back at her and held her gaze for a moment. Seeing that he was in earnest, her expression softened and she followed him to the stairs.

  When they reached the second-floor corridor, she asked in a whisper, “What is this—?”

  He stopped her with a raised finger and shook his head. He pulled her on down a second hallway that led to the door to her private chamber, only stopping when they reached her threshold.

  She regarded him for the span of a heartbeat, concern in her cornflower blue eyes. Drawing the key from within her bodice, she slipped past him and unlocked the door. He followed her inside and closed the door behind him.

  Kannice had turned to face him. “Now, what’s this about?”

  Ethan pushed up his sleeve and pulled his blade from the sheath on his belt.

  “I need to cast a spell. I couldn’t chance doing it out on the street and I couldn’t wait until later.” He gave a quick shake of his head. “I mean, I could have, but it’s important and—”

  “It’s all right,” she said. She took a step toward him and took his free hand in hers. “Tell me.”

  “That spell I felt yesterday morning—do you remember?”

  “The one that woke you,” she said.

  “Yes. It was … it killed every man aboard one of the British ships out in the harbor. Ninety-seven in all. Soldiers, sailors, officers. Every one of them.”

  “God save us. That’s why you’re working for the Crown.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

  “It’s all right. The point is, I saw the color of the power that killed them. And all this time I’ve been thinking that the spell was cast by a man who’s now working for Sephira.”

  Kannice’s eyes went icy. “That sounds about right for her.”

  “Perhaps,” Ethan said. “I’m not sure. But earlier today, he used a spell on me. It put me to sleep. And it’s only just occurred to me that I should be able to see the residue of that conjuring on me. I should be able to say for certain if he’s the killer.”

  He laid the edge of the knife on his forearm and dragged the blade across his skin. Kannice winced and looked away. He marked himself with blood much as he had the dead soldier aboard the Graystone—a streak across his brow, and a second tracing the contour of his face and neck from the bridge of his nose to his breastbone.

  “Revela potestatem ex cruore evocatam,” he said, as blood continued to well from the cut. Reveal power, conjured from blood.

  Ethan felt the blood on his face vanish, like sweat evaporating in a summer breeze, and he sensed the spell as well. He knew that Gant and Spectacles would know that he had conjured, but this once he didn’t care. Nor did he spare a glance for Uncle Reg, though he sensed the ghost beside him.

  He
looked down at his chest, where Mariz’s spell had hit him earlier in the day, and also at his legs, where the finding spell had touched him. In both places, the residue of power looked the same. It glowed bright in the dim bedchamber.

  “Is that it?” Kannice asked, pointing at his chest. “Is that from his spell?”

  Ethan nodded, but said nothing.

  The conjuring that had killed those soldiers had been a bright fiery orange. He could close his eyes and picture it perfectly.

  The power glowing on his chest looked nothing like it. It was a pale, warm beige, the color of dead grasses on a late-summer afternoon.

  “Is it the same as what killed the men on that ship?”

  “No,” he said, raising his gaze to meet hers. “It’s not even close. Sephira’s man didn’t cast that spell.”

  “Then who did?”

  He shook his head, looking down again at the pale glow of Mariz’s conjuring. “I’m not sure,” he told her. “But I think it’s time I found Simon Gant. He might be able to tell me.”

  Chapter

  TEN

  Ethan cut himself again and cast a second spell to make the glow from Spectacles’s spell vanish. He waited until the pale light had disappeared and turned toward the door.

  “Wait,” Kannice said. She sat on her bed and beckoned him over.

  He walked to the bed and sat beside her.

  “How did you get caught up in this? Why would representatives of the Crown come to you?”

  “Geoffrey,” he said.

  It took her a few seconds. “Your sister’s husband?”

  “He works for the Customs Board. And, of course, he knows I’m a conjurer.”

  “And who is Simon Gant?”

  “Another of Sephira’s playmates. Word is that he betrayed her several years back. I thought that Mariz—the man who used those spells on me—that he might have been trying to kill Gant. I now know that’s not the case. But if Gant is a conjurer—”

  “Why would Sephira care about the British fleet?” Kannice asked.

  That stopped Ethan cold. “I don’t know.”

  “You said that ninety-seven men died. Even Sephira Pryce isn’t so brazen as to think that she can take on the British Empire.”

  He weighed this, saw the logic in it. “Go on,” he said at last.