Thieves' Quarry (The Thieftaker Chronicles)

by Jackson, D. B.

  This was more complicated spellmaking, and harder to maintain. He held his hands steady, and allowed the power of his conjuring to course through his fingers into Mariz’s bones. Sweat beaded on his brow, but he didn’t pause, knowing that healing spells worked best when the power flowed uninterrupted into flesh and bone.

  The second cluster of people walked past him—three couples this time, one with a small child—and yet another appeared on the lane in the distance.

  All the while, Ethan could feel Mariz’s ribs gradually knitting back together beneath his hands. The man didn’t stir, but his breathing grew deeper, more rhythmic. When at last Ethan allowed his spell to dissipate, he felt reasonably sure that he had mended the broken bones.

  He heard a distant rattle. Looking southward, he saw a black carriage led by a large bay turn onto Chambers Street from Cambridge.

  Ethan cut his arm again. “Fini velamentum ex cruore evocatum.” End concealment, conjured from blood.

  He felt the pulse of power in his knees and legs where they rested in the grass. Glancing at Uncle Reg, he saw that the ghost was watching him, a disapproving scowl on his lean, glowing face.

  “I take it you think I should have left him here to die,” Ethan said.

  The ghost stared at him for another second before looking away, his mouth twitching beneath his mustache. Ethan suppressed a grin. Usually Reg made him feel foolish for one lapse or another; it felt good to return the favor.

  He stood to face the oncoming carriage. Nigel sat atop the box, steering; Nap and Gordon rode within the carriage, leaning out the doors and eyeing Ethan. Yellow-hair eased back on the reins so that the bay halted just beside Ethan. At first, none of Sephira’s men moved. They simply watched him.

  “Mariz is here,” he said, pointing at the wounded man, but keeping his gaze on Nigel.

  Yellow-hair glanced down at Mariz before looking at Ethan again. “How do we know that you didn’t do tha’ to him?”

  “You’ll just have to take my word for it.” When that didn’t appear to convince the man, Ethan added, “If I had attacked him, why would I stay here and call for all of you?”

  Nigel’s mouth twisted in doubt, but he reached back and tapped twice on the door closest to Nap. Nap and Gordon hopped out of the carriage and made their way over to Spectacles.

  “Be careful with him,” Ethan said. “Four of his ribs were broken. I think that at least one of them pierced his lung. And I don’t know what kind of head injuries he has, but he hasn’t moved or made a sound since I found him.”

  Nap nodded once, and he and Gordon lifted the man and carried him to the carriage. They placed him on the long seat opposite where they had been riding and climbed back in themselves.

  “Miss Pryce wants you to come back with us,” Nigel said.

  Ethan had been prepared for this. There was no more room within the carriage, and so he climbed onto the box beside Nigel, and gripped it hard as the big man flicked the reins and the carriage pitched forward.

  Ethan and Yellow-hair said nothing to each other the entire distance back to Sephira’s house. They passed right by the Dowsing Rod and, a short time later, King’s Chapel. Ethan wondered what Kannice or Pell would have thought had they seen him riding a carriage with Sephira Pryce’s toughs. He grinned at the idea, drawing an odd look from Nigel.

  When they reached the Pryce estate, Nigel drove up a dirt path that led to the back of the house and stopped the carriage near a side door. Afton, Mariz’s friend from the Dowser, was waiting by the door and lumbered over to the cart as soon as it had halted.

  “What happened to him?” the man asked, staring hard at Ethan.

  “He was attacked by a conjurer,” Ethan said. “I didn’t see it, so I don’t know who it was. He had broken ribs, a dislocated elbow, and I’d guess a blow to the head as well.”

  Afton helped Nap and Gordon take Mariz into the house. He paused at the doorway, though, and looked back at Nigel, who had remained with Ethan.

  “Miss Pryce is in the study,” Afton said, his eyes flicking in Ethan’s direction. He disappeared into the house.

  “You heard him,” Nigel said.

  Ethan let the tough lead him inside, through a small chamber, the kitchen, and the dining room until at last they came to the study. As he had during previous visits to Sephira’s mansion, Ethan deemed that “study” was not the proper word for the room. He imagined that men like Samuel Adams and James Otis had studies filled with books and papers from the colonies and England, perhaps even from France and Spain. Only a woman like Sephira could have filled a chamber with wood and glass cases containing every imaginable variety of firearm and blade, and called it a “study.”

  Sephira sat in a plush chair in the far corner of the room, a half-empty glass of Madeira next to her on a small but elegant wooden table. Her legs were crossed, her arms resting on the arms of the chair. Her long black curls snaked around her neck and draped over her shoulder.

  Ethan had a feeling that she had been waiting for him. She pointed at a chair that was identical to hers and said, “Sit.” To Nigel, she said, “Get the door,” a dismissal in the words.

  Ethan did as she instructed. For once, Nigel had forgotten to take Ethan’s weapons from him. He had a knife on his belt and that pouch of mullein in his coat pocket. If he wanted to, he could destroy her.

  “Tell me again what happened,” Sephira said.

  Ethan explained to her how he had felt the initial spell and had followed the pulse of power to the North End, only to be drawn to New Boston by two more conjurings. He told her about finding Mariz, and listed the man’s injuries and what he had done to heal him.

  “He still needs a doctor,” Ethan told her.

  “I’ve already called for one. But it sounds…” She looked down at the rings on her fingers, twisted one into place. “I believe we owe you a word of thanks.”

  “You can show your appreciation by answering some questions for me.”

  Her laugh was dry—not the usual throaty laugh that he liked so much in spite of himself. “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “Was he looking for Gant?”

  Her gaze lingered on Ethan as she reached for her wine and took a long sip.

  “If he can do this to Mariz,” Ethan said, “and if he knows that you’re after him, he might come looking for you.”

  She smiled. “Ethan, you’re worried about me. I’m touched.”

  “I want to find Gant.”

  Her smile hardened. “And you thought you could frighten me into helping you? You believe I’m afraid of Simon Gant?”

  “Why was Mariz looking for him? What is it you want with him?”

  “I’m grateful to you,” she said. “And when Mariz wakes up—if he wakes up—I’ll tell him what you did. That seems the least I can do.” She stood. “You can go now.”

  Ethan remained in his chair. “No, I can’t,” he said.

  She stared down at him and narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean, you can’t?”

  “There’s a spell I need to cast first. There’s nothing any of you can do to stop me from casting it, but I was hoping you would give me your permission.”

  “What kind of spell?”

  “One that might tell me who cast the spell that hurt him.”

  Sephira didn’t say anything at first. But Ethan could see her mind working as she calculated the costs, the risks, the possible benefits of letting him proceed.

  “All right,” she said after some time. “I’ll let you cast your spell.” A thin smile touched her lips. “Since I can’t do anything to stop you.”

  “Thank you.” Ethan stood. “Where is he?”

  “I had him taken upstairs. Come.”

  She led him back through the common room to a broad stairway with dark wooden steps and a carved banister to match. The stairs reached a landing halfway up, and continued both to the right and left, reaching an open balcony that looked down on the stairway. On the wall above the landing hung a portrai
t of Sephira that very nearly did justice to her beauty. The artist had rendered her in her usual street dress: breeches, waistcoat, a white shirt open at the neck. She was posed sitting in her study in a high-backed chair that bore more than a passing resemblance to a throne. Ethan passed the portrait without comment.

  Sephira’s men had put Mariz in a cramped bedroom at the far end of the upstairs corridor. Aside from the small bed and a bureau of drawers near the single window, the room was unfurnished and quite plain compared to the rest of the house. There were a few personal items on top of the bureau—a cotton kerchief, a hairbrush, a pair of simple sewing scissors—leading Ethan to guess that this was the quarters of one of Sephira’s servants.

  A man who Ethan assumed was a doctor stood beside the bed, bending over Mariz, who lay on top of the covers.

  Afton hovered on the other side of the bed, glaring at Ethan.

  “Has he moved or made any sound?” Ethan asked.

  The doctor looked up from his patient and shook his head. “He’s having some difficulty breathing, but I can’t see why. And there’s a welt on the back of his head. I’m afraid there’s not much I can do for him. He needs rest, and time.”

  “Very well,” Sephira said. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “Of course, Miss Pryce. I’ll come back tomorrow if you like.”

  “Yes, fine.”

  The man closed up his medical case, glanced at Ethan again, and left the room.

  “Leave us,” Sephira said to Afton.

  The big man looked like he might argue, but seemed to think better of it. He cast one final warning glance at Ethan and left as well.

  Once Ethan and Sephira were alone, she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the wall that was farthest from the bed. “Go ahead.”

  He had cast spells against her and her men many times, but Ethan had never conjured while Sephira watched him. He had to admit that it made him uncomfortable, though he couldn’t say why.

  He pushed up his sleeve again and pulled the knife from his belt.

  “You’ve had that the entire time?” Sephira asked.

  Ethan grinned, knowing that Nigel would have some explaining to do.

  He cut his arm, dabbed blood on Mariz’s face and neck, and drawing on the blood that continued to flow from his arm said, “Revela potestatem ex cruore evocatam.” Reveal power, conjured from blood.

  His spell rang through the floors and walls of the house. Uncle Reg winked into view and bared his teeth at Sephira. She, of course, was oblivious of all of it. But a moment later, she gave a small gasp.

  Light had blossomed on Mariz’s chest and spread like a bruise over most of his torso. Orange light, just like the glow Ethan had seen on the dead soldier aboard the Graystone.

  “What is that?” Sephira asked, her voice hushed.

  “Power,” Ethan said. “The residue of the spell that struck him in New Boston.”

  “But that color. Does all witchcraft look like that?”

  “Every conjurer’s power looks different. And this color I’ve seen before.”

  She looked up from Mariz, her eyes meeting Ethan’s. “Where?”

  “On a dead soldier aboard the Graystone. I believe the spell that hit Mariz was cast by Simon Gant.”

  Chapter

  TWELVE

  Ethan left Sephira’s house a short time later. He had wondered if she might try to keep him there, to force him to tell her more of what he knew. But the idea that Simon Gant had come so close to killing Mariz seemed to have frightened her. Perhaps he should have enjoyed her discomfort, but the truth was it unnerved him.

  As he neared the heart of the South End, he saw that the streets were far more crowded than they had been earlier and that almost everyone was heading toward the waterfront. Ethan cut through the smaller lanes, avoiding the mobs, and soon reached Battery March, which afforded him a clear view of the harbor and Long Wharf.

  Hundreds of British regulars had already mustered on the wharf. They stood in strict rows, resplendent in red and white, rifles at their sides. Longboats were converging on the wharf from the naval vessels still anchored in a broad arc around the city’s wharves and shipyards. Each of the boats carried additional soldiers, and even from a distance Ethan could see that still more men waited for transport aboard many of the navy ships. The occupation had begun, and by the look of it Ethan guessed that this first wave would bring more than a thousand men into Boston’s streets, more than he had thought, more than Kannice, Kelf, and others had spoken of since the ships appeared in the harbor. This for a city of fifteen thousand people.

  There was nothing anyone could do to prevent the regulars from coming ashore. Had there been, Ethan was certain Samuel Adams would have thought of it by now. Rather than watch the soldiers gather on the wharf, Ethan left the South End and made his way up to King’s Chapel.

  The chapel was one of Boston’s older churches. It might also have been one of its least attractive. It had been rebuilt several years before, and its refined wooden exterior now was concealed within an austere stone façade. In a city with a history of devastating fires, the new exterior made sense, but it gave King’s Chapel a forbidding, ponderous look. Worse, the chapel remained unfinished, with no spire or bell tower to offset the heavy look of the sanctuary.

  Still, Pell seemed to enjoy serving the King’s Chapel congregation, and he always expressed great admiration for the Reverend Henry Caner, the chapel’s rector, a sentiment Ethan did not share.

  Within, the chapel was far more welcoming. Graceful columns, painted in shades of tan and brown and crowned with intricate carvings, supported the high ceiling. Sunlight streamed through the windows, two stories high, that lined the main sanctuary, lighting boxed pews of natural wood. A portly man in black robes and a white cravat stood at the raised pulpit beside the altar at the far end of the church. Caner.

  He turned at the sound of Ethan’s footsteps, peering across the distance and squinting.

  “Who is that?” he asked. He had a deep voice, a homely but friendly face, and a genteel manner; Ethan could see why others liked him.

  “It’s Ethan Kaille, Mister Caner.”

  Caner straightened, his bushy eyebrows knitting. “What do you want? You’re looking for Trevor, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir. He told me—”

  “He’s not here.”

  “All right. If you can just tell me where to find him, I’ll leave your church.”

  “I don’t believe I will tell you, Mister Kaille. But I’ll thank you to leave just the same.”

  Theirs was an old feud, and Pell, unfortunately, was their battleground. In fact, their hostility for one another grew out of their shared affection for the young minister. Caner, Ethan knew, wished only to protect Pell from what he believed to be Ethan’s corrupting influence. And though Ethan believed that the rector’s concerns were misplaced, a part of him admired the man’s devotion to Pell.

  “I’ll wait for him,” Ethan said, slipping into the nearest pew and sitting.

  The rector glowered at him, perhaps thinking that he could cow Ethan into leaving. When he realized that this tactic wouldn’t work, he went back to reading in the enormous Bible perched before him.

  After several minutes of this, Caner sighed, the sound echoing in the sanctuary. He descended the curving stairway from the pulpit and walked down the aisle to where Ethan sat.

  “You’re holding him back,” the man said. “Don’t you understand that?”

  “Holding him back in what way?”

  “He’s been with us for several years now. Too many years. He’s been reading for orders. He should have sailed back to England by now for his ordination. He should be out in the countryside, leading a congregation of his own. But as long as you involve him in your intrigues, as long as you convince him that Boston is too exciting to leave, he will never follow his calling.”

  At least the rector no longer thought that Ethan was leading Pell to Satan, as once he had. Caner knew
that Ethan was a conjurer—although he often called him a witch—but he had come to accept that Ethan usually used his powers for noble purposes. Still, Ethan wasn’t willing to take responsibility for Pell’s career path.

  “Mister Pell makes his own choices.”

  “No, he doesn’t!” Caner said. “He stays here for you, for the adventure you offer him. For years now I’ve begged you to keep away from him. And still—”

  “And still you don’t accept that you do so in vain.”

  Ethan and Caner both turned toward the back of the chapel, where Pell was emerging from the stairway leading down to the crypts.

  Ethan glanced sidelong at Caner. “I thought you said he wasn’t here.”

  Pell’s mouth fell open. “Mister Caner! You lied?”

  Caner lifted his chin. “I dissembled.” When neither Ethan nor Pell said anything, he added, “Well, he wasn’t here in the sanctuary.”

  “Do you have the names yet,” Ethan asked Pell.

  “Yes, I wrote them out for you.”

  “What names?” Caner asked.

  “The dead from the Graystone,” Pell said.

  Caner’s gaze flicked from one of them to the other. “You know about that?” he asked Ethan.

  “Yes, sir. Geoffrey Brower asked for my assistance with the inquiry.”

  “Ah, yes, Brower,” Caner said. “He’s married to your sister, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The rector started to say more, but couldn’t seem to get the words out. His bow-shaped mouth was frozen in a small “o,” and Ethan could see that the realization had come to him at last. “Do you mean to tell me that … that this was some form of … that witchcraft killed these men?”

  “A conjuring,” Ethan said. “Witchcraft is the stuff of children’s nightmares and preachers’ sermons. And yes, that’s precisely what we’re telling you.” He turned back to Pell. “You have the list with you?”

  The minister pulled a rolled piece of parchment from within his robes and handed it to Ethan. Ethan opened it and scanned the list, which was not very long—eight names. His eye was drawn to the name about halfway down the page.