A Breath of Frost

by Alyxandra Harvey

She held on to his shoulder, fully expecting to be dropped on her backside. Her hem caught the breeze, ruffling up over his arm. He rushed inside to the nearest bench, setting her down carefully and crouching next to her. The horses lifted their heads curiously in their pens.

  “I’ll get a doctor,” he said, frantically.

  She blinked at him, dazed from being grabbed so suddenly and then carried about. She hadn’t realized he was so strong. Or that he’d gone mad since breakfast. “I am fine,” she said, when he looked like he was going to be sick on her shoes. “I suspect you might be coming down with something though.”

  “You’re covered in blood,” he babbled. “You’re in shock. Where are you hurt? We need a doctor!” His babbling turned rapidly to bellowing. Penelope glanced down at her red-stained dress, chest, and arms. Comprehension dawned.

  “It’s beets,” she assured him quickly. “It’s beet juice!” she yelled louder in case anyone had heard him shouting for a doctor. When her parents didn’t come flying through the stable doors, she relaxed.

  Cedric sat back on his heels, befuddled. “Beets.”

  She wrinkled her nose sheepishly. “From the academy.”

  “Beets,” he echoed, rising slowly to his feet. “From the academy.”

  She tilted her head back to look at him. “Are you going to repeat everything I say? It doesn’t make for very stimulating conversation.”

  He jerked his hand through his hair. “I thought you were hurt.”

  She popped up to kiss his cheek. “You’re a darling,” she said. He turned red. She assumed he was finally feeling the effects of carrying her weight around as if she was one of those bird-boned girls. “I’m perfectly well. Although slightly mortified and definitely vowing vengeance.”

  “So just another day then,” he said.

  “Precisely,” she agreed cheerfully. She didn’t take offense at his teasing, though in regular houses the coachman’s grandson was not encouraged to chat up the master’s daughter. Most coachmen and most horses weren’t serenaded by piano music either. When her pianoforte was replaced she’d had the old one delivered down to the stables. She was convinced it made the horses happy and since Cedric loved music, she was determined that he shouldn’t be deprived. It was a testament to her parent’s unique ideas that they’d allowed her free rein with pianofortes and lessons in general.

  She’d been playing with Cedric since they were children and when she was banished inside to be tutored, she insisted Cedric be allowed to join her. He grumbled about it, but all of her teachers were impressed with his capacity to learn, even with their prejudice against his Gypsy blood. She was less impressed with their knowledge of poetry. All her mother had cared about was that they study Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication on the Rights of Women.

  Regular houses sounded terribly dull. And her father wasn’t a lord anyway, despite her mother’s aristocratic connections. He was wealthier than most earls and viscounts but he was in trade, having taken over his mother’s brewery. Some of the titled families were perfectly willing to overlook his pedestrian bloodlines in favor of his wealth, though they loved to whisper about it behind their fans and brandy glasses. They’d have a fit of the vapors if they knew how friendly his daughter was with the coachman’s Gypsy grandson.

  Penelope didn’t begrudge Cedric anything. Except for the fact that he’d known about witchery all his life and had never said a word. She didn’t care what her mother said about her aunt’s spell. “I still can’t believe you knew,” she muttered.

  “So you decided to scare me to death?” He raised an eyebrow at her.

  “That was just a side benefit,” she replied. “But you were very heroic.”

  “Give over, I apologized a hundred times. And I was witched, as you well know.”

  “I guess,” she pretended to grumble. “You should be at the academy too.”

  Cedric picked up a brush to groom a waiting horse. One of the stable boys could have done it but she knew he enjoyed the work. “You know I can’t,” he said mildly.

  “But you’re powerful,” she exclaimed, grumbling in earnest now. “You could be a Keeper, if you wanted to. Though Emma says they’re a shifty lot.”

  “Can’t say I much care for them either,” he agreed. “But it doesn’t matter, Pen. The academies only take high-born witches.”

  “That’s so unfair,” Penelope said, scrubbing the beet stains off her hands in a bucket of water with more force than was strictly necessary. She went to sit at the dusty, hay-strewn pianoforte to work off her temper. “And if the Greymalkin Sisters are as horrid as everyone says they are, the Order should be glad of all the help they can get.”

  He wasn’t the type to sit back where there was work to be done. He’d told her that before but had always refused to elaborate. She was used to his long silences, but not his evasions. She banged at the keys, playing a piece so menacing one of the mares kicked at her stall. “Mind the horses,” Cedric told her, amused. “You’re spooking them.”

  Penelope sent him a sheepish smile, the tune instantly changing from sinister to soothing, with all the ferocity of a sleeping kitten.

  “How are you getting on at Rowanstone then?” he asked.

  She shrugged one shoulder. “All right, I suppose. Until the beets, anyway. I still can’t find my familiar, though. I think it must have lost its way.” She tapped a few keys lazily. “What’s yours?” She’d forgotten to ask him before.

  “Horse.”

  She smirked. He raised an eyebrow in question.

  “I like the irony of it,” she explained. “Daphne keeps going on about the hierarchy of familiars. And horse is one of the top. Not like hers.” She positively beamed. “It’s a toad.”

  Cedric snorted. “The witching families do like their hierarchies.”

  “Exactly.” She rolled her eyes. “Which is why I intend to rub it in her face that the coachman’s grandson, who isn’t good enough for her precious academy, outranks her in the world of familiars.”

  He shook his head, well used to her grudges. “I’m not too concerned with what they think of me.”

  “I know.” Penelope abandoned the pianoforte to stroke the horse’s nose while Cedric kept brushing. “But I am.”

  “They love you, Pen. Why wouldn’t they?”

  She made a face. “Not me, you dolt. You. I care what they think of you.”

  “What for?” He looked surprised.

  “Because.” She waved her hand as if it made it all clearer. Because you’re clever and honest and brave, she thought. If she said it out loud he’d only tease her. As it was, he wouldn’t meet her eyes. She’d embarrassed him. He didn’t want some plump, spoiled girl mooning at him.

  “Anyway, I’d rather fetch and carry for Mandala than work for their lot,” he said.

  Penelope rested her brow on the horse’s neck, tangling her fingers through his mane. “I still can’t believe that spell was so strong it silenced you all. I don’t even remember anyone trying to talk to me about witchery.” She shivered. “It’s disconcerting to know we were played with like paper dolls.”

  “Your mother did the rest in this house,” he said half smiling. “She’s right scary when she’s a mind to be.”

  They stood by the horse in companionable silence for a long while. Penelope enjoyed the smell of hay and the stray cats who continuously wound around Cedric’s ankles, begging for scraps. Every hungry animal for miles, even the cranky badger who lumbered out of the Park sometimes, knew him for a soft heart. She loved that about him.

  He was such a gentle soul under all those muscles and serious expressions. When she was younger she’d told him her theory that she’d know her true love by a magical kiss, like all the girls in the stories did. He threatened to push her in the mud if she tried to practice on him. She’d had to settle for the next-door neighbor’s son, and he kissed like a landed trout.

  “Here’s my little lady.” Cedric’s grandfather limped in, leaning heavily on his cane.


  “Hamish.” She greeted him with a big smile.

  He nodded to the red beet stains. “Are you walloping my grandson again?”

  “One time,” Cedric muttered. “She broke my nose one time falling off a horse.”

  “I didn’t fall off that horse,” Penelope protested. “He was stung by a bee and threw me.” She looped her arm through Hamish’s, trying to steady him without being obvious about it. “Anyway, no changing the subject, old man. Where’s my candy?”

  “Sweets for the sweet,” he chuckled. She couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t said that to her, or slipped candy in his pockets for her to find. He patted them one by one. Penelope and Cedric waited patiently, exchanging a laughing glance. Hamish finally located the candy and pressed one into her hand. She popped it immediately into her mouth. She never actually cared for peppermints but it made him so happy to treat her.

  “I’m going to lie down a little while,” he said, shuffling off toward his room. “Storm’s coming and I can feel it in these old bones. Wake me when the carriage needs driving, lad.”

  Penelope waited until he was out of earshot. “You’re worried about him,” she said, reading Cedric’s expression. The housemaids always whispered that he was so stoic but Penelope knew where to look. His eyes narrowed slightly when he was worried and he tugged his hand through his hair when he didn’t know how to react to something.

  “He’s hurting,” he admitted.

  She squeezed his hand. “I’ll have Mrs. Brandon make up a poultice for his joints. And I’ll stay in tonight,” she added impulsively. “So you can drive my parents around and Hamish can rest.”

  “Thank you,” he said quietly. His smile was crooked as he handed her a handkerchief. “Spit that candy out.”

  Penelope traded her candy for a brush and set to helping Cedric with the grooming. The horse nipped at her hair. She laughed and ducked out of the way. She caught Cedric looking at her. “What?” she said. “Do I have hay all over me? On top of the beets? I’d make a fine salad.” She grimaced down at herself.

  He shook his head, the glint in his eye changing. “Pen?”

  “Yes?”

  He nodded to the ground behind her. There were spiders crawling through the hay and mud, all in a perfect line toward her, like soldiers to a general. She leaped onto the rickety bench, clutching the brush like it was an ax. “Blargh!” It was the only sound she could form.

  Cedric watched their careful and particular path. When she moved, they shifted course. “I think you’ve found your familiar.”

  Penelope stared at him, horrified. Her wail could be heard down the street. “Noooo!”

  Chapter 30

  “I never thought I could be so happy to be shopping for ribbons and dresses,” Emma said, practically skipping into the shop. Large bolts of fabrics were piled to the ceiling. Printed muslins fluttered like moth wings and silks and satins caught the light. Ribbons, trimmings, and baskets of spangles were displayed on a wide table. Salesclerks circulated through the crowds to assist shoppers.

  “I’m already bored,” Gretchen said. “I don’t see why Godric gets to learn how to patrol and fight the undead creatures coming through the gates but we still have to practice our curtsy.” She gave a mock demonstration, her yellow dress billowing around her.

  “Mrs. Sparrow says we must act like normal girls,” Emma reminded her, “so that no one suspects Rowanstone to be anything but another finishing school.”

  “This is me acting like a normal girl,” Gretchen pointed out.

  “She’s got you there,” Penelope tossed a grin over her shoulder before going back to examining the bolt of pink brocade that had caught her eye. “Don’t you think Madame Anisette could do something wonderful with this?”

  “Not the dressmaker’s too,” Gretchen groaned, dropping her head in her hands. Alarmed, a salesclerk rushed forward with smelling salts.

  “I’m just happy to finally be allowed off the school grounds,” Emma brushed her fingers over a roll of green velvet ribbon as the salesclerk retreated from Gretchen’s exclamation of “For God’s sake, I’m not going to faint!”

  “Even if concentrating so hard on this Fith-Fath spell is giving me a headache,” Emma added when they were alone once more.

  “It’s holding very well,” Penelope assured her. “You only look a little ill.”

  They turned the conversation to more mundane matters as the crowds inside the shop swelled. Ladies bumped against one another, murmuring about gowns, and drapes, and trimmings for bonnets. Penelope purchased enough fabric to outfit a troupe of Shakespearean actors.

  The attending footman from Rowanstone followed behind them, carrying the heavy wrapped packages. The sun was bright, flashing off carriage wheels and copper drainpipes.

  Godric slouched against a nearby lamppost, looking for all the world as though he was being rained on miserably. Even his hat looked depressed. “What’s the matter with you?” Gretchen demanded, marching up to him. “You look wretched.”

  He shook his head, squinting at her. “Just sober.”

  Gretchen rolled her eyes. “About time.”

  “It wasn’t my idea,” he muttered.

  Penelope touched his arm. He’d been her second true kiss and she remembered it fondly, even if it hadn’t been remotely passionate. They’d both burst out laughing halfway through and decided to go to Gunter’s for lemon ices instead. “Why are you drinking so much?” she asked, forehead wrinkling. “It’s not like you.”

  “I can see the dead.”

  “I know,” she said. “Gretchen told us. I can see them too, in a way. Only I can feel what they feel, if I touch something that belonged to them. And not just the dead, either.”

  “Bollocks,” he said, drawing away slightly.

  She snorted. “Like I want to know what you get up to.”

  He chuckled briefly. “Fair enough. Though it’s not much fun lately, not with the blasted bone-whispering. If I’m drunk I don’t see them nearly as much and people don’t assume I’m insane when I talk to invisible people. They just assume it’s the gin.” He rubbed his eyes. “And let’s just say with the gates opening all over the damn place, there seem to be more dead people than live ones.”

  Emma winced. That was her doing. “Why don’t you walk with us?” she suggested, hoping to distract him.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the modiste,” Gretchen said. “So Penelope can have another dress made.”

  “I’m not going to the dressmaker’s,” Godric protested.

  “Of course you are.” Penelope slid her arm through his. Emma did the same on the other side. “We have you captive.”

  Gretchen snickered. “And if I have to suffer, so do you. That ought to teach you to skip out on your lessons.”

  He slanted her a glance, letting himself be dragged down the street. “How did you know?”

  “Please,” she scoffed. “As if you can hide anything from me. I know perfectly well you should be doing something interesting, mostly because we’re not allowed. You’ve got the Order, if you want to train to be a Keeper. We have deportment lessons.” The sarcasm dripping from her tone was sharp as needles.

  “I’m not all that keen to become a Keeper,” he said. “Our professors had us fight some kind of a goblin. It ruined my favorite hat. Do you know how corrosive their blood is?”

  From the longing on Gretchen’s face, he might have been talking about a visit to the confectioner’s shop for iced cakes. “I hate you.”

  He grinned for the first time, looking like his old self. “Never mind, little sister.”

  “Tell the truth, they sent you away to sober you up.”

  He looked sheepish.

  “Ha!” Gretchen exclaimed. “I knew it! Being a boy is wasted on you.”

  “Hey now, not so loud! There might be ladies about.”

  “Might be?” Emma teased him. “What are we then?”

  “Unique.”

  Walking to
a dressmaker’s shop on a fine London morning ought to have been uneventful.

  Emma really needed to remember how deeply her life had changed.

  A man cantered down the middle of the street on a giant black horse, holding his own head under his arm. The eyes were staring balefully. His cloak billowed from his shoulders and the stump of a neck shadowed the collar of an old-fashioned frock coat. A whip hung from his belt, knotted and white, and made from a length of human spine. More bones were knotted into the horse’s mane. The other coachmen didn’t notice his grisly approach, but all of the other horses on the road began to pull at their harnesses. Panicked whinnies traveled like waves breaking on the sand.

  “Can anyone else see him?” Godric stumbled, sounding strangled.

  “Hard to miss,” Penelope squeaked.

  “So he’s not a ghost?” He rubbed his face. “Just when I thought it was safe to quit drinking.”

  The road was descending into mayhem, carriages rolling this way and that. Pedestrians leaped away from the curb with angry shouts. Others stopped to watch curiously.

  “It’s a dullahan.” The footman gaped.

  “What do they do?” Emma asked.

  “They carry people off to the Underworld, miss,” he replied, his voice shaking slightly.

  The massive black horse reared, sparks shooting off its hooves. The carriage beside them toppled sideways, jerked from its harness. There was a scream from inside.

  Gretchen grabbed a pot of daffodils from in front of a shop and heaved it at the dullahan. It nicked his side, crashing to the ground and shattering.

  Both body and decapitated head turned in their direction.

  The dullahan lashed the spine-whip at them, so close the tip snapped the air right in front of their eyes. Godric knocked his cousins out of the way. They tumbled to the ground, ducking their heads.

  “They don’t like being watched,” the footman said needlessly, now pressed against the wall. Emma called up storm clouds, magic tingling and burning through her witch knot. Rain spattered the pavement. The onlookers hurried to hide under awnings and umbrellas.

  The dullahan laughed and it was the sound of rusty iron wheels grinding together. Hearing it, the nearest coachman suddenly keeled over, dead. The horseman reached forward and snagged his spirit, yanking it savagely out of the fallen body. The coachman’s luminescent essence screamed silently, trapped to the horse by the bone whip.