“Mostly your doing, old man,” said Mr. Grenville and then gestured to Olivia. “And Mrs. Brightmore’s. So Joan tells me, at any rate. You both have my deepest thanks. I rather suspect I owe you my life.”
Customers had been effusive in their gratitude sometimes. Women had clung to Olivia and wept, and men had made all sorts of melodramatic speeches. Compared to them, Simon’s thanks was almost curt. But Olivia blushed and couldn’t think of anything to say for a moment.
“What in the name of God was that?” Gareth asked even more abruptly than Olivia might have expected for such a question.
“St. John, if I say more than ‘a curse,’ you won’t understand and you won’t want to know,” Mr. Grenville replied. He reached for the glass of water on the bed stand, sipped, and went on. “And I’m afraid I don’t know much more than that, in any case. We had come off the train from London, and John was just bringing the carriage around. Joan got in first. I was about to join her when someone called my name—Miss Talbot.”
“Rosemary Talbot?” Olivia asked, though she would have found it just as hard to believe Rosemary’s sister had been involved in this affair.
Mr. Grenville nodded. “We spoke a little. She—” He shook his head. “Some of the specifics are blurred now. I probably could have remembered more before I was ill. She was very friendly, very pleasant. Now I think there was something off about her, but…hindsight taints these perceptions.”
“And she gave you these?” Gareth gestured to the roses in Joan’s lap.
“She told me to give them to my wife,” said Mr. Grenville. He spoke bluntly and without inflection in his voice, but Olivia caught the glance that passed between him and Joan.
Joan shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I was the target. Young women here wouldn’t give a man flowers for himself. She was very enthusiastic about something, though. I didn’t hear her speak, but she put a hand on your shoulder for a second.”
“That’s…not usual,” said Mr. Grenville and sighed. “But it’s not exactly damning either. Perhaps she was eager for news of my sister. Or she’d just become engaged. I wish I could recall more clearly.”
“Do you know where she got the flowers?” Gareth asked. “Perhaps someone from London. Someone who heard you were looking into the Ripper.”
“No,” said Mr. Grenville. “Joan was right. There’s no magic in the killings.”
“That doesn’t mean there isn’t any around them,” Joan said. “Flies gather. And we didn’t keep our return a secret. Talbot makes a much better dupe than she does a magician. If someone on an earlier train gave her the flowers—”
“We’ll have to talk with her,” Olivia said.
She stood and went toward the window, where she could see a thin line of darkness between the blue velvet drapes. She knew about the purpose of the school. The aim wasn’t simply teaching children to control their powers. However, until now, any outside threats had been purely theoretical. Her hands were cold, as if she’d pressed them against the window glass and held them there.
“I’ll go tomorrow,” she said to the window.
“Take St. John, then,” said Joan. “He’s tangled with the curse. He might be able to see its tracks. Also, he can probably shoot,” she added and turned to Gareth with no apparent apology for talking about him like a piece of furniture. “Can you?”
“Barely,” said Gareth.
“Better than not at all. I’d go myself, but if Simon’s wrong, and that’s been known to happen, something might try to hit us here. I’ll need to be here if it does.”
Any other two men Olivia had known would have protested the idea of a woman trying to fight off whatever forces were behind the curse. She didn’t hear any objections, though. When she turned from the window, Mr. Grenville was actually grinning at his wife with both affection and confidence.
Gareth, Olivia suspected, was less happy about Joan’s plan, but he knew her too well to speak against it. So did Olivia, for that matter.
“Who do you think might have planned this?” she asked.
“I couldn’t say,” said Mr. Grenville, “not with certainty. We mostly encountered stories in London. Some of the groups we heard of may exist. Some may be as old and as bloody as people claim.”
“But, at the time, there was nobody who looked like an immediate threat,” Joan said and grimaced. “We’ll have to revise that now, obviously. But who would’ve noticed us and decided Simon needed to die and gotten an agent down here before we did? We didn’t even get in any fights.”
She sounded almost disappointed.
“You might not have had to,” Olivia said. “If someone knew about Englefield already and thought you were expanding your interest…maybe. However, it does seem odd.”
She leaned back into her chair. Now, after a sort of love and a sort of war and all sorts of worry, exhaustion was creeping into her bones. She resisted the urge to lean her face against the plush and fall asleep.
“We shouldn’t tire you,” Gareth said. He spoke to Mr. Grenville, but Olivia thought he’d glanced at her first. She straightened up and tried to look alert. “If we can’t do anything before tomorrow—”
“You can tell me what happened while we were gone,” said Simon. “I think I probably have the strength to hear it.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” said Gareth.
***
“This place was a monastery once,” Simon said when Olivia had finished her account of the forest. “Dissolved sometime in the 1540s, so we can blame old Henry VIII for most of our troubles. My enterprising ancestors took a heavy hand with anything that looked too connected to Rome. I think the only remnants of the original are the foundation and your monk.”
“Your monk, really,” said Gareth.
“I somehow don’t think he’d take that well,” said Simon. “I’m surprised there weren’t more…dramatic events in the history after Brother Jonathan died.”
Olivia, who was looking remarkably tired and remarkably lovely at the same time—rather unfair, to Gareth’s mind—shrugged. “Perhaps there were,” she said. “Perhaps the people responsible left, one way or another. If you couldn’t exercise your powers without them getting out of control, you’d probably move away too. Or they stopped doing anything outdoors near the forest, and the land had some chance to repair itself. Then most people stopped believing—”
“Until we started a school here, full of exactly the kind of people who would try magic outside”—Mrs. Grenville sighed—“or ask her students to do it.”
“You couldn’t have known,” said Olivia. “Besides, it’s better that we found out when we did. Otherwise, the power out there could’ve fed something even worse than Michael’s storms. As it was, it very nearly did,” she admitted, startling Gareth with her forthrightness. “Waite and Fitzpatrick summoned Balam yesterday.”
“Did they?” Gareth wouldn’t have quite called Mrs. Grenville’s expression surprised. One didn’t describe a lion as surprised when it spotted an antelope came in sight. “I see.”
There was a world of promise in those words, and Simon clearly heard it. He laughed and winced at the same time. “Try not to kill our students.”
“I damn near didn’t have the chance. I wish I had pictures to show them. Visual aids always work better.” Mrs. Grenville sighed again, directing it at the world rather than herself this time, and turned back to Olivia and Gareth. “Everything’s all right, though? Nobody’s hurt?”
“Nobody’s hurt,” Olivia said. “And I sent Balam back. I haven’t really dismissed many demons. There was some strange resistance there toward the end, but I don’t believe I left him a passage back here.”
Gareth thought again of the shadow he’d seen. Perhaps Balam had been calling in reinforcements? He wasn’t sure how demons worked, and he hadn’t seen either the demon or the shadow since.
“You’ll have to give me more details soon,” Simon said. “I’ve never dismissed a demon before, not one that was incarnate physically, and certainly
not one of the Ancient Lords. Well done.”
“I was fortunate,” said Olivia, “to get there before he’d fully manifested.” She glanced over at Gareth then, subtly and just for an instant, and raised one eyebrow.
Somewhere in the last few months he’d learned to read her face. She would tell the Grenvilles what had happened. They needed to know, but she was giving him the chance to speak first, to be the one to tell his part of it.
Gareth fought back the absurd urge to take her hand.
Chapter 32
Word got around quickly.
By breakfast time the next day, two of the maids were eying Gareth as though he were a fire-eater at a carnival, he’d distinctly heard whispering about “Mr. Grenville’s health” and “strange men in London.” Fairley, with the boldness of thirteen, had actually come out and asked what had happened and what Gareth had done.
“If the Grenvilles wanted you to know,” Gareth replied sternly, “they would have told you, wouldn’t they?”
“But they can’t, sir. Nobody’s seen them yet.” Undeniably true. Fairley hesitated a second before drawing closer to Gareth’s desk and lowering his voice. “And he was in London, and Waite says—”
“I can only imagine. Go on,” he added. Since the Grenvilles hadn’t yet come down, and he wasn’t sure where Olivia was, Gareth supposed the role of authority, and the necessary quashing of rumors, fell to him. “What pearls of wisdom does Mr. Waite have in this situation?”
Fairley looked down. “He says there’s Chinese magicians who can make a man’s blood turn to lead, sir, or his hands and feet fall off. And Indians who—”
“If Waite’s ever met a man from anywhere beyond Calais, it will be the most astonishing news I’ve heard all year,” Gareth said. “Which is saying a good deal.”
“Then people can’t do what he said?”
Gareth paused. His time at Englefield and his conversations with Simon had left him sure there were magicians capable of the sorts of feats Fairley described. Some of them could well be from China or India, though Cornwall or Surrey were origins just as likely. It didn’t matter. He’d seen concern in Fairley’s face beneath the youthfully morbid curiosity. That mattered.
“Mr. Grenville retains all of his limbs, I assure you,” he said dryly, “and his blood contains no stranger elements than any man’s. He was attacked, which he’ll tell you about when he chooses, or not, but he was doing quite well last night, and I expect him to be even more recovered when I examine him this morning.”
Manfully, Fairley tried to hide his sigh of relief. Poor lad, Gareth thought. He’d read what records Simon kept on the boy and had gained some impression of the parade of tutors and relatives’ homes that had been facets in his life before Englefield. Human compassion aside, this was the first place where anyone had really been able to teach him. No wonder he’d been worried.
“You may also tell Waite,” Gareth added, “that if the worst should happen, your training would continue. I’m certain Mr. Grenville has made preparations for that.” If Simon hadn’t, Mrs. Grenville almost certainly had. She was, in Gareth’s experience, a woman willing to consider a truly frightening range of possibilities.
Not, sadly, that a husband’s death was so far out of the ordinary, particularly in this case. Gareth didn’t like to think it about his friend, but a man who’d set himself against the sort of forces Simon had, was a man who might not count on seeing gray hairs. Mrs. Grenville seemed aware of this, unlike many women who married into war.
Had Olivia thought of the possibility? She’d been young, younger than Miss Woodwell, and there hadn’t been a war at the time. Easy enough for a schoolgirl to see the uniform and not think about what it meant.
“Sir?”
Gareth focused his attention on Fairley again. “Is there anything else?”
“No, sir. Only—”
“Only there is, isn’t there?”
“Wellll,” Fairley said, stretching the word out like taffy, “are we going to get attacked, sir? I mean, if someone tried to kill Mr. Grenville, maybe they might want to get us too? Not that I wouldn’t fight them, sir,” he added hastily, thirteen-year-old pride asserting itself.
No, you damned well wouldn’t. Gareth shut his mouth over the words and banished the mental image of Fairley with his eyes dull and his throat bloody. “Mr. Grenville has told me specifically that we’re in no danger,” he said. “Besides, the grounds here have their own protections. Is that all?”
“Yes, sir,” said Fairley.
If there ever was an attack, Gareth would personally see to it that Fairley and Elizabeth ended up locked in a wine cellar or a closet with the servants, ideally with something the size of Balam guarding it. He would have preferred such a location for almost everyone else too, but sixteen wasn’t too old for a man to fight if he wished, which meant Waite and Fitzpatrick had a right to decide on their own, and Mrs. Grenville and Miss Woodwell were quite capable of taking care of themselves in any battle that was likely to involve Englefield.
So was Olivia.
Gareth wasn’t entirely certain if it was more relief or worry to recognize her capabilities. He was certain he shouldn’t be thinking about it, that the question should trouble him no more than that of Miss Woodwell’s situation.
He was also certain he wasn’t the sort of man who started drinking at nine in the morning.
Regrettably.
***
“Is Mr. Grenville doing well?”
It was the first thing Olivia found to say, other than “Good morning,” and she managed it only after she and Gareth had left the gates of Englefield and started down the road to the village. She felt ridiculous. Ten years performing before skeptical audiences, three months teaching and working with the man, and now she was a tongue-tied schoolgirl.
He hadn’t said anything either. That might have been a good sign or a very bad one, and Olivia spent the first part of the walk wondering which, before taking the plunge and speaking.
Gareth seemed to welcome her question. He smiled at any rate. “Much better,” he said, “though it will probably take him a while to recover fully. I can’t speak from any authority as medical school doesn’t precisely cover the subject, but I’d wager it’d be good for him to avoid magic for a while, as well as any other taxing activity”
“I agree,” Olivia said, thinking of the roses and shivering, “and I can take over his lessons for a while. Hopefully that’ll permit him to rest for a time.” Hopefully. If the curse wasn’t simply the first stage of a more thorough attack. Gareth might have been thinking the same thing, for he was no longer smiling.
“When we get to the Talbots’,” she said, “I thought I would talk to Rosemary for a while. That might be enough of a distraction so you could…inspect her, I suppose. I don’t know if any trace of whatever happened would show up to you, but it might be worth an attempt.”
Gareth nodded. “Will you look as well?”
“I can’t, really,” Olivia said and sighed. “Not without being obvious. And I’d really rather not anger the Talbots if we can avoid it. I’d imagine they can make life very unpleasant for us.”
They turned down a road and came into sight of the vicarage, an old stone cottage with a pleasant garden in front. As they approached, a gray-and-white cat ran out from behind the house and past them.
“It looks peaceful enough,” said Olivia, bracing herself and trying to think of the least awkward way to begin the conversation again.
“Most places do,” said Gareth.
The door opened even as he reached for the knocker, and Olivia and Gareth were suddenly looking into the vicar’s pale face. He looked between them for a while. Then his wide eyes came to rest on Gareth, and relief tempered a little of the frantic dismay. “Thank the Lord you’ve come,” he said. “Rosemary’s upstairs.”
Rosemary Talbot lay white and still in her bed, and Gareth couldn’t find a reason for it.
Her breathing was shallow but regular, he
r pulse fainter than he’d have liked but steady. She had no fever, and when he examined her, he could find no wounds. Certainly there was nothing about her that resembled the way Simon’s arm had looked the night before.
He shifted his vision and found nothing more definite. The rose-pink threads that made up her body were faded, but that was all.
In any case, he could do something about that. Gareth put a hand on Rosemary’s shoulder and carefully fed some of his own energy into her body, watching as the threads took on a brighter shade. She didn’t open her eyes, but her breathing became deeper, her pulse stronger.
“She should be well enough,” he said, sitting up, “in time, with rest.” His gift usually showed anything really wrong, even if it wasn’t apparent from outside.
All the same, it was best to be sure. “I’d like to speak with both of you in the hall,” Gareth said to the vicar and his elder daughter. “Mrs. Brightmore, if you’d be so kind as to keep watch in case Miss Rosemary wakes up?”
“Of course,” Olivia said. Meeting Gareth’s eyes, she also nodded a second after she’d spoken. She’d understood his silent message. “I’ll be right here.”
Outside, Miss Elizabeth Talbot clung to her father’s arm, while the vicar faced Gareth with somewhat less panic than he’d shown before. “I know it’s Providence that brought you to us,” he said, “since we didn’t have time to send a message. I don’t know how to thank you, Doctor. She is going to be all right?”
“She looks very much like she will,” said Gareth, “though I’ll want to come back tomorrow to be sure. When did this happen?”
“Perhaps a quarter of an hour before you arrived,” said Miss Talbot. “She simply…collapsed.”
“Had she been feeling at all ill beforehand?”
Reverend Talbot shook his head. “Not that she mentioned, but she had been rather subdued for a day or two. She said she was simply tired, and she went for a walk a little while before you came. Perhaps the activity was too much, and I shouldn’t have let her go.”
“Papa,” said Miss Talbot, “it was by no means your fault. She looked well enough. She was only…quiet. But you must have seen her,” she said to Gareth, “or Mrs. Brightmore or the girls. She went to Englefield to call on them two days ago. Did…did anything happen there?”
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