Spellbreaker

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  She wasn’t sure which side of the house the servants’ entrance was on. The house—do not ogle the house—had to fit at least twenty bedrooms. But it would not do to dawdle. She wanted to look like a local, like someone who’d done this before. A businesswoman. The ruse would have been easier if she were a businessman, but one had to work with what one had.

  She spied a narrow path leading off to the left and took it around until she found a relatively plain-looking door near the back. A skinny wisp of a girl was dumping out a small washbasin nearby.

  Elsie spied the slightest wisps of orange light emanating from the doorknob. She reached for it—

  The door swung open, and a wide-faced woman of about forty startled, her hand flying to her chest. Pieces of sweaty curls stuck out from her cap.

  “Goodness, girl, you scared my blood cold!” she exclaimed, looking Elsie up and down.

  “Forgive me, I was about to knock. I’ve come hoping to sell.” She gestured to her basket.

  The woman—she looked like a cook—was about to wave her away, but her hand stilled when she saw the Madeira. “What are you selling those for?” She gestured to the bottles.

  “Two and five for both,” she answered, purposefully choosing a low number.

  The cook’s eyes bugged. “Two and five? Don’t you know what—never mind. Wait right here.”

  She turned around, leaving the door ajar. Inside was a narrow room lined with hooks. A pair of dirty boots sat on the floor. Beyond that, Elsie could just see the opening of a pantry on one side and a kitchen on the other. She thought she felt a tingle cross her face as she leaned in—was there a rational spell nearby, or was that just nerves? Perhaps the duke had a large illusion on display in a nearby room, or someone could be using a mental spell to keep their memory sharp. In a place as rich as this one, spells were likely to abound.

  Setting her basket down, Elsie glanced over her shoulder for the wash girl. She’d vanished. Footsteps sounded deeper within the house. Nearby, a horse nickered.

  Taking half a step back, Elsie put both hands on the enchanted doorknob. It was a small physical spell, but not a simple one. A knot made of light instead of rope, pulled tightly together. It was a bright white at its center, twinkling like a shy star, and slightly blue around the edges. Her eyes unfocused a bit as she found the start. The spell resisted her—it was well made. An intermediate spell formed by a master’s hands. She loosened the rune and picked it apart string by string until it ceased to exist, fizzling out like the last sparks of a firework.

  The cook returned moments later with a cheery disposition. She handed over three gold coins. “I’ll take both bottles and a wedge of that cheese.” She pointed to the paler option.

  Elsie handed the goods over and thanked the cook, who had no idea she’d been liberated. Soon enough, that cheery disposition would be genuine, not the fleeting excitement of having nabbed a good price on wine.

  It would likely take a few days before Elsie’s work was discovered. It wouldn’t be reported in the newspapers or shouted from the rooftops, but prestige had never been the goal.

  Feeling accomplished, Elsie swung her much lighter basket at her side and left the estate grounds.

  She hoped the Cowls were watching.

  CHAPTER 4

  The London Physical Atheneum was one of the most eye-catching, prestigious, and ancient buildings in England. Built in medieval times, it looked something like a mix between a castle and a university. In a sense, it was both. It boasted the largest aspector library in the world. The immense windows were fitted with enchanted glass to protect the spells inside and prevent them from leaving without the proper permissions.

  Bacchus had left John and Rainer in Kent and excused his driver. A few people milled about the meticulous grounds, complete with gardens that even the queen could envy. Only one seemed to notice him. Bacchus did not maintain eye contact. Impressing this man was not his agenda today.

  The atheneum grew ever larger as Bacchus approached, and if he hadn’t known any better, he would have accused the walkway of lengthening as he strode down it. He knew spells for enlarging objects, but none of them would work on such a path, not without ripping the stones from the ground. No, this was merely his nerves. Bacchus wasn’t used to nerves. He berated them with a soft growl, but at least they lent him energy.

  Two sentries stood guard at the heavy double doors at the entrance of the grand library. Bacchus nodded to them and gave his name. He half expected to be turned away, but fortunately the guards had been alerted to his visit. They opened the right door and allowed him inside.

  It took a moment for his eyes to adjust from the bright morning to the darker interior. Rugs and tapestries masked swathes of stone walls and floors, but a soft chill permeated the air. Bacchus felt a bit like a time traveler; the modernizations in the place were minimal.

  Beyond the short antechamber stretched a long table, adorned only by elaborate silver candlesticks the style of which matched the low-hanging chandeliers above them, their tips glowing with intermediate light spells. Short rows of books lined the far walls, broken up by woven art. That chamber ended in an archway, and the true library started beyond it. Immense shelves stuffed with tomes that gave way to shadow. He thought he caught faint whispering echoing between the stonework.

  Bacchus took a step forward, only to have one of the sentries raise his hand, urging him to wait. Bacchus let his impatience drain down his arms and into his hands, where he crushed it with tight fists. After a few minutes, a new guard came around the corner—there must have been a hidden hallway in the chandelier room.

  “Mr. Bacchus Kelsey?” the man asked, looking Bacchus up and down.

  Bacchus nodded.

  “Your court is ready. Please follow me.”

  Bacchus did so without word. Court. Do they think themselves kings, or am I about to be sentenced?

  They took a corridor circumventing the library and passed through a small room lined with bookshelves, several acolytes buried in their work. Lamps hovered without cords, likely bespelled by teachers to keep the light where it was needed. But there wasn’t time to notice anything else, for Bacchus and his guide were already cutting through another massive room with a high ceiling, poorly lit, approaching a wide and winding set of stairs. They were old but in excellent repair, which likely meant they’d been hardened and bullied to hold their shape with magic. Perhaps a temporal magician had been hired to remove centuries of wear, but Bacchus suspected the heads of the Physical Atheneum were too proud to ask for help from another alignment.

  The guard led Bacchus past the second floor, which appeared to have classrooms and dormitories, to the third, where they traversed a long hallway in which the portraits of English royals hung across from those of famous aspectors. Bacchus’s limbs began to grow weary despite the early hour, but he stood straighter, refusing to let the fatigue show. Sunlight filtered in through the large windows to his left, illuminating the portraits of the aspectors. All English save for one with a French name. All male. Women, the lower classes, and foreigners hadn’t been allowed access to spellmaking until the early seventeen hundreds, after the riots. Even so, society was slow to catch up.

  His guide took him up one more flight of stairs. This place is a labyrinth. One more stairwell and Bacchus would know something was magicked; the atheneum wasn’t that large.

  But the stairs ended, and Bacchus found himself in a narrow corridor facing doors even heavier than those at the entrance. Two more sentries stood at attention. As they approached, one of them retreated back down the stairs, perhaps to take up the position vacated by Bacchus’s guide. The guide then knocked thrice, opened the door, and made his announcement.

  “Mr. Bacchus Kelsey, advanced aspector of the physical alignment, Barbados, to meet with the assembly.”

  There was no reply. The guard stepped back into the hall and gestured for Bacchus to enter.

  He did so with his shoulders squared and his head held high.
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br />   It was a cold room, though not so much in temperature as in aesthetics. A few draperies adorned the walls, but they were cast in shadow and seemed little more than caves of ink. There were no chandeliers, sconces, or candlesticks; all the light came from the windows in one wall. The only rug was a long red strip that led directly from the door to the raised row of seats protected by an overly tall stone partition. Bacchus stood six foot three, but the assembly sat ten feet above ground level.

  Eleven aspectors in all, the youngest being perhaps in his forties and the eldest holding on to his health in his seventies. They very much matched the portraits in that long hallway, save for the single woman in their ranks, who sat in the second-to-last chair on the right.

  Bacchus knew all their names, but not all their faces. He could, however, identify the man sitting in the center of the assembly, his seat jutting forward. His hair was a pale gray, his face deeply lined as though he’d spent his entire life scowling. Master Enoch Phillips, a titled earl, and head of this atheneum.

  Bacchus bowed deeply. “My thanks that you have agreed to meet with me.”

  “You’ve traveled far,” Master Phillips said, his tone both impressed and disgusted at the same time. “Welcome to London.”

  Bacchus nodded his thanks.

  “Your portfolio is most impressive,” said the woman. Her name was easy to place: Master Ruth Hill. She shuffled a few papers Bacchus could hear but not see. She was in her fifties and carried her age well. White wisps of hair streaked the blonde tresses pulled back at the nape of her neck. “You started at a good age and progressed well, despite your limited resources.”

  Spending half his life in Barbados, she meant. The island was small, and its magical community was even smaller.

  “And all of your testing has been performed here,” added the man to her left. “A wise choice.”

  “England is my second home.” Bacchus laced his words with as much politeness as he could muster. He needed this, and not just for his mastership. “I have much respect for the country as well as this atheneum.” Not to mention the tedium of getting his records sent back and forth across the seas.

  “Yes,” interjected Master Phillips, rubbing his pointed chin, “that is evident. And a pure spellmaking history. I do appreciate a man who knows what he wants. Purity is essential for longevity.”

  Master Phillips cast a pointed glance at the man beside him, who gave no reaction other than the tightening of his mouth. That was Master Victor Allen, then. Although he had become a master regardless, he’d spent his first two years of apprenticeship under a spiritual aspector before switching to the physical alignment. Such a thing was not uncommon, but the magical strength a man earned in one alignment could not be transferred to another, and it would hinder him for the rest of his life. Indeed, most men would not have the capacity to reach masterhood in a second discipline after expending some of their abilities in a first, which only went to show Master Allen was a very powerful man. Perhaps that was the real reason Master Phillips seemed to dislike him.

  “I have known my desires since I was a boy, even before I showed promise,” Bacchus explained. “I have not faltered from my chosen path.”

  He fought the desire to twitch under the scrutiny of eleven pairs of eyes.

  “Indeed. Another admirable quality.” Master Phillips nodded. He folded his hands against the edge of his pedestal wall. “Your résumé and references speak for themselves, Mr. Kelsey. The assembly has discussed your petition previously, and we have agreed to approve your promotion to mastership.”

  A bubble of pride swelled in Bacchus’s chest. All he had to do now was learn a master spell—prove he could absorb it—under the eye of an assembly member, and the title would be his.

  “However, your request for the master ambulation spell is denied.”

  The bubble popped, and it took every bit of Bacchus’s will not to let his shoulders slump. Not to look as though he’d been punched in the gut. Not to show his anger.

  His throat tightened as he said, “I thank you kindly for the approval.” He bowed, if only to buy himself a few seconds to sort out his tangled thoughts. “Forgive my impertinence, but why have I been denied the requested spell? I do not ask for any others.” Desperation drove him to ask. It would be virtually impossible for someone to guess the words to a spell, which were both lengthy and in Latin. Certain spells could be acquired directly from spellmakers or opus collectors, but master spells tended to be dangerous, and were thus much more closely regulated. There was, of course, the illegal route, but the punishment for misusing magic in any way was hard and swift, and any aspector caught doing it would immediately lose his license, assuming he didn’t lose his head as well. “I will not drain any of the atheneum’s resources. I will not share the knowledge with any, save on the bed of my death.”

  His mastership meant nothing if he did not have that ambulation spell.

  His future would mean nothing, too.

  “It is a powerful spell. Rare, valuable. As you know,” Master Phillips replied. He appeared to be looking just over Bacchus’s head rather than at his eyes.

  “I am aware.” Bacchus carefully measured out his words. He could not unball his fists, so he stowed them behind his back. “But I do not request it for the sake of its rarity. It would prove very useful at my estate.” Not a lie. “I will compensate the atheneum generously and the drops, of course, will come from my own pocket.”

  One could not master even a novice spell without paying for it in aspector drops—the universe’s wizarding currency—but Bacchus had been saving a long time. He was prepared for that.

  “I do not doubt its usefulness, young man,” Master Phillips replied, “but the master ambulation spell is a treasure of the atheneum. It must stay among its people.”

  His brow twitched. “Pardon?” He’d been a student of this atheneum since his childhood.

  Master Phillips sighed very much like a parent tired of scolding his child. “Although none can dispute your talent, you are not truly of this atheneum, Mr. Kelsey. You are not one of us. Your request is denied. However, were you to make a substantial donation to the atheneum, we could work out another master-level spell for your repertoire and provide the necessary witness.”

  Bacchus’s muscles tightened to steel. He understood every unspoken word. “My father was just as English as you, Master Phillips. And as stated by the assembly, my aspector lineage is pure.” Though they likely knew he was a bastard, and he did not doubt they’d gossiped about it prior to his visit. “The London Physical Atheneum administered all my prior testing.”

  Master Phillips picked up a gavel and struck it against the edge of the wall. “Thank you, Mr. Kelsey. You are dismissed.”

  His steel muscles instantly turned to pudding. That was it? He could not defend himself? Yet every defense surfacing in his tumbling mind would not win the favor of this court. No, the words piling upon his tongue were laced with anger; if he spoke any of them, he’d likely lose the chance of promotion entirely. So he kept silent as the assembly members rose from their seats and began filing out through a back door. The only person to give him a second glance was Master Ruth Hill. The pity in her eyes left a sour taste in his mouth.

  The door behind him opened, his guards expectant. They forced his retreat, but this battle wasn’t over. One way or another, Bacchus would get his spell, the atheneum be damned.

  He’d have to tell the duke he was extending his stay.

  CHAPTER 5

  Mr. Ogden had forgotten his trowels.

  Emmeline discovered the error not thirty minutes after Ogden departed for another day of work at Squire Douglas Hughes’s estate. He’d left the plaster-stained bag by the front door—and then exited out the back. Elsie wasn’t sure he was plastering today, but if the man had taken the effort to stick the bag where he’d thought he wouldn’t forget it, then he must need it for something. And though Elsie was loath to get any closer to the squire than was absolutely necessary, she w
ould be more loath if Ogden lost the job and could no longer fund her own. So she took the bag, holding it away from her so as not to get bits of dried plaster on her dress, and crossed Brookley to the squire’s home.

  Squire Hughes’s home was very much like himself. Distant from the riffraff, gaudy in appearance, and generally pointless. Elsie’s sides were stitching by the time she arrived. Unwilling to wait in the line of servants at the back door, she decided a direct approach would be best. Striding up to the front door, she slammed the iron knocker against it.

  It took a minute, but the butler answered the door, and Mr. Parker, the squire’s steward, approached as it was being opened, dismissing the butler with a nod of his head. Mr. Parker was an older man, with white hair and a well-fed belly. He dressed primly, if a little out of fashion, and had a receding hairline that was quite symmetrical. He was one of the few tolerable people in the squire’s employ, though during her time as a scullery maid here, Elsie hadn’t interacted with him often.

  He blinked in surprise. “Miss Camden! How may I help you?”

  She was surprised he remembered her. She looked different now than she had as a dirty eleven-year-old scrubbing dishes, and she very rarely saw the steward in town. Hefting the bag, she said, “I’m afraid Mr. Ogden forgot his trowels.”

  She needn’t explain further—the steward nodded sagely and invited her in. “He’s just this way.” Once they reached a well-polished set of stairs, he added, “Would you like me to carry this?”

  She would indeed, but it struck her that she’d have little reason to stay if she handed over the bag. If she’d walked all the way here, she might as well get a good look at the squire’s accommodations. See if he’d changed anything. Hidden anything. To sate her curiosity.