The Toymaker's Curse (Glass and Steele Book 11)

by C. J. Archer

  “They’re about to depart,” Cyclops said.

  Matt turned over a burned log in the fire with the toe of his boot. The coals glowed. “They were here recently.”

  Where did they go? And why did they leave?

  It started to rain fat icy drops. I’d foolishly left the umbrella in the carriage and my coat didn’t have a hood.

  “Let’s go,” Matt said. He called out to Cyclops who’d been about to peer into one of the caravan windows.

  Cyclops turned away from it.

  The door to the caravan burst open. The man named Lancelot stood in the doorway and pointed a shotgun at Cyclops’s head. “Don’t move or I kill your friend.”

  Cyclops slowly put up his hands. Matt and I followed suit. Matt took a step back to be closer to me.

  “I said don’t move!” Lancelot stepped slowly down the ladder to the ground.

  Behind him, Mrs. Shaw emerged. She ordered someone to stay inside—the children?—and she too stepped down the ladder. She scanned Cyclops from head to toe then turned to us. “This is the second time you’ve come poking your noses around our property.”

  “We mean you no harm, Mrs. Shaw,” Matt said. “I’d appreciate it if Lancelot lowered his weapon.”

  Mrs. Shaw approached, hand on hip. “The first visit’s free. You have to pay for the second. Hand over your valuables.” She put out her palm to me. “Your ring, missus. And your watches.”

  The only ring I wore was my wedding band. I could part with that. Matt would buy another. But my watch had taken months of tinkering and spell speaking before it had truly become my own. After the one my parents had given me was broken beyond repair, Matt purchased another for me. At first, I’d thought it would never behave like my original one, chiming when I faced danger and saving my life. But it eventually proved itself.

  If she took it, I would have to start all over again.

  Matt gave her his watch. Not his magical one, the regular one he kept for simply telling the time. The other was well hidden. “India, do as she says.”

  But I wasn’t giving in so easily. “We’re not here because we missed your company, Mrs. Shaw. We came to tell you something about Albina and her death. But you’ll never learn what if you rob us.”

  Mrs. Shaw’s lips parted in her silent gasp. “Albina?” she said weakly.

  Lancelot pressed the end of the shotgun into Cyclops’s temple. “Don’t believe them, Ma!”

  Cyclops closed his eye and swallowed.

  “Don’t shoot!” I cried. “Please, lower the gun.”

  Mrs. Shaw took a step forward. In that moment, the rain came down harder. It was as if the sky parted and a sea plunged through. I was drenched in an instant. Ice-cold water slid past my collar, down my back, and formed puddles in the already soaked ground.

  Mrs. Shaw didn’t seem to notice. Her midnight-dark eyes drilled into me. She grabbed my arms. “I want to know about my Albina. Tell me about Albina!”

  Matt caught her wrist. “Let my wife go!”

  Lancelot swung around and pointed the gun at Matt. “Don’t touch my mother!”

  As if his shouts were a signal, a dog ran out of the nearby copse of trees. The snarling, growling creature raced toward us. Saliva dripped from jagged teeth. Mud flung behind it, dug up by sharp claws.

  My watch chimed an ominous warning inside my reticule. The high-pitched sound was barely audible over the splattering rain and barking dog. I removed it with trembling fingers. If the dog attacked me, my watch would save me.

  The dog kept coming and coming. But not for me.

  For Matt. My watch wouldn’t save him.

  “India!” he shouted. “Get back!”

  I didn’t move.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cyclops lunge at Lancelot and try to wrestle the shotgun off him.

  The gun went off.

  But the dog kept coming.

  Chapter 15

  The rain didn’t slow the dog. It kept coming, straight for Matt, its razor-sharp teeth bared with each ferocious bark. The muscular body propelled it forward at an alarming rate.

  Cyclops shouted for the dog to be called off. There were other voices too, all shouting over the top of each other, but they seemed muted all of a sudden, like they were under water, or I was. My focus centered on the dog, blocking out everything else. Even the freezing rain ceased to affect me.

  I spoke the spell.

  I’d learned it by heart and it came to me easily. I pictured the speed and direction I wanted my watch to take, and in that moment, with the dog a mere three feet from Matt, my watch flew off my outstretched palm. The chain wrapped around the dog’s snout. The creature halted, sliding in the mud to come to a standstill at Matt’s feet. It pawed at the watch chain but to no avail. The chain remained firmly in place, muzzling the dog. I spoke the spell again, and the watch itself tapped the dog on the nose. It quieted in surprise.

  A man raced out of the woods, but he was not armed, and two women burst from the caravan. All three talked at once, loudly, then Mrs. Shaw and Lancelot joined in.

  “Quiet!” Cyclops shouted. He pointed the gun at Lancelot’s head. “Be quiet or I shoot.”

  His threat silenced all but one of the Shaws. “Release my dog!” snapped the man who’d come from the woods. He looked remarkably like Lancelot and had the same dark eyes as their mother.

  Matt grabbed the dog by its collar and walked it to the caravan. He ordered the women and children to leave and they obeyed without question. They must have been watching the events unfold through the windows. Matt released the dog inside and shut the door. He nodded at me.

  I pictured the watch unwinding itself from the dog’s snout and spoke the moving spell again. A tapping sound came from inside the caravan and Matt opened the door just enough for the watch to slip through. The dog tried to catch it, but missed. It barked in frustration. Matt closed the door again and picked up the watch. He jumped down to the ground and handed it to me with a small smile.

  I smiled back and drew in a fortifying breath. Thank God that had worked. I hadn’t been entirely sure I had the focus to do it under pressure. It seemed I did.

  The Shaws had stopped talking and now stared at me with a mixture of wonder and uncertainty. Even the formidable matriarch was lost for words.

  Matt put out his gloved hand. “My watch and my wife’s ring, if you please.”

  Mrs. Shaw handed back our belongings.

  Matt pocketed his watch. “I’m wet through to my skin. I have nearly been eaten by a dog. My wife and friend are just as soaked. I have a good mind to walk off and not tell you what we know about Albina’s death.”

  “No!” Mrs. Shaw cried. “Come into the caravan out of the rain.” She tried to usher us to the van, but I refused.

  “I’m already wet and I’m not going near that dog,” I said.

  The rain had eased a little but still fell steadily. At least I no longer had to blink away the drops from my eyes.

  “Who killed my daughter?” Mrs. Shaw prompted. “Was it him? Was it that cur of a husband?” She spat into the ground. Her daughters-in-law did too.

  “No,” Matt said.

  Mrs. Shaw glanced at me for clarification.

  “It wasn’t Mirnov,” I said. “It was Mrs. Trentham.”

  The brothers exchanged glances. Mrs. Shaw stared at Matt.

  “The wife of the rival toymaker,” Matt reminded her. “Her husband was a magician too, and so was she, although few knew it. She wanted to have magical children, but discovered her husband was incapable. To fulfill her dream, she turned to your daughter’s husband in the hope he could provide her with the children she wanted. She killed Albina and then, some months later, killed her own husband.”

  Lancelot surged forward only to stop upon Cyclops’s order. “Where is she?”

  “Dead,” Matt said. “You can read about it in the newspapers if you don’t believe me.”

  Lancelot swore loudly. His brother lowered his head. Their mothe
r, however, met Matt’s gaze. There were no deep breaths or hard swallows, no wobble of her chin or tears, only resignation in the stoop of her back.

  “So it is over,” she said.

  “It’s over,” I repeated. “You should apologize to Mr. Mirnov. You’ve left him with terrible injuries.”

  She grunted. “He was not a good husband to my Albina. He deserves what he got.”

  Lancelot leaned back against the caravan and squinted up at the sky. Rain washed over his face. It dripped off his hair and fell into his mouth as he opened it to let out an anguished cry. One of the women went to him, but he shook her off.

  “She did it to herself,” he cried. “Albina brought about her own death.”

  The woman frowned and glanced at her sister-in-law. But Mrs. Shaw and the other man seemed to understand. Mrs. Shaw finally lowered her chin. She plodded with heavy steps to her other son, as if the mud weighed down her boots. He put his arm around her. She had never looked so small or frail, just like any other grieving elderly woman who’d lost her beloved daughter.

  “What do you mean?” Matt asked.

  “She cursed her husband’s magic rival many years ago,” Lancelot said. “When he was married to another woman.”

  “Yes, to diminish the strength of his magic. We know.”

  Lancelot shook his head. “The curse didn’t affect his magic. It made him infertile. Albina wanted her own children by Mirnov to be the only magician toymakers of the next generation. Without rivals, they would be the best in London.”

  Good lord. I could hardly believe it. She’d been as ruthless as Mrs. Trentham. To curse a man like that was almost as horrid as committing murder. She had stopped him from having children and in doing so had sown the seeds for her own life to be cut violently short.

  Mr. Trentham had once claimed that his magic had been strong before the curse. But that could not have been the case. It was never strong. The description he’d given of how it used to work must have been how his wife’s stronger magic behaved. He’d lied to make himself more powerful in my eyes. Or perhaps he’d come to believe it after repeating the lie so many times.

  “Did Mirnov know?” Matt asked.

  “He knew about the curse but not what it did. He assumed it affected the other magician’s magic, and Albina never told him otherwise.” Lancelot went to his mother and brother and placed a hand on Mrs. Shaw’s shoulder.

  She clasped it. “Albina always wanted more than what she had,” she said sadly. “If only she was happy with this life, she would still be here. She might even have children by another husband. That Mirnov’s seed is as weak as his cursed rival’s.” She and her daughters-in-law all spat into the ground again.

  Matt signaled to Cyclops, and Cyclops emptied the shotgun of bullets. He pocketed them and leaned the gun against the caravan. Matt placed a hand to my lower back and steered me away.

  “May I tell your fortune?” Mrs. Shaw called out. “I owe you for what you’ve told us. Would you like to know your future, Mrs. Glass?”

  “Certainly not,” I said.

  “India.” Cyclops jerked his head at Matt. “Don’t you want to know what’ll happen so you can avoid something bad?”

  “The future cannot be changed,” Mrs. Shaw said. “Only foretold so you can prepare.”

  Cyclops doffed his hat at her. “Then India’s right. We don’t want to know.”

  We traversed back across the common through the mud, avoiding the deepest puddles. We were thoroughly soaked, and the journey home was wretchedly cold, despite Matt wrapping me in the blanket and his arms.

  The journey was also a silent one. He checked for anyone following us, but none did. I, however, was lost in my own thoughts. Matt had been right when he said everywhere we turned of late, the stakes were pegged to a magician’s lineage. Louisa was marrying Oscar for his magic. Coyle had helped Mrs. Trentham marry another toymaker magician. She, or both of them, had killed so that she could be rid of her infertile husband and marry another. Albina had ruined a couple’s life so she could bear London’s only toymaker magician children.

  No wonder Matt felt his artlessness keenly of late.

  I snuggled into him and closed my eyes. “I love you,” I murmured.

  His arms tightened and he kissed the top of my head. “I love you too.”

  A warm bath was just what I needed. I soaked in it until the water cooled and headed downstairs. After a quick word with Mrs. Bristow about some housekeeping, I joined the others in the drawing room. Everyone was there. Spread out on their laps, tables and even the floor were dozens of newspapers. They must have purchased a copy of every daily.

  They looked up on my entry and their grave faces told me everything I needed to know. The news was not good.

  Matt folded up the paper he’d been reading and tucked it under another on the table beside him. “Feeling better?” he asked.

  “Much.”

  “You should not have gone out in such weather,” Aunt Letitia said in her snippiest tone. “You could catch your death.”

  “It’s just rain, Aunt,” Matt said.

  “Cold rain.”

  Wisely, he didn’t continue. He looked handsome with his semi-dry hair and fresh face, and when he smiled at me, my heart fluttered. Something was wrong, however. The smile he gave was the one he used when trying to distract me.

  Instead of settling beside him, I picked up a newspaper and scanned the page. It had been left open at an opinion piece on magic.

  “Just ignore it,” Duke said before I’d read very far. “It’s written by someone who doesn’t know anything about magic.”

  “That journalist is an idiot.” Willie threw her newspaper on the floor and picked up another. After a moment, she threw it down too. “Another idiot. Why are there so many in the newspaper business?”

  “Barratt ain’t an idiot,” Duke pointed out.

  “He also doesn’t work for the papers no more. He lost his job because they didn’t want to see things from the magicians’ side. They just wanted to sell more copies with this bull…” She glanced at Aunt Letitia. “Bull patty.”

  I smirked. Willie usually didn’t care if her words offended anyone, even Aunt Letitia. Perhaps she was maturing. Now there was a promising notion, particularly for Brockwell.

  I read to the end of the article and set it aside; I picked up another newspaper. It was the same, however, with another opinion piece on magicians and magic. The editor of the third newspaper had written a similar piece. The articles weren’t questioning whether magic existed anymore. The argument had moved on to questions of ethics. Should magicians be allowed to practice their craft and sell magical wares? Should there be a limit placed on the sale of their goods? Guild masters were quoted, as were members of the public, but no magicians. It was as if they’d gone into hiding. More likely they’d just never been sought out and asked.

  This third article included a suggestion. “The writer proposes that each guild keep a list of magicians skilled in their particular craft,” I said. “That way if something goes wrong again, like with the automaton, it will be easy to find the culprit.”

  “That’s absurd,” Aunt Letitia said.

  I bit my tongue. I didn’t think it was a terrible idea, but it required more thought before I could give a considered opinion.

  “I’m sure a list already exists,” Matt said. “But it won’t be the guilds that have it.”

  I lifted my gaze to his. He was referring to the government.

  “Coyle’s got one.” Cyclops tapped his forehead. “Even if it’s kept up here.”

  Aunt Letitia lowered her newspaper. “India, I think you ought to invite the Coyles to dine with us. Perhaps you can have some of your other friends too. Lady Louisa Hollingbroke, Lord Farnsworth…” She stared into the distance, no doubt searching for more names from the nobility to add to the list. Thankfully she didn’t mention the Rycrofts.

  “No,” Matt said before I could. “Hope is welcome, but Coyle is not.”<
br />
  “But he’s your cousin, Matthew.”

  “She is my cousin. He’s a leech. He won’t be invited to dinner.”

  “She’s hardly going to come without him.”

  “Good,” Willie said emphatically. “We don’t want her here. She’s a spiteful b—”

  “Willie!” I cried.

  She gave me a smug smile. “I was going to say bride.”

  Duke snorted. “You were not.”

  I wandered around the room, picking up newspapers, reading a few paragraphs then putting them down again. When I finally came to the table near Matt, I quickly picked up both newspapers, only to discard the one sitting on top. He didn’t try to stop me reading the one he’d tried to hide, but I could feel his intense gaze on me as I read.

  The article was a little different to the others. It took an uncompromising angle that suggested the dangerous magicians should be locked away in asylums for the safety of the public. It mentioned the danger posed if the magic was faulty, or if the magician was of a criminal nature.

  “There’s a lot of misinformation in that article,” Matt pointed out. “For one thing, we know Mrs. Trentham used your spell, not her own magic, and no other magicians have access to it.”

  “Except we don’t know that. My spell is missing. We never recovered the original.”

  He went on, undeterred. “There’s no such thing as faulty magic. Everything the automaton did, it did because Mrs. Trentham made it.”

  “That gives fuel to the second part of the argument—when the magician has a criminal nature.” I folded up the newspaper and returned it to the table. “No one will lock us away simply for being magicians. By that logic, they’d have to lock up anyone who carries a gun or knife. Or even people who keep rat poison in the house! Just because someone has access to a potential weapon doesn’t mean they want to commit murder.”

  He pushed to his feet and strode to the mantelpiece where he faced the fire. “You have greater faith in the authorities than I do.”