The Etsey Series 1: The Seventh Veil

by Heidi Cullinan

“Jonathan?”

  Jonathan heard Timothy call to him, but he kept quiet, not wanting this moment yet to end. He could never remember feeling peace this total, and he was no fool. It would not last. He wanted to let it linger as long as he possibly could.

  “Jonathan!” Timothy’s shadow moved over his face before his equerry appeared, frowning nervously at him. “Are you well?”

  Jonathan smiled. “I am quite, quite well.”

  He heard Timothy expel a ragged breath. “Thank heaven. She did it, then. The witch cured you.”

  Jonathan turned his head to the place where Madeline had lain, running the back of his hand lightly over the bedding. “She has gone?”

  “Yes.” Timothy sat down beside him on the bed, looking weary. “You are to rest. She says to keep your activity to a minimum today. And she wanted me to warn you that it may be several days more before you can depart from the parish.”

  That made Jonathan sit up. “Travel?” Where did she think he would go?

  Timothy paused, looking uncertain. “You told me you wished to leave here as soon as possible. Has this…changed?”

  Jonathan tossed the sheets aside and swung his legs out of the bed. He stood cautiously at first, then took a tentative step forward. He felt no pain as he walked to the window, nor when he crossed back to the fire. The most unpleasant sensation he felt was the cold, damp air against his naked skin, but he welcomed even that. He had no limp, no hesitation—nothing at all but the barest bit of tightness against the skin of the scar. On an impish whim, he assumed a fencing position, but when he dared a few naked lunges and hops, his muscles protested only from disuse. He lifted a corner of his mouth at Timothy in quiet pleasure.

  Timothy was looking at him strangely. There was an odd sadness about his face, and for a moment he looked flustered. He glanced down at Jonathan’s naked body before quickly looking away.

  Jonathan straightened, confused, and glanced around for a pair of trousers.

  He found them laid neatly on a chair beside the bed. “I’m not leaving,” he said as he climbed into them.

  “Your grandfather is coming,” Timothy said, still looking away. “Stephen said he may already be here.”

  Jonathan swore under his breath. “The bastard always did have a knack for timing.” He sighed and glanced around at the empty chairs, then crossed back to the bed and began sifting through the sheets. “Where is my shirt?” Then he stopped and lifted his head. “Stephen is here? Both my brothers are here?”

  Timothy nodded, finally looking at him again. “Charles, however, has run off.”

  Jonathan’s smile died. “Just as well. I can’t believe he pulled that stunt at the inn. Don’t admit him if he returns.” He paused at the strange flicker he read on Timothy’s face, thought about asking him what the devil was eating him, then decided against it. Later. He resumed his rummaging in the bedclothes. “I need my shirt. And a drink.”

  Timothy smiled faintly. “Your shirt was on the chair; it must have fallen to the floor. The drink may take a bit more doing—there isn’t so much as a crust or drop in the entire place,” he said, crossing to the far side of the room.

  “Tell me you brought my sash of office,” he said, grimacing. “Whitby won’t give a damn that I can walk again, but he’ll blister me for an hour if he sees me without that fucking sash.”

  “It got used as a tourniquet last month, I’m afraid.” Timothy rose and crossed to the other side of the room.

  Jonathan sighed and balled up the sheet in his hand. “Very well,” he said and tossed the wad of bedclothes away.

  Something off-white and silky textured fell out of it onto the floor, and Jonathan reached for it, curious. When he lifted it up, he felt a strange tingling in his hand and an answering warmth in the center of his chest. He looked down at himself and saw that the stone on its silken strand was glowing a soft, pale blue. He held up the garment in his hand and realized it was a woman’s undergarment: a shift.

  It smelled like Madeline.

  He raised his hand and closed it over the charm, his heart pounding in a strange, steady beat.

  “Here you go,” Timothy said, reappearing with his shirt. He looked upset about something, but when he caught Jonathan looking at him, he made his face carefully bland.

  Jonathan tucked the shift over his left arm and extended the other for his shirt. “Timothy, has something happened?”

  Timothy shook his head a little too briskly. “No. Nothing—no.” He took a step back and gave a stiff nod. “Shall I tell Stephen you will be down shortly? Or should I send him up?”

  Jonathan tucked the shift tighter against his body and shook his head. “I’ll come down. Thank you.”

  Timothy left without another word, but Jonathan didn’t move until he heard his equerry’s footsteps down the stairs. When he had gone, he tossed his shirt onto the bed before looking down at the shift.

  The material shimmered when he moved his arm, and memories of the night before assaulted him. Madeline, shimmering as a spirit form in the void. Madeline, sliding back inside her body, moving through his. Madeline gripping his shoulders. Madeline’s mouth on his own.

  Madeline. Madeline. Madeline.

  Jonathan’s eyes fell closed, and his cock was hard and aching, ready for a reenactment. He pulled the shift close to his heart, drew one more breath, then went to place it in the bottom of his trunk. After he finished dressing, he checked his reflection briefly in the cracked mirror by the door. He lingered over it a moment, a little shocked at his own image. Something was different, and not just because he wasn’t sickly and pale. No demon, he realized. Jonathan reached out and touched the glass. She’d put it in a cup. Where had she taken the cup? He shuddered and pulled his hand away. He didn’t want to know.

  He spied his walking stick in a corner by the door, then paused again as he realized what was propped up next to it. Two rusted silver slips—fencing foils. He crossed to them and picked one up gently, turning it over in his hand, scanning the hilt for the tiny mark he had made. His heart skipped a little when he found it. M. As he checked the other, he smiled sadly to himself as he saw the J. After holding them both together for a moment, he replaced them and reached for his own stick. When that gesture displaced the foils, making them fall away from one another to rest on separate walls of the corner, he reached back down and deliberately rejoined them. Then he tucked his sword stick beneath his arm, carrying it as an accessory instead of using it as a cane for the first time in years.

  Stephen appeared from a sitting room as Jonathan left the tower and came down into the first-floor hallway, and his countenance brightened as he saw Jonathan so hale and hearty. “Goddess be praised!” he cried, then laughed and came forward to engulf Jonathan briefly in an exuberant if somewhat awkward embrace. “Look at you, man! You look ten years younger than you did when you left!”

  Jonathan winced a bit at that comment, but he covered it quickly with a smile and made a bow to his brother. “Thank you.” He gestured to the sitting room Stephen had emerged from. “But to what do I owe the pleasure of finding you here, Stephen?”

  Stephen’s happy expression fell, and his face reddened to match his hair. “Oh, that. Well. It’s quite a tale and probably best told over a pint.” His grin returned a little as he nodded at the front door. “Shall we go and show off your improved health at the local inn? It’s been some time since they’ve seen a pair of Perrys strutting about the place, eh?”

  Jonathan crossed to the window before answering. The glass was broken, and he felt a rush of wind through the crack. “I have business I must attend to just now,” he said lightly, but he turned and smiled at his brother. “Perhaps dinner tonight—here?”

  Stephen laughed. “Dinner? You don’t have servants! I’m not even sure you have a kitchen!”

  “True.” Jonathan scratched his chin. “We’ll have to raid the larder from Whitby Hall. Raid the servants as well, in fact.” Except he didn’t want servants, he realized. He wanted it
quiet. Just himself and Timothy.

  And Madeline.

  “Grandfather’s coming, you know,” Stephen said.

  Jonathan deliberately ignored this comment. “Perhaps we should meet tomorrow night. You’re welcome to stay here, though I’ll understand if you don’t wish to.”

  Stephen was agog. “Do you mean—you’re moving in?” He looked around him, horror-struck. “To this wreck?”

  “I am.” Jonathan reached into his pocket for his watch. Almost noon. He tucked the timepiece away and glanced at the window again.

  “Well, I—” Stephen opened his mouth and closed it several times. His expression changed to a sort of cautious hope. “I suppose I had just assumed that once you were well, you would head back to Boone or to the Continent. I’m pleased to be wrong if that’s the case.”

  “No, I never intended to go back to the Continent,” Jonathan said in perfect honesty. He craned his neck back and took in the dilapidated room. “I can’t say I’d thought much of staying here, but I think I shall. For now.”

  Stephen brightened again and gestured to Jonathan’s leg. “You’re looking quite fit, I must say. Completely good as new. Why, you could do anything now. You could even marry, if you chose.”

  Jonathan jumped as if Stephen had tossed burning oil at him. He tried to recover, but the thought was so jarring that he had great difficulty masking his reaction. “I will never marry, Stephen. I cannot. Not with the curse.” Though as soon as he spoke this, he wondered. Did he still carry it? Surely Madeline couldn’t erase it. No witch’s magic was strong enough to undo that of the Old Ones.

  Stephen waved a dismissive hand. “It’s a bunch of nonsense. Don’t let it stand in the way of your happiness.”

  Jonathan shook his head. “You don’t understand the curse, Stephen. You never did. None of us have until we’ve stared the thing in the face.”

  “Is it why you’re staying?” Stephen asked, still frustrated but losing some of his heat.

  “No.” Jonathan pressed his hand over his heart and felt the medallion beneath. “I have much to consider and more to do. My invitation is open. Tonight or tomorrow, come and dine with me, and whatever it is that troubles you, we will sort it out. But for now—” He inclined his head to his brother. “I must bid you good-bye.”

  Stephen nodded, looking gloomy, but he didn’t argue further. “Tomorrow, then.” He turned back to the window.

  Jonathan hesitated, considering saying something more, then changed his mind. Later, he promised himself and went back into the hall, heading for the stairs.

  He relished the ease of movement, growing cocky and taking them two at a time as he had as a boy. He made his way up past the study, past the bedroom, around the turret, climbing all the way to the top. He pushed open the door to the tower and stepped into the darkness.

  It was surely fancy, but he thought he could still smell the blood.

  There was none, of course. The stones had been scrubbed clean long ago, but the sticky sweet smell filled his nostrils anyway. He braced himself against the wall for a moment as the dark slosh of old memories threatened, but they went away as he waited. It’s just a room. It’s just an old stone tower, and this is just a room. Good things happened here as well as bad. It’s just a room.

  He opened his eyes again. He saw no ghosts, no memories, only the darkness of the closed-up room. He smelled damp and dung and dust, but beneath it all, the scent of blood remained.

  He felt his way around to the window and pushed open the shutters, blinking at the sudden burst of light. Illuminated, the room revealed itself to be entirely bare, save the occasional bat or bird dropping. The roof was completely intact, which seemed a miracle until he remembered the tower was tiled in slate, not wood shingles or thatch. It seemed smaller than it had ten years ago, but that was not necessarily an improvement.

  He turned to the window and looked out again to the south. He could see farther than he’d been able to below. He saw not just the hint of thatch on her roof, but the outline of what he fancied might be her bedroom window. He could see the whole of her cottage: the front, the back, the sides, the stables. He saw her garden.

  Madeline.

  He pressed his hand to the charm again, rubbing it lightly between his fingers. He wasn’t leaving. That much he knew. She could go cold and haughty on him; she could call him what she liked, cast whatever spells she wished. He wasn’t going. Not yet. Not until they’d spoken.

  And maybe I won’t leave, not even then.

  He thought of what he had said to Stephen, of the curse. He was the only one officially cursed, but being members of the Houses was curse enough in his mind. He thought of Charles and Whitby returning, now Stephen and himself, and Madeline, of course, who had never left—it only needed a Carlton to complete the circle, though they were all dead now. It felt like a convergence of some kind, and not a good one. But even with Charles’s antics, the only real threats were Elliotts, for him. Only through them could the curse come into play.

  But the only other Elliott left was Madeline. And she had pulled the demon out of him.

  Could it come back to claim its reward: his soul?

  Would she come for hers?

  He pushed off the casing and braced himself against the sill, addressing the soft tendrils of smoke from the cottage.

  “I’d submit to you.” He rubbed his thumb against a nail protruding from the rotten wood, watching it scrape against his skin. “I’d give you as much blood as you required.”

  He paused, then pushed his thumb sharp against the point, not even wincing as it broke the skin, watching impassively as the blood burst out, then ran in a thick, slow river down the side of his hand. He looked back to the cottage, holding his thumb away from his clothes as he rooted through the folds of his shirt with his clean hand, drawing the medallion free, lifting it high in front of him, as far as the string would go.

  “I’m staying. I’m staying here until you hear me, until I’ve paid for what I’ve done to you.” He pressed his bloody thumb against the stone, smearing it with the blood, staining the black silk of the cord even darker. “I give you my blood, Elliott. Freely. Do with it what you will.”

  It was crude magic, cruder than most kitchen maids could manage, but it was the best he could do. It made him feel better. Unconsciously he reached for his sword stick with his bloody hand.

  “I’ll fight with you, Madeline,” he whispered. “I’ll stand by your side and fight with you, for you—whatever you want.” His grip tightened farther, then went slack, and his voice softened too.

  “Whatever you want, Madeline,” he said. “Whatever you want. Just so long as you let me stay.”

  The wind picked up across the garden, and he watched the rush come toward him. He shut his eyes as it hit his face, and in a private, quiet fancy, he imagined it was her kiss come across the moor to him, sealing their agreement.

  * * *

  Dirty, ragged, and shaking, Charles stumbled up the back stairs of the inn, fumbled with the knob to Smith’s room, then fell inside, landing on the floor facedown.

  He had run all through the night, wandering aimlessly and half-mad from all the drugged brandy. He’d been sick all over himself so many times that twice he’d been sick just from the smell, but he felt far worse when the potion wore off. For then he could remember. He remembered everything that had happened: everything from the inn, from the moor. His dream. Madeline.

  Timothy.

  He’d been four miles east of town when Smith’s charms began to overtake him, forcing his body back, making his legs take him to the inn instead of to the next town. He’d fought it, fought tooth and nail, fought until he had passed into a strange sort of dream state, which brought the nightmares back. Except these were new, and they were worse. This time when the wraiths were before him, he could smell their blood, and he could taste it on his tongue.

  This time Timothy Fielding died with them, and it was Martin Smith who cut his throat and made Charles drink
from the vein.

  There were voices too, and they didn’t stop, not when the drug wore off, not for anything. Dark voices. Light voices. Madeline’s, Jonathan’s, his father’s, Timothy’s, Smith’s. The demon’s voice from the lake. Ones he didn’t know at all. They were a mad chorus inside his mind, and they would not stop.

  You are strong. You are weak.

  You can save the world. You can destroy it.

  Let me help you. Let me protect you.

  Let me kill you.

  Be careful.

  You’re worthless.

  You have so much power.

  You are mine.

  You are your own, quiera.

  He tried to push himself up from the floor, but the voices weighed him down. Charles gave up and curled into a ball, crying quietly to himself.

  A strong hand pulled him up by the collar of his shirt. Charles blinked and turned his head sideways. Smith.

  “Had an adventure, have we?” he said with amusement, but it was amusement stretched very thin. He had bruises all over both sides of his face, and he looked haggard. His gaze zeroed in on the charm Madeline had given Charles, and he sneered. “Foolish girl. She has no idea of my power. But we will deal with that in a moment. First—” He shoved Charles back to the floor, reaching for something from the table with one hand as he grabbed Charles’s waistband with the other. “On your knees, you stinking pig.”

  He was fast and hard and brutal. Very, very brutal. He used every tool in his bag and some Charles had not remembered him having administered before. They hurt. They ached. They burned. He felt pain across his back, then sticky wet as blood began to run down his sides, down his hips, everywhere. True to his word, Smith did not so much as break his skin, but his magic was so strong now that he could make Charles bleed without making a single scratch. Twice Charles started to sob, but Smith slapped the side of his head so hard that his ears rang, and after that he concentrated on not being in his body, of deliberately losing consciousness. He thought of his dream where he had left his body, and he fixated all his heart on that feeling, trying to bring it back again. Anything to escape what Smith was doing to him.