Witchfinder (Magical Empires Book 1)

by Sarah Hoyt

  The stranger shook, and his dark hair was pasted to his head with sweat, and Nell surmised that he would not want her to see him in this state. Men were proud everywhere, but in this world more than anywhere else – particularly the gentry, which this man might very well be, as much as he looked like the Duke.

  She fell back on the expected role of women in this time and place. Going to the wash basin set in a corner, she was relieved to find that it was supplied with an ever-filled ewer, the water magicked in – probably from the well of the estate – as soon as it was emptied, and kept warm in the container, by means of a spell.

  She poured it into the basin, and grabbed a bar of soap and a pile of the folded linen towels left by it. With the towels under her arm and the soap caught her under her chin, she walked back carrying the delicate porcelain basin, with the pink and blue roses painted around the edge, and set them on the floor next to Seraphim, who still looked dead, but who was breathing regularly.

  She dipped a towel in the water and, very gently, started swabbing at the Duke’s blood-covered chest. She was relieved to find that he was not nearly as torn apart as it looked from the blood. His wounds were, in the main, two, one in his chest and one on his arm. Not that it mattered. In Avalon, you could die of a scratch if it were not sterilized in time. And the Duke’s wounds were no scratch.

  “Thank you, Miss,” the strange man said, in the tremulous, breaking voice of a man pushed beyond physical limits.

  She didn’t look up. Instead, she smiled a little, while wiping the blood from Seraphim, and noting those wounds had once been sewn together, though the stitches had now been torn out. “My name,” she said. “Is Helena Felix.”

  “Miss Felix,” he said.

  “But no,” she said. “You must call me Nell.” And sensing, even without looking up, his shock at being invited to call her not just by her first name but by a nickname, she smiled again. “We have fought together. You would not call a comrade in arms by his last name, would you?”

  His breath skipped, showing a hesitancy. She looked up to see him open his mouth, then snap it closed. “I might,” he said. “If he were well born. You see, I don’t know what you– that is, you must know my name is Gabriel Penn, and I’m His Grace’s of Darkwater’s valet.”

  It was Nell’s turn to be shocked. She fought having her mouth drop open in surprise, and instead managed to say in a creditable show of composure. “I see.” But the truth was that she didn’t see at all. Not only was the man an enormously powerful magician – she herself doubted she’d have the stamina to do the resurrection spell four times in a row – but he was undoubtedly trained. And while there was a chance of by-blows, men being what they were, and therefore of a servant having some form of magical power, bastards never – at least in Nell’s experience – had as much power as this man had. And those who did were never taught. At least not the riskier spells.

  Who were the Darkwaters? Seraphim went looking for fights in worlds where he had no business, in direct contravention of his majesty’s laws, and this other man who looked so much like Seraphim, but who was a servant, used spells no one but a gentleman could have been taught to wield. Or have the power to manage.

  “I see,” she said again, and cleared her throat. “I shall call you Gabriel then.”

  He opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it, and got up to go to the drawer in the dressing table. When he returned, he carried a box which, when set by the side of the Duke’s unconscious form and opened, revealed needle and thread and what looked like a complete surgeon’s kit.

  “You might want to look away,” Gabriel said, “Miss.”

  “No, I don’t believe so,” she said. “I’ve seen blood before. You’ll want to disinfect the wound first, though.” And realized he’d already laid hold of brandy and was pouring it over the Duke’s wounds. She was about to tell him pure alcohol was better for that, when she decided the man knew his business as well, if not better than, she.

  Instead, she watched as Gabriel sewed the first of the Duke’s wounds closed, then started to slather it with a thick grey ointment that seemed to be infused with healing magic. “Give me the ointment,” she said, firmly. “I will do that while you sew his chest wound.”

  He inclined his head, saying nothing. “You’ll pardon me,” Nell said at last. “But what business had he to go about like that when he was this seriously wounded?”

  The man made a sound that might have been a hiccup, the beginning of a laugh, or a smothered sob. “None,” he said. “But no use trying to prevent him. When he thinks something is his duty– a great one for duty is the Duke. If you knew how many times– oh, never mind.”

  But Nell had caught both the exasperated affection and the mingled admiration and anger in Gabriel’s voice, and realized it was the feeling of an older brother for a younger brother who was inclined to biting off more than he could chew. The Darkwaters were unusual indeed. Clearly Gabriel knew these spells because he had been educated in magic. And given the aplomb with which he used them, he must have been educated at Cambridge, alongside his legitimate brother.

  Because she knew better – had learned better over her time in this forsaken world – than to question legitimacy or the bond of blood between men of two such different classes, she said, instead, as she slathered the newly-sewn wound, and Gabriel finished cleaning the duke – or as much as he could clean him given his inability to submerge him in water – “The young man who came in with us is under the table there.”

  Gabriel nodded. “Good. I hope he’ll stay out of the way till I can call the housekeeper to get him clothes and, hopefully, to take him to her cousin’s cottage for a while.”

  Nell hesitated. “He… that is, he is a lion shifter.”

  Gabriel nodded again. “A lot of the rescues from that world are. Seraphim usually pays their way into a shifter seminar in Bath. There are two, one for young ladies, and one for young gentlemen. All the teachers are shifters and therefore equipped to train the young people in the ways of control of their magic, and in the ability to shift at will. But I understand they teach them other trades, usually as clerks or secretaries or the like.”

  Nell shook her head at the idea of a shifter secretary. Back in the day when she’d worked in computers, their group’s administrative assistant had looked much like a weasel, but she supposed here it would be more obvious.

  “And the housekeeper knows about this?” Truly the conspiracy to breach the sovereign shields of other worlds was extensive. And the law said all of them were due death. She couldn’t imagine denouncing Seraphim or Gabriel and seeing them beheaded and hung respectively. No. She had seen Seraphim almost die. But if she lied on her report and they found out, surely they would hurt Antoine?

  “She’s my godmother,” Gabriel said, as though that meant something. “The housekeeper. Now, Miss, if you’d step aside.”

  Miss stepped aside, wishing in an annoyed sort of way that the proper Gabriel would call her Nell, a feeling that was dissolved into shock as that man who had just done four resurrection spells lifted Seraphim in his arms and carried him to the bed.

  Oh, the bed was only three steps away, and Gabriel did totter under the weight of the duke, but that he could lift him at all – when both were well-matched for weight and height – much less after the ordeal Gabriel had inflicted on himself, was near-unbelievable.

  Yes, the Darkwaters were an odd family. And they might be made of more-than-human stuff. In fact, she thought squinting, she’d swear that Gabriel Penn’s magic wasn’t wholly human.

  Gabriel laid the duke down, and waved his hand at the mage light on the bedside bringing its glow down. “And now we wait,” he said. “And pray if we remember how.”

  But if there was anyone listening to prayers at that moment, they must have turned away, because – before Nell could answer – the door to the room jiggled, then flung open. Framed in the doorway stood a small, dark woman old enough to be the duke’s mother. It seemed to Ne
ll that was exactly what the woman was, in fact. Nell had memories of seeing portraits.

  But unlike the portraits, the woman wasn’t smiling. She had her opulent dress clutched in either hand, lifting it away from the legs as women of this world did, when they must move swiftly. And she was saying, “Seraphim, I demand that you explain….” The words died, as she looked towards the bed and Seraphim, sprawled on it, unconscious. And then she said, “Oh.”

  The Coils of Duplicity

  Of all the ridiculous situations to be caught in, Gabriel Penn thought. And then he wanted to laugh at the idea that he would call what had just happened – Seraphim almost getting killed, a strange woman in the room, a lion shifter under Seraphim’s book table – ridiculous.

  It was too mild a word and too inappropriate. It was like when, at some grand affair, the most ridiculous things would run through his mind while he leaned against the wall, all but invisible to the company. If he said half the things he thought, he would be … no, he wouldn’t be turned out of the house. The dowager would never do that, and neither would Seraphim. But they might very well shut him up in the attics to which gothic novels would relegate insane relatives.

  The situation was disastrous. The more so, as he saw the Dowager Duchess’s expression grow grave, her eyes pinch, and her expression acquire that hint of dismay that used to accompany her looks at the husband she doted on, and who was never faithful to her. She looked at the bed, intently. Then back at Gabriel. “Gabriel,” she said. Unlike Seraphim, unlike what anyone else would have done, she never called him by his surname. She never treated him as a servant. She treated him… not as her son, exactly, but not much different. “Gabriel. You will tell me what has happened to my son.”

  Gabriel opened his mouth, then closed it. The words had been more than a demand, a certainty. For a moment, the world shifted under Gabriel’s feet. He couldn’t remember what he’d told the Duchess before, to excuse Seraphim’s using a transport spell, right in front of his mother. He didn’t know how to justify Seraphim’s near-mortal wounds or the presence of Miss Helena Felix.

  And then he thought again how much like his father’s imbroglios this was, and how if this had been the old lord, the reason would be something like he had to run out for an assignation with a married woman, whose husband in turn had challenged him to a duel and who–

  And Gabriel had found his feet. When caught in something unlawful, he knew better than to try to make himself sound completely innocent. Unlike Seraphim, he’d had to learn to lie very early and lie very well. In this house, he, like Seraphim, had been told to speak only the truth. But in the years before the Duke had found him and brought him home, he’d learned well enough to survive by any means necessary. The advantage of not being legitimate, of not being the heir, is that you were to an extent free of the constricting bands of honor that imprisoned those of the lawful world.

  “Forgive me, Your Grace,” he said, and let his nervousness leak through, with his exhaustion. He intended to let the Duchess know exactly how gravely her son had been hurt. That way the best of care could be contrived. And Seraphim was going to need the best of care. Gabriel would risk both their honor and their reputations rather than his half-brother’s life. “You will remember I told you that Seraphim had to go to London with all possible speed, to… to take care of a matter of business, and that he would be back upon the instant.”

  “You told me he had to go on a matter of gambling.”

  “It comes to the same for Seraphim, whose gambling is a debt of honor and who–”

  “Cease. I know the excuses. But how come he–” the Duchess took a step to the bed, and stared at Miss Felix. If Gabriel hadn’t stepped in front of her, she would have approached the bed.

  “Well, it turned out the betting… well… it went wrong.”

  “You will not tell me that my son cheated.”

  “No, Your Grace. But the man he bested thought so. And challenged Seraphim to a duel, which– his opponent used a spelled knife and– and a magic gun.”

  The Lady Barbara reeled. She stepped backward, taking her hand to her lips, in a gesture of fear, then walked around Gabriel and to the bed. Now Gabriel let her. He would have spared her the pain of realizing how close to death Seraphim had come, but he must not. The Darkwaters were all magical talents, not like his own, of course, but very powerful for humans. And it would take all of their talent to get him through this.

  He turned around and watched as the Duchess took her son’s hand in hers. She looked, Gabriel thought, perfectly composed, serene. It was something he envied Seraphim. A mother who, without being cold, could be controlled.

  Her magic working – which Gabriel was sure she was doing – did not show, nor could he read it by more than a feeling of magic in the air, a sensation on the edge of sound that energy had been sent forth and absorbed.

  The Lady Barbara looked up. “Which of you?” she said, and looked from the young woman to Gabriel, then again. “Which of you used the resurrection spells? Four times?”

  “Mister Penn did, Madam,” Miss Felix said, with such disarming honesty that Gabriel didn’t know whether to respect her for it, or to hate her for making his life yet more complicated. She must be gentry, he thought. And legitimate too. Only someone raised in the strictest bonds of respectability could be so stupidly honorable.

  “Gabriel?”

  He looked down and let go the willpower keeping his immense tiredness hidden. “I had to, Your Grace. I couldn’t let him die.”

  “No,” the Duchess said. “But you could have called me. I have….” She looked pensive. “…some experience in saving the lives of the foolish men close to me.” And, before Gabriel could ask her what she meant, she looked at Miss Felix. “And you are?”

  And here, Gabriel consigned his soul to perdition once and for all. He knew that if the young lady spoke, she would say something disastrous, such as that Seraphim had saved her from the Pyramid world. Or worse, that Seraphim had saved her and a young lion shifter. If she was in the habit of uttering the truth with no regard for the circumstances, likely she’d tell it now. And Gabriel could not allow that. Not even if it called for the most outrageous lie of his untruthful career.

  His voice shook with the sheer enormity of it, but probably made it all the more convincing, as he said, “Miss Felix, Your Grace, is… a personal friend of mine. With– with the ball in the house, we’d expected to have privacy, you see, and … and we expected to be able to talk undisturbed.”

  The expression of shock in the Duchess’s eyes, as she turned back to look at Gabriel, was only half that in the eyes of Helena Felix, and Gabriel felt unaccountably gratified that he had managed to pay Miss Felix back for the position she’d put him in. He gave her the hint of a restrained smile. If he was going to burn in hell for eternity, he’d amuse himself while he could.

  The Duchess looked at him for a long time. After the shock, a flicker of something in her eyes gave Gabriel the uneasy impression that she knew all too well all that was likely to have happened was literally talk, but then she cleared her throat and said, in a shaking voice, “Well… well… I’m sure that… that is, you wouldn’t bring a woman of ill repute into the house, so you and Miss Felix shall let me know when I am to wish you joy.” She gave him the once over, and there was the hint of incredulity in her eyes again. Or was Gabriel imagining it? He did tend to think that he was glass fronted and everyone could see right through him. “You’ve been very sly and kept it all from us, but I’m glad that Miss Felix was here, to help you save Seraphim’s life.” Her look at both of them told them she didn’t believe a word of it.

  “Now,” she said, taking off the long gloves that had protected her hands and forearms during the ball. “If you and Miss Felix will leave, I will look after my son. Tell Martin to send for Doctor Wilson. And–”

  And Gabriel, in a sweat of apprehension, thinking of the boy shifter under the table, and of Miss Felix, who, for all he knew, had nowhere to go in this
world, plunged madly into the breach, armed with nothing but his knowledge of etiquette and his experience of living so many years amid the truthful and the honorable. “Your Grace cannot stay here,” he said. “I beg your pardon,” he added, to Lady Barbara’s shocked expression. “But Your Grace cannot. Your Grace must see that if Your Grace were to disappear now, with the guests not having left yet, this would become the most astonishing rumor of the season, and no one would cease talking about it… oh, for a year perhaps. Particularly since the Duke didn’t announce his engagement as everyone expected.”

  Lady Barbara favored him with a darkling look. It was not quite a look of reproach, it certainly wasn’t a look of dislike, but it was the look that told him she knew very well he was manipulating her behavior for her own good, and that she didn’t enjoy it.

  “Whenever you start larding your speech with Your Graces, Gabriel,” she said with the disarming frankness she had passed on to her son, “it is a sure thing you’re trying to fool me. I have not forgotten the forcing house incident.” She pressed her lips together, whether at the memory of that most spectacular mishap of his and Seraphim’s childhood or at the present situation, Gabriel couldn’t guess. “But much more the worse is that you’re right. I cannot gratify my feelings by staying here, and thus risk humiliating Lady Honoria, who will be humiliated enough that Seraphim has as good as jilted her in our own ballroom.” She sighed. “I shall say Seraphim is indisposed. They will understand he’s drunk enough to be well and truly disguised, quite out of his mind. And no one will doubt it, considering the way he smelled and acted in the ballroom.” She sighed heavily, and leaned over her son on the bed. Touching her lips to his forehead, she sighed again, then straightened. “Don’t trouble yourself with sending for the doctor, Gabriel. I shall do so myself. Stay by Seraphim’s side, until Doctor Wilson arrives.”