Witchfinder (Magical Empires Book 1)

by Sarah Hoyt

  No, instead, Seraphim had to sit on the sofa, his hands atop the dragon-head top of the cane, his mind trying to follow, by sound, the very strange events in his household this evening and, more difficult, trying to make sense of them.

  And Gabriel… Gabriel had entered what Seraphim, with the cruelty of an older brother, even if he was in fact the younger, had been known to call his housekeeper mode. He had marshaled the housemaids to remake the bed, he’d got someone to bring in a bowl of sweet and magically harmonious potpourri to disguise the stench of burnt feathers and scorched broth.

  He’d threatened to have more broth brought in, too, but Seraphim had negotiated that distressing sentence down to a glass of cold milk, which he supposed must be making its way from the kitchens.

  And Gabriel had sent the gardeners down to the lake, with crystal balls affixed at the ends of lanterns. The attack had come from near the lake, or at least the would-be assassin had been near it.

  Seraphim should have thought, as Gabriel obviously had, that any body of water that large, around which serious magic was made, would have recorded the sequence of events and the strength of the attacks. And since it would come to a high court, the least Seraphim could do was make sure that there were crystal balls imprinted with whatever had been recorded in the water, to present to His Majesty when the time came.

  But Seraphim hadn’t thought of it, and Gabriel had, which was probably why Gabriel was the one to whom word was brought of whatever the new disturbance was.

  The first sense of it the duke had was a shiver across the surface of his magic, as though someone had opened a portal between worlds nearby. But it could not be a full portal between worlds. It was something more attenuated and lighter.

  Then there had come a knock at the door, and Gabriel opening it and mumbling something to a man outside, who mumbled something in response. And then Gabriel had started to close the door, and Seraphim had had just about enough.

  “Penny, open the damn door and let the man speak to me.” He understood well enough – perhaps better than other people in the household – Gabriel’s penchant for taking charge, for being useful. He remembered – and wondered if anyone else did – what Gabriel had looked like when he’d been brought in, as Seraphim had then thought, as Seraphim’s birthday gift.

  Though older than Seraphim, and obviously very similar to the heir of the Ainslings, Gabriel had looked gaunt almost to the point of infirmity, his face had been bruised, and he’d appeared terrified. As though he’d been threatened with something even worse than the hunger and the violence he’d endured so far.

  Seraphim had seen the look on Gabriel’s face as he encountered each of the features of life at the Darkwater estate: regular food, toys, a warm and secure bed. He remembered Gabriel’s delight at the roaring fires in the hearths that first winter, his amazed joy at the sweetness of fruit in winter. And he knew Gabriel tried to make himself useful, because at the back of his mind, somehow, he still thought the Ainslings would send him back where they’d found him.

  He’d been afraid of being sent back after that bad business in Cambridge too, though if Darkwater had been asked – he hadn’t – Gabriel had been more sinned against than sinning, and the fault lay with that damned Marlon fellow, who hadn’t lasted much longer before crossing over to the dark arts, either.

  Seraphim’s own trouble at the time, his one and only serious love affair, had rendered him oblivious to the whole thing until it exploded, with Gabriel gibbering in panic at his doorstep. Something for which Seraphim would never forgive himself.

  But as much as Seraphim loved and understood his half-brother, this was the outside of enough and he would not stand for it. He would not be treated as a cross between an excitable maiden aunt and an invalid grandfather in his own house. “Penn,” he said, in a warning tone, as Gabriel hesitated, his hand on the door. “Let the man in, I said.”

  The man came in. He was one of the older gardeners, and Seraphim felt peevish annoyance that he couldn’t remember his name and that Gabriel probably knew it by heart.

  The man wore a crushed felt hat, a dingy coat, and pants that were obviously working garments, judging by the dirt adhering to them. To this was joined an overall dampness, and scraps of what might be aquatic plants here and there. He removed the felt hat – he should have done so on entering the house, of course, but even in a ducal house, the garden personnel was sometimes insufficiently educated in manners. Clasping it in his hands and turning it over and over as he approached Seraphim, he bowed, “As I was telling Mr. Penn, sir, it is the lady in the lake, and a right mess she caused with our recording of the magic, sir.”

  This speech caused Seraphim to wonder if the reason they were treating him as a doddering and senile grandfather was that he had, in fact, gone around the bend. Because none of this made sense. He had to admit ignorance, of course, but he admitted it in the most haughty manner he could conjure. “What are you speaking of?” he asked. “I do not have the pleasure of understanding you.”

  “The lady in the lake,” the man said, as though the matter were obvious.

  “Unless she brought a sword with her, then it is unlikely it is the Lady in the Lake as such,” Seraphim said. “And even if she brought a sword with her, she would have to be an impostor, as I’m sure Arthur’s sword is still where it resides, in the royal armory. So, kindly explain.”

  Gabriel huffed. It wasn’t very audible, and the gardener probably missed it, or else, if he heard it he would have thought nothing of it. But Seraphim heard it clear as day and knew exactly what it meant: that “huff” was Gabriel’s way of telling Seraphim to stop terrorizing the servants and being hard to please, and close upon it, Gabriel lost what patience he’d tried to summon.

  As the gardener continued to twirl his execrable hat in his filthy hands, and stammer something that never amounted to a full word, Gabriel interrupted. “If it please Your Grace, what Marson is trying to tell you is that a woman fell into the lake, as they were using the magic recorders.”

  “Fell from where?” Seraphim asked, turning his inquisitive glance on Seraphim. “The trees? And is she a woman or is she–”

  “She is Miss Helena Felix,” Gabriel hastened, cutting what he presumed – truthfully – was Seraphim’s question about the magical nature of the intruder.

  “Ah,” Seraphim said. “The capable Miss Helena. She stayed behind, then, while I was ill?” He was trying to imagine what Gabriel must have told his mother to justify such a thing. Good heavens, by now he might very well be engaged to the woman. He started to open his mouth, then closed it, because he remembered suddenly that he didn’t even know if he was in fact engaged to Honoria. He had to get Gabriel alone and ask him a few home questions without being attacked by maniacs with bolts and spells.

  “No. It appears she found occasion to come to us again, though,” Gabriel said. “Marson has taken her to the housekeeper’s rooms, to change out of her soaked clothes and get a cup of tea, while they finish the recording in the garden. And he’s given orders that the gentleman who … ah… got unfortunately killed by the bolt you sent out in self-defense be put in the ice house, till royal officers can take charge of–”

  “No,” Seraphim said. And looked at Gabriel’s surprised face. “No. I must see them both.”

  Gabriel’s eyebrows shot up. “Both? Miss Felix and–?”

  “The dead man,” he said, and continued. “Penn, if you please, send one of the housemaids to tell Miss Felix I require her presence immediately. And Marson, kindly have four under-gardeners carry the deceased gentleman up.”

  “What?” the gardener said, clearly shocked. “To Your Grace’s room?”

  Seraphim allowed himself a smile. “If I were feeling more myself,” he said. “I’d go down and look at the corpse myself. As is, though, I don’t feel up to taking the flights of stairs down, yet. And the description I was given of his being a gentleman of average features, with dark hair, and richly dressed, you must understand, tell
s me very little about who he might be or whether I know him. As such, I’ll thank you to bring him up. You can carry him down again, and fast enough.”

  “Yes, sir,” Marson said, but left with the sort of haste that betrayed his suspicions about Seraphim’s sanity. His haste did not escape Gabriel. As both the maids and the gardener left, he closed the door softly and turned to Seraphim, “I hope you’re satisfied, Duke. Your servants will now think you have lost your mind, or perhaps that you intend to dabble in necromancy.” But it was obvious it was just a joke, and, his face sobering, Gabriel told Seraphim, quickly, everything that had passed between the time of his coming back from the pyramids and the present.

  “And you claimed Miss Felix was your fiancée?”

  “You see how important it was to know what your mother knows about me?”

  Seraphim sighed. “Knows, nothing. Understands, I suspect near all. You know she always detects you in falsehood.”

  “Perhaps,” Gabriel said, trying to appear unconcerned, but biting the corner of his upper lip, something he only did when he was concerned. He opened his mouth as though to say something, but at that moment there was a knock, and on Seraphim calling “Come,” the door was opened by two maids who curtseyed and then stood one on either side of the door, looking like statues. In between them, a woman walked in.

  She wasn’t ugly, Seraphim realized, now that he saw her without either anger or fear distorting her features. She looked concerned, she was soaked to the skin, her hair clinging to her head like a dark bonnet. And she was wearing a voluminous grey blanket draped over whatever clothes she’d worn when she’d fallen in the pond. But through it all, it was obvious her features were good, and that she had grace and poise worthy of a – queen?

  Miss Felix made that blanket seem like a trailing royal cloak, as she walked in to stand a few steps from him and curtseyed. “I was told Your Grace wanted to see me,” she said.

  “I did,” he said. “I would like to know how you came to fall in my pond. I presume it was not simply a matter of leaning too far over a branch.”

  Miss Felix looked over her shoulder at the maids by the door, then back at him. Seraphim nodded. “I believe, madam," he said, "that, inconvenient though they are, your chaperones must stay. You can’t be in a room alone with two men.”

  She looked impatient. He’d swear she rolled her eyes, and he could not reconcile her air of obvious quality with this unconcern or ignorance of the social rules. “Very well,” she said, at last speaking in an undertone. “But the thing is, Your Grace, that I don’t know what to tell you. To own the truth, the secret I could tell is not mine, and on it depends the life of someone whom I once thought–” She stopped. “No. On my silence depends the life of someone who might have his defects of character, but who, I’m sure, has done nothing to deserve death.”

  Which, of course, was when the second knock on the door sounded, and on Seraphim authorizing entrance, as Nell stepped a little to the side and turned to look, Mr. Marson came in, leading four strapping boys, who carried, between them, a pallet on which was a form covered in a blanket.

  The pallet was lowered in front of Seraphim, and the blanket pulled back at the same time a lantern was brought near that he might better examine the face of the deceased.

  Seraphim saw a face that looked wholly unknown, and much as had been described to him: dark hair, regular features, a certain appearance of gentility.

  And then Helena Felix leaned forward towards the corpse and gasped. “Antoine!” she said. She sounded more shocked than saddened. “It is Antoine.”

  Before Seraphim could ask her what she meant, and who Antoine might be, he heard running steps and someone burst in through the door, without asking. It was his sister Caroline, her dress rumpled, her hair in a mess. She curtseyed hastily, and looked around as if shocked at the mass of people in the room. Her gaze raked the corpse on the floor, but she seemed not to be at all surprised, more annoyed, as though all these people were here for the purpose of annoying her.

  “Seraphim,” she said, in a scolding tone. “Seraphim, it is the most unlucky thing for you to have everyone here, because you must come with me right away.”

  “Caroline,” he said, and was about to scold her on her lack of manners. He had no time.

  “Yes, yes,” she said. “I know I’m being very shocking, and it’s all very bad, but Seraphim, we think Michael was taken by the elves. They left a changeling in his place.”

  Changeling

  Nell clutched the blanket tightly around herself and wondered what madness she’d fallen into. The entire night – indeed, the entire time since her interview with Sydell - had acquired a feeling of unreality.

  She had to be dreaming. Antoine could not be dead, lying cold and pale on the floor, on that makeshift pallet, staring at the ceiling with unseeing eyes. Antoine had been….

  In her mind she remembered the first time she’d seen him, dressed in jeans and a pale blue t-shirt and looking very much like a twenty-something-year old computer repairman. Which was what he’d said he was, that first time he’d taken her out for coffee. But then there had come the hints that not all was as it seemed, you have great power he’d told her, and, by the time he’d shown her how to open a portal, by the time he’d given her a glimpse of other worlds, it had become obvious to her that he didn’t mean this as a metaphor.

  Perhaps the dream started then, she thought. Perhaps if she closed her eyes and believed really hard, she’d wake up back at her desk, in front of a computer running some routine.

  “Caroline,” Darkwater said. He spoke very softly, his voice all the more terrifying for seeming so unnaturally calm. “What do you mean by a changeling?”

  Nell didn’t want to know what he’d been doing, or what had been happening in this household since she was last here. It was clear to her that though Seraphim had recovered from his near-brush with death – or at least this time Gabriel Penn didn’t seem to be making desperate attempts at reviving his half-brother, he still looked near death. He was pale, his green eyes surrounded by dark circles, his lips looking dry and colorless. And the aura of magic around him looked faded.

  This was all the more puzzling, since Nell gathered that more than a day had passed since she’d been here. His power should have recovered more, unless–

  Unless something else had happened to make him lose strength. She remembered the talk by the lake, about how someone had made an attempt on Seraphim’s life.

  The gardeners, the under-gardeners, and for all she knew the stable boys, all those men who had been on those boats, in the lake, had been – if what she understood of their talk was right – trying to record the event, so that Seraphim would not be condemned for murder. But that meant that he had been attacked by Antoine. Or at least he thought he had.

  She felt vaguely sick. She didn’t know when she’d stopped being in love with Antoine, but she’d never suspected him– no, that was not true, either, over the last months she’d suspected him of perfidy often enough. She simply had never been sure enough of it to consider doing anything that would endanger his life. It seemed like a very foolish thing to condemn a man to death simply because he might not have been straightforward with her, or because he had deceived her by telling her he loved her.

  But she had suspected he had lied to her, and more. First, because it seemed very unlikely that he’d come to Earth in search of her power, her aura of power, as he called it, guided through different worlds by the call of it. Since she’d been in Britannia, Nell had gathered that her power was indeed strong, and indeed large. But to call someone between worlds? That didn’t even make sense. Even the stronger magicians, even with scrying powers, had to be looking for something specific before they homed in on a pattern among universes. Simply having a strong pattern didn’t call anyone.

  Second because she’d seen for herself that Antoine was strong and accomplished, and knew his way across the multi universe. And if that was true, how could he be so foolish as
to transport into Avalon without a care, and let himself be caught in Sydell’s trap.

  No, there was more there than he’d told Nell. He had come here for some reason, and if it hadn’t been to fall into the trap, still it had to be for some reason more important than that he found the world fascinating and wanted to show it to Nell.

  But still– But still Nell didn’t think that Antoine deserved to die, and now, she couldn’t think or believe that Antoine was an assassin. Myriad ideas combated each other in her mind. What if this weren’t real Antoine, but a clever simulacrum? What if this was all designed to make her break and tell all to Darkwater?

  Except Darkwater wasn’t even looking at her, but at the intense dark-haired young woman, who looked so much like the Dowager Duchess. “How do you know it’s a changeling, Caroline, and not simply Michael in a trance?”

  The girl they called Caroline shook her head. Her hands pleated nervously at the skirt of her robe. “It’s not Michael,” she said. “It can’t be. Even in a trance he would wake up when I came in. He would react to my magic. Seraphim, he is all pale and his eyes are blank, and he looks… well, he looks more perfect than any normal human can look. And … And…” Her voice rose in a wail of distress. “Mama says it is a changeling.”

  After her outburst, she took a deep breath and exhaled forcefully, and thrust her head and chest a little forward, as though she expected her brother to challenge her. Darkwater didn’t challenge her. He opened his mouth then closed it, then opened it again to say, in a voice that was little more than a whisper, “Mama?” He looked up and to the side, to where Gabriel Penn stood beside the sofa, seemingly keeping guard over his wounded master. The two men exchanged a glance that contained in it volumes of information Nell would give something to acquire. Both of them looked grave, and whatever wordless communication between them, it didn’t dispel their fears, as both looked even more worried after it.