Whisper the Dead

by Alyxandra Harvey

  “As you should.”

  She aimed for his head. It was big and fat and so perfectly groomed, how could she miss?

  He caught her wrist and squeezed. Hard. He shouldn’t have been fast enough.

  An iron-nail pendant in the shape of a wheel slipped out from under his collar. Gretchen stared at it, then transferred her glare to his haughty, unkindly beautiful face. “I knew it.” Her smile was better suited to one of the animals in the zoological gardens. “You’re a bloody Keeper.”

  “Which is how I knew you’ve been playing with magic beyond your ken.” He leaned in slightly. “I can smell it all over you.”

  “What you smell,” she returned, drilling her finger into his chest until he stumbled back a step, “is some poor witch’s funeral nearly ruined by a bunch of Rovers. Who the Order is meant to keep controlled, if I’m not mistaken.”

  And now he was sniffing her.

  Oh, he was being very subtle about it. Some other girl might have thought he was interested in her, that he was flirting or leaning in for a kiss. But she knew better.

  “Now what are you doing?” she asked, exasperated.

  He froze. “Ascertaining the truth.”

  “By flaring your nostrils?” She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, does that work on all the girls? You can’t gull me, Killingsworth. You’re not the first Greybeard I’ve met.” She shoved him, mostly because she could. “Now stop it.”

  “You’re a Whisperer,” Tobias said.

  “So?”

  “So Whisperers collect strange things for their spells. Bones and teeth and poisonous flowers. Unclean things.”

  “Not me,” Gretchen replied grudgingly. “Though frankly, it sounds more interesting than the embroidery they keep insisting I learn. I told you, what you’re smelling is Rover magic and a binding pendant. So if it’s unclean, blame the Order. And if it’s that noticeable, I’m going straight home for a bath.”

  He stretched out an arm on either side of her, caging her in. His blue eyes were very intent on her. It felt as though he were sorting through the drawers in her bedroom cabinets. She had to fight not to squirm. “I’ll see you back to the drawing room,” he finally murmured, apparently satisfied with whatever it was he saw there.

  “I think I can manage five feet of hallway on my own; thanks all the same.”

  “It wasn’t a request.”

  She crossed her arms. “And yet still I repeat, no thank you.”

  He looked briefly irritated. It was the most human emotion she’d seen on his face so far. “No one told you.”

  “Told me what? That you’re mad? I’ve figured that out all by myself.”

  He looked down the length of his patrician nose. “That I was sent to watch you.”

  She listened for the buzzing sound that told her a spell wasn’t working and, incidentally, when someone was lying to her. There was nothing but their breath in the quiet room and the faint strains of the harp from the parlor.

  “For your protection,” he added.

  The buzzing was so loud it was like a slap to the face.

  He was lying now.

  Whatever he was doing, it had nothing to do with her protection.

  Chapter 3

  Returning to the Rowanstone Academy instead of her father’s townhouse a few streets away still felt strange to Emma.

  Though in all honesty, she preferred it.

  She liked walking through the front door with the other girls who had attended the musicale, even if few of them spoke to her. They’d grown accustomed to the sight of her antlers, but not to the fact that she’d been inside Greymalkin House.

  Still, she loved the academy—from the grand staircase carved with rowan leaves and berries to the long draughty upstairs hallway to the ballroom full of dents and marks from spell class. She was rather proud of the new burns in the floor from the ghoul she’d dispatched with lightning just a few weeks ago. All of it, down to the apothecary closet with its odd collection of flowers, crystals, animal teeth, feathers, and holed stones was more welcoming than her father’s opulent and empty house. The gleaming marble, crystal vases, and gilded table settings couldn’t disguise the fact that Emma had regularly gone days without saying a single word beyond “thank you” to the servants, who were not permitted to reply.

  She slipped a leg over the windowsill, scooting down to her favorite part of the roof. A moth floated past her, denied the tempting light. She lay back on the shingles and the clouds directly above thinned to reveal a scatter of stars. One street over, rain pelted the gardens and hissed at the torches. There were certain advantages to her particular magical gifts.

  There was a sound behind her, and then Cormac blocked the stars for a brief moment before he sat down at her side. He put a finger to his lips before she said a word. He pulled two charms out of his jacket pocket, one shaped like an ear, the other round as a marble and painted to resemble an eye. He placed them on the shingles and smashed them with the side of his fist. She felt, rather than saw, the magic billow around them. It was like sitting in a pocket of mist, except she could still see the sky. One of the nearby gargoyles made a small sound, like a sneeze.

  “No one can see us or hear us now,” he said. “Not even the Keeper they’ve assigned to watch you.”

  “Not you, then?” she asked, disappointed but not surprised.

  “Virgil,” Cormac replied, jaw clenching. Emma winced. They’d hated each other since their school days, and Emma knew perfectly well Virgil wouldn’t hesitate to use her against Cormac if he suspected their attachment. It was that much more vital that they keep each other secret.

  “Well, he’s not very bright,” Emma said lightly. “So I’m not too worried.”

  A smiled flickered at the corner of his mouth before he went serious again. “But he’s ambitious,” he said. “So have a care.”

  She slipped her hand into his, their fingers entwining. She smiled shyly. His dark hair tumbled over his forehead as he turned his head toward her, willing to be distracted. “It was torture being so near you all evening and yet so far,” he said hoarsely.

  She met his eyes and tried not to blush. A normal girl would have known what came next: Cormac would court her with rides in Hyde Park and stolen kisses in ballroom gardens. He would eventually ask to speak to her father, and they would marry by special license one morning at St. James Church, where her own parents were wed.

  But she wasn’t a normal girl. Not anymore. She was a witch with a family secret that could get her banished from society or trapped inside a witch bottle. Cormac reached out to smooth the frown lines between her eyebrows. “You think too hard.” She didn’t disagree. He half smiled. “And you worry too much.”

  “Perhaps,” she allowed. “You’re taking an awful risk.”

  “It’s worth it.” His hands closed around her shoulders, bared by her evening gown.

  “But I’m technically a Greymalkin,” she said, whispering even though she knew the charms shielded them. “You’ve worked so hard to prove yourself to the Order. I could undo it all.”

  “Then it wasn’t worth doing.” He sounded very sure of himself. He raised an eyebrow, drawing back slightly. “Have you changed your mind, Emma?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then nothing else matters.”

  He kissed her; his lips were warm and clever. She leaned into him, kissing him back until his fingers tightened in her hair. He eased her back onto the shingles and the rest of London disappeared. When his tongue touched hers, the entire world vanished. She felt as if she were floating away or falling, she couldn’t be sure. She gripped his coat to hold on. His breath was hot and ragged in her ear, sending delicate shivers down her neck and over her collarbone.

  They could finally lose themselves to each other. She could let go of the Order’s surveillance, the worry over her father in the Underworld, her mother in the forest. Cormac could put aside the lack of magic burning inside him, the lies he told the Order daily, and the fear t
hat it wasn’t enough to protect her.

  For a little while, it was only two mouths and two bodies and a certain singing in the blood. His hand was at her waist and his leg pressed along hers when the rain started to fall. Within moments the sprinkle turned to cold, fat drops that pelted them. By the time they’d dashed to the relative cover of the attic window gable, they were already soaked through. They laughed, wiping water off their faces.

  Emma felt her hair come down out of its chignon. She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry about that.” Cormac grinned. She fought another blush. They both knew it was raining because she’d gotten carried away by his kisses. It still proved difficult to control her magic sometimes.

  He tossed his damp hair off his face. His cravat was wilted around his neck, so he yanked it off, revealing a slice of bare skin. “I have to go anyway,” he said. “I’m due back at Greymalkin House.”

  “I’m sorry about the rain,” she said. “You’ll have a miserable night now. Have you found anything?”

  He shook his head, bewildered. “Nothing at all. The house hasn’t changed.”

  She suppressed a shiver that had nothing to do with her wet dress. His arm slid around her shoulder, and though his touch was gentle and protective, his voice had an edge of bitterness. “I should have been able to protect you.”

  “You were the reason the Lacrimarium’s witch bottle didn’t trap me the way it trapped the Sisters.” She had nightmares about it sometimes. “You did more than even the First Legate could.” All without magic of his own. She didn’t have to say it.

  Cormac didn’t look convinced. She knew it took great effort for him to smooth his scowl and smile his most charming smile. It was the same one he used on countless girls and women. She didn’t smile back. “Don’t,” she said softly.

  He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I’ll find a way to protect you, Emma.”

  She watched him disappear into the dusty darkness of the attic, rain dripping off her antlers. “And I’ll find a way to protect you,” she promised quietly.

  Later that night she woke to find the bedroom floor inches from her nose. Her palms stung and she’d wrenched her left knee. The nightmare was particularly violent, and she’d evidently flung herself clear out of bed.

  She pushed herself into a sitting position, her heart beating in her chest like thunder trapped in a bell jar. She lit a candle with trembling fingers, reminding herself that she was safe in her chambers at the academy. Her fingernails were blue and her teeth chattered, recalling with perfect clarity the searing cold of the Greymalkin Sisters.

  In her dreams, she was back in the Greymalkin House or running barefoot through London while birds dropped dead from the sky. Always the Sisters stalked her, ice spreading from them as inexorably as spilled ink on paper. They reached for her and no matter how fast she ran, it was never fast enough.

  And when she was lucky enough to dream about something else, she dreamed of her father. Ewan Greenwood, banished to wander the Underworld, never reaching the Blessed Isles, where the dead met their loved ones. The Order’s spelled arrow robbed him of that basic right, and it filled Emma with the kind of black sorrow that woke her with tears on her cheeks instead of the perspiration of fear.

  She wrapped her blanket around her shoulders against the cold still trapped in her bones. She couldn’t do much about the nightmares of the Sisters, but she could do something about Ewan. She had to find a way to save him. He’d sacrificed himself to help close the last portal and he shouldn’t be punished for it. Not to mention that he’d been killed and banished in the first place all because of his mother’s last name, not any crime of his own.

  It wasn’t right.

  And she knew full well the same would happen to her if anyone in the Order discovered her secret. They already suspected her and her cousins because of their presence at the Greymalkin House the night the Sisters were defeated, but they had no actual proof.

  She pulled out books she’d borrowed from the school library and hidden in the chest at the foot of her bed. They were all on the same subjects: the Underworld, portals, the Sisters.

  She didn’t know how but she was going to find a way to reverse Ewan’s banishment if it took her decades to do it. She couldn’t save her mother from her own madness, couldn’t even find her now that she’d turned herself into a deer, but she would damn well find a way to get Ewan out of the Underworld.

  No matter what it took.

  When Gretchen stepped out of her house the next morning, Tobias was waiting on the front step.

  The dark blue of his coat and the stark white of his cravat made his pale eyes even more arresting. His cheekbones were as aristocratic as his impressive family lineage, but the shape of his lips was wicked. Too wicked to belong to such a proper lord. He was too handsome for his own good. She scowled at him. He didn’t even have the decency to scowl back, only bowed crisply and politely.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “I am escorting you to the academy, of course,” he replied neutrally, though his eyes glittered.

  “I have my own carriage.” She crossed her arms, thoroughly vexed. “Go away, Tobias.”

  “I rather think not.” He leaned in close, so close she smelled the soap on his skin and could see the curl of hair that refused to stay pinned under his hat. It was endearing. Irritating. She meant irritating, of course.

  And just when she wondered how close he intended to get, he reached around her to push the door open. “Please tell Lady Wyndham that Viscount Killingsworth is here,” he said to the butler.

  “What are you doing now?” Gretchen whispered, aghast. “You can’t talk to my mother.”

  She was trying to forcibly drag Tobias to his carriage when her mother’s heels clicked on the marble of the foyer. “Gretchen, stop that immediately.”

  Gretchen groaned. “I’ll get you for this,” she muttered to Tobias under her breath. She swore he was fighting back a smile. Now he chose to smile.

  He bowed to her mother. She inclined her head. “Lord Killingsworth.”

  “I wonder if I might beg the honor of escorting Lady Gretchen to the academy this morning.”

  Gretchen smirked. Her mother would never agree. It was too scandalous.

  “I’ve brought my open-top barouche and it’s a fine day,” he continued smoothly.

  Gretchen’s smile died. That was far less scandalous. Anyone could see them. The gossips would launch into a frenzy, but there were no indiscretions possible in such a vehicle in town.

  Her mother looked pleased. It was clear if she could have stuffed Gretchen into a wedding gown and shoved her at the poor man, she would have. “Certainly, you may.”

  Gretchen wondered what magic was good for, if not to create a hole big enough to hide in.

  “I’ve already summoned the carriage,” she said, even though she knew full well the attempt was futile.

  “Don’t be silly, Gretchen,” her mother said sharply. “You’ll go with Lord Killingsworth. He is showing you great favor.”

  Tobias offered her his arm. Gretchen took it, afraid her mother might actually chain her in the cellar if she refused. “You know, he’s only doing this because the Order has set him on me,” she said.

  Her mother pursed her lips. That was never a good sign. “Let’s go,” Gretchen added, dragging Tobias down the steps. Her only comfort was that he would suffer as much as she. He clearly didn’t like her; his face got all pinched and haughty whenever he even glanced her way. At least his barouche was well sprung and he handled his horses well, urging them to go faster than she’d have assumed he was comfortable with.

  Once they reached the school, she stepped down without waiting for his help and hurried away, not waiting to see if he followed. She found everyone gathered in the back where the gates between the gardens of the Rowanstone Academy for Young Ladies and the Ironstone Academy for Young Men were opened to create one large open space. Students from both academies flooded onto the lawn, eager f
or the demonstration. Gretchen remembered Mrs. Sparrow saying something about the Order and a traditional tournament. She’d love to get her hands on a lance.

  She found Penelope and Emma under an ash tree. “It’s so romantic,” Penelope said, standing on her tiptoes to get a better glimpse of the older male students waiting in the circle of stones. “Like a tournament out of a King Arthur story. But I do wish Cedric could see this,” she added. “It’s dreadfully unfair that he’s left out of everything just because he’s the grandson of a coachman.”

  Gretchen and Emma exchanged a knowing glance behind her back as they wound through the crowd. “There’s Godric.” She pointed to her brother, sprawled on a marble bench. She marched through the girls floating on satin slippers. Her riding boots made a satisfying slapping sound on the flagstones. Godric’s eyes were only half-glazed, and he smelled like cologne instead of wine. She tilted her head. “Is that a bird in your pocket?”

  He adjusted his coat hastily. There was a strange flutter and a flash of cream-colored parchment. “No. It’s nothing.”

  The cousins advanced as one, smiling. His gaze darted back and forth, but when he realized rescue wasn’t forthcoming, he sighed. “Stop it.”

  “Not a chance,” Gretchen said cheerfully.

  “It’s a poem,” he mumbled. “Folded into the shape of a bird. I’m trying to spell the paper to fly.”

  She climbed up to sit on the back of the bench beside him. “You’re trying to send it to Moira, aren’t you?”

  His ears went red.

  “Let me read it,” Penelope insisted.

  He snorted. “Not in this lifetime or any other.”

  She pouted. “Why not? I love poetry.”

  “Yes, and you’re vicious in your opinions.” He folded his arms protectively over his pockets.

  A bell rang loudly before they could tease him any further. The sound shivered through the spring gardens, silencing the students. Mrs. Sparrow stepped onto the lawn, next to the headmaster of the Ironstone Academy. He was handsome enough to have most of the girls sighing. Penelope fluttered until Gretchen pinched her.