Whisper the Dead

by Alyxandra Harvey

  “He wanted the silver bough I promised you,” she wheezed, blood bubbling on her lips. “But I hid it. You need to use it tonight. It’s a Threshold day. I hid it—”

  Her eyes rolled back in her head. The phosphorescent toads glowed red and then fell apart.

  She was dead before she could finish her sentence.

  Godric’s wolfhound took Gretchen to a cluster of shops at the edge of Mayfair. She glanced around for a tavern, or a gentleman in an ignominious heap on the ground, reeking of gin. She found him sprawled under the shadow of a gargoyle.

  “Damn it, Godric,” she muttered, hurrying to his side. He was lying at an odd angle and she had to crouch down to turn him over. “When are you going to stop drin—”

  He was covered in blood.

  “Oh, God, Godric, can you hear me?” He didn’t have bruises on his face to suggest he’d been in a fight. She patted him down frantically, looking for wounds. His pockets were still full of coins, and his gold watch was tucked into his waistcoat. He hadn’t been robbed or stabbed.

  Then why was there so much blood?

  “Godric, wake up. You have to wake up.”

  It was then that she noticed the strange angle to his neck and the bulge under his knee where his leg was broken. She looked up, trying to see through her tears. He must have fallen off the roof.

  His wolfhound faded away. “No!” she cried out, grabbing for it even though she knew magic couldn’t be caught that way. The familiar’s silhouette glittered red for a moment before there was nothing left of it at all. Godric’s witch knot flared as red as crushed berries.

  He hadn’t fallen. He’d been pushed.

  Godric wasn’t just dead.

  He’d been murdered.

  A shadow fell over her. Someone was speaking to her, but she couldn’t hear over the roaring in her ears. Nothing was real, not the pavement under her knees, not the darkness of the alley or the warmth of her brother’s blood on her hands.

  Even she wasn’t real without Godric, not really. She was a paper doll, dust, ashes, nothing.

  He had kept her from breaking under the crushing weight of fine society and their mother’s expectations, and she had kept him tethered when he threatened to float too far from reality into daydreams.

  In the end he hadn’t floated.

  He’d fallen.

  Her brother.

  He’d always stood up for her, defended her against accusations of improper wild behavior. He’d loaned her his toy weapons, his clothes, even his name when she got herself into trouble. He understood her like no one else. He was the only person in the world who truly, truly understood her.

  And he was gone.

  Emma pushed to her feet, hands shaking. The Toad Mother’s blood was soaking into the ground, staining the dried flowers and the dusty hearthstone. She looked around, feeling even more helpless. The Toad Mother had died protecting the silver bough, and Emma had no idea where it might be hidden. She sifted through some of the broken crockery and bottles filled with strange thick ointments before deciding that if the thief hadn’t found it in the hut, it likely wasn’t here.

  Which left all of the goblin markets.

  And the entire city of London.

  She searched the garden before the futility of the situation set in. She pulled the clouds down until they tattered into mists, which she wrapped around herself. She used a stick to poke into all of the potted herbs and under the flagstones of the path to the door.

  Nothing.

  The last toad in the garden croaked at her.

  She paused, staring down at him. He wasn’t made of magic the way a familiar was, but he’d been steeped in magic in this particular garden for so long he shimmered. His eyes were the same pale green of the Toad Mother’s—hungry, bright, and deadly. He hopped away into an elderberry bush pressed against the window.

  Emma followed, mostly on instinct and curiosity. The toad hid in the cool shadows, staring back at her when she got on her knees and crawled under the branches. Beside him was a small stone gargoyle, tilted on its side as though it had fallen off the roof.

  She reached for it gingerly, ready to snatch her hand back if it decided to bite. It stayed silent and stern, with its veined wings and gray snout. Its talons curved tightly around nothing. There was a small crack running along the bottom of the clay. She slid her thumbnail into it and tried to loosen it. When that didn’t provide any results, she pulled out one of her hairpins and used it like a knife. She jammed it into the clay and wiggled it fiercely until the crack widened slowly, crumbling away to reveal a silvery apple leaf.

  The silver bough.

  She closed her fingers around it, backing out of the bushes and looking around. The mists still clung to the hut and the railing. She could hear the water of the Thames lapping at the bridge, gulls crying, scissor wind chimes tangling together.

  And footsteps.

  She leaped up, heart racing.

  Cormac loomed suddenly out of the haze.

  “Emma!” he exclaimed. “Thank God.”

  She blinked at him, aborted panic making her choke. “What are you doing here?”

  He held a pouch of banishing powder and an iron dagger. The amulets he wore around his neck flared and flickered like embers. The implacable hardness to Cormac’s features was chilling. “My little sister sent me. She said you were in danger.”

  Moira had tied the lock of Godric’s golden hair with thread and placed the curl inside a battered tin locket she found in one of One-Eyed Joe’s baskets. She wore it around her neck even though the glint of a gaslight lamp on the tin might give her away. The risk was worth it. She’d only seen Strawberry once, though she hunted for her constantly. She’d stayed awake the entire first night, searching the shadows. She caught a glimpse of her pale hair on the corner of the building where she’d died. Once, she smelled ripe berries while balancing over an unsteady rain pipe on Cat’s Hole Street, where no one had been able to afford strawberries in over a hundred years.

  After that, Moira assumed she couldn’t be taken by surprise.

  She was, of course, wrong.

  Ice clogged her nostrils and she choked, nearly losing her footing.

  Strawberry hovered just out of reach.

  “Strawberry,” she said, reaching out to take her hand even though she knew it was a fruitless gesture. Strawberry faded in and out, her outline flaring like molten silver as she struggled to show herself.

  Moira clutched the locket so tightly that it cut into her palm. She squinted hard. “Godric’s token can only do so much.”

  Ice crawled over her boots even as hawthorn blossoms were pulled from a tree too far to see, to pelt over Moira. Strawberry flickered and flared like a candle’s flame under a strong wind. She was clearly trying to tell Moira something.

  “Is it about Godric?” she asked.

  More hawthorn petals. The flicker of her silhouette appeared three buildings down. The glass lamp nearby shattered and the gas-fed flame shot up high like a beacon.

  Moira followed, running as fast as she could.

  “We need to get out of here.”

  “But the Toad Mother is dead,” Emma said. “Shouldn’t we report it?”

  “Believe me, the Order will find out soon enough,” he said. “And if she’s already dead, there’s nothing we can do for her right now.” He peered warily through the thick fog. “Let’s go.” He took her hand, noticing the silver bough. He froze. “Why do you have that?” He met her gaze before she could reply. “Never mind. You mean to use it to go to the Underworld and find Ewan.”

  He knew her perhaps a little better than was strictly helpful at the moment. She hadn’t wanted to admit her plans to him. He raised an eyebrow at her. “Fine,” she sighed, not bothering to construct a lie he wouldn’t believe anyway. “Yes.”

  “Because you’re completely mad,” he continued with that false calm that signaled anything but. “Do your cousins know?”

  She shook her head. He stared at her
. “You were going to go alone?”

  “Yes. It seemed safer.”

  “For whom, exactly?”

  “Everyone else.”

  “You’re the only one I care about,” he said evenly. “We need to get you somewhere safe.”

  They emerged onto the bridge. The haze was thick enough that only the glint of windows and the iron chains of swinging shop signs pierced through it. She could only see the vague shadows of people making their way through the markets, but she could hear the cart wheels and the clanging of the blacksmith’s hammer. “Shouldn’t Virgil be storming in right about now, making an ass of himself?” she wondered out loud.

  “With any luck he’ll get so turned around in this fog, he’ll fall over the railing.”

  They passed under the archway leading out of the markets, with its magical symbols and enormous gargoyles snarling from the towers. The mists followed them. Cormac had to step out onto the road to flag a passing hackney. She pulled the glamour up over her antlers before he stopped. “Just drive around,” Cormac told him.

  He smirked at Emma. “Aye.”

  Cormac’s jaw clenched at the implied insult, but he only opened the door to help her up. “If we don’t know where we’re going, then no one can find us. But we need a plan.”

  She glanced out of the window, grimy with fingerprints and noseprints. The fog was yellow and soupy. The carriage had slowed to a crawl as the horses tried to pick their way through the gloom. “That, at least, I can fix,” she said.

  She closed her eyes and imagined a sharp wind blowing through the mists. They tattered but didn’t dissipate. Wind rushed through the small carriage like a herd of wild beasts.

  She’d never realized how gently magic flowed through her, until it turned against her.

  What should have been a subtle shift under her skin, a gathering of energy inside her belly, a tingle in the witch knot on her palm, went vicious. It was burning needles and searing pain jabbing at her from the inside.

  The magic built, and with no outlet, turned on itself. It prowled through her, feasting and tearing with sharp, jagged teeth. She didn’t know how long she screamed, only that her throat was sore, and Cormac was holding her up, eyes wild and desperate.

  “Don’t use your magic,” he was begging her. “Emma, stop. Stop!”

  She collapsed against him, trying to find the strength to keep breathing. The pain receded slowly, inch by inch, like the tide going out. She was hollowed out and bruised. He passed a hand over her hair and she flinched, the skin around her antlers tender and inflamed. He drew back immediately.

  “You’ve been bound, love,” he said softly, helping her to sit up against the cushions. The fog pressed against the window. “When the hell did they take your measure?”

  “I don’t even know what that is,” she said hoarsely.

  “It’s a tradition passed down from covens of old. During the Inquisition, people were assured secrecy because with a black rope measured to your exact length, a person can bind your magical powers,” Cormac explained grimly. “And work magic against you if they decide you’re a threat.”

  Emma’s eyes widened. “Virgil took my measure.”

  Cormac swore. “When? Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t know what he was doing,” she said. “He was angry because I drugged him.”

  “He must have tied a knot in the cord,” Cormac explained, still watching her cautiously, as if she might start screaming again.

  “Or else my mother’s concealing spells have finally faded and they know who my father is now.”

  “Or that.”

  “How do I get it back?” she stared at him, wide-eyed. Her entire body could have been trampled on by wild horses and she’d have felt less pain. “I need to open that portal tonight, Cormac. It’s a Threshold day. And I need to be able to fight back if Sophie comes looking for me!”

  “We have to undo the knot,” he told her. “It hasn’t been done in a very long time. It must be on the ship, where all measures are kept.”

  She needed her magic back. She needed the lightning and the fury of wind. “Let me try again,” she said, fisting her hands and clenching her back teeth. She concentrated on making herself a conduit, on the feel of wind tearing at her hair and hail tearing through spring leaves.

  Pain.

  “Emma—”

  The needles were sharper, longer, more malicious. They scraped inside her skull. Cormac was only slightly gentler, shaking her by the shoulders. Her eyes flew open, sweat prickling the back of her neck. The pain was making her slightly queasy. The fact that he was shaking her didn’t help.

  “Stop it! You’re only hurting yourself.”

  She panted, her skin cold with sweat. She pushed damp hair out of her eyes. “I guess we know where we’re going now. The ship.”

  He cursed.

  “You don’t need to come with me,” she said softly. “I can go by myself.”

  “It would make more sense if I went by myself.” His dark eyes pierced her. “But if you think I’m letting you out of my sight now, with a silver bough in your satchel, you’re daft, woman. And we’ll find the cord faster if you’re there.”

  “Well, you did say I needed to go someplace safe,” she pointed out, smiling weakly. “Can you think of anyplace safer than the ship of the Order of the Iron Nail?”

  “How about anywhere else ever?”

  “At least it’s the last place they’d look for me.”

  The May Eve ball was crowded with witches eager to prove they weren’t afraid of a young girl, warlock or not. Blooming hawthorn trees were painted on the walls and green garlands wound with foxgloves, bell flowers, and spider orchids hung from the chandelier and draped from the ceiling. Blue cameos dangled from the garlands, providing a glamour in the form of ghostly, sprightly nymphs and shaggy-footed satyrs dancing between the guests.

  Red-and-white ribbons dangled from the enormous crystal chandelier in the center of the ballroom, creating a maypole. Hanging from the center was a crown made of pale white hawthorn flowers. Sugar sculptures of famous lovers circled the guests, from Cleopatra and Julius Caesar to Romeo and Juliet. Penelope couldn’t help but cluck her tongue at that.

  “That’s not a romance,” she muttered. “It’s a tragedy. Has anyone actually ever read the play?”

  Ordinarily she would have enjoyed such an extravagant ball, especially with the handsome Lucius as her escort. He brought her lemonade, offered her smoldering glances and a tour of the sugar sculptures. She wanted to revel in it, to lose herself in his green eyes and the beautiful setting, but the festivities were brittle. It was all false bravado and dead eyes.

  Lucius stood closer to her, smelling of sandalwood and champagne. “Are you well?” he asked softly, his breath tickling her ear and sending shivers of a far more pleasant sort across the back of her knees.

  “This seems strange, is all.” She rubbed her arms against a chill. “I can’t see my cousins anywhere. And the music is lovely … but it feels like icing. As if it’s coating everything.” She shook her head with a self-deprecating smile. “You’ll think I’m a goose.”

  “Not at all. May Day can have that effect.” He bowed and offered his arm. “Perhaps if you danced, it would not feel so odd.”

  She let him lead her onto the dance floor, where the other couples made room for them as a waltz swirled and billowed from the balcony where the orchestra played. The perfume of hawthorn flowers was heavy and made her feel cheerfully sleepy, like too much wine. Lucius’s arms went around her waist and she placed her hand on his shoulders, holding tight as he began to whirl her around in graceful circles. The colors of the ladies’ dresses, the white silk of debutantes, the black suit coats of gentlemen, and the striped candy-colored waistcoats of dandies blurred together. She focused on Lucius, on his fierce glass-green eyes and wicked smile. She laughed, finally feeling the spell of May Day wrapping its languorous, shining coils around her.

  When the music final
ly stopped, she was out of breath and pressed against Lucius’s chest. Someone was making a speech about crowning the May Queen, and there was applause and snatches of a song. Penelope barely noticed. The world had narrowed to Lucius’s whisper of a smile, to the angle of his cheekbones, to his mouth covering hers. She almost didn’t notice when the light changed and his face was in shadows.

  He was still looking at her tenderly, thinking he wanted to kiss her. But he was also concerned, wondering if she would ever get over her grief.

  Which made no sense.

  The kiss took over, the flashback slipping away under the touch of his tongue along hers.

  He was kissing her in the middle of the ballroom, for all to see. The scandal would have her turned out of the fine houses of the Beau Monde by morning. She didn’t care. This was the kiss that found her own true love. His lips were soft and clever and he savored her like a sugar-dusted pastry. She kissed him back, her head full of music, just like when she’d eaten the lemon candy Cedric bought at the goblin markets.

  Cedric.

  For some reason the thought of him made her pause and then pull back slightly. She was still close enough that she could see the flecks of amber in Lucius’s eyes.

  “Penelope,” he whispered.

  She couldn’t look away. “Yes?”

  “They’ve crowned you the May Queen.”

  The guests had made a circle around them. Lucius had steered them under the hawthorn crown hanging from the chandelier, and she hadn’t even noticed they’d been moving. Unease trickled through her.

  Something was wrong.

  A footman used a long pole to unhook the crown. Lucius took it, the long ribbons floating as though they were underwater, animated by some charm. They reminded her of the snakes that had followed Emma. They were as yellow as the poisonous fog that plagued London.

  She tried to take a step backward, but his hand was on her lower back, holding her in place. She didn’t even have a chance to speak. The crown settled on her hair. It made her feel exactly like the day she’d eaten too many sweets at the country fair and even her teeth had ached.