Spellmaker

It was at the third parish he visited that something raised gooseflesh on his arms. He paused, turning around, his surroundings completely unfamiliar and yet not. A wave of frustration worked through him. If only he could use spells on his own mind, hypnotize answers from his subconscious. But there was something.

He could see the spires of the local chapel and began toward it, but that felt wrong somehow. Retreating, he again stood in the place from before, a cobbled road at the crest of the town. It would have been a good view, if not for the thick trees.

Turning slowly, he noticed a narrow staircase to the east, centuries old and laid with stone. A chill coursed down his back. He’d been on that staircase before. The second-to-last step was uneven. He’d tripped on it in his rush . . .

His rush . . .

Clenching his jaw, Cuthbert ran toward the stairs, not out of a desire for speed, but to help him remember. She’d driven him hard; he’d been exhausted upon reaching the docks, which was why Merton had demanded he use opus spells to slow down his pursuers. He sprinted for the stairs, and despite expecting the dip in the stone, he tripped and fell onto his hands and knees at the bottom.

His right knee pounded painfully, the stone striking an old bruise. A bruise he must have gotten here.

Standing slowly, Cuthbert closed his eyes, imagining night wind in his hair despite it being midafternoon. He felt a questioning gaze from a passerby and ignored it.

Running downhill, toward a gas lamp. Around the corner. Another stumble at the end of the cobblestone path.

Opening his eyes, Cuthbert jogged down the way, finding an unlit lamp at a crossroads. Left would take him deeper into town, right . . . at the end of the street, the trees were overgrown and the path narrowed, turning to packed dirt.

Cuthbert ran right.

He slowed when he reached the trees, stooping to avoid their branches. He looked around for any broken boughs, any opening in the green. He found nothing. He followed the path for an eighth of a mile before it ended at an old stone wall, flowering weeds poking through its mortar.

He almost didn’t notice the steep dip to his right. Sitting, he slid down it five feet and followed the wall. The trees lifted just enough for him to identify three burial chambers, the stone crosses at their heads weathered and nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the stone.

This was it.

Holding his breath, he approached the first sepulcher, scanned for witnesses, and shouldered the heavy door open, the scents of must and mildew rushing at him. The interior was small, but the chill was achingly familiar. He checked the tombs. The first held only bones and remnants of rotted clothes. The next was the same. But the third . . . the third was larger. There was a stone casket in the back, and just behind it a smaller one, made for a child. The moment he touched it, Cuthbert knew it. The roughness of the ancient stone, the weight of the lid. This was it. Grasping the lip with both hands, he heaved it up and over, then stood aside so light from the doorway could pour in.

The casket was far deeper than the others, at least four feet, and it was entirely empty, even of bones.

Merton had already been here, and none of the dead could tell him where she’d gone.

Elsie had dozed off again. She startled awake, her stomach cramping as she did so. The jailer kept her fed, but it was food she wasn’t used to, as the bucket in the far corner could attest. She wasn’t sure if it was a lucky rotation or pity from one of the guards, but they’d let her bathe last night. The water hadn’t been fresh, but it had been a bath. She wore the same dress she’d been arrested in, and the hair at the center of her simple braid was still damp.

It was her third day in prison. She hadn’t seen either Ogden or Bacchus in a day and a half, although she could have sworn Merton had returned to her cell in the dead of night. She couldn’t remember anything else about it—just a fleeting impression—so it may have been a dream. She’d had lots of those here. Snippets of things not quite real, sometimes in the darkness, sometimes in the daylight. She wondered if that was how madness started. Either way, it would make a great plot for a novel reader. Perhaps, if she ever got out of this horrid place, she could sell it to someone.

If she ever got out.

Looking at the bars longingly, Elsie touched her neck, wondering what it would feel like to have it snap. Would she die right away, or just hang there, broken and hurting, until blood stopped flowing to her brain?

Footsteps sounded, and while Elsie longed for company, her heart dropped to her hips and her fingers turned to ice. She stood up slowly, not wanting to upset her stomach, as one of the guards approached the door. He pulled a key ring from his belt and looked up at her through dark eyelashes.