Spellmaker

The kitchen clean, Elsie brushed off her hands and hurried up the stairs, to where the green pencil rested against a piece of parchment. The top of the page read, in her handwriting, She-who-will-not-be-named has supposedly retired and left London without a trace. I have to find her, Bacchus. I need your help. I know it’s wrong of me to ask when you’ve already done so much, but if she’s a friend of the duke’s, perhaps he and the duchess could answer some questions.

She hadn’t signed her name. She doubted Bacchus was sharing magicked pencils with a large number of desperate women. Or at least she hoped not.

To her relief, new handwriting had been scrawled under her own, capital letters with small flourishes that made them remarkably handsome. Of course I will help you. It works out well. The duchess wants to have you for tea.

That was it. Chewing on her lip, Elsie wrote, Why?

The pencil wrenched from her grip seconds later, eliciting a startled chuckle from her. It tilted and scrawled, Because she wants to help plan the wedding.

Elsie’s stomach clenched. Of course the Scotts would know about the engagement. Seeing the word wedding written out so plainly made it feel monumentally real.

When she didn’t reply right away, Bacchus added, Her cousin Mrs. Abrams is visiting and insists on lending a hand. “Six daughters married,” she says. Over and over. And over.

Elsie smiled and took the pencil from his invisible grip. I will endeavor to rescue you.

Bacchus waited only a breath before writing, I’ll send a carriage within the hour.

Mrs. Abrams was a severe woman with meticulously curled auburn hair that parted right at the center of her head in the straightest line Elsie had ever beheld. It oddly matched the duchess’s morning room, the chairs and piano of which were all stained cherrywood. The walls were white with simple embellishments around their edges. A painted picture of the estate from a distance hung over a white fireplace, and a rose-colored rug with a fish-scale pattern lay underfoot. Elsie perched, back rigid, on a blush-pink sofa beside Bacchus, while Mrs. Abrams and the duchess occupied a pale-green settee to Elsie’s left. A tea tray lay on the table between them, the tea already served, Elsie’s teacup cradled in her lap. She’d drunk enough to ensure her nerves would not cause the remainder to spill. Her stomach wouldn’t handle any more.

“And it’s my understanding you’re employed?” Mrs. Abrams asked. Her eyes were especially large and seemed to bulge from their sockets, watching Elsie without blinking. She said the word employed like it had a sour taste to it.

“Yes, I work for a stonemason.” She ached to look anywhere else, but sensed it would be considered rude if she averted her gaze.

The duchess smiled. “It’s good for a woman to have a disposition of responsibility, especially going into a marriage.” Her gaze shifted to Bacchus. “I really am so happy for you. I must admit my husband is a seer. He remarked on this very possibility the night we had you for dinner, Miss Camden.”

An itch rose in Elsie’s throat; she sipped some tea to soothe it before leaning forward and safely depositing the cup and saucer on the table before her. “Yes, well, the duke is very, um, perceptive.”

The duchess was, of course, referring to the night Elsie had actually been invited to dinner, not the afternoon she’d barged in screaming warnings, after which Abel Nash had emerged from his hiding place behind the curtains and attempted to snuff Bacchus. But they needn’t bring that up.

“He is,” Bacchus agreed simply. He opened his mouth to say more when Mrs. Abrams barreled in.

“Now, for the wedding. It’s good that May is behind us. A very unlucky month to get married.”

“Now, Alison,” the duchess chided softly.

“It is!” She set down her saucer. “My daughter—I’ve seen all six of them married, you know, and to good husbands—”

Elsie and Bacchus exchanged a look that had a restrained smile pinching Elsie’s cheeks.

“—she married May 27 despite my telling her not to, and she lost her first child!”

Elsie quickly sobered. “Oh my, that’s terrible.”

“Should have listened to me.” Mrs. Abrams’s curls bounced as she shook her head, and Elsie decided she did not especially like this woman, let alone want her to play any part in their wedding plans. But she would not voice such a thing here. What she needed was to segue the conversation to Merton.