Spellmaker

The ground evened a little, and she picked up speed, feeling like an injured deer with beagles on its tail. She grasped trees as she ran, trying to keep her balance as her foot screamed at her—

Two hands grabbed her.

“No!” she screamed, beating away at them. “Let me go!”

“Elsie!”

Everything stopped.

That voice.

That accent.

She blinked, tears running freely now. “Bacchus?”

He crushed her to him, and the scents of citrus and fresh-cut wood filled her senses. She clung to him, shuddering, weeping—

Then she ripped away and turned around, nearly falling to her knees. “He’s here. He was just here.”

Bacchus’s arm wrapped around her, his hand splayed across her stomach. He searched the dark wood around them. Elsie strained to hear.

Nothing but crickets and the breeze.

She swallowed. “I got out of the cellar, but he f-found me—”

“Let’s go,” he whispered, the words heavy and sharp. “While we have a chance.”

He tugged her south, and Elsie hissed, grabbing him for support. “I-I twisted my ankle—”

Bacchus bent down, and in one effortless swoop picked her up, holding her like a small child. She gripped fistfuls of his shirt—he didn’t have on a jacket or a waistcoat—and frantically searched the forest beyond his shoulder. There was no sign of her abductor. Had he managed to thwart Merton’s will after all, or had he seen Bacchus and determined it best to stand down?

Bacchus’s footsteps were long and swift. The ground turned downward, sloping into a hill, and she saw a road at the base of it, with a large horse tied across the way. The relief that burst through Elsie was nearly enough to make her lose consciousness.

“Thank you,” she breathed. “Thank you, thank you.”

He was tense and silent as he strode across the road, glancing over his shoulder as he did. He mustn’t have seen anything, because he simply lifted her onto the saddle.

Elsie swallowed against a tight throat. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know—”

“Elsie.” His tone was dark. “If you apologize again, I’m going to rip out my own beard.” Grabbing the horse’s neck, he swung up behind her, quick to take the reins and pull the horse away. They went straight into a gallop, taking off down the dark road, not even a lamp to guide their way. It wasn’t safe, especially not for the horse, but Elsie didn’t complain.

Finally, he said against her neck, “I was so scared I’d find you dead.”

The hairs on her arms stood on end. She leaned against him, head pressed into the valley between his neck and shoulder. She was so utterly terrified and so blissfully happy she barely knew how to feel at all.

“I saw him,” she said, just loud enough to be heard over the horse. “I saw his face. It was narrow, pointed—”

“Master Enoch Phillips.”

She stiffened. “What?”

“This is his estate,” Bacchus practically growled. “Blue eyes, severe features, gray hair?”

She nodded.

“Merton has perhaps the most powerful physical aspector in England under her thumb,” he said. “But she no longer has the element of surprise.”

“What will we do now?” she asked.

Bacchus’s arms tightened around her. “I don’t know.”

His breath was warm against her ear. Words pushed against her tongue—I love you. Thank you. I love you—but she swallowed them back down. She clung to his arms with both hands as they sped into the shadows, leaving her nightmare behind them.

For now, at least.

CHAPTER 17

They rode through the night, meeting Ogden on the road. It was late—past midnight, Elsie learned—and they were exhausted, but no one suggested stopping. They continued on to Master Hill’s house in London.

To think, the man who’d attacked Master Hill was the head of her own atheneum, Master Enoch Phillips.

Elsie still struggled to absorb that one.

After sleeping a few hours in Ruth Hill’s quiet home, they hired a carriage to take them the rest of the way to Brookley in the early-morning hours of Monday. Elsie, having no hairpins, settled on a braid over her shoulder and offered a prayer that none of her neighbors would notice her. She’d slept with her foot up, and the swelling of her ankle had receded, but she still couldn’t walk on it normally.

She was surprised to see a large trunk sitting in the middle of the studio upon entering the house.

“Ah,” Ogden said behind her, “Master Kelsey, it seems your things arrived while we were away.”

“Your things?” Elsie asked as Bacchus, fatigue marking his face, entered the room. Was that why he hadn’t changed after their visit to Master Hill’s home?

Ogden answered, “After your abduction and the attack, we decided it might be better to have two aspectors here instead of one. He’ll stay until the wedding. You will, unfortunately, have to give up your bedroom.”

Elsie blushed, though she really ought not to. It wasn’t technically improper.

Her second thought was relief that she’d decided not to keep her stolen opus spell under her mattress.