Spellmaker

Chewing on her lip, Elsie dared to look in the nearby mirror. The dress wasn’t quite finished, but all the important bits were there. The sleeves, the collar, the gathers in the skirt. Three kinds of lace trim were spread over Emmeline’s lap, and her friend touched each one gingerly, reverently. Elsie hoped she’d be in that chair when Emmeline found someone worthy of her. In truth, she dared to hope her friend’s eye had already been turned to a certain family member of hers.

“You can choose,” Elsie offered, turning a smidge when the dressmaker indicated. “I like all of them.”

Beaming, Emmeline picked up the center strip. “This one will be perfect.”

She prayed Bacchus thought so, too.

Thursday, Reggie returned. He had copies of all the newspapers their articles had been printed in, and though Elsie knew exactly what the articles said, she looked them over anyway, trying to imagine what Quinn Raven’s reaction would be when and if he saw them. She wondered if Reggie could pull in a few favors and get the articles published more than once.

With Elsie occupied, Reggie handed the last paper under his arm to Ogden, whose sleeves were rolled up from pottery work, a few flecks of gray clay clinging to his dark arm hair. “Wasn’t sure if you saw this one.”

Ogden unfurled the paper. The headline font was large enough that when Elsie glanced up, she could easily read it from where she sat at the dining table. Master Enoch Phillips Found Guilty of Opus Thefts, Murders.

Her mouth went dry.

Sighing, Bacchus rubbed his beard. “At least there should be no more, not if Merton wants him to be her scapegoat. The stonemasonry shop should be safe.”

He said nothing about moving out, for which Elsie was grateful. Not only did she feel safer with him there, but she’d come to depend on his steady presence, their late-night talks, his astute nature. He made her feel seen in a way she’d never been seen before.

But this wasn’t right. They couldn’t let Merton get away with it.

“What if it was Ogden behind bars?” She felt the chill of her Oxford cell on her skin, and shivered at the sensation. “Master Phillips . . . he was terrifying, and he was made to do some awful things, but it wasn’t him. I saw him fight it. This isn’t right.”

Ogden lowered the paper. “What would you have us do, Elsie?”

She worried her lip, thinking as Reggie took a seat beside her. “I’ll write to Irene. Perhaps she can bring me to see him before the sentencing. If she says there’s a spell on him, they’ll listen to her. We can prove he was used.”

Bacchus considered. “He would make a powerful ally.”

“I’ll do it now.” She stood, pushing her chair back.

“Careful how you word it,” Ogden warned.

Elsie cast him her best attempt at a withering look. “Really? Ten years of hiding what I am, and you think I’ll make a mistake now?”

Ogden’s lip quirked. He waved, gesturing for her to proceed. “See if she’s heard about the estate, please,” he said, quieter.

Elsie nodded, but she knew Irene would have nothing for her. The spellbreaker had promised to contact them the moment she found out, and thus far, no messages had arrived at the house.

Friday, Irene and Elsie set out before dawn for Her Majesty’s Prison Oxford, where Master Phillips was being held. The same place where Elsie had spent three days herself.

Elsie described the points of the knot of the spiritual spell on the way there, and Irene explained how they would work this trip into Elsie’s studies. Aspector prisons were the most secure jails in the country, and they employed spellbreakers to keep prisoners in line. “It’s a grim job, but a well-paying one,” she offered.

Elsie had no desire to step into Her Majesty’s Prison Oxford again after today, let alone make her living there.

The ride seemed to carry on forever, though the journey had felt even longer in the back of a prison wagon. Her nerves danced when they finally arrived at the stone behemoth, her mind inventing scenarios of being found out and caged once more. But surely Merton wouldn’t surface now, when she was supposed to be dead, and Irene . . . she trusted Irene. The woman had no reason to sell her out.

A guard led them to the prison warden, who wore the pin of a physical aspector himself. Not a master’s pin, like the one Bacchus had, but a blue one that indicated his specialty. Elsie wondered briefly how experienced he was—Intermediate? Advanced?—but didn’t ask. His office was as gray and stony as the rest of the prison, with a single barred window facing south. He sat behind a simple desk nearly empty but for a hibiscus plant sitting on the corner, along with a large magnifying glass and a cup of cold tea.