Spellmaker

Elsie hardly noticed. Her mind was spinning. Merton had been displaced from her family. Raised in a workhouse. Reduced to begging and coercion in order to improve her station and become a spellmaker.

She’d visited workhouses to offer blessings before all this. Quite the Christian, donating to peace efforts, Duchess Morris had said.

She’d railed against the rich, likening the differences in class to a war.

Raven was talking again, but Elsie wasn’t listening.

What if she and Merton both wanted the same thing?

“Can it force people to cooperate?” she asked. “To share their resources and get along?”

Raven growled. “I told you, you have to speak up—”

“The contagion spell,” Elsie said. “Can it spread peace, like a mass-blessing spell?” She thought of Ogden. “Or perhaps force obedience?”

Bacchus gave her a curious look.

Raven hesitated again. “Theoretically, yes.”

“What if your spell were used to disperse a spiritual spell capable of controlling others?” Bacchus murmured. “What then?” Before Raven could rail against him for speaking too softly, Elsie repeated the sentiment, louder.

Raven was quiet for nearly a minute. “That would be a terrible way to use it.”

Emmeline said, “Why? What’s so awful about forcing people to share and get along?”

He scoffed. “You English and your ideals. Why? Freedom. Can you imagine forced pacifism spreading like a plague across cities, countries, continents? Stripping people of their free will?”

“Guaranteeing equality no matter what the cost.” Elsie rubbed a chill from her arms. That might not be it, but based on what Merton had related to her over the years . . . it felt right. Yes, Merton could have been lying about her ideals, her aims, but there’d been such unity to the messages, and some of the earlier tasks she’d been given had indeed helped the less fortunate. Ultimately, it didn’t matter—it would be a disaster if a serial murderer in the possession of dozens of opuses got hold of a spell like that.

And only Raven knew it. He had absorbed it, hence the missing drops. It would be the only way for an aspector to know, definitely, that a spell was legitimate. If the drops didn’t absorb, the spell was fraudulent or the aspector wasn’t powerful enough to cast it. If they did . . .

“Meet with us.” Bacchus stepped up to the projection. “Talk with us. Help us find a way to stop her.”

“I think not.”

“Yes, you will,” Elsie pressed. “Because you have to. Because if you didn’t care, you wouldn’t have been in hiding so long. You wouldn’t have sought me out. You wouldn’t be talking to us now. Because some day you will die, and you can’t allow your opus to be found by someone like Lily Merton.”

The colors of the projection shifted, and Elsie could almost feel Quinn Raven staring at her.

Then it winked out entirely.

Emmeline squeaked.

“He’ll be back.” Elsie hugged herself, staring at the corner where the American had been. “He has to come back.”

Because he was part of this, and even if Merton’s “death” had limited her in some ways, she wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. That was a truth Elsie understood without the aid of any spell.

CHAPTER 21

Ogden returned from Rochester on Thursday with a grim look on his face. As Elsie had expected, he’d found no leads on Merton. Every mind he’d pierced believed her to be dead.

Granted, updating him about Master Raven’s visit had instantly lifted his spirits. Which was a very good thing come Saturday, as he was giving Elsie away.

Today.

She was getting married today.

She leaned against the wall beside the door in Emmeline’s room, which had been restored to its original appearance. Rainer and John, Bacchus’s servants from Barbados, had already taken her belongings to their new London home. Her cream-colored dress draping her perfectly; her hair coifed, curled, and pinned; both hands pressed to her stomach as she struggled to breathe. And her corset wasn’t even that tight.

Emmeline stepped into the room, carrying a basket of flower petals that would be used for the aisle in the chapel. One look at Elsie had her mouth and eyes forming perfect O’s.

“Everything will be fine!” Emmeline assured her, rubbing a hand up and down Elsie’s arm.

Elsie shook her head. Everything would not be fine. She’d barely slept last night. She hadn’t been able to stomach breakfast. She couldn’t breathe.

A frown curved Emmeline’s lips. “Really, I think Master Kelsey will make a fine husband—”

“It’s not Master Kelsey.” Her response was airy. “Believe me, Em, I want to marry Bacchus with everything I am. But something terrible is going to happen. I can feel it in my bones. I won’t be allowed this happiness.”

Emmeline laughed. “You’re too young to feel it in your bones! And everything will be perfect. I’ve prayed for you every day this week.”