Spellbreaker

CHAPTER 16

For a time it seemed the cab could not go fast enough. Elsie was sure she’d see the Duke of Kent’s carriage outside her window, or worse, following her. But Bacchus honored her request and did not pursue her. Which strangely made her wish he had.

No matter. She’d cashed in the banknote and now rode privately, her valise on the bench across from her. Cabs didn’t always go long distances, so she did have to change two more times before finding a boardinghouse to stay in for the night, and she left early the next morning to make it to Colchester.

Once there, she had the driver leave her off at a local hotel, suspecting it might be noticed if the carriage left her off at the address on the note. Best not to take chances.

After leaving her bag in the room, she took a casual walk past the shed. It was guarded not by spells, of course—that would have been too easy—but by people. The true nature of the money in the envelope dawned on her. She’d need to stay in Colchester until she learned the guards’ schedule. Perhaps they’d be particularly God-fearing guards and the Sabbath would send them home, but she couldn’t rely on that.

That first day, Friday, she strolled past the shed three times. The second time, four hours after the first, there was a new man at the entrance, and he was replaced by two men come evening. She didn’t recognize the guard on watch the next morning, but did recognize the one that afternoon. She never caught them changing shifts.

The Cowls wouldn’t assign you a task you’re unable to complete. Not without sending help.

The local church started at nine in the morning. Thirty minutes past that, a siren sounded a ways off. Its whine struck fear into her heart, and she stayed where she was for a solid ten minutes. When no one came after her, she crept back to the shed, surprised to see it unwatched. Surely it wasn’t a coincidence. A Cowl must have set off the alarm or caused a distraction of some sort, knowing she’d be there.

She itched to follow the sound of the alarm, to find a Cowl or, perhaps, someone else who worked for them, but time was of the essence.

She moved quickly.

The room was hot and dim, but she saw enough to make her cringe. All sorts of weapons and tools hung on the walls. How many of these were used against the poor, especially those driven to crime by starving bellies and desperation? The thought made her shudder. She nearly sprinted along the walls, running her hands across handles, avoiding blades. She found the enchanted weapons quickly; they were in the back, sharing a wall.

She didn’t recognize the spells on them except for a temporal rune for preventing rust. She undid everything, untying knot after knot until her wrists itched. Then, her bodice sticking to her chest with perspiration, she fled. She thought she heard a man yell after her as she went, but she ran until her corset became suffocating and sweat dripped from her hairline, and by the time she looped back to her hotel, she had no pursuers.

She departed for Brookley the same day.

This week had been one of the most stressful times in Bacchus’s life.

All those hours he’d spent stewing over the second spell, unsure what it could mean, had worn on him. He’d hated Ipswich, too. All of the sugar farms had made him think of home in the worst way possible. He hated sugar plantations. Hated what they represented—the fall and mistreatment of his friends’ and neighbors’ ancestors, a legacy that still clung to them even sixty years after emancipation. He hated sweets for the same reason—the sweetest thing he could stomach was pawpaw.

And then the spell prolonging his life had been removed, and the mysterious second spell had been broken, and . . . he felt marvelous. Healthy, strong, invigorated. Like he was thirteen again. The transition was so confusing, so blissful. His outlook had brightened almost instantly. He could get his mastership easily now; the ambulation spell didn’t matter.

He could do anything he wanted.

And yet his glee had been short-lived, not only due to the knowledge that someone had purposefully sabotaged him with that spell, but because of the emptiness of the carriage. He felt the lack of a woman who, he had to admit, was rather . . . amiable.

Amiable. Even he felt the wrongness of the word. Yes, she was amiable, but it was something else that drew him to her. He could still feel the cool touch of her fingers over his chest and stomach. It had dissipated his anxiety and stoked something even more maddening. Something he hadn’t wished to dwell on before, given their circumstances.

Now she was gone, and he couldn’t be more confused.

He no longer suspected Elsie of thievery, but she guarded her secrets so closely. She’d seemed so honest with him, so frank, on their trip to Ipswich, and just as quickly she’d shut down. Fled without reason. Abandoned a mission she’d seemed intent on seeing through.

What had been in that letter? A threat? Blackmail? Or was he letting his imagination get away from him? He’d wanted to ask her to explain herself. But her eyes had looked so worried, her mouth resolute, and she’d just broken the bonds he had unknowingly worn since adolescence. And so he’d let her go, leaving himself to simmer in unanswered questions.

Rather than head straight to London, he returned first to Kent, wanting to update the duke and see if Elsie’s promised telegram had arrived. He arrived on Sunday to find there was no telegram, and the duke had fallen into poor health while he was away. It was not the first time it had happened, but it concerned Bacchus, nonetheless. The duke’s entire family was at the end of their line, worrying over him. And so Bacchus had spent most of his Sunday pacing the long corridors of the estate, tormenting himself. He must have been a sight, for even Rainer and John kept their distance.

Early Monday morning, he returned to London, to the Physical Atheneum.

He’d written ahead to request an appointment regarding his advancement. But when he arrived, the first place he went was the library. The maze of books became an utter labyrinth once he began walking through the shelves. They hadn’t seemed so imposing in passing.

He spotted an elderly steward in one of the larger rooms and approached the man.

“You, are you employed here?” He sounded impatient. He tried to reel himself in, but the questions were boiling over. He could solve at least one of them now: What rune had marked his skin?

As for Elsie’s—Miss Camden’s—well-being, he was forced to wait.

The steward looked over his spectacles. He appeared to be frowning, but perhaps that was simply the way the loose skin of his face hung. “Never seen a Spaniard in these parts.”

Bacchus doubted he’d ever seen a Spaniard period, as Bacchus wasn’t one. He stuffed his impatience into his stomach and chose not to correct the man. “Do you know of any volumes depicting runes?”

He blinked, the spectacles making his eyes large and birdlike. “Runes? Those are spellbreaker books. Down in the basement. Why?”

“Thank you.” He stepped away. Paused. “Would you kindly point me in the direction of the stairs?”

The man did, with a crooked finger, and Bacchus crossed the floor with long strides. Bookshelves like sentinels stood in his way, but eventually he found a stairwell basked in shadow, thanks to a burned-out lamp. He took it carefully, the temperature lowering by the step. The smell of mildew snuck into his nose as he reached the bottom.

The area was poorly lit, so Bacchus took one of the lamps off the wall and brought it with him. Two others shared the space: a woman nearly as old as the steward, and a boy who could not have yet been twelve. The woman squinted at Bacchus; the boy, his hair mussed, pored over a book. Her apprentice, he suspected. Perhaps he was a spellbreaker in the making. Hopefully he did not have the tome Bacchus sought.

The man had not said where in the basement the books would be, and so Bacchus forced himself to slow down, to read spines and labels, which were severely lacking in information. He pulled out the folded paper in his pocket to again study Elsie’s drawing. The symbol looked almost Asian, but the curls on the edges lent it more of a French aesthetic. Not that it mattered. Magic was universal.

Tucking the paper away—thinking about Hadleigh, where Elsie claimed to have gone—he investigated one row of books, then another only a quarter full. On to the next shelf. At this rate, he’d have to ask the old woman—

Encyclopedia of Runes until 1804, a book spat at him. The spine was the same width as his hand, and when he pulled it free, he grunted at its weight. The thing might as well have been made of iron. He expected dust, but got little. Either the tome was used often or the stewards of the library took their jobs very seriously.

He searched for a table, but the only other one was back by the woman and her apprentice, and he’d rather have privacy. So he returned to the quarter-full shelf and set down both the lamp and the book, opening the latter.

It had three to four spells per page, labeled in alphabetical order. Fortunately, the thing was also segmented into four sections: novice, intermediate, advanced, and master spells. He flipped to the last quarter and slowly turned the pages, moving the lamp closer.

So that’s what the ambulation spell looks like, he thought, tracing his fingers over the complex coils of the spell he’d tried so hard to obtain. A spell he no longer needed, thanks to Elsie. His stomach tightened. He ignored it.

The ambulation rune would do nothing to teach him the Latin spell that would actually enable him to use it. The name had a plus sign by it. An advanced master spell, then.

He turned the page. Upon closer inspection, the ink was actually colored to match the alignment of the spells. The physical spells were blue, rational spells red, spiritual spells yellow, and temporal spells green. The yellow ink had faded, making the spiritual runes hard to read in the poor lighting, but Bacchus had a mind for only the physical runes.

He dismissed spell after spell, turned page after page. Thought he heard the woman and boy move from their table to the stairs. He neared the end, turned the page.

Saw the rune immediately.

His breath caught, and he slammed a hand onto the page as though the rune might leap away. The blue ink was faded nearly to black, and the name had two pluses by it. A very strong spell.

The letters seemed foreign for a moment. Bacchus held the lamp even closer. The word revealed itself. Siphon.

He formed the syllables with his lips. Siphon. A siphoning spell? And on the following page, the rune was inversed. Squinting at the faded text beneath the images, he read on the first, Dare, and on the second, Accipere. Latin. To give and to receive.

A physical aspector had somehow placed a high-ranking master spell on his person and . . . siphoned his strength away from him? Given him symptoms two doctors had diagnosed as the early onset of polio? Had the aspector kept the stolen strength for himself? Bottled it up? Let it drain out with the sea?

Why?

He gripped the edges of the book until his fingernails left marks in the covers. His only consolation was knowing that whoever had benefitted from sapping his strength could no longer tap it. But where had it happened? Barbados? England? He’d been to New York and France as well, but he had absolutely no memory of the event . . . or of the person who’d done it. Had a rational aspector been present as well, to wipe his mind clean?

Now he was getting into the absurd.

Siphon. He knew when, roughly, it had happened. Before his parents had brought the first doctor in. But . . .

Closing his eyes, he racked his memory. He’d come to England often as a boy. Gotten seasick once on the journey back. Had that been the start of the siphoning, or had it not occurred until he was home in Barbados? But Barbados was not renowned for its aspectors. Bacchus has been one of few, though American spellmakers were known to holiday there during the winter months . . .

He slammed the book shut. He couldn’t make sense of it . . . and he had to accept that he might never know. He could investigate in Barbados first, ask his aging nursemaid, but she had never accompanied him and his father on their trips. She’d fretted over him. Wept over the diagnosis! Had she known anything, surely she would have said so. And to think his father would never know the truth . . .

He pulled away from the shelf, dragging the light with him. Let it go, he heard his father say in his memory. It will do you no good, allowing it to fester.

He’d said it to him often, first when he was the only foreign-looking boy on the English streets, and later when his temper rose over inconsequential things.

He couldn’t let it go, not yet. But he would tuck it away until he could investigate further.

In the meantime, he had a mastership to obtain.