“And how do I-?” Kelf straightened. “Where’s all the blood? There was blood all over her, and now it’s gone.”
“Aye. That’s how I cast the healing spell. I need the blood to make the conjuring work.”
Kelf regarded him the way he might a leper. “Stay away from me,” he said, shaking a meaty finger at Ethan. “She might choose to have you around, but I want nothin’ more to do with you.”
“I’m keeping her alive, Kelf!”
“Even so.”
He turned on his heel and yanked the door open once more.
“Kelf, wait.”
The barman halted but didn’t face him.
“Say nothing to anyone else. Please. For Kannice’s sake if not for mine.”
Kelf said nothing, made no gesture. He simply left the kitchen.
Alone once more, Ethan retrieved his knife with one hand and cut himself again. For a third time, he cast the healing spell, allowing the power to flow into Kannice’s body. There did not seem to be any more blood flowing from the wound, and she breathed still, though her breaths were shallow. He wasn’t yet ready to look at the wound; he didn’t know if a third conjuring would do her any good, but he feared what he would find when at last he pulled his hands away to see what Ramsey’s spells had wrought.
Ramsey’s spells.
He had come here looking for Diver, and instead he had come within a blade’s breadth of getting Kannice killed.
Time to choose, Kaille.
He heard the captain’s warning once more, understanding at long last. This was what he had meant. Time to choose between the people who mattered to him most, between his love and his oldest, dearest friend.
He had to save Kannice’s life. There had been no choice in that at all. But what was happening to Diver? What peril faced him? Ethan had not noticed any other spells in these last harrowing moments, but being so intent on Kannice, he wasn’t sure that he would have.
When at last his third healing spell had run its course, Ethan removed his hands and looked through the slice in her bodice to see the skin beneath. The scar below her sternum was livid still, but the skin had closed. He laid his head on her breast and heard her heart beating, slow but strong. Her chest rose and fell with her breathing. She might well have been sleeping, save for the pallor of her cheeks.
“Thank God,” he whispered, fresh tears on his face.
He stood, his knees protesting as he straightened his legs. He took a pair of towels from beside the stove, folded them, and slipped them under Kannice’s head. They were a poor substitute for a pillow, but he didn’t wish to move her. And, he had to admit, he didn’t want others out in the tavern to see her and wonder, as Kelf had, why the blood on her dress had vanished. But if she was to remain here for now, she would need a blanket.
Ethan stepped to the door and opened it, only to find Kelf in the act of reaching for the door handle. He held a blanket in his arms.
Face-to-face with Ethan, he scowled.
“I was coming to get a blanket,” Ethan said.
“Well, here, take this one.” The barkeep thrust the blanket into Ethan’s hands and walked away.
He watched Kelf move to the far end of the bar before returning to Kannice’s side and laying the blanket over her. Bending closer to her, he touched her cheek with the back of his hand. It might have been his imagination, or his desperate wish to see some improvement in her condition before he left the tavern, but he thought that her skin might have felt a bit warmer.
He kissed her forehead. “I have to go,” he whispered. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, and in the meanwhile, Kelf will take care of you. I love you.”
Ethan stood once more, walked out of the kitchen, and approached the barman. Kelf stiffened as Ethan approached, and would not look at him.
“What happened to the other man who was stabbed?”
“He’s upstairs with a surgeon. But he lost a lot of blood.”
“And the man who stabbed him and Kannice?”
Kelf shrugged, his eyes still trained on the bar. “I took him outside, hopin’ to find a man of the watch. But I couldn’t-seems there’s some business goin’ on in the streets tonight. I even heard some lads yellin’ ‘fire.’ I didn’t want to waste much time on him. So, in the end I left him lyin’ in the street. And good riddance to him. I hope he freezes.”
Ethan would have liked to explain that it wasn’t the man’s fault, that he had been controlled by a spell. But he knew that Kelf wouldn’t want to hear any of it, and their friendship already lay in tatters. Moreover, it sounded as though he needed to see to the other half of the “choice” Ramsey had given him.
“Where were they yelling ‘fire’?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Does it matter?”
“I have to go.”
Kelf did look at him then, though only for an instant.
“Diver’s in trouble, and I have to find him. Kannice should be all right now, but I don’t know how long it will be before she wakes. You’ll have to watch her.”
“I plan to.”
Ethan hesitated. “Kelf-”
“Diver needs your help. Go find him.”
He nodded and left.
Chapter Eighteen
The wind had died away, leaving the night cold but pleasant. A quarter moon shone in a clear sky, its glow reflected off the snow to light the streets and buildings of the city. Ethan smelled no smoke in the air, but he did hear raised voices coming from several directions, and for a moment, standing outside the Dowsing Rod on Sudbury Street, he wasn’t certain where he should begin his search for Diver.
It occurred to him then that Ramsey, intentionally or not, had given him a hint. If he could locate the conjurer Morrison, he might find Diver as well.
He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out three leaves of mullein.
“Locus magi ex verbasco evocatus.” Location of conjurer, conjured from mullein.
Reg, who had stayed with him as he healed Kannice, watched, appearing eager. The spell rumbled in the icy street and spread outward. Before long, Ethan felt it pool around a conjurer near Murray’s Barracks only a short distance away. Ethan took a step in that direction, only to halt as his conjuring found a second speller, this one nearer the Town House.
“There are two,” he said to the ghost.
Reg nodded.
“Grant and Morrison?”
The ghost gazed back at him, offering no response.
Ethan started toward the barracks, and the nearer of the two conjurers. The closer he drew to Brattle Street, the more people he heard shouting and calling to one another. Gangs of young men rushed through the streets, most of them carrying sticks and clubs. Groups of soldiers marched in the lanes as well, their muskets fixed with bayonets. Whatever the patriots had in mind for this night, General Gage’s men were taking it seriously.
Reaching the corner of Brattle Street and Hillier’s Lane, Ethan saw that a large crowd had gathered in front of the barracks, pressing into the street. The bells of the Brattle Street Church began to peal. Young men taunted the soldiers and pelted them with snowballs and ice, as had the pups Ethan had seen several nights earlier. Others yelled “Fire!” and “Town-born, turn out!”
Both cries were intended to bring more men and boys out-of-doors: very useful when there was, in fact, a fire burning in the city, but folly on a night such as this, when calling more people into the street increased the danger to all.
He didn’t see Morrison outside the barracks, nor did he spot Diver among the men converging on the soldiers’ quarters. His trepidation mounting, Ethan turned away from the barracks and strode eastward, toward King Street and the Town House.
Before he reached the building, with its great clock tower, the bell of the Old Brick Church, on Church Square near King Street, began to toll as well, which promised to summon still more people to the gathering. He had yet to feel another conjuring, and he could see no evidence that Samuel Adams or others among the leaders of the Sons of Liberty were directing events. Rather, it seemed that circumstances themselves were conspiring to make matters ever worse.