“Was it like the one you felt the day the Seider boy was shot?”
“Aye. And I know now beyond any doubt that Ramsey is back in Boston. What happened tonight may have been as much his doing as it was Preston’s or anyone else’s.”
“I want him caught, Kaille. I want him dead.”
“No more than I do.”
He thought Greenleaf might argue, but the sheriff merely nodded again, his gaze straying once more toward the Town House.
“I need to be on my way,” Greenleaf said. “I have men to question tonight, and already there’s talk of a town meeting tomorrow at Faneuil Hall. We could see more blood before this is over. But, still, I want to know when you find Ramsey.”
“You will.”
Greenleaf tipped his hat and strode off toward the western end of King Street.
Ethan watched him go, wondering how he might win access to Murray’s Barracks once more. He wanted to speak with the soldier Morrison. If he was going to find Ramsey, he would need information from the man helping the captain.
Even as he thought this, however, another man he recognized meandered by. This young gentleman, wearing a woolen cape and carrying a brass-tipped walking cane, halted a few paces from where Ethan stood to stare down at a large, red stain in the snow.
“Mister Grant?” Ethan said.
The young conjurer Ethan had met in the Green Dragon tavern started at the sound of his name, and took a step back. He gawked at Ethan for a few seconds, recognition dawning in his expression.
“Mister Kaille?” he said, sounding unsure of himself.
“Aye.” Ethan walked over to the man and proffered a gloved hand, which Grant gripped briefly.
“Terrible business,” the clerk said, looking down at the blood again. “I was here when it happened.”
“I was as well,” Ethan said.
“Then you know. I feared this day would come. I suppose we all did when the occupation began.”
The realization came to Ethan as an epiphany. “Wait! If you were here, then you must have felt the conjuring as well. Seconds before the first soldier fired his weapon.”
Grant’s eyes widened. “Yes, I did! I thought at the time that I had imagined it.”
“Would that you had,” Ethan said. “It was a powerful spell; I don’t see how you could have confused it for anything but what it was.”
Under the light of the quarter moon, Ethan saw the man’s cheeks color. “I’m not as skilled in matters of spellmaking as I should be,” he said. “But … but you say it was real?”
“Aye.”
Before Ethan could say more, shouts went up from beyond the Town House. He froze, listening again for the report of muskets. But he heard naught but voices. He wondered if the mob had seen Hutchinson or the sheriff. Neither would be well received on this night.
“What do you suppose is happening there?” Grant asked. “Shall we go and see?”
“I think I would be better off remaining here.”
“Yes, you’re probably right. There’s no sense tempting fate a second time.”
Ethan regarded the man through narrowed eyes. “Why were you abroad tonight, Mister Grant? I can’t imagine you would have chanced being part of Mister Adams’s assembly.”
“No, of course not. But I was on my way back to the Customs House to see to some ledgers Mister Paxton wanted. When I arrived, the mob had already started to congregate.”
It made sense. And yet something in the man’s manner gave Ethan pause.
“And you, Mister Kaille? What brought you here? From what I understand, you’ve shown little interest in casting your lot with the patriot cause.”
“That’s true. I was drawn here by something else. I can’t say what.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
Ethan offered a thin smile. “Won’t.”
“I see.”
Another memory stirred in Ethan’s mind, one that should have come to him sooner.
“Did you feel my finding spell earlier this evening?” he asked.
“Naturally.”
“And you knew it was mine?”
Grant faltered, then forced a smile. “Not until this moment, no.”
“You’re lying. You knew I had cast it, and so knew that I could place you here. Perhaps more to the point, you might have guessed that I was on my way to King Street. And you would have had time to communicate that information to someone else.”
“To whom would I communicate it?” Grant’s laughter was brittle. “You think quite highly of yourself, Mister Kaille, to assume that your comings and goings are the stuff of my conversations.”
“How long have you been working for him?”
“For whom?”
“Nate Ramsey.”
Grant’s mouth twitched.
“He chose poorly in you,” Ethan said. “You don’t lie well, and your face gives you away.”
“He chose well enough. Dormite ex-”
Before he could finish the sleep spell, Ethan lashed out with his good leg to kick the man in the stomach.
Grant grunted a curse and collapsed to one knee. But moving faster than Ethan had expected, he swung his cane, hitting Ethan solidly in the side of his bad leg. Ethan fell.
Grant got to his feet and fled, moving awkwardly, one hand gripping his gut where Ethan’s foot had connected.
Ethan forced himself up and hobbled after the man, who led him off King Street onto Leverett’s Lane. As he ran, he bit down on the inside of his cheek.
“Pugnus ex cruore evocatus,” he said. Fist, conjured from blood. The conjuring pulsed and abruptly Reg was running alongside him.
He aimed the blow at Grant’s back. As he had hoped, the spell was enough to knock the clerk off balance. He sprawled onto the ice, his cane clattering out of reach.
Ethan heard him mutter something and had time to think that it must be a spell. He felt it hum, saw Grant’s ghost, the finely dressed woman with the pale orange glow, appear on the narrow lane.
An instant later, a ball of fire crashed into Ethan’s chest, pounding him to the frozen ground and setting his greatcoat ablaze.
Ethan rolled right and left until the flames were extinguished. By then, though, Grant was on his feet once more, and but a few strides from the corner of Water Street.
Sitting up, Ethan grabbed his knife and cut the back of his hand.
“Discuti ex cruore evocatum!” Shatter, conjured from blood.
Grant cried out, crumpled in a heap, and grabbed at his broken leg.
Ethan got to his feet and advanced on the man. As he did, he pulled leaves from his pouch of mullein. “Tegimen ex verbasco evocatum.” Warding, conjured from mullein.
His spell pulsed, and was followed only an instant later by a second conjuring. This one struck Ethan as a blow, knocking him back on his heels, but doing no more damage. His warding had held against whatever spell Grant had attempted.
The clerk made a sound like a trapped animal. Ethan saw that he had a knife in hand. Before Grant could cut himself to conjure again Ethan covered the remaining distance between them and kicked the blade out of the man’s hand. It hit the wall of the nearest building and vanished in a small pile of loose snow.
Grant bit down, probably on his tongue or cheek, as Ethan himself had done while pursuing the man. A spell rang in the street, and once more Ethan was hammered by the power of Grant’s conjuring. But as before, the spell had no other effect on him.
He kicked the clerk in the side, making him retch.
“I’m warded,” Ethan said. “And you’re not conjurer enough to overcome my spell. Now you’re going to answer some questions for me, and then I’ll decide whether to give you to the sheriff or kill you myself.”
“Save your breath,” Grant said, panting the words. “I’ll tell you nothing.”
“I want an answer to my question: How long have you been working for Nate Ramsey?”