“Yes, thank you for seeing me.” He nodded to the butler, who gave a cursory glance to their visitor before silently excusing himself. “I was hoping you’d be able to work on a tight schedule.”
Mr. Ogden nodded. “Of course.” <Not here.>
Bacchus gestured past the door. “Would you care to discuss it on the grounds? My legs are in need of exercise.”
“Gladly.” Another smile, and Mr. Ogden followed Bacchus’s direction. Neither of them said another word as they followed the hallway to the first door that led outside. Mr. Ogden waited until they were some distance from the house before speaking again.
“It is my understanding that you’re aware of certain things,” he said, hands still clasped behind him as they walked.
Bacchus matched his posture and speed. “If you’re referring to the events a week prior, then yes, I am.”
“Excellent.” He stopped suddenly, peering briefly at the house. “Forgive my intrusion, but I’m in need of your aid, Master Kelsey. I’ve neither the funds nor the standing to help her, and we need all the allies we can get.”
“Help her?” Bacchus repeated, stomach tightening. His voice dropped. “Has something happened to Elsie?”
Mr. Ogden’s jaw tensed. “She’s been arrested.”
Dropping his hands, Bacchus stepped back. “On what charges?”
“Illegal spellbreaking, what else?”
Mr. Ogden began walking again, and it took a moment for Bacchus’s thoughts to connect to his legs so he could follow. He did, half hissing, “You’re awfully calm about this.”
“I am calm because I have to be.” The words were hard as wrought iron. “Because even I can’t get into the minds of every bobby and magistrate and convince them that Elsie is innocent. We’d best be on our way; I’m not certain how to proceed, or how quickly she might be sentenced. You know far more about the workings of the atheneums than I.”
Bacchus’s heart thudded against his chest, and his spine grew stiff as marble. “I’ll call for a carriage right away.”
“No need. There’s one waiting for us. I convinced one of your servants it was of utmost importance on my way in.”
The thought of this man penetrating the staff’s minds, his mind, should have bothered him, but Bacchus couldn’t tear his thoughts from Elsie. “When did they take her?”
“This morning. I’ll explain everything I know on the way there.”
Sure enough, as they neared the front lane, one of the duke’s drivers came around with a carriage. The fastest in the fleet, if Bacchus wasn’t mistaken. Good, they couldn’t waste any time. Not when Elsie’s life was on the line.
To think, only two fortnights ago, Bacchus had been ready to throw her into a cell himself. Now he’d give his right arm to keep her out of one. She’d saved his life twice: first by detecting and removing the siphoning spell that had been draining his strength and energy since adolescence, and second by thwarting Abel Nash’s plan to shoot him through with a lightning bolt. But even without the acts of valor, she had startled him with her courage, her tenacity, the soft heart she kept tucked away in a vault of her own making. She made him laugh, made him think, made him feel, and envisioning a rope around her neck made Bacchus sick to his very core.
He quickened his pace, Mr. Ogden keeping up well enough. Before they reached the lane, however, Mr. Ogden asked, “You haven’t perchance seen Master Lily Merton this past week, have you?”
Bacchus slowed. “No, why?”
Mr. Ogden’s eyes stared dead ahead. “Because she’s the only one who could have turned Elsie in.”
Elsie didn’t know what to think. What to do. What to hope. So she just gazed at the crisscrossing bars of the door to her tiny cell, listening to occasional footsteps, blank and scared and cold.
The ride here had been long and hard, for the wagon they’d taken her in had lacked even a simple bench for sitting. She’d thought they’d take her directly to the London Physical Atheneum, but apparently the assembly did not want criminals of her ilk near their precious books. No, she’d been brought to Her Majesty’s Prison Oxford, a facility designed by the London atheneums to hold aspectors—men and women who could potentially melt their bars or sway their jailers to let them escape. There were spellbreakers among the patrol as well, she noticed, outfitted with violet badges that stood out from the color-coded badges of the spellmakers—blue for physical, red for rational, yellow for spiritual, and green for temporal.
They’d put her in a cell the size of a closet, protected only by bars and stones. For Elsie, they were all the precautions needed. While she could unwind any spell used to entrap her, she could cast nothing to get herself out. The cell was about five feet tall, five feet long, and three feet across. Not quite large enough for her to lie down without bending her knees, or stand without stooping her head. Perhaps that was the point. The centuries-old stone was mottled gray and white, the plaster chipping at the corners of the ceiling. No mattress, no straw, but she did have a rough blanket and a pot for excrement. No one stood outside the cage-like door, but even so, Elsie couldn’t imagine hiking up her dress to use the pot when someone might pass by at any time. She hadn’t yet, though her bladder was growing more and more uncomfortable.
Night would fall eventually. Then she would use it. She could wait. They’d already brought her a dingy tray of food for supper. Darkness wouldn’t be long now.
She wasn’t sure she wanted darkness to come.
Perhaps it would have been better if she weren’t alone—if she were instead in one of the larger cells with other prisoners. At least then she’d have someone to talk to. But that company might consist of bandits, murderers, and other ruffians.
The chill finally grew sharp enough that Elsie took the blanket. It didn’t smell good, but it was clean, and she wrapped it around her shoulders, leaning onto one side to alleviate some of the pain building in her rump. At least they hadn’t put her in the stocks. She’d seen two of them on her way here, one of them in use. The man locked within it had great iron bowls strapped over his hands to dissuade him from using any magic. Praise the Lord, they hadn’t taken her hands away. Yet.
Elsie’s imagination bristled as the sunlight coming through a window in the hallway—there were none in her cell—faded to orange. Would they cut off her hands? Send her to the workhouse? Or merely put a rope around her neck and end it quickly?
A sob caught halfway up her throat. Elsie fumbled with her dress until she could loosen her corset and breathe. Then she brought her knees to her chest and rested her forehead on them, hiding her face with the blanket. God help her, she’d never been so scared in her entire life. Even after her family had abandoned her and the Halls had brought her to the workhouse. At least then she hadn’t feared dying.
Shivering, she pulled the blanket closer. She wished she could just sleep and wake up when this was all over, but her fear-riddled body refused to rest. Elsie was fairly certain she’d never sleep again.
Clenching her jaw, she tried to pull her wits together.
Dear Lord, I know I’m not the most devout, but please help—
“What a drab place this is.”
Lightning shot up her limbs at the familiar voice, and she bolted upright, the blanket falling from her shoulders, the crown of her head knocking against the low ceiling. She looked wildly to the door, which remained firmly locked. The woman who had spoken was just inside it, against the left wall.
The cold seeped down to Elsie’s bones as she gaped at Master Lily Merton.
The middle-aged woman tucked a short curl behind one of her ears. “But it suits our purposes, doesn’t it, dear? We wouldn’t want to be interrupted.”