The vision Ethan had conjured to scare Daniel the previous night had lasted mere moments, and Ethan hadn’t even managed to make the horse’s hooves click on the wharf fill. But this conjurer had sustained his illusion-or hers-for several minutes. The girl had spoken to him, asked him questions, responded to Ethan’s words. She had been… alive, or as close to alive as a creature of a conjurer’s art could be.
And she had warned him, too. Tomorrow night… Or else you’re a dead man. He knew better than to dismiss this as an idle threat. A conjurer who could summon an illusion like this one could probably overcome even Ethan’s most powerful wardings.
Chapter Eight
Ethan remained utterly still, listening for a footfall or the scrape of a boot sole on cobblestone. Anything that might reveal the whereabouts of the conjurer who had summoned that little girl out of the mist. A horse-drawn chaise rattled by in the distance, and a dog barked. Closer, a man sang “Rail No More, Ye Learned Asses,” loudly and off pitch, the familiar lyrics slurred together. But Ethan heard nothing of the conjurer.
“Damn,” he whispered. He realized that he was crouching again, and clutching his blade so tightly that his hand had begun to ache. Slowly, he straightened up. After another moment, he sheathed his knife.
He started walking again, watchful, still straining his ears. He halted every few steps, to make certain that the conjurer wasn’t using Ethan’s footsteps to mask his or her own. But he was sure that the other conjurer had already managed to steal away. As he came within sight of Henry’s shop, Pitch and Shelly came bounding out of the darkness to greet him. He knelt and allowed them to lick his ears and face.
“Where were you two when I was talking to the ghost girl?”
They wagged their tails, regarding him with curiosity. Then they began to lick him again.
“All right,” he said, standing. “You’ll get no food from me. Go find Henry.”
At the mention of Henry’s name, they wheeled and ran back to the shop. Ethan followed and walked around back to the stairway that led to his room.
Pausing at the bottom of the stairs, Ethan listened once more and scanned the stairway and the alleys on either side of the building for any sign that he had more visitors. The last thing he wanted was to end his day with another beating at the hands of Sephira’s men. Convinced that no one else was there, he started up toward his door, his legs heavy.
As he reached the first turn in the stairway, though, he saw a shadow move above him. He grabbed his knife, slashed it across the back of his hand, and shouted the first thing that came to mind.
“ Pugnus ex cruore evocatus! ” Fist, conjured from blood!
He heard a man grunt, then stumble. The fatigue in his legs forgotten, Ethan took the steps between himself and the shadow two at a time. The man was still doubled over when he reached him, and Ethan wasted no time. From a step below, he threw a hard punch that caught the man square in the jaw. The stranger crashed into the banister, making the wood creak dangerously. Then he toppled forward onto Ethan, who shoved the lurker back so that he sprawled on the stairs.
“Mister Kaille, please!” the man croaked.
Ethan leaped forward, grabbing the stranger by his hair and pressing the edge of his knife against the man’s neck.
“Who are you?” Ethan demanded. Before the man could answer, Ethan nicked his throat with the knife, drawing a trickle of blood.
“ Lux ex cruore evocatus! ” Light, conjured from blood!
A brilliant golden light burst forth above them, as if Ethan had conjured a small sun.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” Ethan muttered, heedless of what he was saying, and to whom.
Staring up at him, his face pale and his eyes wide, a bruise darkening on his jaw, was Mr. Pell.
“You shouldn’t curse in front of a minister,” the man said in a shaky voice.
Ethan actually laughed. “No, I don’t suppose I should. What are you doing here, Mister Pell?”
“I came to speak with you. I didn’t mean to startle you so.” He hesitated. Then, “May I get up?”
“Yes, of course.” Ethan released him and sheathed his knife before helping the minister to his feet. “I’m sorry, but-”
“Mercy! What happened to your face?”
Ethan smiled ruefully. “As I was about to say, I’ve already had visitors today. I thought you might be one of them, and that you had in mind to finish me off.”
“Who did this to you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ethan said, with a small shake of his head.
He stepped past Pell, unlocked his door, and motioned the minister inside. Leaving the door open for the moment, so that the light he had conjured flooded his room along with the cool night air, he lit a pair of candles and gestured for the minister to have a seat. He closed the door and faced the man, frowning at the swelling of Pell’s jaw.
“I can heal that if you like.”
“By conjuring, you mean.” The minister shook his head. “I would rather you didn’t.” After a moment he added, “Thank you, though.”
“Of course. May I offer you something to eat or drink? I don’t have much, but I believe I at least owe you a bit of wine.”
Pell grinned at that, then winced. He raised a hand to his jaw. “No, thank you. Anyway, it’s my own fault. I should know better than to surprise a man in your line of work.”
“Maybe. What do you want with me that couldn’t wait until morning?”
The minister looked away, gently touching his bruise again, and then dabbing at the cut on his neck and checking his fingers for blood. There was none.
“I needed to speak with you about Jennifer Berson,” he said.
Ethan eyed him with interest. “What about her?”
“Well, not about her exactly. But about what happened to her.”
The thieftaker lowered himself onto his bed, eyeing the minister closely. “Do you know something about her murder?”
Pell sat staring at the floor, absently touching the cut skin on his throat. Several times he opened his mouth as if intending to speak, only to close it again, frowning each time.
“Mister Pell?”
“I don’t know who killed her,” Pell said at last. “Obviously if I did, I would tell you. I… I’d like to see this person stopped.”
“Then what?”
Pell’s eyes, pale blue and shining with candlelight, met Ethan’s. “I lied to you today. When I said that I had never seen someone who had been murdered. That… that wasn’t true. I should have told you earlier, but I wasn’t…” He shook his head. “There was another child who died. It was some time ago now, on Pope’s Day of last year. And I thought at the time that he couldn’t have died the way people said he did. I asked you about your conjurings because as I told you already, I have speller blood in me, too. I’ve forsworn witchery for the Lord, but if ever I see another child killed this way…” He shook his head and swallowed. “I need to know how to do what you did today. I need to know how to determine whether spells have been used to kill.”
Ethan stared at the man, not sure where to begin. He had so many questions he wanted to ask, not least among them, whether the minister had mentioned any of this to Troutbeck or Caner, or, for that matter, to Ethan’s sister.
“How do you even know about this?” Ethan finally asked. “Was he taken down to the crypts as well?”
“Hardly,” the man said, a note of bitterness in his voice. “He died near the chapel and was carried there by the men who found him. Mister Troutbeck tasked me with sending them elsewhere. The boy’s family-Brown was the surname-they weren’t members of our congregation. I said a prayer over the lad, and then sent them to South Meeting House.”
Ethan wasn’t sure what to say.
“Mister Caner wouldn’t have approved,” Pell said. “But he wasn’t there that night.”
“Can you tell me more about the boy?” Ethan asked after a short silence. “How old was he?”
“Very young. Five or so, I think.”
“Was he from a wealthy family?”