A sore lump formed in her throat, and stubborn tears pushed their way onto her pillowcase. She’d tried very hard not to think on that the last two weeks. The worst of it was how excited she’d been upon receiving a telegram from the Halls, the family with whom her parents had abandoned her. They’d reported that someone had finally come looking for her. She’d cashed out her entire bank account and fled for Juniper Down immediately, only to realize the man was not her kin. He wasn’t even English. And he thought she’d written a mass of articles to toy with him for a reason she had been unable to surmise.
That horrible disappointment had been followed by the revelation that the Cowls—or, rather, Master Lily Merton—had been using her for years, something that had filled her with shadows that were too poisonous to bear.
She heard the snap of the bolt in the back door and sat up, quickly wiping her eyes. The door opened, closed, followed by familiar footsteps. Too heavy to be Emmeline’s.
Grabbing her night-robe, Elsie pushed her arms into its sleeves and hurried into the hall.
“Ogden?” she called.
A candle lit at the bottom of the stairs, illuminating Ogden’s face. Relief etched his features. “He did it. You’re back.”
She nodded. “As are you. We need to talk.”
He ascended the steps. “Anywhere is fine. Emmeline’s not due back until morning.”
She stepped aside to let him pass, then followed him into his bedroom, where she perched on the trunk at the edge of his bed. “What did you find?”
“The place she hid the opuses,” he answered. Elsie perked up, but he held out a hand, staying her. “It was empty. She’s been there. I didn’t find her, but I returned to the Spiritual Atheneum in London on my way back. Picked some brains. Apparently she’s officially retired and moved from the city, though no one seems to know where.”
Elsie’s lungs twisted in an unexpected way. Lily Merton must have decided Elsie wasn’t necessary anymore. It shouldn’t have bothered her—she wanted nothing to do with the murderer—and yet it did.
“I’ll be returning soon to try to locate her, keep tabs on her. Someone must know something.” He set the candle down and plopped onto his bed, landing hard enough to shake the trunk pressed against its foot. “She’s being smart—she knows I could overpower her mind if I found her.”
Elsie stiffened. “Could you?”
He hesitated, peering at her with severe turquoise eyes. “Yes, I could.”
Elsie licked her lips, considering.
“Does that bother you?”
“Does what?”
“What I am,” he clarified. “What I can do.”
She shook her head, then paused. “It doesn’t bother me. I’m just . . . not used to it.” I just don’t know if you’ve ever used it on me.
She knew he had, in service to Merton, but she had to believe he wouldn’t do it intentionally. He’d claimed that their interactions were genuine, that Merton had controlled him only on occasion. She needed to believe that. She needed to believe in something.
“I wonder,” Ogden went on, “if she’s hired new thugs, or if she’s choosing to lie low. Perhaps it’s over. Perhaps she really has retired.”
Elsie gave him an incredulous look that he merely nodded at. People had been murdered, their opuses stolen. A woman did not go through such extensive efforts merely to give up in the end. “The question is,” Elsie said aloud, “what is the end?”
“I don’t know.” He rubbed his hands together. “If she has all those opuses . . . she’s the most powerful person in England, if not the world.”
Elsie hugged herself, cold in a way that radiated from the inside out, much like she’d been in prison.
As though sensing her thought—and perhaps he had—Ogden asked, “How did he get you out? What did he have to pay?”
The lump in her throat returned, and she swallowed it down. “Not money,” she murmured.
And she told him everything, from the moment the guard unlocked her cell to the moment Bacchus dropped her off in Brookley, promising to contact her soon. Everything but the worry and worthlessness gnawing on her insides.
Ogden leaned back. “Interesting.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
He shrugged. “He’s not a bad choice, Elsie. He’s titled, wealthy, and virile.”
Elsie’s cheeks heated. “Did you say virile?”
Ogden smirked. “It’s hard not to notice.”
She covered her face with her hands, hiding her embarrassment.
Until another realization hit her, making her stomach drop.
“Oh no,” she whispered.
Ogden tensed. “What? What’s wrong?”
Slowly, she dropped her hands from her face and lifted her eyes. “If I marry him . . .”
Ogden leaned closer.
“My name will be Elsie Kelsey,” she finished, mortified.
Oh, how the Wright sisters would love that.
“I knew you fancied him!” Emmeline chimed as she picked up the breakfast dishes. Elsie had cooked that morning, early, thanks to her insomnia, but Emmeline had returned home just in time to lend a hand with the morning chores. “How exciting, Elsie! Right out of a storybook. Engaged to a master aspector, and yourself a spellbreaker! The perfect pair. Oh, you’re moving up in the world, and so elegantly!”
Elsie brushed crumbs from the table into her hand. “I don’t think being arrested is elegant, Em. Prison most certainly is not.” She peered out the window. She’d used her enchanted pencil to write to Bacchus that morning, before sunup, after mulling over her options all night long. She needed to know what Merton was aiming for, what she wanted, and why she wanted it, and Bacchus knew three people who might have answers—the Duke and Duchess of Kent and Duchess Morris, a fellow spiritual aspector who’d appeared quite friendly with Merton when Elsie had spied them together on a shopping excursion. Duchess Morris was also a contemptible woman who had put a curse on the Duke of Kent’s fields and hired physical and temporal aspectors to make herself more attractive. Elsie knew—she’d unraveled both the curse and the glamour on the woman’s nose. Although there was a slim chance the woman might recognize her, Elsie thought it middling. Duchess Morris wasn’t the sort to pay attention to those she thought beneath her.
She’d start in Kent, of course. Bacchus was close to the Scotts, even shared their roof. And she’d conjured the perfect excuse to talk to Duchess Morris. As a new spellbreaker, she would be required to interview aspectors in all four disciplines. If she could get Duchess Morris to participate, she could segue into questions about her friendship with Merton.
It was as good a plan as any. She just didn’t want to do it alone. Bacchus knew the woman better than she did, and if he helped her, she’d be more likely to get through the front door. Plus, she simply wanted him there.
The kitchen clean, Elsie brushed off her hands and hurried up the stairs, to where the green pencil rested against a piece of parchment. The top of the page read, in her handwriting, She-who-will-not-be-named has supposedly retired and left London without a trace. I have to find her, Bacchus. I need your help. I know it’s wrong of me to ask when you’ve already done so much, but if she’s a friend of the duke’s, perhaps he and the duchess could answer some questions.