Thieves' Quarry (The Thieftaker Chronicles) (17 page)

“I did, but that happened a long time ago. He didn’t use any spells against me. He didn’t need to.”

Ethan sat back again and reached for his ale.

“There you are,” he heard from behind him.

He turned in his chair and smiled. Kannice was making her way to their table, a dishrag slung over her shoulder, candlelight shining in her auburn hair.

Reaching Ethan, she stooped and kissed his cheek. “I missed you last night,” she whispered in his ear.

“I missed you, too.”

Kannice straightened and cast a cold look Diver’s way. “So are you going to tell me where you were?” she asked, turning her gaze back to Ethan. “Or are you going to make me guess?”

“Diver didn’t believe me when I told him. I’m not sure you will either. I spent the night as a guest of the British army at Castle William.”

“You were arrested?” she asked, her voice rising.

Ethan frowned. “I was employed. But thank you for showing such faith in me.”

Diver grinned; Kannice merely scowled.

“You’re working for the Crown?” she said, arching an eyebrow.

Kannice had always shown far more sympathy than Ethan for those who opposed Parliament and His Majesty the King on everything from the Stamp Tax to the Townshend Duties. During the Quartering Act crisis in New York a couple of years before, Kannice had cheered efforts by the colonial assembly to deny troops access to publick houses and other private property. Now, with occupation imminent here in Boston, she feared that she and other tavern owners would be forced to provide housing and food for countless regulars.

She knew that Ethan had served in the royal navy, and she tolerated his Tory leanings, just as he did her Whiggish sympathies. Apparently, though, supporting the Crown was one thing; working for the king’s men was quite another.

“Aye,” Ethan answered, careful to keep his tone neutral. “And if I could tell you why, you’d understand.”

“I see.” She crossed her arms over her chest, her expression growing remote.

Kannice was as kind and generous a woman as Ethan had ever known, and she loved him deeply—more than he deserved, he sometimes felt. But when she wanted she could be as cold and hard as a New England winter.

“You’re going to have to trust me, Kannice,” he told her. “This isn’t about politics.”

“All right,” she said, sounding skeptical. “You boys enjoy your ale. I have work to do.” She turned on her heel and walked away.

Ethan glanced at Diver, who had the good sense to keep his eyes trained on his tankard.

After a few moments, Diver said, “Tell me more about Spectacles.”

He was probably more interested in breaking the silence than in hearing anything Ethan could tell him, but still Ethan was grateful for the distraction.

“Mariz? He’s an accomplished conjurer,” Ethan said, and drained his ale.

He raised a hand and caught Kelf’s eye. The barkeep nodded and began to fill another tankard.

“And,” Ethan added, “he’s not afraid to use his craft. He set up detection spells around Henry’s shop, so that he would know when I went home. He attacked me with that sleep spell. And just before I came here, he used a finding spell.”

“What did he want with you this time?”

Ethan tapped a finger to his lips, thinking. “That’s just it. I don’t think he was looking for me at all. He was disappointed when he realized that his casting had found me. He wouldn’t tell me who he had been trying to find, but I think it was Gant.”

“So,” Diver said, speaking softly, and looking around to be sure that no one was listening. “Do you think that Gant and this guy Mariz are fighting it out to see who gets to be Sephira’s speller?”

“No,” Ethan said, shaking his head. “There’s more going on here than that.”

“Well, did one of them have some connection with whatever it is you’re doing for the Crown?”

“I think so. But I don’t know—”

Ethan stopped and stared at Diver, his mind racing. How had this not occurred to him earlier?

Kelf brought him his ale and set it on the table with the usual “Thereyago, Ethan.” Ethan didn’t say a word.

Once the barman had left them, Diver asked, “Are you all right?”

“I’m an idiot.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

Ethan looked around, trying to decide how best to make up for his foolishness. A cheer went up from the men at the front of the tavern, and Kannice and Kelf came out of the kitchen bearing another tureen of steaming hot stew, which they placed on the bar.

“I’ll be back,” Ethan said, standing and stepping away from the table.

“Ethan, what’s going on?” Diver called after him.

Ethan didn’t answer. He needed someplace private, someplace where no one would see him, where he didn’t even have to worry about a chance encounter. He strode across the tavern, grabbed Kannice by the hand and started to drag her toward the stairway leading up to the second floor of the Dowser.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Just come with me. Please.”

Her expression darkened, and she began to resist. “Ethan—”

“I need your help, Kannice,” he said, his voice low and tight. “And it can’t wait.”

Some of the men at the bar were laughing now.

“He’s a bold one, isn’t he?” one man said in a loud voice, drawing more guffaws from the others.

Ethan looked back at her and held her gaze for a moment. Seeing that he was in earnest, her expression softened and she followed him to the stairs.

When they reached the second-floor corridor, she asked in a whisper, “What is this—?”

He stopped her with a raised finger and shook his head. He pulled her on down a second hallway that led to the door to her private chamber, only stopping when they reached her threshold.

She regarded him for the span of a heartbeat, concern in her cornflower blue eyes. Drawing the key from within her bodice, she slipped past him and unlocked the door. He followed her inside and closed the door behind him.

Kannice had turned to face him. “Now, what’s this about?”

Ethan pushed up his sleeve and pulled his blade from the sheath on his belt.

“I need to cast a spell. I couldn’t chance doing it out on the street and I couldn’t wait until later.” He gave a quick shake of his head. “I mean, I could have, but it’s important and—”

“It’s all right,” she said. She took a step toward him and took his free hand in hers. “Tell me.”

“That spell I felt yesterday morning—do you remember?”

“The one that woke you,” she said.

“Yes. It was … it killed every man aboard one of the British ships out in the harbor. Ninety-seven in all. Soldiers, sailors, officers. Every one of them.”

“God save us. That’s why you’re working for the Crown.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

“It’s all right. The point is, I saw the color of the power that killed them. And all this time I’ve been thinking that the spell was cast by a man who’s now working for Sephira.”

Kannice’s eyes went icy. “That sounds about right for her.”

“Perhaps,” Ethan said. “I’m not sure. But earlier today, he used a spell on me. It put me to sleep. And it’s only just occurred to me that I should be able to see the residue of that conjuring on me. I should be able to say for certain if he’s the killer.”

He laid the edge of the knife on his forearm and dragged the blade across his skin. Kannice winced and looked away. He marked himself with blood much as he had the dead soldier aboard the
Graystone
—a streak across his brow, and a second tracing the contour of his face and neck from the bridge of his nose to his breastbone.

“
Revela potestatem ex cruore evocatam,
” he said, as blood continued to well from the cut. Reveal power, conjured from blood.

Ethan felt the blood on his face vanish, like sweat evaporating in a summer breeze, and he sensed the spell as well. He knew that Gant and Spectacles would know that he had conjured, but this once he didn’t care. Nor did he spare a glance for Uncle Reg, though he sensed the ghost beside him.

He looked down at his chest, where Mariz’s spell had hit him earlier in the day, and also at his legs, where the finding spell had touched him. In both places, the residue of power looked the same. It glowed bright in the dim bedchamber.

“Is that it?” Kannice asked, pointing at his chest. “Is that from his spell?”

Ethan nodded, but said nothing.

The conjuring that had killed those soldiers had been a bright fiery orange. He could close his eyes and picture it perfectly.

The power glowing on his chest looked nothing like it. It was a pale, warm beige, the color of dead grasses on a late-summer afternoon.

“Is it the same as what killed the men on that ship?”

“No,” he said, raising his gaze to meet hers. “It’s not even close. Sephira’s man didn’t cast that spell.”

“Then who did?”

He shook his head, looking down again at the pale glow of Mariz’s conjuring. “I’m not sure,” he told her. “But I think it’s time I found Simon Gant. He might be able to tell me.”

Chapter

T
EN

Ethan cut himself again and cast a second spell to make the glow from Spectacles’s spell vanish. He waited until the pale light had disappeared and turned toward the door.

“Wait,” Kannice said. She sat on her bed and beckoned him over.

He walked to the bed and sat beside her.

“How did you get caught up in this? Why would representatives of the Crown come to you?”

“Geoffrey,” he said.

It took her a few seconds. “Your sister’s husband?”

“He works for the Customs Board. And, of course, he knows I’m a conjurer.”

“And who is Simon Gant?”

“Another of Sephira’s playmates. Word is that he betrayed her several years back. I thought that Mariz—the man who used those spells on me—that he might have been trying to kill Gant. I now know that’s not the case. But if Gant is a conjurer—”

“Why would Sephira care about the British fleet?” Kannice asked.

That stopped Ethan cold. “I don’t know.”

“You said that ninety-seven men died. Even Sephira Pryce isn’t so brazen as to think that she can take on the British Empire.”

He weighed this, saw the logic in it. “Go on,” he said at last.

“The occupation is about to begin and there are plenty of people who are unhappy about it. Some of them would stop at nothing to see that those regulars never set foot in this city.”

“I thought you were one of them,” Ethan said, smiling to soften the words.

She smiled back at him. “Aye, well, I can’t conjure, can I?” Her grin faded. “You do see where I’m going with this.”

“You think that the Sons of Liberty have declared war on King George’s army.”

“It’s not as foolish as you’re making it sound,” she said.

“You’re right, it’s not. But even if Samuel Adams and his friends suddenly had access to such power why would they attack a single ship? And why choose the
Graystone
as opposed to the
Launceston
or one of the other rated ships?”

“I don’t know,” Kannice said. “Maybe their spell didn’t work the way they intended. Maybe they were aiming for all the ships and the spell only worked against one of them. But if you ask me it’s much more likely that this was the work of Adams and the rest than it is that Sephira would be willing to take on General Gage.”

She had a point.

“All right,” Ethan said. “Thank you. I’ll give that some thought.”

He started to stand, but Kannice grabbed his arm.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Ethan grinned again. “Back downstairs.”

She shook her head and kissed him deeply on the lips. “I don’t think so. There’s a roomful of men down there who think you brought me up here for something other than a bit of conjuring. We wouldn’t want to disappoint them.”

They kissed again, and Kannice began to unbutton his waistcoat and shirt.

“I thought you were angry with me for working on behalf of the Crown.”

She smiled and whispered, “I’ve forgiven you for that.”

They went back down to the tavern’s great room some time later. The Dowser was far more crowded now—most of those drinking ale and eating Kannice’s stew hadn’t been in the tavern when Ethan and Kannice went up to her chamber. But that didn’t stop them all from whistling and applauding when the two of them reappeared. Ethan blushed to the tips of his ears, but Kannice didn’t seem at all embarrassed.

“Don’t applaud too much boys,” she said, her voice carrying over the din. “Or else we might go back up for an encore and you won’t have any more stew until morning.”

As the men started laughing anew, she winked at Ethan and hurried off into the kitchen to prepare more stew. Ethan returned to the table and was surprised to find that Diver was still there. His friend cast a hurt look his way, but said nothing.

“It wasn’t what it seems,” Ethan said.

“No? Then why is your face as red as a regular’s coat?”

Ethan smiled, feeling sheepish. “All right, it was what it seems, but it was more as well.” He looked around, much as Diver had earlier in the evening, making sure that they wouldn’t be overheard. But with so many now in the tavern no one could hear what he said and no one was paying them much heed. Keeping his voice down, he told Diver about the
Graystone
and the spell he had cast in Kannice’s room.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Diver asked when Ethan had finished. He still sulked, refusing to look up from his ale. Sometimes Diver was more boy than man. It was part of his charm and also the reason Kannice thought him a wastrel.

“Because I didn’t know if I could trust you to keep it quiet.”

He did look up then. “That’s not fair!”

“Isn’t it? I can’t have you talking about this all over the city. Especially now. I don’t know what happened to the men on that ship, and until I do the fewer that hear of it the better. Do you understand?”

Diver nodded sullenly. “Aye, I do. And I know that I cost us both by talking about Tanner when I was with Katharine. But when are you going to start trusting me again?”

“I think I just did.”