Thieves' Quarry (The Thieftaker Chronicles) (27 page)

She might as well have been holding a blade to Henry’s throat.

Even Henry seemed to understand. The joy Ethan had seen on his face upon entering the shop was gone now, and he was looking back and forth between Ethan and Sephira.

“I’ve tried asking you for information,” Ethan said. “That hasn’t worked, and so I’ve had to look into things on my own. If you care to answer my questions, I’ll be more than happy to stay out of your way.”

“The things you want to know don’t concern you. You’re interfering in matters that you don’t understand. People could get hurt.”

People. Henry. Kannice. Ethan knew that she wouldn’t hesitate to harm or kill anyone who meant anything to him. His arm itched where the blood from his cut had begun to dry. He would have loved an excuse to set her hair on fire with a conjuring, but Henry didn’t know that he was a speller, and Ethan wasn’t willing to cast in front of the old cooper unless he had no choice.

“Simon Gant just told me much the same thing,” Ethan said. “None of you seem to understand that I’ve been hired to look into these matters. That makes them my concern. And you should take your own warnings to heart. People
could
get hurt. Remember that.”

“You saw Gant?” she asked, trying too hard to sound uninterested.

“Yes.”

“Where? When?”

Ethan said nothing.

She sat watching him for another moment, a smile frozen on her lips. There was no amusement at all in her eyes, though, and when she stood and moved toward the door, her movements were taut, as if it was all she could do to leave the shop without lashing out.

“You’re a fool, Ethan,” she said, not bothering to look back at him. “After all these years, it shouldn’t surprise me. But it always does.”

She let herself out, with Nap close behind. They left the door open.

“She didn’t even say good-bye,” Henry whispered, staring after her.

“I’m sorry, Henry.”

The old man shook his head. “No, I am. I should have remembered the stuff she’s done to you. She didn’t come for me; she came for you.” He turned to Ethan. “She was threatening to hurt me, wasn’t she?”

Ethan grimaced. “Aye, she was.”

Henry looked out the door again. “Well, don’t worry about me. Do what you have to do, whatever it is.”

He gripped the man’s shoulder. “I will. Thank you.” He hobbled to the doorway, intending to go up to his room.

“You hurt your leg?” Henry asked.

“It’s nothing.”

“Well, you should do something about that arm,” Henry called after him. “You shouldn’t just let it bleed like that.”

Chapter

S
IXTEEN

He wanted to tear Sephira’s home apart stone by stone. He wanted to find Simon Gant and cast a spell that would shatter every bone in the man’s body. He wanted to wring Geoffrey Brower’s neck for getting him involved in this matter in the first place.

Instead, he paced the floors of his tiny room, despite the ache in his bad leg and knee. He felt useless and sensed the hours ticking away. Worst of all, he had the feeling that he was missing something obvious. He knew that Osborne had helped Gant steal the pearls seven years back. And now he knew for certain that Sephira was after the smuggled goods, too, not that there had ever been any doubt.

He had let Gant get away, but he had Diver working on luring the man back out into the open. Thinking of this, he sighed. As tired as he was, he needed to conjure again so that he could tell Diver that the pearls might not be in New Boston after all. This time, at least, he didn’t have to cut himself. Using the water in his washbasin, he cast an illusion spell, and sent an image of himself back to Diver’s room. But when he looked at the room through the eyes of his conjuring, he found that Diver was already gone.

Vowing to try again later in the day, he let the conjuring end and resumed his pacing.

An idea came to him and he halted once more. He knew that neither Gant nor Sephira would help him. But what about Osborne? Ethan wasn’t sure that it was even possible. But perhaps there was someone who could help him find out.

“
Veni ad me.
” Come to me.

Power thrummed. Uncle Reg appeared before him, glowing like a newly risen moon, his eyes gleaming in the dim room.

“You were a conjurer,” Ethan said. “And when you died you took this form. Is that right?”

The old ghost nodded.

“Is that what happens to all conjurers when they die? Do they all go to wherever it is you are?”

Reg nodded again, more slowly this time.

“And can they be summoned? I can call for you; we both know that. But can I summon any ghost if I know his name?”

The ghost’s expression darkened, his thick eyebrows bunching, his nostrils flaring. He crossed his arms over his chest, his fists clenched, and he shook his head.

“No?” Ethan stared back at him, gauging what he saw on the man’s face. “You’re telling me that it shouldn’t be done,” he said at length. “Not that it can’t. Isn’t that so?”

Reg didn’t move.

“This is important. Osborne should know where the pearls are, and he might know a good deal else that will help me get to Gant.”

Ethan reached first for his knife, but reconsidered and chose to use mullein instead. He couldn’t say why. Most of the time he conjured with whatever was at hand, without giving much thought to how the source for his spells matched the casting itself; it might have been one of the reasons why he was not yet as accomplished a conjurer as Janna. On occasion, though, he gave more careful consideration to his selection of a source. And sometimes, as now, he went on instinct. He was about to summon an unknown and potentially hostile ghost. Somehow using blood for this struck him as risky. Mullein had protective properties; it seemed the wiser choice.

He pulled out nine leaves. It was a lot for any spell, but this was more complicated spellmaking than Ethan usually did.

Turning back to Reg, he found the ghost still glaring at him in that same defiant stance.

“I know you don’t like this. I’m sorry. Truly. But I’m going to do it, and I need you to help me speak with him.”

Reg didn’t shake his head in refusal; Ethan probably couldn’t expect any more acquiescence than that.

“
Provoco te, Caleb Osborne, ex regno mortuorum ex verbasco.
” I summon thee, Caleb Osborne, from the realm of the dead, conjured from mullein.

Even having chosen to use so many leaves, even knowing that this was a deeper casting than he had attempted in years, Ethan was startled by the might of his conjuring. He felt the pulse in his bones; the entire building seemed to shake. Power hummed in the walls and the floor; it reverberated within his mind until he felt that he would never again hear any other sound. Every conjurer in Boston would know that a potent spell had been cast, but he couldn’t help that.

And yet, nothing else happened. No ghost appeared. Ethan glanced toward Reg, but the old man wasn’t looking at him. Rather, he was turning his head from side to side, perhaps searching for Osborne’s shade. He appeared troubled, even frightened. Ethan had never seen him like this.

“What’s happening?” Ethan asked.

Reg held up a hand to silence him, though he continued to search. At last he faced Ethan again and shook his head.

“It didn’t work?” Ethan asked, incredulous. “But I felt the conjuring. That was one of the most powerful spells I’ve ever cast.”

Reg shook his head again.

“So a ghost can refuse a summons from a conjurer if he isn’t linked the way we are.”

The ghost shrugged, appearing as confused as Ethan felt.

Ethan nearly gave up then. That was what Reg wanted him to do. But another thought came to him. There had been a third conjurer on the
Graystone.
Jonathan Sharpe had been younger than both Gant and Osborne. Maybe he had been less skilled as a conjurer and thus would be less able to resist Ethan’s summons.

He took more mullein from his pouch, leaving him with enough for only one more minor spell. He would have have to buy more from Janna, and soon.

“There was one other conjurer on the ship,” he told Reg. “I’m going to try summoning him.”

Reg scowled.

“
Provoco te, Jonathan Sharpe, ex regno mortuorum ex verbasco.
” I summon thee, Jonathan Sharpe, from the realm of the dead, conjured from mullein.

This spell echoed through the building as powerfully as had the first. The old ghost began to look around again, but almost immediately looked back to Ethan, his gleaming eyes as wide as moons.

And at the same time, a second glowing figure took form beside him: a young man, both familiar and strange. Ethan recognized the long hair and fleshy, thick features from the corpse he had seen on Castle William. But that wasn’t the same as knowing a man in this ghostly form. The shade of Jonathan Sharpe towered over Reg, and over Ethan as well. His eyes were similar to those of the old ghost, but his body glowed with an aqua hue. He wore the uniform of a British regular, but as far as Ethan could see, he didn’t carry a weapon. Which was fortunate, because he regarded Ethan with manifest hostility and even took a menacing step toward him. Ethan resisted the urge to back away, knowing—or at least hoping—that the ghost couldn’t harm him.

“My name is Ethan Kaille,” he said. “I summoned you because I’m trying to find the cause of your death and that of every other man on the
Graystone.
Can you help me?”

The ghost seemed not to hear him. He turned toward Reg and advanced on the old man. Reg fell back and drew his broadsword, something Ethan had never seen him do.

Sharpe’s ghost faltered.

“Sharpe!” Ethan said. “Look at me!”

The shade faced him once more.

“Did you know Caleb Osborne and Simon Gant?”

Sharpe eyed him, looking confused. Finally, he nodded.

“And you knew about the pearls?”

The ghost’s expression turned guarded. He offered no response. “I think they’re the reason you were killed. I think that Gant attacked the ship with that spell so that he wouldn’t have to share them with Osborne.”

Sharpe shook his head, an expression of contempt on his face. Even in death, he remained loyal to his friends. Ethan couldn’t help thinking there was something noble in that.

“They’re hidden somewhere in the city, aren’t they?”

No answer.

“Do you know what kind of conjuring killed you, what kind of spell it was?”

The ghost dragged a finger across his throat, a grim smile on his lips.

“A killing spell. Yes, that’s very helpful.”

Sharpe’s smile melted away, leaving him looking terribly young. His eyes fixed on Ethan’s, he placed his hand over his heart and then made a fist.

Ethan nodded. The spell had attacked their hearts, squeezing them so that they stopped beating. That was why the orange glow from Ethan’s
revela potestatem
spell had spread outward from the chests of the soldiers on which it worked. “I understand,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

The young man looked away. Reg stepped forward, and though he still held his sword, he placed a hand on Sharpe’s shoulder, and stared hard at Ethan.

“All right,” Ethan said. He sensed that he could have learned more from the dead man, but he also understood that he should have listened to Reg. This was wrong.

“
Dimitto vos ambos.
” I release you both.

As soon as the words crossed his lips he felt another surge of power. He watched as the two ghosts vanished.

Alone in the darkened room, Ethan muttered a curse. He opened his door, just to let in some light and cool air. But after having a small bit of cheese and smoked meat, he left again, this time heading back to the North End. Spellmaking, it seemed, could help him only so much, and he couldn’t afford to wait for his next chance encounter with Gant. He needed to know where the man was hiding.

Geoffrey Brower and Ethan’s sister Bett lived in a large stone house near North Square in one of the city’s finer neighborhoods. Ethan had been inside once, when he first returned from Barbados and Bett was moved by some uncharacteristically charitable impulse to have him to dinner and introduce him to his nieces and nephew. She hadn’t invited him to the house since.

Reaching the path that led to Bett’s door, Ethan faltered, wondering if coming here had been a mistake. For years Ethan had convinced himself that Bett turned her back on spellmaking because she had no aptitude for it, because the conjurings hadn’t come to her as easily as they did to Ethan and the youngest child in the Kaille household, Susannah. The truth, he had come to realize, was far more complicated, and far less convenient for him. When he and Bett first entered their teen years and began to learn spellmaking from their mother, he had no more skill as a conjurer than she. If anything, her attention to detail made her castings more effective than his.

But she never enjoyed it. Even at that tender age, she seemed to believe that conjuring was wrong in some way. Perhaps she shared their father’s devotion to the Church and more godly pursuits. Or maybe she preferred Ellis’s company to Sarah’s, just as Ethan had felt more comfortable with their mother. Whatever the reason, by the time Susannah began to conjure, Bett had already started to turn away from spellmaking, and from Ethan. Ethan and Susannah were inseparable until Ethan left home to join the navy. Bett always seemed aloof. Only much later did it occur to Ethan to wonder if she had been lonely. And by then, the bond between them had been so badly frayed that he no longer knew how to mend it.

He was ashamed to admit that he often wished Susannah could have settled here in Boston, rather than Bett. But his beloved youngest sister lived an ocean away, in the Scottish Isles, and Bett lived in this grand house before him, with its marble columns and fine gardens.

Taking a long breath, Ethan walked up the broad walkway to their portico and rapped on the door with the brass knocker.

Ethan had thought that a servant would answer his knock—when last he visited, dinner had been served by an African slave. But when the door opened, a young man of perhaps sixteen years stood before him, well-dressed, and looking like he had never labored a day in his life. He was tall and gangly, with a high forehead and narrow nose like his father’s. Poor lad.