She felt some of the terrible burden that Ashford must feel, trying to help anyone who’d been sucked into the wrong time. He always said it was his curse, his responsibility, and now she knew exactly what he meant.
She scuttled over to Farrah and grabbed the metal shears out of her hands. She was determined to do what Ashford would have done, protect Farrah to the end, just as he’d constantly protected her during their many trials together.
“Stay behind me,” she hissed, standing in front of her.
The door opened fully, the seemingly blinding light of the workroom shining around the skinny bow-legged figure who paused there, already gloating over their demise, no doubt.
Not without a fight, she determined, closing her eyes for one brief second and thinking with all her might of Ashford.
***
Ashford managed to not only scry the dogs, but Cook, his valet Duncan, and oddly, a rat in one of the attics, which made him wonder what had fallen into the pan of water that belonged to it. He moved onto a more difficult spell which didn’t need something belonging to the person he wished to see, purported to work over great distances, but did disgustingly require bones. He begged some chicken bones from Cook, praying the spell didn’t mean human bones. Surely his ancestors would have never gone that far.
The chicken bones did the trick, and he was able to see one of his cousins up in Happenham. He tried to see as far as his estate in Scotland, but didn’t know who to focus on. The cook there didn’t work, as all he could think of were her delicious fruit tarts, and he couldn’t even properly recall what the parson of the small village looked like. He felt mildly ashamed of his lack of attention to his properties and vowed to do better if— when Matilda was safely returned.
The last spell was the most difficult, and the first two had worn him out to the point he thought he should rest. His head throbbed, only a gentle beat right now, but he felt it would soon turn into raging drums of war soon if he didn’t take a break. However, he’d already come so far, and he was high on his successes, so decided to keep pushing through.
A timid knock at his door made his head jerk up from the spell, and the look on the messenger’s face when he opened it and looked in told him he must look quite savage.
“Who let you through?” he barked, causing the lad to fling his letter and beat a hasty retreat. Ashford grumbled to himself, meaning to ignore the missive, but he’d specifically told everyone under threat of disembowelment that he shouldn’t be disturbed, and the fact that someone had taken the risk meant the message must be important. His heart soared with hope that Matilda might not be in another time after all. Perhaps she really had run up to Happenham and this was a message from her.
His heart sunk when he saw it was from his best friend Jeremy Kerr, who’d been a great help to him in finding his sister. In fact, he’d been the only person who hadn’t thought him insane for believing Camilla was still alive. As much as he didn’t want to, he owed it to Jeremy to at least glance at the letter, make sure nothing was seriously wrong. Though how much more wrong than his own situation could be he couldn’t fathom.
He rolled his eyes and crumpled up the message as soon as he’d read it once. Jeremy’s younger brother Nicholas seemed to be missing, nothing unusual about that, but he’d apparently been out of reach long enough for Jeremy to become worried, and asked Ashford to look into the matter.
The young fool was always getting himself into scrapes. It was either gambling or fighting or some woman he shouldn’t have messed about with, and Ashford put him out of his mind, assuming he was hiding from creditors or an angry husband. The disreputable rake would turn up, as he always did, no worse for wear. If he was still missing after he’d found Matilda, then he’d turn his full attention to it, but right now he had a spell to try.
He read the directions over three times, becoming more disturbed with each reading. He needed something of Matilda’s, which was easy enough, but also his own blood, which he was never fond of seeing outside his body, and most distressing of all, he needed to repeatedly call out to the ‘eyes of the followers’. Who they might be, he didn’t care to dwell on. A note at the bottom of the page warned him against angering said eyes of the followers by asking too much of them, which made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
“Well, I don’t want to anger the eyes,” he muttered as he prepared a fresh pan of water. “Hopefully they’ll be in a good mood.”
He found a knife in one of his desk drawers and after dropping Matilda’s bracelet in the pan, he held his hand over it, quickly slicing the base of his thumb and forcing himself not to turn away at the sight of the red gush hitting the water and spreading in flowering swirls. With his eyes firmly on the bracelet, he repeated the chant, not daring to blink, and not wavering in his concentration.
The pan went pitch black and he thought he’d stuffed it up somehow, and was about to refer back to the page, when a light flickered near the top of the pan. It wasn’t a trick of his eye, the light stayed, dim, but definitely there. He saw a girl he’d never seen before fade in and out of view, as if she was moving in and out of the lighted area. He peered closer until his nose almost touched the dark water. He could see she was crying, and he strained to hear something, but the pan remained silent.
A moment later, he gasped and recoiled. Matilda was in the scene now, lying still and twisted in the dark. The other girl leaned over her, blocking his view and he instinctively reached out, as if he could push her away.
He thought the girl meant to harm Matilda further, but she gathered her head into her lap and sat there, her shoulders shaking with sobs. He’d read in all the spells that one couldn’t scry the dead, and that recollection calmed his pounding heart somewhat. She was alive, but injured, not moving, in a dark place. He refused to blink though his eyes burned, not wanting to lose the precious contact. Just as suddenly as the pan had blackened, it became a regular bowl of blood stained water. The vision was gone.
With a roar of frustration, he scooped the bracelet out and ran to the window, dumping out the old water. He hurriedly refilled the pan from his dwindling pitcher, fearing it wasn’t enough, but too impatient to run or ring for more. Dropping the bracelet back in, he pressed on his wound, the drops of blood hitting the water and instantly dispersing. No longer giving a damn how the eyes of the followers might be feeling, he called out desperately to see Matilda again. How much time had he wasted redoing the spell? Would it be too late?
He made a feral noise when the bowl darkened again, and once again he saw the flickering light. Matilda was standing now and he shook with relief to see her awake and moving about. A brighter light shone on her from above and he saw she stood in front of the other girl, looks of terror on both their faces as they cowered from an unseen threat. He must have slammed the desk with his fist in his fear and fury, and the water sloshed over the side of the pan. The image disappeared.
He’d seen her, and she was in danger, but he didn’t know from what, or where or when to find her. He slammed his fist onto the desk again, bringing him back to his senses. Ignoring the increasing pain that pounded in his head, he ran for more water.
Chapter 15
Tilly hid the scissors behind her back, hoping for the element of surprise before Wodge came barrelling down the stairs. She also hoped he’d trip and break his neck in his great haste to kill them, but he made it to the bottom safely. She reached around and gripped Farrah’s hand, hoping to infuse her with some bravery.
Wodge brandished what looked at first to be a great ball of fire, but as he stopped in front of them, Tilly realized it was an oil lamp. The brightness half blinded her after being in the dark cellar, but she didn’t dare look away for a second, lest he take that opportunity to do them in.
“Oh my goodness, my dears, I’m so terribly sorry,” he panted, lowering the light.
What was this, now? Tilly took a faltering step backward, bumping into Farrah, she was so shocked by the words that had come out of
his mouth.
“I think it’s safe now,” he continued, motioning toward the stairs. “I do hope neither of you was hurt before, but I so feared what those … those scoundrels would do if they saw you, my mind went quite blank with terror.”
Farrah wrenched her hand free and pushed her way in front of Tilly. “What happened, Mr. Ermine? What scoundrels? Are you hurt?”
“Oh, don’t worry about me, I’m more concerned about you ladies. Can you make it back upstairs? I’ll make some tea if you need restoration, or do you need a physician?”
Tilly’s head swirled, and she wondered if it was the bump she’d taken on the way down, or if it was the way Wodge was acting.
What in the hell? was all she could think, and she wondered what sinister thing he had planned for them upstairs.
But Farrah already followed him as he held the lamp aloft, casting a large ring of light so they could climb the steep staircase. Not wanting to be left alone, and sure Thomas must be on his way for help by now, she scurried after them. The previously pristine workroom was in shambles, and when Wodge put the lamp down, she saw his hands were shaking.
“What happened?” Farrah asked, taking the words out of her mouth. Honestly, she was still so stunned, she wasn’t sure when she’d regain the ability to speak.
He righted the overturned chairs and sat heavily in one, motioning for the them to take the others. Farrah sat, but Tilly moved to stand behind hers, keeping an eye on the now torn curtain leading to the front of the shop.
Wodge put his face in his hands and shuddered. “At first I thought it was a simple robbery, though I’ve never been troubled like that before. But the men, there were four of them, terribly large—” he held out his shaking hands to demonstrate the intruders’ breadth. “They had on dark capes, all the same, and pulled up quite close to their faces, and their hats were pulled down low. All I could see were their fearsome eyes.”
Farrah gasped and leaned forward for more of the story and Tilly pressed her lips together to keep from making a much ruder noise. But really, what was the point of this charade? Although, someone had clearly torn the place apart, and she didn’t see any logical reason why Wodge would do that to his own shop. She remembered Ashford had told her once that the one thing Wodge wasn’t was logical.
“They were looking in my front storage area when you arrived. They’d told me to lock the door, and I was certain I had. If they came out and saw you, I don’t know what they would have done. I panicked and locked you in the cellar.”
“It was a good thing they didn’t feel the need to search the cellar,” Tilly said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
Wodge didn’t seem to notice it and nodded vigorously. “I thought they might, I threw myself on their mercy. I don’t keep much money here, but I offered them all I had, the rare herbs and any of the equipment they wanted. But they only wanted one thing, and when they found it, they stormed away as quickly as they came.”
“What did they want?” Farrah breathed, once again taking the words out of Tilly’s mouth, though she said it in a much different tone than Tilly would have.
“That’s the oddest thing of all,” he said, seeming to have calmed down enough to look curious. “Do you recall that large book of magical spells I showed you the last time you visited? It’s an antique to be sure, but I never realized it was so rare and valuable as to warrant such a …” he trailed off and looked sadly at the mess of his workroom.
For the first time, Tilly began to believe that perhaps this wasn’t Wodge after all. There was no way he’d let that book out of his sight, and no amount of burly marauders could have taken it from him if he didn’t want it taken.
“Who are you?” she blurted.
“Ezra Ermine,” he said simply, squinting at the gash on her forehead as if it was the cause of her outburst.
She reached up and touched the still sticky cut and winced, unable to string a coherent thought together. “We should go,” she said. “Our friend, I mean, our chaperone is waiting for us at the corner.”
Wodge, no she was beginning to believe he was Ermine now, jumped up from his chair, a stricken look on his face. “Oh no, the young man. I completely forgot, and he was meant to be my first priority. I’m so terribly sorry, I’m not used to violent upheavals.”
Tilly almost laughed at the absurdity of hearing those words since Wodge was the very definition of violent upheaval, but once again she told herself firmly this might not be Wodge.
“What happened to Thomas?” she demanded. “Is he hurt?”
“I don’t know. I pray not, though they knocked him over the head and took him. He rushed in just as they were leaving, and one of them seemed to recognize him, at least I think so. I don’t know why else they would have taken him.”
Farrah burst into tears, and through it all, Tilly found it interesting to see Thomas’ crush wasn’t completely one sided. The adrenaline that had kept most of the pain of her injuries at bay was wearing off and her head and neck were truly aching now. She didn’t have the first clue what to do. Thomas was gone and Ashford’s book was in the hands of mysterious cloaked men. Even if she found a way back, she couldn’t leave with Thomas in danger.
“But you’re definitely Ezra Ermine,” she said. Somewhere in the recesses of her brain, she thought that was a positive. Her vision contracted and the ocean crashed in her ears.
“Yes,” he answered with a nod.
She laughed right before she blacked out.
Chapter 16
Tilly felt a cool hand brush the hair from her brow, careful not to touch the cut. She thought she felt a soft breath near her forehead, then the gentlest kiss. She opened her eyes to find herself staring into a pair of familiar silver grey ones, his brows furrowed with concern.
“You’re awake,” he said, pressing a kiss to her lips. She wanted him to linger there, to throw her arms around him, but he was already standing up.
“Stay,” she rasped, afraid he hadn’t heard. She couldn’t sit up, everything hurt too much, but nowhere near as much as his leaving would hurt. “Don’t go,” she managed more forcefully, feeling hot tears streaking down her cheeks.
He was at the door, the light so bright from behind him she could barely make out his features. She couldn’t tell what he wore, it was as if he was fading away.
“I’ll keep trying,” he said, his voice a faraway echo. “I won’t give up.”
He was gone and she gasped, opening her eyes for real, tears still wet on her cheeks. The devastation that he was gone, even though she knew it had only been a dream, tore at her chest. She willed herself to go back to sleep, never wake up again if that’s what it took to be with Ashford, but the door slammed open and a brisk battleaxe of a woman strode in. She leaned over Tilly and nodded, not a strand of her slate grey hair moving.
“Ah, you’re awake,” she said, with a slight German accent. “I am Mrs. Geissler. Are you in a great deal of pain?”
For all her brisk movements and strident tone, Mrs. Geissler had kind eyes that radiated compassion. She thrust a cup of water at her and patted her tear-stained cheeks dry with a soft towel she took from her apron.
The sadness from realizing the dream of Ashford wasn’t reality receded to the background, and she took stock of her surroundings. She was on a somewhat scratchy couch, covered with about thirteen blankets, her head nestled into a soft, voluminous pillow. Her dress had been loosened and it was so easy to breathe she wondered with horror if someone had loosened her stays as well. The room she was in was small but well appointed, hilly landscapes hung in gilded frames on the walls, and there was an array of different sized bottles crammed onto the mantel. She sat straight up, her spine protesting the sudden movement and the cut on her head twinging.
“Is this Mr. uh, Ermine’s house?” she asked, mortified.
How long had she been unconscious? It was bad enough she fainted, but to have to be dragged to his lair? She shook her aching head. He wasn’t the enemy, she’d
figured that out before she swooned. How embarrassing.
“Yes, miss. It’s just a few paces from the shop. A physician is on his way to make sure you’re well enough to make the carriage ride home, and if so, we’ll call one for you.”
“That won’t be necessary, if you just ring round to Belmary House— wait, where’s Farrah, I mean Miss Lawson?”
“That brave girl has gone off to question whether any of the neighbors might have seen your chaperone being dragged away, poor boy.”
“Brave,” Tilly muttered, thinking it was more like stupid. “Have you known Mr. Ermine long?” she asked, thinking she could put any lingering doubts to rest if she got some intel from his housekeeper. “It was so very kind of him to bring me here to recover,” she added, trying not to dwell on the fact that he was the one who’d flung her down the stairs in the first place.
“Ah, well, he feels responsible,” Mrs. Geissler said. “But yes, I’ve been working for the Ermine family since Ezra was about five or six years old. He was a lovely boy, got all his mother’s inquisitiveness. He’s always had such a way with plants, and such an imagination.” She scowled and folded her towel away into her apron, then pulled the bell, demanding strong tea as soon as the maid appeared.
“What do you mean, imagination?” Tilly asked, trying not to act too interested. There didn’t seem to be any way Ermine was Wodge, not unless …
“The books he collects for one. He thinks it’s a lark, but I think it’s dangerous to mess about with things one doesn’t understand. The fact that he was violently accosted today for one of those books proves what I’ve been thinking for years.”
“Oh, I agree.” Tilly nodded, trying to get used to the feeling that her brain was still slightly jiggling around in her head. She hoped it would go away soon. “Today was awful. That book must have been quite a rare antique.”
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