Spellbreaker

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  The servants’ door loomed ahead. Elsie might have missed it had she not made the Madeira delivery two days ago; the shadows hid it well. Heart pounding in her ears, she snuck closer, closer, and pressed her back against the cool wall of the mansion. She wasn’t terribly far from the woods. Perhaps she could run back to safety without being caught. She’d been quite a climber in her youth. If anything gave chase, she could ball her skirts between her knees and hide up a tree.

  Her palms sweated, and her mouth grew dry. Get it done and get out. The Cowls will know you did it this time.

  The door seemed so far away. Elsie sidestepped, cursing the moonlight when it peeked between its misty curtains. She reached for the doorknob, the spell of heat licking at her fingers. It was activated; Elsie snatched her hand away as the metal singed her fingertips. How many servants in this household had blister scars from this damnable thing?

  She attacked it with her nails. The unwinding came easier this time. She knew the pattern, knew which thread to loop through. It took only seconds—

  A hand seized her upper arm. Elsie barely had enough sense to bite down on a scream as someone yanked her away from the door.

  “So you’re the conrad breaking my spells!” a gruff baritone snapped, the speaker making no effort to be quiet.

  Elsie turned into her assailant’s grip, coming face-to-face with an exceptionally large man whose hold was tighter than that of the bespelled hunting path. She reeled and twisted, desperate to free herself. Her pulse drummed war beneath her skull.

  “A woman,” he growled. “Who are you? What’s your name?”

  Elsie didn’t answer, only fought. Aimed a kick for his shins, clawed at his sleeve. Full panic was setting in now. She became directionless save for the desperate need to escape. Don’t answer, don’t answer! If she did, he would know her voice, and perhaps he could use it against her. She had the cover of darkness. She just had to get away—

  The man jerked her forward, toward the rear of the house. “Fine. I’m sure the authorities will get answers out of you.”

  Caution snapped.

  “No!” she cried, dropping all her weight. Her captor stumbled as her knees hit the ground. “No, please!” Desperation wrenched the words out of her, making her hoarse. “I’ll do anything, but don’t call the police!”

  The man snorted. “You should have thought of the consequences before you trespassed.” He pulled her up.

  Elsie dropped again, earning a curse from the man’s lips.

  She saw a faint glimmer before her dress hardened to rock around her, hindering her movement. Physical aspector.

  He turned to grab her other arm. When he did, Elsie leaned her stiff body into him and, with a wrist still mobile, untied the spell of hardening near her hip.

  Her dress relaxed into cloth again, and she slammed her shoe hard onto his.

  It didn’t have the effect she wanted—it didn’t hurt the blasted man, only surprised him. She made it all of two steps before his enormous hands grabbed her arms again. And Elsie could disenchant only physical spells, not physical strength.

  “You talk of morals to me, yet you forbid your staff from leaving the house!” She pushed off the ground, trying to throw him off balance.

  He took a half step back before hauling her upright. “That spell is a security measure. Against thieves like you.” He dragged her toward the back entrance.

  “I am not a thief!” She tried to turn one way, then the other. Attempted to gouge his eyes. But his strength easily surmounted hers. Fight with magic and make this fair, you towering oaf!

  “Who sent you?” he barked.

  “No one did! Please, have mercy!”

  He merely grunted. The door was in sight. Surely someone would hear them any moment, and her chance of escaping would become that much slimmer. It would take only one more man to apprehend her, and then—

  “I’m not registered!” she hissed.

  He paused only a moment. Surely he knew the penalty for working any sort of magic without registration was grave. It made the thieving accusation sound like afternoon tea.

  “Please,” she pressed. “I’m not a criminal. I wanted to help the servants.” Pieces of loose hair fell into her face.

  Another growl sounded low in the man’s throat. “Who hired you?”

  Elsie pinched her lips shut.

  His grip tightened. “Who. Hired. You.”

  “I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to,” she muttered. Would the Cowls free her if she went to jail? But if her spellbreaking abilities went public, they’d never use her again. “My only crime is freeing the common man!”

  “It’s a security measure,” her captor responded, and Elsie caught an unfamiliar lilt in the statement. Something about the sound snapped her senses into place. Whoever had her wasn’t the duke—Elsie knew him to be getting on in years, and he wasn’t an aspector, besides. In the streak of moonlight falling over them, Elsie noticed the darkness of her assailant’s hands. He was a foreigner.

  “I won’t trespass again if you just let me go,” she pleaded, the fight leaving her. She couldn’t outmaneuver him. If she couldn’t barter her way out of this, she’d be staring at the inside of a jail cell for the rest of her life, which might be rather short.

  Would they hang her?

  But the spellmaker seemed to consider her words. Sourly. Sourness poured off him like the stink of brandy. “Common man,” he scoffed. “I don’t believe you. What does a secure door do to hurt the people inside? They are free to go as they choose. They contribute decently to society. Something you should learn.” He moved toward the door.

  “Excuse me!” Elsie huffed as the man dragged her to her doom. Being silent no longer mattered, nor did attempting to pacify the brute. “I contribute to society! Do I look like a ruffian to you?”

  He paused again. Looked her up and down. In the daylight, it might have made her self-conscious.

  “You’d better explain yourself.” His voice was low, like a threat. But his grip loosened a fraction.

  “Please. I’m an assistant to a stonemason. I was nearby to get paints. Someone told me the servants were being mistreated. I came to help. I’m begging you”—her voice choked; it wasn’t an act, but real fear strangling her—“let me go. Let me pay you for the spell. Or work off the price. I’ll sign a contract never to step on the grounds again!”

  The man considered. “You’re a spellbreaker.”

  Obviously. She nodded, hopeful.

  He drew back his left hand, keeping hold of her with his right. Stroked the beard Elsie could just make out in the poor light.

  “Tell me your name.”

  Elsie pursed her lips.

  “Tell me honestly, or the constable will have it.”

  Lies pooled in her mind. Betty. I’m a baker. He was no spiritual aspector—he couldn’t detect the lie. Could he? And what if he did?

  She deflated. “Elsie Camden. You can look me up. I haven’t lied.”

  “You will work off the debt,” he said. “I have work that needs to be done, and spellbreakers are hard to find and expensive. Work for me. Or for your life. However you choose to see it.”

  Elsie gaped. He released her, but she didn’t run. She’d been too honest to run.

  “I already work full time,” she countered. And that was not including her missions for the Cowls.

  He shrugged. “Not my problem.”

  Elsie straightened. “I have to be home in the morning. But I can come back the day after.” Hopefully the squire’s work would hold out and Ogden wouldn’t notice her absence. Three employers . . . How would she make this work?

  But she had to.

  “Dawn.”

  “I’m not local.”

  He motioned toward the back door. On the second floor, someone lit a candle.

  Nerves crawled over Elsie’s skin like beetles. “Fine. Fine. I’ll do my best. And who do I ask for?”

  “Come to the servants’ door and ask for Kelsey.” He tur
ned for the back door now, but without her in tow. “If you choose not to show, I will find you and ensure you are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

  Elsie swallowed. Knit her fingers together. The man said nothing more, only disappeared into the house.

  Another candle lit in a third-story window.

  Heart jumping, Elsie ran, avoiding the hunting trail. The woods swallowed her.

  She didn’t want to anger the Cowls, but she very much believed Mr. Kelsey’s threat.

  If she didn’t show, his punishment would be swifter than theirs.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Elsie, could you hand me that pitcher? Elsie?”

  Elsie blinked, climbing out of the mental hole she’d fallen into. She leaned against the wall in the kitchen, staring blindly into nothing. She noticed Emmeline standing over the stove, watching her. Spied the pitcher of water near the sink.

  “Sorry.” Elsie retrieved the pitcher and handed it to Emmeline, who poured its contents into the pot she stirred. Calf’s foot jelly, one of Ogden’s favorites.

  “You’ve been absent this morning,” the maid said.

  Elsie merely nodded. She was tired, yes. Last night, she’d spent an exorbitant amount of money on a midnight carriage to drop her off at the edge of Brookley, and although she’d snuck into her room for a few hours’ sleep, she’d had to leave again before the household awakened so she could pretend to arrive at the appointed time. She’d started on Ogden’s financial ledgers only to find the numbers swirling before her eyes. Her brain was tied up in Kent.

  Could Mr. Kelsey really track her down? Her name wasn’t listed in any directory, she was certain. Her workhouse records had burned to ash long ago. What would he do, stop at every post office in the country until her name popped up?

  She should have lied after all, but he’d been so serious, so dour, she’d suspected he would somehow know. Would the Cowls be angry when they saw the heat spell intact? Was Mr. Kelsey lying about the security measure? Elsie felt like she was drowning in a pool and desperately trying to find purchase on slick porcelain walls.

  It’s just for a little while. She’d balance it somehow. The Cowls might not ask for another favor for months, for all she knew. Ogden was often busy and was lenient with her schedule—she’d earned it, after so many years of good service. Kent wasn’t far. She could manage it for a week or two. Surely that would be enough work to repay her perceived debt, and Mr. Kelsey would let her go.

  He couldn’t be too terrible if he’d given her the option to flee.

  A bell rang in the kitchen, startling both Elsie and Emmeline. Ogden didn’t often use the bellpull, only when he was very busy or needed to make a good impression on a visitor in his sitting room. Elsie and Emmeline exchanged a glance before Elsie said, “I’ll take it.”

  Emmeline nodded her thanks. Picking up her maroon skirt, Elsie hurried up the stairs to the sitting room. The door was cracked open, and they had no visitors, so she didn’t bother knocking.

  “Mr. Ogden?” she asked, but she needn’t have. Ogden sat on a stool by the unlit fireplace, a fine-tipped brush in his hand. He’d worked Latin letters down his arm in blue ink.

  He was learning a new spell.

  “My drops, Elsie, if you would,” he said over his shoulder.

  Elsie hurried from the sitting room to Ogden’s room. It was simply furnished and smelled very much like man—shaving cream, plaster, spice. It was just as well that Elsie had answered the bell. Emmeline didn’t know where Ogden kept his drops. She’d been employed at the stonemasonry shop for almost two years, but information so valuable could be entrusted only to so many.

  Crouching, Elsie felt under Ogden’s side table for a small key hidden there, then took it to the squat cupboard near the locked window. It fit into a small door on the side, and Elsie withdrew a small leather bag from within, the drops clanking against one another. She worked the bag open as she returned to the sitting room.

  Inside were seven drops, each worth more than its weight in gold. Although roughly the size of shillings, they were imperfectly round—a strange, beautiful amalgamation of quartz, rose water, and gold. They were translucent, rounded but not smooth, and glinted in the sunlight. Drops were the currency the universe—or perhaps God—required for spells. They didn’t require magic to create, an aspector could make his own, but the measurements were so precise and the process so expensive it was simpler just to exchange coin for them at the nearest atheneum. A lot of coin. The more advanced the spell, the higher the price. Drops were one of many reasons an impoverished person could rarely raise his fortune through magic.

  Of course, it cost no money to break a spell, only to learn one.

  “I need seven,” Ogden said when Elsie slipped into the room.

  “Just enough.” Elsie turned the drops into her hand and stood behind Ogden, waiting for him to finish his work. The words of the spell, always in Latin, needed to be written precisely down his arm, and Elsie didn’t wish to disturb him. If the spell took—if Ogden’s innate talent was enough—the words would absorb into his skin, making the spell a part of him. A page in his future opus. The drops would vanish as well. Some said they became part of the body, generating power for magic. Others claimed they reabsorbed into the universe, or plunked into God’s own coffers. Wherever they went, they could not be used a second time. Drops were one of magic’s most compelling mysteries, perhaps rivaled only by the spells themselves. Who had penned the first spell was as shrouded in enigma as who had penned the last. None of the authors were known, and spells across all four disciplines were set. Many had studied the language and style of spellmaking enchantments in an effort to expound upon them, or create one anew, and not one had ever been successful. The magic was as set in stone as the Commandments themselves.

  Ogden’s handwriting was in blue ink, for physical aspecting. Red was used for rational, yellow for spiritual, and green for temporal. Why, she didn’t know. That was just the way God had made it.

  She settled down on the nearby settee, the drops warming in her hands. Her eyes fell to a folded newspaper beside her—Ogden’s morning read. She opened the thin paper, her eyes instantly falling to the main headline.

  Viscount Aspector Struck by Lightning on Clear Day.

  Its subheading read:

  Opus Not Recovered.

  Furrowing her brow, Elsie brought the paper closer to her face. Viscount Byron had been struck down in London after a meeting of Parliament, in the late hours of the evening. Though there was no storm, lightning had forked from the sky through his window and into his person. The witness, who had asked not to be identified, ran screaming from the house, but when the family—and later authorities—arrived on the scene, there was no sign of the viscount or his opus.

  A chill coursed down Elsie’s spine as Mr. Parker’s words came rushing back to her: He has been out of sorts lately, what with the passing of the viscount . . . Right under his nose, yet no one heard a thing.

  Her mouth went dry. Had the steward been referring to Viscount Byron? Could Squire Hughes be the unidentified witness?

  Her thoughts ran rampant. According to the Wright sisters, the squire had also been connected to the baron who had passed. Quite a coincidence that he should know both of the men whose opuses had been taken. And why the sudden increase in opus-related crime? This wasn’t the seventeenth century—

  “Elsie?”

  She set down the paper and forced her thoughts to the present, tucking away the information for later study. Crossing to Ogden, she placed the drops in his waiting hand. They seemed so bright at first, but it was only a trick of the sun, for when Ogden shifted his hand, they glowed only faintly.

  This was another aspect of drops—they reacted to a person’s magical fortitude. Glowed. The stronger the spellmaker, the brighter the drop. They did not, however, react to a spellbreaker’s magic. If Elsie held them in her hand, they remained unlit and translucent. Ogden had some ability, but not much. The spells she’d enc
ountered at the duke’s estate would be far beyond his grasp. But he did try, and occasionally succeed.

  “Which spell is this?”

  “Temperature change.” Ogden held his painted arm out straight in front of him. “Would make some of my work easier. Maybe help with pottery.”

  Elsie stepped back, and Ogden chanted Latin. Elsie understood only a few words of the old language, and none of the ones passing her employer’s lips. She tried to follow the words on his arms, for that was what he read, but Ogden’s body hair was thick, and he had turned the top of his forearm away from her. When he finished, his fist closed around the drops. They brightened slightly, then dulled.

  Ogden sighed. The spell hadn’t taken.

  “Maybe try again,” Elsie suggested. “I can check your handwriting; the brush could have slipped.”

  “It’s an intermediate spell.” Ogden lowered his arm, looking fatigued. “It was a long shot to begin with. Seems I must appease myself with novice learning only.”

  Elsie rested her hand on his shoulder. “You still know more magic than I do.” It was both a truth and a lie.

  He offered a weak smile and patted her hand. “It’s fine. I am an artist, not an aspector. This is really just a hobby.”

  “At least you’ll only ever have to buy white paint.” Ogden’s most-used spell was the color-changing one, although he couldn’t mimic the metallic glints in the paint Elsie had retrieved for him last night. “I put the new paint in your studio.”

  “Thank you. Mind getting me a tea cloth so I can wash this off? Emmeline hates scrubbing ink from my shirts.”

  She nodded and turned, but paused. “Did you read the paper already?”

  “I have.”

  “What do you think . . . of the murders? And the opuses?” The opuses that had been stolen were from master magicians, people who knew the most powerful of spells. The spellbooks’ value went far beyond money, and in the wrong hands, they could be incredibly dangerous. In the riots of the late seventeenth century, opus spells had been used to make a general forget which side he fought for and attack his own king. Another had set an atheneum on fire.