Spellbreaker

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  She stalked past the carriage, only to stop when she heard the spell on his horse’s flank—a chirping spiritual spell that would allow an aspector to speak to the animal to better train it. The same spell the post office used on its post dogs. Elsie unwound it with a flick of her finger and trudged inside through the side door. Let him think the spell was haphazardly placed and came off on its own. It wasn’t an uncommon issue.

  “Elsie! Where have you been?” Emmeline said as Elsie started up the stairs. “The dressmakers put up a new display, and I thought it would be fun to stop by and—what’s wrong?”

  Elsie couldn’t summon the will to pretend everything was all right. Not yet. Shaking her head, she said, “It’s nothing. I just . . . need to think for a moment.” She slipped into her bedroom, grateful Emmeline didn’t try to follow after. She closed the door, tore off her hat, and fumbled with her chatelaine bag. Coins and a fan had spilled onto the floor by the time she got her hands on her handkerchief.

  She caught the tears just before they rolled down her face.

  Sitting on the edge of her bed, Elsie chided herself for crying. She’d already recovered from this. It wasn’t the loss of Alfred that bothered her, precisely. She was better off without him, though the night he left her still stung. It’s not right, Elsie, he’d said. You and I. It’s been fun, but I’ve found someone actually suited to me. And he’d taken his umbrella with him to leave her soaking in the downpour just down the street from his house, miles away from her own. She’d been sick with fever for two weeks after that, sick with heartbreak even longer. But Elsie was a strong woman. The Cowls knew it. Ogden knew it. Even Mr. Kelsey knew it.

  Yet the soundest logic in the world could not heal her old wounds. It could not silence the voice that insisted she was unlovable. Unlovable. Unlovable.

  She sobbed into the handkerchief until there wasn’t a dry spot on it. Until the room began to grow dark. When there wasn’t a stripe of energy left in her, she flopped onto her pillow and stared at the wall, her eyes dry and aching, her throat tight.

  She didn’t say anything when a knock sounded on the door. Nor did she protest when it cracked open, revealing Ogden in the doorway.

  “Oh, Elsie,” he said, warm and sad. “What happened?”

  She merely shook her head. She couldn’t speak even if God demanded it of her. A frog would be better understood.

  Ogden stepped into her room, leaving the door ajar, and shoved her knees over so he could sit on the edge of the bed. Just like he had when she’d first arrived there. He had acted the part of the father she couldn’t remember, reading her bedtime stories and telling her old fables. It was his fault she had an addiction to novel readers.

  She’d wondered, back then, if he was as lonely as she was.

  She hid her face in her stained handkerchief.

  “Someone say something to you?” he guessed feebly. Elsie was not prone to hysterics, especially not in front of other people. She refused to be the seed of someone else’s gossip. “The Wright sisters?” he tried again.

  She shook her head.

  “Might as well tell me, or I’ll stay here all night, and the neighbors will talk.”

  A sore chuckle popped up her throat. Anyone who really knew Ogden knew any scandal between them was nigh impossible.

  He touched her elbow. “Not the squire?”

  “No.” Her voice was raw and childish. She hated it.

  Ogden waited.

  After a few almost smooth breaths, she said, “I saw Alfred.”

  She needn’t explain further. She’d been employed here, just as she was now, during their courtship. Emmeline, new and excitable, had suggested ideas for the wedding dinner and Elsie’s dress almost daily. Ogden had stressed over finding her replacement. They, too, had been shocked when it ended faster than night turns to day. She’d dedicated herself more fiercely to the Cowls than ever after that. This was just a painful reminder of where her loyalty belonged.

  “Oh, Elsie.”

  She shrugged. “Just for a minute. Doesn’t matter. H-He didn’t think twice of it.”

  He rubbed her arm briskly like she’d bruised it. “I’ll have Emmeline bring dinner to your room.”

  I’m fine, she wanted to say, but her throat burned with the lie.

  “With some warm milk,” he added.

  God help her, she really was eleven again.

  His hand stilled. “You’re a bright young woman, Elsie. You have no idea the things awaiting you in this life.”

  And oddly . . . she felt better. They were simple words, but they carried a strange power. A firm assurance she didn’t quite understand. She thought she felt . . . but no, that was a hair tickling her face. She brushed the thing away. It would take hours to pull the pins out of the knots she’d made of it.

  Ogden patted her elbow and stood from the bed. She heard him linger at the door for several seconds before closing it.

  Elsie fell asleep before Emmeline could bring her a tray.

  CHAPTER 11

  “I suppose you’re going to compensate me after my employment is terminated?” Elsie asked, picking her way around a mud puddle formed by the morning’s rain. She traversed a wide dirt road that stretched from Seven Oaks toward the bulk of the duke’s tenants, and while the overhead sky was currently dry, the lurking, morose clouds promised more rain to come.

  Mr. Bacchus Kelsey, half a step ahead of her, scoffed at the idea. He wasn’t in a jovial mood, not that jovial was his usual demeanor. But he was a little stiffer than usual, a little colder, too. Elsie didn’t think it had anything to do with the weather.

  She stepped over a stone, glad she’d had the forethought to don sturdy boots for today’s blackmailed labors. She wore a simple linen dress, one she wouldn’t care too much about dirtying. The hem was already collecting whispers of mud. Elsie would wash those out herself rather than explain to Emmeline how she’d come by them. Another late night ahead of her, then. At least she’d caught up on sleep.

  Even so, she knew she couldn’t carry on her triple life for much longer. If she spent much more time away from Brookley, she’d get herself in trouble. Goodness, it felt like she was a character in one of her novel readers, and if she’d learned anything from those sensational stories, everything would culminate into a ghastly event meant to entertain someone else—perhaps, in this case, God—at her expense.

  She should try her hand at authorship someday. She might be good at it.

  You may have more time than you think. What if it’s the steward who is keeping Mr. Ogden busy, not the squire? What if Mr. Parker’s giving you the time you need? Wishful thinking, perhaps, but she hoped it was true.

  When they crested a small hill and the first homes began to dot the greenery ahead of them, Mr. Kelsey said, “The crops haven’t been doing well. They thrive in the tenants’ individual gardens, but the farms are waterlogged and close to rot.”

  “It did rain today.”

  He cast her a withering look.

  Elsie sighed. “Well, I can certainly take a look.”

  He didn’t reply, so she simply followed him into the tiny village, averting her eyes, wishing not to be recognized. Out for a stroll, she’d say if asked. Consultant. Curious about the duke’s grounds. Eager for Mr. Kelsey’s company, is all.

  Not today. The man was practically a storm all in himself. Maybe he’d also run into a past lover. What kind of woman, precisely, would interest a man like Mr. Kelsey?

  “Perhaps the queen will decide it’s too dreary and hire the Physical Atheneum to clear up the sky, hmm?” Elsie offered. It wasn’t fully a jest—it had happened before. With the ability to control temperature and water vapor, powerful physical aspectors could create storms, even dismiss them. For a city as large as London, it would take . . . many working together. Elsie wasn’t sure of the exact number. But Kent would feel some of the effects.

  If Mr. Kelsey replied, she didn’t hear it. They stepped between two homes, Mr. Kelsey nodding to a woman com
forting an infant on her shoulder. To the right, Elsie spied a physical spell, small and faintly blue, shivering as though cold, at the center of the stone wall. It vanished just as quickly.

  When they were out of earshot, she said, “I don’t suppose you want me to take the fortifying spells off the homes as well?”

  He glanced at her, his green eyes such a contrast to his deeply tanned features.

  She shrugged. “Make them more dependent. Easier to cow. The like.”

  “I don’t know why you have it in your mind that the duke means to make enemies of his own tenants.” He sounded tired. “Those spells are new, besides.”

  She paused for a moment. Only a moment, for Mr. Kelsey’s long strides easily put distance between them, and she’d rather not run after him in front of so many onlookers. Mr. Kelsey had placed the spells, then. Recently. To strengthen the houses. That could be helpful only to the people who lived here.

  Perhaps it had been done in an effort to save the duke money, but it was kind regardless. Not that she’d mention it.

  Elsie saw the field in question up ahead—rows and rows of young plants, perhaps corn. She’d never been a farmer, but they did indeed look waterlogged and sickly, almost more brown than green, and spots dotted the leaves like freckles. She paused at the edge of it and crouched down, touching the soil. It wasn’t any damper than the rest of the county.

  “Anything?” Mr. Kelsey asked.

  She stood. Glanced over her shoulder, feeling the prickling of distant stares.

  “They’ll lose interest soon enough,” he assured her.

  She took two handfuls of her skirt and hoisted it to the top of her boots. “May I?”

  Mr. Kelsey gestured ahead.

  She walked down the row, trying to avoid hurting the sad crops at her feet. A few had given up hope and lay uselessly on the dirt, stems too weak to stand.

  Please let there be a spell, she thought, chewing on the edge of her tongue. I can’t fix it if there isn’t. And then these people might be denied even their cabbage.

  She walked the entire row without so much as a glimpse, sound, or smell of a spell. Mr. Kelsey stood a third of the way into the field, watching her. Skipping a few rows, Elsie stepped carefully back, searching. Smelling, listening. Keeping her senses open.

  Again, nothing. Perhaps the tenants would have to move the field. It wasn’t too late to plant anew . . . but preparing another piece of land this size would be a difficult task.

  She passed a few more rows and traversed the farmland once again. She was a quarter of the way through when she thought she heard something—a sound like a cricket’s cry, punching the air before vanishing altogether. She stepped back. Nothing. Crouched—

  There.

  She gently pushed apart two plants. This time she heard it more clearly, the chirp subtle yet distinct, too wrong to be a hiding insect. A spiritual spell, then. After removing her gloves and shoving them into her collar, she gave up hope for manicured nails and dug into the dirt, the chirping becoming stronger until she found it nearly a foot down. Tiny but strong, its song buzzed in her ears, the sound clear enough now that she saw its knots in her mind’s eye.

  Mr. Kelsey approached from the west. “Did you find something?”

  “Can you hear it?”

  He shook his head.

  She touched it. “There. It’s a spiritual spell, but one I don’t recognize. Does the duke or any of the people here employ magic in the fields? To help the plants grow?”

  “Often, yes. Did you not find them?”

  Elsie shook her head, wondering if a spellbreaker had also been present recently or if, perhaps, the aspector hired to initially boost the crops had never made it to his appointment. “This might very well be the curse you suspected, Mr. Kelsey.” She wondered if the Cowls knew about it, but she doubted it. It was very well hidden.

  Mr. Kelsey cursed. Or so she thought. It was under his breath and hard to decipher, but it had the sharpness of a curse.

  Without waiting for his command, Elsie poked at the spell, searching for its threads. It took her a full minute to find the first one. Her concentration must have been obvious, for Mr. Kelsey didn’t interrupt her until she was finished. She stood up and brushed off her skirts, then blinked as blood rushed back to her head.

  Mr. Kelsey took her elbow.

  “I’m quite all right,” she said, but she didn’t pull away until she was sure she wouldn’t fall and ruin the dress completely. He had a firm but gentle grip, unlike when he’d manhandled her a week ago. She didn’t dislike it. “I wonder if there are more.”

  “We’ll look,” he said. Elsie liked that he included himself in the work, though his aspector blindness made him quite useless.

  She studied his face. “You know who did it?”

  “I have a very strong suspicion.”

  She did love a bit of gossip. “Do tell.”

  He set his jaw, relaxed it. Rubbed his forehead. “The Duke of East Sussex. His wife is a master spiritual aspector and a jealous cow of a woman.”

  “My, my.” Elsie pulled her gloves from her collar. “Such a sharp tongue you have.”

  “You would call her worse, I’m sure. She wears spells like a heavy perfume and deals them out as freely as the law will allow. The rest she does where the law can’t see.”

  She frowned. “What business is it of hers if this farm fails or succeeds?”

  Mr. Kelsey shook his head. “She’s a jealous woman. Envies Duchess Abigail a great deal. Perhaps she’s cross about Master Merton’s interest in Miss Ida; rumor is she’s topped off on her magical potential and it’s made her bitter.”

  Topped off. Elsie thought of Ogden’s struggle to learn a new physical spell. He was only a novice-level aspector, and he had already emptied his magical cup. She understood discussing one’s magical potential was a taboo topic in polite society.

  “As far as I know,” Mr. Kelsey continued, “she’s been forgotten by the Spiritual Atheneum. I honestly can’t think of anyone else with motivation.”

  “She must be a rather self-motivated woman, to come out here and get in the dirt herself.”

  “She has done as much before. In other ways.” He rubbed his half beard. Unfashionable as it was, Elsie thought it suited him rather well. What did those whiskers feel like? “I’m sure I have something in my repertoire to return the favor.”

  Why on earth are you thinking about his facial hair? She focused on the conversation at hand. “I didn’t think you the petty type.”

  He scowled. “If these people only understand dirty politics, then I’ll speak their language.”

  “While you mimic it quite well”—she stepped over some plants to get better footing—“I fear any sort of similar revenge will only hurt the duchess’s tenants, and I’m sure they stay far from the political game.”

  He glanced at her, the scowl dissipating. She raised an eyebrow.

  “You’re right, of course.” He sighed.

  Hands on hips, Elsie scanned the field. She was nearly in the center of it. If there were more spells, she imagined they’d be at either of the far ends. She checked the sky. If she left in the next half hour, she could get home without the need to explain her absence. And yet . . . she found herself disliking this spiritual aspector who had turned her jealousy into a weapon wielded against the innocent. She didn’t need a directive from the Cowls to see justice done.

  “I presume the Duke of East Sussex is in London with the rest of Parliament, since his estate is not a comfortable ride away?”

  He folded his arms. “I believe so.”

  “Then his duchess would be there as well.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Your point?”

  “I assume your reference to her wearing spells would mean those of vanity? Physical and temporal, perhaps? Those are rather simple spells. Quite easy to unravel. I need only run into her, and she might not even notice.” She smiled. “It might be enough of a message.” Elsie was feeling a little reckless.


  And she would very much like to stay busy today, if only to keep her thoughts where she wanted them and not allow them leave to stray to Alfred. Or her parents.

  Unlovable.

  She rubbed her hands together, cleaning them as best she could, before pulling on her gloves. “I’ll even do it free of charge.” She’d have to find an excuse for her absence if Ogden noticed. She really needed to be more careful. While she doubted Ogden would turn her out, she wanted him to be glad to have her.

  Mr. Kelsey’s lips quirked. “We sound like children, don’t we?”

  “Have you never noticed that children have a much happier disposition than adults? Perhaps you might know where the naughty Duchess of East Sussex is staying.”

  He considered that a moment. “Let’s check the rest of the field. And then you will ride in a duke’s carriage, Miss Camden.”

  “And you will ride on horseback outside of it.” She offered her fakest smile. “For the sake of propriety.”

  He accepted the offer with a nod, though oddly enough, Elsie found herself wishing he’d fought her on it.

  Elsie stood in a short, sunny alleyway, feeling like she was eight years old again. Perhaps they were being foolish, immature, even reckless, but she could not deny she was excited. Her work with the Cowls was always so precise and clandestine. So impersonal.

  She could get caught. In fact, if the situation seemed too dangerous for her to act, she would not. Petty revenge certainly wasn’t worth the noose, however much the woman deserved it. But if the spells were simple enough, she could work swiftly, invisibly. She’d done it before.

  Honestly, it was a soft punishment for a woman trying to starve an entire village.

  “There.” Bacchus peered onto the main street beside her. The word was especially rich, and Elsie realized he’d said it in his Bajan accent. She tried not to smile as he gestured subtly toward the road. They stood close, half-masked by a small shop for used book and leather repair. A tall but plump woman exited the ribbon shop Bacchus had indicated, dressed in scarlet almost too bright to be tasteful. Was that velvet? Goodness, the jacket alone would cost a fortune. She had black hair curled and pinned under a matching hat. Her features were quite lovely, her eyes large and nose small, lips red without paint. She looked too young for a woman in her fifties, which was the age Bacchus had guessed her to be.