“She said you were useless.”
Despite her efforts, Frederick did raise his head off her shoulder, both he and Natalie staring at her—but her reaction wasn’t what they feared, the answer too clear.
“She found out I was a protection witch, somehow.” How it could have been so obvious when she had only been an infant was unclear, but Hester was powerful, and she had never been certain of Randolph’s exact abilities.
“Em,” Natalie murmured, but Emma was barely listening, her thoughts moving on.
Glancing back to all of them, she put it together. “She was breeding Philbert magic to Goodwinter.”
Which would explain why she went out of her way to put together her grandfather and grandmother. Emma was certain it was more than a simple desire to spite Hester’s twin.
“That got her my mother.”
Taking a deep breath, she managed to hold herself together, suspecting that it had been Hester herself who had raised her mother, that her grandfather had barely been allowed to know her. No. They wouldn’t have wanted his kinder influences, after all.
The rage and pain simmered, but she forced herself to let them go, for now. If they all survived this, she could deal with the emotional fallout later.
“Lily,” Benjamin repeated torturedly, and she nodded, still putting it together.
“Evidently, my mother’s magic is something she and Randolph Spear were looking for. They were trying to breed him with Goodwinter blood . . .”
Frederick finished. “And they needed a daughter to do it.” Of course, this assumed that there had been no other, unpartnered women in the Goodwinter family before Hester’s plans—but that was a discussion for another day. Perhaps, if there had been, their magic wasn’t strong enough or of the right kind to impress the woman or her partner-in-evil—or perhaps doing her best to ruin Benjamin’s life had simply been her final way of spiting her twin.
In some, twisted ways, this made sense. It certainly explained the dismissive venom to be heard in Hester’s way of calling her a “protection witch.”
Thinking of it now, Emma nearly laughed. Of course, that was evil all over. To care enough about others, especially strangers, to want to see them kept safe was completely inexplicable to such people. The closest explanations they could ever come up with were weakness, stupidity, or guile.
Emma almost snorted. You had to have a soul to actually care about someone else’s fate for their own sake alone.
Understanding that all of them had followed this logic, as much as it was followable, she nodded, looking to Frederick, as she turned the question. “Hester was breeding her brother to your grandmother, as well.”
Her gaze was apologetic, but there was no time for sentiment now.
“She ended up eventually with you and your sister.”
Filling in the rest, Frederick nodded sadly. “I have cousins, as well, but I don’t think any of them have abilities. Hester barely even noticed them.” Sighing, his voice grew softer. “It’s probably her influence which prevented us from having much to do with them, too.”
Well, that was a breeding program for you. The ones which didn’t fit the checklist of qualities you were looking for were given away. Her heart thumped. Or killed.
Her mind spun back to the poor little luck witch down the hall. “The accident today. Do you think either she, Randolph, or Philbert Spear arranged it in order to get their hands on Grace?”
Was the girl the result of yet more magical breeding experiments? And, if so, whose?
“It was apparently Philbert Spear who was trying to take her and her mother away,” Natalie reminded them. “Do you think he’s part of Hester’s plans or working on his own experiments?”
They had no clear answer, although the enormity of what was going on did start to press in on Emma.
Great Hecate, what is going on in this town?
She watched Frederick shake his head, as he answered. “I truly felt that that magic was reaching out to kill the child.”
Emma took his hand. “But with a powerful enough compulsion . . .”
For a tiny little luck witch, her magic enslaved by others before she even had any conscious awareness of it, death would nearly be preferable.
“It would be a living death, anyway,” Natalie chimed in sadly. It certainly made sense of why Philbert Spear wanted the child back so badly, as her magic was a very useful possession for the one who controlled her.
But was it part of Hester’s plan?
This left them with many questions to which they had no answers. Emma practically wanted to go march over to Philbert’s house and demand to talk to the child’s mother—but she wasn’t an idiot. Besides, they already had someone who had been used for breeding in the house, her grandfather aside.
She looked to Frederick apologetically.
He nodded sadly. “Jenny’s daughter is the sort of thing they wanted. She’s powerful.”
Or so they had been told. Even little Grace would have had her uses for them.
It was Frederick who finally suggested it, then, looking up to Benjamin sadly. “Can you lift whatever sleeping spell you have her under? I think we need to find out what she’s been through.”
This wasn’t a happy plan, but at least it was one.
Smiling at him lovingly, Emma squeezed his hand, as Nat squeezed hers. She didn’t want to push him, or harm his sister, but they had to have answers—soon, she feared. Night was about to fall.
That shouldn’t mean anything, normally, but today . . .?
Looking back up to the man she was coming to love and the woman who had always been her strength, she felt a little guilty when her gaze focused in more on Frederick, but he was the only one whose magical abilities were apparently near her own—as untamed as they might be. “Do you also have the feeling that we’re running out of time?”
Rising, Frederick looked grim. The lights in his irises were dancing with intent, and that alone told her everything.
“Jenny,” he nodded, dropping Emma’s hand with a squeeze before leading the way.
While none of them wanted to risk damaging the poor girl further, this was necessary. Only with a fuller picture of their enemies’ intentions did they stand any chance of finally putting this right.
Chapter 14
Frederick
In Frederick’s professional career, he had mostly looked after the petty concerns of the rich and demanding, although he had occasionally saved a life—usually in his less-acknowledged practice. Today, however, he had many more lives in his care. That his own was among them was an irony he would have to survive long enough to appreciate.
They made their way to the Jenny’s room quickly, then, even if Benjamin followed at a truly depressed pace behind. Frederick felt sorry for the man but had no time to counsel him, at the moment.
For one thing, he was still weakened from his earlier magical use, had yet to discern how much power should be pulled from himself and how much from other places which could spare the energy—such as a realm where the forests bloomed so profusely that the sense of life and creation practically sang through the air. He knew that, if he got the balance wrong, he could damage, or even kill, himself—but the alternative was even worse. If he pulled too much from those other places he had seen, the ones he still felt a doorway to inside his soul, he could destroy them—along with every living thing they held.
While this terror gripped him, nearly making him want to try to contain and hide away his magic, he also knew this to be impossible. Every time he held it back even a little, it was as though it were bubbling within his blood, little explosions set off everywhere. If he tried to deny it, it would drive him mad—and then all the fears he shared with his new partner and her friend would be confirmed completely.
When he entered the room, his heart clenched. Even in her unnatural stillness, Jenny’s torment was obvious in the tear tracks on her face.
Glancing worriedly back to Benjamin before taking Emma’s hand, he tried to prepare hims
elf. Her eyes were all the lovelier now for her ongoing conversion. “I’ll need your help to calm her.”
When Emma nodded and reached back to take her friend’s hand, he attempted to hide from her the little part of himself which sighed with the wish that it were he that she turned to for strength. It was a churlish and foolish feeling, and he would never want to force her to endure it from him.
“Should we call Trudy?” Emma shrugged a little, apparently mistaking his admiration for uncertainty. “Her magic . . .”
“No.”
She seemed confused, as that woman had already helped out Benjamin in his darkest moments.
“The less she and her husband know, the less danger they face.”
He was half-aware that he was still using non-magical terms for the pair, but it was difficult to do away with a lifetime’s worth of training. Still, he was confident that, if the worst happened, Hester would be able to see, with a single glance, all Aubry and his wife knew. Their ignorance of any details might well save both their and their child’s lives.
Emma squeezed his hand slightly, and he couldn’t help looking at her with love. All that formidable strength, and she used it to guard the world. What sane man could not worship such a woman as this?
Refocusing on his poor sister and leaning down to stroke over her forehead, he then nodded toward Benjamin, allowing him to lift the sleep spell slowly.
The man still seemed shaky, his cat friends gazing up to him worriedly, but did as he was asked.
“Jenny,” Frederick began.
It didn’t take much to bring her around—but he wasn’t certain whether that were due to his presence or the intensity of her living nightmare.
Continuing to speak softly, he told her, “Jenny, I’m here.”
Her eyes fluttered, and then a deep green which mirrored his own—at least when his had been normal—opened to stare at him.
“I’ll keep you safe.”
It was a hollow sort of promise, given all she had already been put through, but it was all he could give her now.
When she finally focused on him, her features started to collapse in horror. “Oh, Frederick.”
She sat up, clinging to him, and he held her in the arm which wasn’t drawing strength from his partner. He could feel a subtle spell the two of them wove—along with Natalie—a shield against Hester, a block on whatever probing pathways his aunt had set up in his sister’s mind. It was set in place behind the two other protection spells—Benjamin’s normal household ones and Emma’s shielding of all who inhabited her home.
Unfortunately, they all had to fight against the blood connection he and Jenny shared with Hester, which could do terrible damage, if they weren’t careful.
Holding the girl he had helped to raise, he prayed for her. “Tell me about it, Jenny. I need to know what’s been done to you.”
She had started crying again, and he listened, aching with her pain.
“Oh, Frederick.”
The poor thing snuffled into his neck, wetting him with her tears.
“She took her. She’s taken Livy from me.”
This was the most they could pry from her for many, precious minutes, her sobs uncontrollable, and he knew his torment showed all too clearly, as he glanced at his partner and her friend. Still, they said nothing, their own horror and sympathy clear.
For a moment, then, he stroked over his weeping sister’s back, murmuring soothing phrases, as he had ever since she was tiny and frightened in the night. It was a tableau the two were used to—although the presence of Emma and her friend were an odd addition.
His calming worked somewhat, the girl’s tears eventually reduced to muffled, spastic sobs.
Feeling Emma’s strength flow into him, he was able to push on. “I’m sorry, Jenny.”
The girl snuffled against him again.
“I need to know the rest. I need to hear everything.”
It was a terrible request to make, but Jenny managed to speak at last, although she never pulled away from him. Her words were muffled but clear. “Where do you want me to begin?”
The sound of her voice was so childlike it held his heart, but he pushed on, nonetheless. “William.” He felt the flare of rage and had to hold it back. “What happened after your marriage?”
Dear God, he didn’t want to know.
Jenny was now absently plucking at one of the buttons on his vest, as she had when she had been young and worried over something. “William . . .”
There was a pause, as though she were searching, Hester’s spell probably at work.
“. . . took me somewhere.”
“Here?” he prompted.
“I don’t know.”
The tears had stopped for now, but she was still playing with his waistcoat, and it hurt him to think that she was afraid of looking into his eyes to see disappointment. Still, her meaningless fears were an issue for another day, her story continuing slowly.
“It was someplace I’d never seen before. Different from anywhere else.”
Magical, Emma supplied, putting their shared thought into words. Whether it were Salem or not could be determined later. It was enough to know that the plan had required the pair of them to be out of the normal world.
He didn’t want to ask but suspected she needed prompting. “Did he do anything to you?”
To his surprise, she just flicked at a button. “Not really.”
What he could see of her face looked a little ashamed.
“He was nice.”
She had started sounding childlike again.
“I like William.”
A spell? Natalie inserted, but he wasn’t certain.
Still, he didn’t know how to put what he was thinking into terms for ladies, even ladies who didn’t go by any of the rules he had been raised with. As much as he was thrilled at Emma’s promise to be his lover—and hopefully much, much more—sex was not something he had been trained to discuss outside of clinical circles or his work with the city’s kept women.
Holding back the sigh, he attempted not to distract Jenny from what she was telling them by keeping the idea silent.
I think she’s ashamed at having been attracted to William.
Having been a relatively-proper, nineteenth-century gentleman until several hours ago, he searched around for a way to hint at what he meant.
They must have consummated the marriage, if there’s a child.
He felt a moment of consternation on both the ladies’ parts, although it was Natalie who answered—clearly having to work to keep it silent.
You mean she’s embarrassed at being sexually attracted to someone? To someone she’s even partnered with?
The half-scream of shocked rage was obvious, even in his head.
Nat, Emma calmed her.
Her friend wasn’t mollified.
Yeah, I know, different time, but still . . .
She looked down at the girl.
Sheesh!
As usual, Emma seemed the more focused of the two. Frederick occasionally wondered if her friendship with Natalie weren’t partly based on her appreciation of the woman’s more fun-loving nature.
It’s not something you’d want to talk to a brother about, though, Emma noted.
He felt, more than heard, Natalie’s acknowledgment, as Emma returned to the real issue.
So, you don’t think she’s just been bespelled to think she cares for William?
He shook his head a little. Not now.
Watching the girl playing with his buttons, saying nothing, he almost thought he felt a small ping of jealousy from Emma at someone else being that close to him and took it into himself as a triumph, however counterproductive such an emotion would be in the long run.
He went on. This is the way she gets when she believes I’ll be mad at or scold her.
His hand ran over the girl’s back, comforting her, and he could feel Emma beating down her own desire for his attention. That made him smile at her.
I thin
k she knows she was trapped into this and is ashamed that she cares for, and is even attracted to, the man who helped trick her.
This got Natalie’s attention again. Stockholm syndrome?
It was the first time since he had seen those other realms that he had had to resort to his mental dictionary. Once he got a grasp of the concept, he looked down. Let’s find out.
Aloud, he said, “Did William try to force you to do anything you didn’t want?”
The thought sickened him, especially in how far that could go in a marriage. For all some society ladies tried to hide it, he had seen that before in his practice.
The rage boiled, Emma squeezing his hand.
“Did he ever threaten you?”
She made a small noise he took for a “no,” shaking her head, and her gaze finally raised to the wall across the room. “He was always good to me, gentle and . . .”
Her eyes fell along with her voice, the last nearly a whisper.
“I miss him.”
Frederick knew both his companions believed this to be more of the syndrome they had mentioned and almost wished Benjamin was part of Emma’s mental connection, wanting his insights. Still . . .
I don’t think she’s been influenced, not in the way you believe.
He spoke to her aloud again. “Jenny, if William looked after you, where has he gone?”
He saw her bite her lip but pressed on.
“Why isn’t he still here to protect you?”
And why is he attacking babies on trains?
“Oh, Frederick! You don’t understand!” She let go of his button, pounded on his chest just a little. “It was Hester who took my baby, not him!”
She started to focus on him at last.
“And William said it was a secre—. . .”
Her gaze widened in shock.
“Frederick! Your eyes!”
Damn. He had nearly forgotten about the conversion, was certain his sister would be terrified, having no way to understand. Catching her hand gently, he tried to calm her. “Quietly, Jenny. There’s nothing for you to worry about. It’s only . . .”
He paused, mostly because he wasn’t certain where to begin to explain. Surely, she knew something of the magical world by now—but how much?
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