The Whisper Witch

by Harvey, Alyxandra;

  “That’s how I know you’re lying. Let’s try again.”

  “I sealed the magical wards and woke everyone up from that sleep spell,” Gretchen pointed out hoarsely. “And helped chained the kelpie.”

  “Yes, convenient, don’t you think?”

  Gretchen stared at him. It didn’t matter what questions he asked, he had already decided on the answers.

  He shook his head regretfully. “Since you will not cooperate with us, you will have to go before the magisters.”

  “I think not.” Penelope’s mother’s voice was so icy it burned through the cabin. When one of the Keepers tried to block her way, she glared down her nose at him. “I know your mother, boy.” He retreated instantly, conflicted.

  “How did you find us?” Lord Mabon did not look amused. “We have spells that keep this ship hidden. Napoleon himself could not find us.”

  Aunt Bethany lifted her chin. “Napoleon is not a mother.”

  “Mother or not, you’ll have to wait outside, Mrs. Chadwick.”

  “That is Lady Bethany to you. I have not given you leave to address me any other way,” she returned. Gretchen had never known her aunt to pull rank, nor look so much like the granddaughter of a duke she was. She wore claret-colored silk edged in seed pearls, with opal hair pins shaped like peace lilies creating a sort of glittering crown. Her gloves were pale yellow and reached past her elbows, secured with diamond clips. She exuded wealth and consequence.

  “Do not presume to order me about, Lord Mabon,” she added, steel clipping her words into daggers. “I am not a young girl of eighteen to be bullied.” Her badger-familiar prowled the cabin, snarling viciously. “You have abducted my daughter and my nieces, and do not think for one moment that I will not bring the Bow Street detectives into the matter, witching secrecy be damned. Explain yourselves, sirs.”

  “These girls are to be questioned. Lacrimarium magic is to be under the control of the magisters and the Order.” He was so angry, spittle was forming at the corners of his mouth. He loomed over Aunt Bethany. “I want to know how they got into Greymalkin House. And how this one managed to bottle three very powerful warlock spirits.”

  “And I want to know why you think you can intimidate me,” Aunt Bethany replied. “Let’s make one thing very clear. You are not welcome in my home, nor are your Keepers. If you have questions for my girls, you may ask them at Rowanstone Academy with myself or Mrs. Sparrow present.” Lord Mabon’s face turned ruddy. She met his gaze. “I am well aware that you have no authority at the school, Lord Mabon.”

  “As you have no authority here,” he reminded her. “We are charged with keeping London safe and we will do whatever it takes.”

  “Do you not think I’ll do the same for my family? You may have magical wards and binding pendants, Lord Mabon, but I have something else.” Aunt Bethany smiled and knocked over the bottle of brandy on the sideboard. The sweet smell of the liquor stung the air as it spilled over the floorboards. She dropped one of the candles onto the alcohol and it caught immediately. “I have fire.”

  Black smoke billowed as the flames flickered and hissed. The Keepers jumped forward to smother the fire with their jackets. They coughed harshly, inhaling the acrid smoke. Sparks burned through their shirtsleeves. She flicked her hand, her magical talent sending the fire into patterns not intended by nature. It hissed at Lord Mabon, licking at the toes of his boots.

  “Seize her!”

  A flaming arrow crashed through the window of the cabin, slamming into the wall before anyone could take a step in Aunt Bethany’s direction. Fire raced up a tapestry of St. George and the dragon, consuming it.

  “I will set fire to this entire ship if you do not release them at once,” she continued, as though the arrow hadn’t missed her hair by inches. “Do you understand me?” She raised an eyebrow at the Keeper closest to the cousins. “Release them, boy.” He jumped and glanced at Lord Mabon, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed convulsively. “Come along, girls.” She didn’t have to ask them twice.

  “This isn’t finished,” Lord Mabon warned her, as smoke filled his cabin.

  “You can ask politely for our help or make enemies of us.” Aunt Bethany flashed him a dangerous smile. “I suppose the choice is yours. Good evening to you, Rufus. Give my regards to your lovely wife.”

  “His name is Rufus?” Gretchen whispered as they hurried after her. “No wonder he’s so cross all the time.”

  Chapter 10

  “Aunt Bethany, that was bloody brilliant,” Gretchen said, impressed. “I had no idea you were so fierce.”

  “Yes, well, the Order prefers supplication,” Aunt Bethany replied, tugging off her gloves, which now smelled like brandy and smoke. “But sometimes a show of force is required. And I can assure you that after I visit Lord Mabon’s wife, they will mind their manners.” She lifted Penelope’s wrists, clicking her tongue at the chafe marks left by the rope. “Are you hurt?”

  “Ian was rather kind, considering,” Penelope assured her mother. “He kept apologizing. The rope burn is because I tried to bite one of the other Keepers. Ian punched him for being too rough.”

  “How did you even find us?” Emma asked. “I thought the ship was invisible and moves to a different spot along the river daily.”

  “Cormac heard you’d been taken for questioning,” Aunt Bethany explained. “He showed me where it was anchored.”

  “He’s here?” Emma craned her head out of the window to stare into the warehouses and dark alleys in between. It wasn’t until they’d turned onto the road leading away from the docks that Cormac stepped briefly out of the shadows. Gretchen saw him tip his hat to Emma as they drove past.

  “And the fire arrows?” Gretchen asked. “Since when do you know Robin Hood?”

  “Cedric is on the roof of the carriage. He shot a few arrows to make my point.”

  Emma rubbed her arms, chilled. “Why did they bring us in? They’ve let us alone for weeks. Why now?”

  “Because the Order is quite desperate.” Aunt Bethany sighed. “Sophie Truwell has gone missing.”

  A flicker of dread woke in Gretchen’s belly. “What do you mean, she’s missing?”

  Sophie had murdered several girls to use their magic in order to feed the Greymalkin Sisters. She’d nearly killed Emma as well.

  “She was confined on the ship while the Order tried to locate another Lacrimarium to bottle her familiar and chain her magic. When they couldn’t find one, they decided it would be more prudent to transfer her to Percival House.”

  Penelope frowned. “What’s Percival House?”

  “It’s an old house on the moors where witches are locked up. It’s extremely secure. However, Sophie apparently escaped somewhere en route and is currently at large.”

  Penelope flapped her hands, agitated. “We have to do something! There has to be another Lacrimarium somewhere.”

  “There is only one in England at the moment, and he is too young to be of any use.”

  “Have you tried Scotland?” she pressed. “Spain? Egypt?”

  Emma was pale but very calm, far calmer than her cousins. “That’s why they want to know how I bottled the Sisters.” She shook her head. “But I’m not a Lacrimarium. It was luck more than anything.”

  Emma’s Greymalkin blood allowed her to complete the complicated spell, but the Order certainly didn’t know that. It wouldn’t help them in any case. Sophie claimed to be related to the Sisters, but her lineage was so diluted there hadn’t been enough of a link to get inside the House. She’d needed Emma for that; had nearly killed her in point of fact. And that was before she’d been foiled and arrested. God only knew what she would want to do to Emma now. It would be nearly as bad as what the Order had in mind.

  “The Order wants the problem easily solved. That involves either you miraculously turning into a Lacrimarium or else blaming you for the entire mess.”

  “That’s not fair,” Penelope said hotly.

  “No, but they’re scared, a
nd people who act out of fear are rarely fair,” Aunt Bethany said wearily. “The Order will keep this secret for as long as possible.

  “They are a rather spectacularly ungrateful lot,” Gretchen said. “We’ve helped them and yet they’re treating us like criminals.” Her eyes gleamed. “And I won’t have it. I’ll find a way to turn their spleens into spiders if they don’t stop.”

  Aunt Bethany rested her head back against the cushions. “Could you wait until tomorrow, dear? It’s been a trying night.”

  Tobias was in a foul mood by the time he finally made it home.

  He’d spent a couple of hours on the ship while Lord Mabon and the First Legate debated on what was to be done to protect the witching world, before being sent to fetch Gretchen. Panic was to be avoided at all costs. The first time the Sisters had roamed London, the sheer volume of magic in the city had nearly caused a riot. Witches threw spells at each other at the least provocation, and even regular folk began to feel the tension. Not only did the Order have to find Sophie, but they had to do so while keeping everyone calm.

  Tobias had tracked until dawn but couldn’t find any trace of Sophie. If that wasn’t bad enough, he then had to make an appearance at the Order’s bachelor apartments to make sure the other Keepers knew what to expect. There were too few of them as it was; more Ironstone students would have to be taken on.

  And then there was Gretchen.

  He simply did not know what to make of her. She was infuriating and yet he still had to remind himself that being amused at her rudeness was not an appropriate response. One of them ought to remain proper. And it clearly wouldn’t be her.

  It was even more challenging to remind himself that kissing her again was out of the question.

  He shouldn’t even want to kiss her.

  She was under surveillance by the Order. Her family had a history of insurgence. She went out of her way to trample on the manners and etiquette that he found so necessary and important. She was everything that he struggled not to be: impulsive, defiant, chaotic.

  But he couldn’t stop thinking of her.

  The front door to the townhouse opened. “Good evening, my lord.” Cameron, the butler, stepped aside to let Tobias in. Cameron bowed, as though Tobias wasn’t naked under his greatcoat and hadn’t spent the last few hours asleep on the marble floor in the shape of a giant wolf. It was easier than having to stay awake waiting for the family to return for the night. Between Tobias as a Keeper and Ky roaming at all hours and their mother being the Alpha, serving in the Lawless house came with decidedly irregular hours. Besides, Cameron fancied himself more of a bodyguard than a butler.

  And butler or bodyguard, shifters had a preference for greatcoats since they were large enough to withstand shifting forms and long enough to hide a body when linen shirts and breeches were shredded to pieces. Tobias preferred perfectly tailored frock coats. Always.

  “You didn’t have to wait up,” he said, handing Cameron his hat and gloves.

  “Of course, I did, your lordship,” he replied.

  Tobias felt, rather than heard, the presence of another wolf and followed the call out to the back gardens. Moonlight gleamed on the fountain and the marble statues. There was a rustle on the other side of the hedges. “Posy,” he called out.

  A small tawny wolf poked out of the cedars, flower petals and burrs stuck to its fur. As it approached, it transformed into a lithe young girl. She was sweet and solitary, with thick brown hair and blue eyes.

  And a tail.

  She was still trying to master her magic and could never quite fully cage the wolf. Sometimes she had ears, once an unfortunate case of whiskers, but usually a rather fluffy tail. Needless to say, she was restricted to the townhouse while in London.

  “It’s not safe,” Tobias told her, tossing a blanket on a nearby chair over her shoulders.

  “I’m at home.” She patted his arm as though he were an overprotective nanny. “What could happen to me here?”

  “All the same,” he replied. “It’s late, even for you.” Posy kept odd hours, even before her troubles controlling her wolf.

  “There was a meeting,” she said carefully.

  “A meeting?”

  “Mother called the London pack together,” she explained. “When she found out about Sophie Truwell.”

  “Already?”

  She shrugged. “Of course.”

  “And you should have been there,” Ky interjected, coming out of the conservatory. He wore his usual linen shirt with the leather strap across his chest bristling with daggers. He looked nothing like the son of a three-hundred-year-old earldom and everything like a young lad spoiling for a fight.

  “Don’t start,” Posy begged them both.

  “The Wolfcatchers are already on the hunt,” Ky said, ignoring her plea. “You know as well as I do that shape-shifter pelts fetch triple the price when there’s a warlock on the loose.” He tested the tip of his favorite dagger. “We’ll need the Carnyx to keep us safe.”

  “That’s what the Order is for.”

  Ky snorted. “It’s bad enough they know our secret; I’m certainly not trusting the packs to them.”

  “And the Carnyx are so much better? A band of boys who fight for the sake of fighting. Ask Donovan about the human Wolfcatcher he killed last year.”

  “That Catcher took his brother’s paw. The sawbones had to take the rest of his hand when he shifted back to human form. And if you’d let Gaelen join the Carnyx, she might have been able to save herself.”

  There was a tense, brittle silence. Posy began to shift, the tension too much for her. Her teeth elongated and ears poked out of her hair.

  Tobias and Ky were practically nose to nose. Ky was snarling, anger covering the hurt of a little brother. Tobias was icy in his control, but his fists were clenching despite himself.

  “That’s enough,” their mother snapped from the doorway. Lady Elise Lawless might have been a silhouette clad in a blue silk gown, but she spoke with the command of the Alpha, and a mother besides. The brothers paused, separating.

  “Lady Barlow’s son was nearly snatched by a Catcher this evening,” she said grimly. “He was last seen by Blackfriar’s Bridge.”

  “I’ll notify the Order,” Tobias said immediately.

  “Never mind them,” Ky said. “This is family business.”

  “Yes, and I’m family,” Tobias pointed out coolly. His inner wolf yanked on its leash. He had to bite back a growl, felt it reverberating in his chest.

  “And yet you keep choosing them over us.”

  “It’s not like that.” Even if it sometimes felt like it.

  “I’m fighting for our pack. For our family,” Ky said. “Who are you fighting for?”

  Gretchen, Emma, and Penelope crept down the hallway in their nightdresses, the carpet swallowing the sounds of their footsteps. They didn’t light a candle until they were inside the last bedroom on the left with the door shut safely behind them.

  Sophie’s bedroom.

  It hadn’t yet been assigned to another student, but there was no telling how long that would last. The room was as small as Emma’s, with a gilded pier glass over a table meant for perfuming and hairdressing, and furniture painted green with yellow flowers. The requisite rowan berries and salt were set out in the corners and on the windowsill.

  Penelope made a circuit of the room. She brushed her fingertips over the tabletop and was immediately assaulted by images that spun by like a lantern show. They made her dizzy with their sheer numbers and speed: a maid with a burn from the fire grate, a footman carrying a trunk and a sizeable grudge against the housekeeper, a student who could talk to birds but couldn’t stop them from flying into the windows, another maid, three more students muttering curses over their schoolbooks. She staggered back a step, holding on to the bedpost for balance. “I can’t sort through all of the magical residue left behind. There’s too much.”

  “Perhaps all her belongings were taken by the Order,” Emma said, peering i
nto the armoire. It was empty of dresses, slippers, and bonnets. “For examination.”

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Daphne snapped from the doorway. She looked out of breath and furious.

  Splendid.

  “None of your business,” Gretchen returned, utterly incapable of ignoring a challenge of any kind. “And must you constantly lurk about? Shouldn’t you be trodding on some poor sod’s toes?”

  “Unlike you, some of us are perfectly capable dancers,” Daphne retorted out of habit. Her blue eyes narrowed. “You’re in Sophie’s bedroom,” she added. “And I demand to know why. Before I call the night watchman.”

  “There’s no crime in being in a bedroom,” Emma pointed out gently. “You look as if you ran all the way here.”

  “I set spells to notify me if anyone tried to come in here,” she replied, eyeing the cousins carefully.

  “Whyever for?” Penelope asked.

  Daphne blinked. “What do you mean, why? Sophie was my friend.”

  “And she betrayed you,” Gretchen said bluntly.

  “Gretchen.” Emma nudged her. “Easy.”

  Gretchen didn’t look away from Daphne’s pale face. “You want to know why she did what she did. Why she would choose the Greymalkin Sisters over you,” Gretchen continued, not unkindly. She wouldn’t have been able to stomach kindness and pity were she in Daphne’s shoes. And Daphne had once elected to help Emma when Emma was wrongly accused of Lilybeth’s murder, in order to find the real murderer. “We want to know why as well,” she added.

  “How?” Daphne demanded. “I know she’s gone. My father told me, right before he wrapped me in so many protective spells I practically have to move sideways through the doorway.” “She has no reason to come after you,” Emma said. “She once told me you were the reason the other girls stopped teasing her when she first arrived at the school.”

  Daphne nodded bleakly. “She had me fooled.”

  “She had everyone fooled.”

  “And for someone who claimed to be an orphan and so lonely she summoned three warlock spirits, she clearly knew someone other than you and Lilybeth very well indeed.” Gretchen raised her eyebrows when they only frowned at her, confused. “Well, someone helped her escape before she reached Percival House. The question is who and why?” She glanced at Daphne. “Aren’t you going to tell me that is what the Order is for and we should leave it to them?”