The Whisper Witch

by Harvey, Alyxandra;

  “I’m not sure you’re meant to suffocate yourself with it,” he remarked. His linen shirt was undone at the collar, the skin tanned like toasted hazelnuts; so much richer than the studied paleness of the gentlemen she usually encountered. His Romani blood made him as exotic as they were plain.

  She peered at Cedric through the foliage. “Did you bring them?”

  “Aye,” he said, holding out three identical ivory-colored buttons. They could have belonged to anyone in the house, earl or gardener, man or woman. The only identifying marks were a spot of color in the center and only Cedric knew to whom they corresponded.

  “Can you lay them on the table, please?” Penelope asked. She wasn’t wearing her gloves and if the experiment was going to work properly, she needed to be thorough. He laid them out in a row between a silver candlestick holder and her cup of tea before stepping back to lean against one of the windows. He could lean just like that for hours, arms crossed and patient as a tree in winter. He smelled faintly like hay and soap. His presence was familiar and grounding, as were his steady dark eyes watching her silently.

  She reached for the first button, and as expected, the world tilted sideways. Her stomach pressed against her spine, as though she was in an overturning carriage. Colors and textures slid together and apart again, forming new shapes.

  She smelled onions frying, and she was sweating through her dress. Her feet ached. There were blood and grease stains on her apron and a heavy meat cleaver in her hand. She brought it down in one savage thunk, hacking straight through a cabbage. The sound echoed, jarring her out of the moment.

  When she came back to herself, the first thing she felt was Cedric’s strong arm at her back. He was crouched by her chair, unfazed by the spiders crawling up his pant leg. “I’ve got you,” he murmured. She shivered. “Are you dizzy?” he asked, misreading her reaction.

  “Spiders,” she squeaked.

  He glanced down, then back up with a grin. “You’ll have to get used to them. You’re the one who called them out, not me.” He brushed them away gently. She wished he’d stomp on them instead. “They won’t bite you,” he said, reading her thoughts exactly. “And they were snug in their webs until your familiar drew them out.”

  “It wasn’t on purpose,” she muttered. His hand was still pressed against her back, warm through the thin muslin of her dress.

  “What did you see?” he asked, drawing back.

  “That button belongs to Cook. I had no idea swinging a cleaver could be so invigorating.”

  He chuckled. “I reckon the Beau Monde thinks you’re all moonbeams and poetry. They have no idea how bloodthirsty you really are.”

  “Gretchen is the violent one,” she said with mock primness. “I am a lady.”

  Cedric snorted. “Try again.”

  “Everyone else believes me.”

  “That’s because none of them was ever on the receiving end of a bucket of cold water and worms balanced over the door,” he pointed out.

  She grinned with more mischief than remorse. “You deserved it.”

  “Probably,” he agreed, handing her the next button.

  The conservatory was a whirligig of greens and purple orchid petals, spinning then stopping. She blinked down at Cedric, who was still next to her chair. One of the neighborhood dogs had made it into the back garden and was licking the glass behind him, tail wagging.

  “Nothing,” she told Cedric. “I couldn’t see anything at all that time.”

  “Try the last one then,” he said.

  She folded it into her palm, obligingly. She was dandelion fluff, spinning every which way until she finally landed in the stables.

  She was brushing down one of the horses and a cat purred at her from a patch of sunlight in the rafters. She enjoyed the simple work of caring for an animal, but there was worry in the back of her head for Hamish. He hadn’t been able to get out of bed this morning, and his fingers were starting to curl into painful, permanent claws.

  And then she stepped into the stables.

  It was disconcerting. Penelope was someone else, watching herself in the doorway, limned with light. Her hair was a tumble of curls and she was waving a new book of poems excitedly. She smiled at herself and that was when she realized she was Cedric. He was thinking that he didn’t particularly care for Byron’s poetry, he preferred Shelley, hut since Penelope loved it so much, he was willing to listen to it. He preferred it when she played the stable piano, the music speaking words he couldn’t find. He knew she’d leave one day, some fancy prat would sweep her away with badly quoted Shakespeare. Well, that wasn’t precisely true. She’d never fall for badly quoted Shakespeare. Still, he’d miss her. But he was a stable boy and she was the great-granddaughter of a duke. He had no illusions.

  The light intensified, even as the walls of the stables grew so dark they faded away. For the first time since Penelope’s gifts had awaked, she tried to stay inside the vision. She wanted to know what else Cedric was thinking, why there was a hint of sadness to him that she’d never noticed before. And what, exactly, did he have no illusions about? She already knew he’d never answer her if she asked.

  She held on as long as she could, but it wasn’t long enough. When she opened her eyes, she was only slightly disoriented and he was leaning against the windows again, out of reach and expressionless.

  “That was your button,” she said softly. She wanted to say something else, but she wasn’t sure what. She didn’t like that he was sad, for whatever reason. She was tempted to tell him how she felt, that he just made everything better. But she’d told him that once, when they were fourteen. She’d said she wanted to marry him and he had laughed. She’d never forgotten that moment. She’d wept into her pillow for days. Even now, she used it as a medicine against her too-romantic heart. He didn’t love her. Not in that way. No matter what her brief foray into his thoughts had produced, he still wouldn’t marry her. He was already marrying her off to some “fancy prat.”

  She cleared her throat and determined to sound normal. She didn’t have a chance to prove how very calm she was. He cut her off before she could speak. “Beauregard is waiting for you at the front gates.”

  “What?” She stared at him for a moment. It was for the best, surely. “And you just left him there? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” She leaped to her feet. “Why didn’t Battersea show him into the parlor?”

  Cedric’s smile edged toward a smirk. “Bloke couldn’t get through the gates, could he?”

  “Blast,” she said, hurrying out into the garden and up the lane. She didn’t notice one of the cats following behind her.

  Lucius stood on the other side of the fence. His green eyes were mesmerizing, even from a distance. He wore a dark green coat again, and it made his irises shine like light through green glass. She picked up her hem and ran the last few yards. “Lord Beauregard,” she said. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting.”

  “Not at all.” There was a flash of irritation under his smile, She didn’t blame him for being put out. Her mother had hired a witch to spell the gates, and the result was an ugly scorch mark on his sleeve and burns on his knuckles.

  She winced at them. “Oh, I’m so sorry. The house was recently spelled to deny entry to the Order. It must be faulty.”

  He shook his head, suddenly amused. “So much for my nefarious plot.”

  “Nefarious plot?” She tilted her head questioningly. “That sounds promising.”

  “I served with a similar secret society in France these past two years,” he explained with a self-deprecating smile. “When the Order found itself dealing with the onslaught of magical anomalies currently plaguing London, I offered my assistance.” He stepped closer to the fence, even when it started to spit warning sparks at him. “When they mentioned you needed a magical escort, I insisted.”

  “A magical escort.” She wrinkled her nose. “That sounds so much more genteel than being under surveillance.” She paused. “But where’s Ian?”

  “I
’m afraid he had an accident and won’t be able to continue at his post.”

  “Is he hurt?”

  “He broke his leg when he was attacked by a Rover who didn’t wish to give up his claim on a fairy cow wandering through Covent Garden.” He saw her stricken expression. “I am assured he will fully recover.”

  She released her breath. “Good. I’ll have Cook brew up some of her pain tonic for him.”

  “You have a good and gentle heart, my lady.” He bowed, pulling a pink tulip from behind his back and offering it to her between the bars.

  She accepted it, burying her nose in its petals for a moment. “Well, if you can’t come inside to me, I suppose I shall have to come outside to you.” She unlatched the gate and stepped through.

  “Shall we visit the park?” he suggested, offering his arm.

  She accepted, feeling his muscles move under her fingertips. “Let’s.”

  Cedric slipped through the gates behind them, his legendary patience wearing thin.

  Chapter 13

  Gretchen sat on the floor of the guest room in a circle of salt, holding a wolf charm. She curled her fingers around it, picturing herself turning into a wolf and running through the London streets nipping at the heels of proper ladies in silk gowns. She visualized Emma’s Fith-Fath spell and the Feth-Fiada mist Aunt Bethany had once used to cloak her and her cousins from sight. The dead witches in her head were content. “The spell needs to be better,” she snapped. “Talk to me.”

  There was no searing pain, no iron clang of sound, just a simple whisper. “Wear a wreath of amaranth flowers to be invisible.”

  She couldn’t quite picture Tobias chasing down warlocks for the Order while wearing flowers in his hair.

  “What else?” she asked. “Please,” she added, just in case politeness counted as much as her mother and Tobias seemed to think it did.

  “Chicory flowers gathered with a gold sickle at Midsummer.”

  “Seven poppy seeds.”

  She’d never used her powers so easily and effectively. Feeling giddy with success, she decided to press on. She’d studied enough to know what she was about to attempt was dangerous and foolhardy. It was like picking out a single thread in a tapestry, when you finally knew what color you were searching for, but as she’d barely begun to control her gifts as it was, trying to listen in on a spell cast by a live witch was a hundred times worse. Still, she had to try.

  “Come on then, Sophie,” she said. “What are you planning?”

  She closed her eyes, straining to listen. A whisper of sound, like a summer breeze, and nothing more. She waited long enough to be thoroughly bored.

  She opened one eye, annoyed. “Blast.” She scrounged for a scrap of paper and scrawled Sophie’s name across it. She brought a candle into the salt circle and fed the paper into the flickering flame. “Sophie Truwell, talk to me.”

  Jagged noise slashed at her. She cringed, ducking her head out of instinct. The voices were an avalanche of rocks threatening to bury her.

  “Turn back.”

  “Not a chance,” she muttered through clenched teeth. It wasn’t Sophie’s voice. It was that damn chorus again.

  “We are still here. Still here.”

  “Turn back.”

  Gretchen put some of the salt on her tongue and the pressure eased. The more she learned to follow her first instincts, the more she was able to expand her magical abilities.

  “Rise up.”

  “Rise up or turn back?” she snapped. “Make up your mind.”

  “Warlock’s spell.”

  “Yes,” she said, impatiently. “Which one?” She paused. “Hang on.” She was almost certain that had been Sophie’s voice.

  “Warlock’s spell.”

  Try as she might though, she couldn’t hear anything else of use. No incantations, no mention of herbs or stones or cloying rhyme. Nothing but the blood in her ears and her pulse jerking fitfully, and, finally, nothing at all.

  She woke up with Tobias kneeling beside her on the floor, even though it would crease his buff trousers. Her wolfhound sat beside him, tongue lolling out of his mouth. She smiled at them groggily. “Hello.”

  “Are you hurt?” He bent over her, looking concerned.

  She shook her head, pressing a hand to her ears. When they didn’t come away bloody, her smile widened. “I’m improving.”

  “You call swooning an improvement?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I never swoon. I don’t even like the word.”

  “Falling into an unconscious heap, then,” he amended drily.

  “Much better.” She sat up on her elbows. “I really hate her, you know.”

  “Who?”

  “Sophie.”

  “Is that what you were doing? Trying to hear her whispers?”

  She nodded, grimacing. “I caught her voice, but nothing else.”

  “It’s dangerous,” he said, reaching out to gently push a curl off her forehead. “You ought to be more careful.”

  She swallowed, staying still as his fingers brushed her brow. “I have to do something. She nearly killed my cousin the last time she was messing about with spells and whatnot.”

  “I can’t even track her,” he said, his thumb resting on her temple. Neither of them moved. “Whatever she’s doing, it’s complicated.”

  “My solution is simple,” Gretchen said. “Kick her until she stops.”

  He smiled. “You’re as fierce as any wolf-girl I’ve ever known.”

  She smiled back wistfully. “I think I’d make a brilliant wolf.”

  “Don’t even think it,” Tobias said hoarsely. “It can turn into a curse in the blink of an eye.”

  “But I can break curses, remember?”

  Gretchen was in a house of wolves.

  Was it any wonder she couldn’t sleep? It was long past midnight when she left her room, feeling positively buoyant. The very things Tobias worried about in the upstairs portion of the house, the fur and the charms and the baby wolf teeth strung on ribbons as sentimental keepsakes, made her comfortable. The first floor with its gleaming silver and marble floors and sweeping staircases made her feel exactly as itchy as her own house made her feel. But she was fairly certain that there was no such thing as running too fast in the halls or being too loud here. She padded down the carpet runner in her bare feet, knowing it wouldn’t scandalize anyone, and followed her grumbling belly to the kitchens. The door to the library was open slightly, light slashing across the floor. She paused, glancing inside.

  Tobias was pacing the not inconsiderable length of the room, a frown between his eyebrows. There were bruises showing where his sleeves were rolled up his forearms. She assumed they were a result of his altercation with the Wolfcatchers. His head snapped up. “Who’s there?” he demanded, stalking toward the door.

  She poked her head in. “It’s just me, sorry to startle you.” That brought him up short. “Gretchen.”

  He looked wretched and sad and lost. That decided it and she stepped farther inside. “I was just going to see if I could find some sweets.”

  He stared at her. “Sweets.”

  “Yes, they’re for eating,” she replied, teasing him. She’d known enough black moods to know that sometimes nothing would do but to be startled out of one.

  “There’s gingerbread on the tray over there.”

  “Excellent,” she said briskly, marching past as though she wasn’t wearing a nightdress she’d borrowed from Posy. It was just slightly too short, flashing her ankles as she went. She imagined Tobias would be scandalized instead of distracted. More’s the pity.

  Now really, where had that come from?

  “Yes, we’ll have cake,” she said firmly, cutting generous slices of the molasses-dark gingerbread. She added some dried apricots from a china bowl. She handed him a plate and a silver fork, the tines glinting in the firelight. He accepted it, manners kicking in, no matter his current emotional state. She’d considered that kind of control a weakness, but now she wonde
red.

  “They say you’ll be the next First Legate, you or Daphne’s brother. How will that work with all of your other duties and … secrets?”

  “Uncomfortably, I’m sure.” He offered her a ghost of a smile.

  “Your family doesn’t seem the type to bow to the Order.”

  He snorted. “You’ve the right of it.”

  “I knew I liked them for a reason.” She had another bite of the cake, mind swirling with wolves, witches, and warlocks. “Why would Sophie steal Lilybeth’s bones?” she asked. “If it was even her?”

  “She must be gathering power for a spell,” he answered.

  Something about it tickled at the back of Gretchen’s mind but she couldn’t quite figure out why. It sounded familiar somehow.

  “She’d have to be storing the magic somehow, wouldn’t she?”

  “Yes, but we can’t seem to find her anywhere. It’s like she’s disappeared.” He swallowed another mouthful of gingerbread. “We assume she’s hiding inside Greymalkin House, where we can’t reach her.”

  “How would she have gotten in?” She’d needed Emma for that, last time.

  “Another good question.”

  Gretchen surveyed the room as she ate. It was grand and imposing, full of books with gilded lettering and the smells of leather and smoke. A globe stood in one corner, along with a backgammon table and several chairs clustered around the stone grate. There was only the fire to light the room. She noted the empty coffee cups lined up on a shelf and wondered what made him fear to sleep.

  “You don’t approve,” Tobias said softly.

  She looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”

  “Of the library. You practically skipped through the family parlor upstairs with its dog-chewed table legs and clutter.”

  “It’s comfortable. This is very grand, I’ll grant you, and believe me I’ve seen all the libraries in Mayfair, but how can you prefer it?”

  “It’s simpler,” he replied.

  “Is it?” She licked a grain of sugar off her lip. Tobias’s fork clattered against his plate. “Why’s that, I wonder?”