Dead Magic

by Kara Jorgensen

  Baker Street wasn’t far, and Immanuel and Mr. Fenice were unlikely to turn her away in her such a state. Standing outside one twenty-six, a strange sensation passed over her. Through her hazy vision, she could make out a barely perceivable tether running from her body up to the window of the bedroom, but where the glittering rope hit the building’s brick façade, it sparked. As Emmeline drew closer, the light grew brighter, violently popping until she took a step back. Vomit and tears rose to the surface, but she choked them down. Staying there would be impossible.

  Fishing through her clutch, Emmeline found the note Cassandra had given her months ago. In the diffuse light of the streetlamps, her eyes clouded with moisture until she could barely read the address. She rested her head against the wet metal, holding its cold body for support as her knees threatened to buckle once more. Wrenching her attention from her thoughts, she hailed the first cab that came rolling lazily down the cobbles. The driver passed a cool eye over her wild hair and black-ringed eyes as she muttered the address of Cassandra’s boarding house.

  Collapsing in the backseat, Emmeline stared numbly out the window. It felt wrong. It all felt horribly wrong.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Misses Elliott and Ashwood

  Emmeline’s hand fell heavy against the doorknocker. The house in Bloomsbury was dark, but Cassandra had to be home. The driver had said it was the right place, but how could she afford it? She had expected a tidy but frayed boarding house. This building seemed far too nice for a girl with only a small job at the Spiritualist Society and maybe an allowance from a relative. Emmeline squinted at the building’s white-washed façade through the steamy fog before returning to the card in her hand. It was the right address. Perhaps she shared the apartment with other girls. Letting the doorknocker fall a second, third, and fourth time, she rested her pounding forehead against the damp wood. Cass had to be home. There was nowhere else for her to go. She could have gone to Greenwich and imposed herself upon the earl and countess. They would have taken her in, but they surely would have reported her ringed eyes and inebriated state to her aunt.

  Staggering forward, Emmeline’s hand caught the edge of a brass plate. She raised her gaze and grinned at her fortune when she spotted a row of bells and names. Halfway down, she spotted Misses Elliott and Ashwood and held down the button until she could hear its distant buzz somewhere on the other side of the door. The vibration sent a wave of nausea through her as she waited, grasping the column of the portico for support. A light appeared on the third floor, and within a moment, footsteps rang down the stairs in a steady rhythm. The door opened a crack, revealing an almond shaped hazel eye and a pale cheek smudged with rouge. Her sharp gaze ran over Emmeline’s face and rumpled gown, and for a moment, Emmeline feared she would shut the door on her.

  “May I help you?” she asked, her American accent softened through a suppressed yawn but still jarring in the stillness.

  “Is Cassandra Ashwood there?” Emmeline held out the calling card and forced her voice despite the pain in her head as she said, “My name is Emmeline Jardine. We’re friends, and I was hoping she would let me stay the night. This is the right place, isn’t it?”

  The blonde woman eyed her suspiciously as she plucked the card from her hand and studied it under the hall light. There was something in her stare that reminded Emmeline of Lady Rose. This woman didn’t strike the same fear and hesitance in her that the noblewoman did, but there was a silent power behind her, a radiant energy she didn’t dare trifle with. As she handed the card back to Emmeline, a pale face appeared over her shoulder on the stairs.

  “Judith, who is it?”

  “Cass!” Emmeline cried, standing on tiptoe to peer over the blonde’s shoulder. “Cass, it’s Emmeline!”

  Judith crossed her arms over her silken kimono as she opened the door wide to let her in. Taking a tremulous step forward, Emmeline’s ankle rolled and the cramped foyer tilted on its side. Hands caught her arms, pulling her to her feet as they led her to the stairs. Cassandra leaned in close, her eyes wide to take in Emmeline’s sallow features.

  “What possessed you to come out so late? You could have been killed or attacked. I know you haven’t lived in town long, but it isn’t safe!” Cassandra cried in a harsh whisper, keeping her voice low enough that the other boarders couldn’t hear.

  Emmeline kept her head down. Swallowing down the dizziness, she closed her eyes and said slowly, “I was hoping I could stay the night with you. I had a falling out with my aunt, and I don’t think I could go home and face her.”

  “What have you been drinking?” Judith asked.

  Cassandra shot her a look. “Of course you can stay with us. Let’s get you upstairs and into a nightgown.”

  “Thank you, but that really isn’t necessary. I don’t want to impose. I just want a place to sleep,” Emmeline replied, eying Judith warily.

  Cassandra nodded, sending waves of chestnut hair across her cheeks and the shoulders of her cotton nightgown. Looking up from Emmeline’s shaking form, she silently pleaded with Judith. After a moment, the other woman nodded with a slight roll of her eyes and helped Emmeline to her feet. They led her up the stairs, past halls of brass numbered rooms, and into a spacious but spare parlor. The floors and walls were adorned with brightly colored Japanese woodblock prints portraying scenes of fishermen and women in robes with pale painted faces. Across the room over the fireplace hung a katana and a naginata. Emmeline wrinkled her nose at the masculine decorations. It reminded her too much of that dreadful restaurant Cassandra liked, the Dorothy.

  Depositing her on the couch, Cassandra disappeared into the bedroom. Emmeline peered in after her but saw only a large bed, rumpled from sleep on both sides. As she turned her swimming head back to scrutinize the flat’s furnishings, Emmeline met Judith’s magnetic gaze. From the kitchen, she entrapped her. Their minds grew closer until they touched and Judith dipped below the surface, but Emmeline was powerless to stop her. Her mind had already been ripped raw, exposed to something she was never meant to see. With a snap, the other woman turned her face away. As Cassandra came out of the bedroom with a pile of clothes, Judith caught her arm and pulled her aside. They spoke in hushed tones so low Emmeline couldn’t hear them even in the small apartment, but she watched her friend’s eyes widen, her attention flickering between Emmeline and her roommate.

  “Em, where were you tonight? What happened?” Cassandra asked as she perched on the arm of the sofa.

  Something in the way she said it made Emmeline wonder how much she knew. Emmeline opened her mouth, her fogged mind racing to string together a sensible lie. Looking up, she found Judith staring at her from the ottoman. Her palpable intensity removed all doubt. She was trapped.

  “I was at the Eidolon Club with Lord Hale.”

  Cassandra’s lips twitched. “Why did you go there?”

  After the day she had, she was in no mood. “Because he invited me to be initiated. Why? Why are you acting like I did something wrong?” Emmeline snapped.

  “Because you did. You’re part of the Spiritualist Society. I thought we would work there together, helping people.”

  “Not anymore. You know how I’m treated with Nostra running the society. At the Eidolon Club, they actually want me to use my powers. They think my gifts will be of use.”

  “Of course they think you’re useful! You’re a pawn to them.”

  “Don’t you start with me. You don’t know anything, Cass. You’re just mad that I went without you. That I’m doing better than you.”

  Cassandra’s mouth hung open as she shook her head. “How can you be so blind? And so stupid!”

  “Cassie,” Judith said softly, laying her hand on her arm to steady her.

  “Do you know what you’ve done? They’re using you!”

  “And Madam Nostra isn’t?”

  “We could have spoken to her or exposed her as a fraud. You didn’t need to join them. Why didn’t you tell me they were courting you?”

&nbs
p; “Because I knew you would tell me not to go. You never liked Lord Hale.”

  “At least you didn’t throw back that I might want him for myself.” Cassandra paused, her eyes distant as her mind raced. “You didn’t give them the grimoire, did you? Please tell me you didn’t do that,” she pleaded.

  Emmeline hung her head guiltily before defiantly glaring back at her. “It said to keep it safe or give it to someone who could. Lord Hale knows more about whatever that book is about than I do, so why wouldn’t I give it to him? I don’t understand why you’re so upset with me. You never told me not to give it to someone else. You were the one who wanted to send it off in the first place!”

  “Because I thought you were more sensible than to give it to them! I can’t believe you. I can’t believe that you ruined everything, that you threw everything away on that twat!”

  Before Emmeline could say a word, Cassandra threw the extra nightgown onto the couch and stormed back into her room. Emmeline flinched as the door slammed and silence fell over the flat. Her head and eyes ached with a renewed vigor. She looked from her shaking hands to the flowered nightgown strewn across the couch. She ruined everything.

  “You may not want to, but I would suggest you stay the night,” Judith said. “Whatever they gave you was potent. You will have a headache in the morning, but a night’s rest will recover your strength.”

  “But what about Cassandra? She hates me. She won’t want me here.”

  “She will get over it.” Judith rose from her place on the ottoman but stopped at the bedroom door. “Emmeline, do be careful with the Eidolon Club. Don’t let Cassie’s outburst overshadow what she said. She wasn’t completely wrong about them.”

  Emmeline watched Judith slip inside. Their voices carried through the plaster, rising and falling with their argument, but no one emerged. Dropping the nightgown onto the end table, Emmeline slowly laid her head against the couch’s arm. Her head pounded in time with her heart, drowning out the ragged sound of Cassandra’s voice ringing only feet away. It had all seemed so right at the time, but what did she have now? No family, no friends, no grimoire. Only the promise of a new life as tenuous as a spider’s thread.

  ACT THREE

  “No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.”

  -Mary Shelley

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Her Majesty’s Interceptors

  Immanuel crossed the lawns of the Inner Temple Gardens, his feet crunching through the lush grass and uneven cobbles of the pavement. His gaze flickered between the card in his hand and the tall brick buildings surrounding the patch of greenery. Clicking open his pocket watch, he confirmed that he still had twenty minutes until his meeting with Judith Elliott. With a silent sigh, he sank onto the nearest bench, pulling his satchel across his lap. He closed his eyes and opened them again to take in the patches of tulips and sprays of wild flowers with a fresh gaze. In his blurry left eye, the view was as pretty as one of Monet’s pictures. He had told Adam he was going to Scotland Yard to fill out another statement about the break-in, but now that he sat alone, he wondered if he should have taken Adam with him.

  Leaning forward on his elbows, the brass bulge of the vivalabe and the corner of the notebook on top of it dug into his thigh. Immanuel drew in a deep breath, inhaling the sweet scent of flowers and the faint smell of the Thames behind it. With the imposing ornamental brick facades and wide lawns, he felt as if he were back in Oxford, but the moment his heart ticked with panic, he reminded himself of his new home and his new life. Oxford was far behind him. Turning his attention back to the gold-lettered card in his hand, Immanuel chewed on his lip. The front of the card had nothing more than Judith Elliott’s name and the address of the spired red brick building behind him while the back was blank apart from Sunday at seven scrawled hastily in pencil. What did she want with him? He had already found out about magic and practioners and where he fit within their ranks, so what was left? A little voice inside of him repeated, You’re in trouble. Maybe he had done something wrong after all. Maybe there was some unspoken law about practicing magic that he had broken in his ignorance. He bit down on his lip hard enough to draw a bead of blood. As he looked up from the glaringly white paper, his eyes locked onto a shadowed form in the distance.

  A man stood across the lawn in the shade of an oak tree, watching him. His face was obscured in the gloom, but his eyes gleamed as he watched him. Realizing Immanuel had seen him, he refolded his arms and rested his back against the tree. Immanuel’s heart quickened and his pulse raced through his temples in a steady tattoo. Without taking his eyes off the man, Immanuel stuffed the card into his pocket and walked backwards toward the line of buildings. Something about the man felt wrong. The shadows around him seemed too deep, his eyes too bright. Immanuel rang the bell and waited, keeping his bag tucked close under his arm. As he waited, his eyes darted between the door and the creature stalking him from the other side of the park. The man was coming closer, crossing the green in an uneven shuffle. Immanuel raised his fist, about to knock, when the door opened under his hand.

  A grandmotherly woman stood on the other side of the threshold. Her questioning, pale eyes climbed Immanuel’s face, beginning with the point of his scar. “May I help you, sir?”

  “I’m here to meet with Miss Elliott. She asked me to visit her today. I— I have her card here somewhere,” he blurted, resisting the urge to eye the man over his shoulder.

  A thoughtful frown creased her features until Immanuel fished through his pockets and found the card. She glossed over the front before flipping it to the back. With a nod, she opened the door wide and ushered him out of the tight vestibule and into the foyer. Light flooded his eyes as he stepped into the grand hall. In the ceiling, right above the winding spiral staircase stood an oculus and beneath it a crystal-encrusted chandelier that amplified the sun’s rays and scattered them across every surface in a shower of rainbows. The floor was composed of marble laid out in black and white mosaics. As he walked further into the hall, dodging people on their way to the passageways running off the foyer, he realized that the mosaic tiles weren’t random but formed the face of a massive sundial lined with Roman numerals. Leading him to the lower steps of the spiraling wood and iron staircase, the woman stopped. She looked him over once more, her gaze lingering on the pendant tucked under his shirt and the place in his bag where the vivalabe rested.

  “Miss Elliott is on the third floor. It’s the last door at the top of the second landing, dear, all the way at the end of the hall. Do you need me to escort you?” she asked, her eyes crinkling with good-natured affection.

  “No, thank you, ma’am. I can find my way.”

  Immanuel gave the woman a tight smile before sprinting up the stairs a little faster than he intended, his satchel slapping against his leg with each step. At the landing, he slowed his pace. Even on a Sunday afternoon, the building bustled with life. Men and women passed down the tapestried hall, glancing in his direction before disappearing into the recesses of the building. A wooden door rattled in its hinges out of sight while voices rose and fell in all directions. Listening closely, Immanuel could hear the steady tick of typewriter keys and the dissonant whistle of a kettle.

  Somehow, he had expected a dull school or a boarding house for wealthy widows or middle class women, but he had never imagined an office as busy as an anthill. Men and women. A small smile crossed his lips. If only the museum was more like this and less like the university. Rounding the corner, Immanuel padded up a set of narrower iron steps that twisted up into the spire he had seen outside. At the landing, he stopped. The only sound was the squeal of the boards under his feet and the distant garble of women’s voices. Had he gone the wrong way? He walked to the end of the hall, holding his satchel in place to silence its rhythmic swish. His eyes passed over the names painted in capitals on the glass of each door. At the end of the hall, he stopped before the one marked Judith Elliott, Esq. Immanuel glanced at
the names on the other doors but none bore the accessory title. It didn’t seem like a law firm.

  He raised his fist to knock but stopped at the sound of two women’s voices rising on the other side of the glass.

  “I feel so foolish. I never thought she would do anything so stupid. I thought she was more sensible than that!”

  “It happens. We’ll figure it out,” replied Judith, her American accent immediately recognizable. “She was enamored with him. It’s to be expected.”

  “All over a man!” the softer voice huffed.

  When they fell silent, Immanuel lightly knocked.

  “Come in, Mr. Winter.”

  As he opened the door, he watched Cassandra Ashwood hop off the edge of the desk where she had been perched a moment before. Her normally open features had darkened with worry while a crease of annoyance appeared between her furrowed chocolate brows. Sitting behind the whitewashed wood desk, Judith caught Cassandra’s hand, holding it tenderly until a hesitant smile graced the other woman’s lips.

  “Have I come at a bad time?” Immanuel asked softly, his gaze traveling between them.

  “Not at all, Mr. Winter. I was about to leave, anyway. Mrs. Mills wanted to speak with me,” Cassandra replied as she slipped past him, locking eyes with Judith one last time.

  The door shut behind her, and he was left alone in the bright office with Judith Elliott. She stared up at him, her hazel eyes probing but not unwelcoming. It was as if her ability to see truths and lies seeped into every motion. Much like her starched and expertly coiffured figure, Judith’s office was immaculate. Every wooden surface had been whitewashed to heighten the light drifting in from the tall window behind her. Glass-doored cabinets lined the walls, housing leather-bound volumes, bowls, jars of dried herbs and plants, glassware one expected to find at a chemist’s, and an assortment of jagged crystals. Unlike Immanuel’s desk at the museum, there wasn’t a single paper out of order, only a bowl of succulents sitting on the far corner. As the sun emerged from behind the clouds, its rays hit a brass umbrella stand filled with long-stemmed parasols, momentarily blinding him.