D. Jackson - Thieftaker

“Tell me,” she said. “Did Berson ask you who was responsible for the murder of his daughter?” Her tone remained light, but she watched him keenly.

“Of course he did.”

“And?” Her patience had started to wear thin. “What did you tell him?”

“What should I have told him?”

She started to answer, and Ethan would have wagered every coin in his pocket that she was going to name poor Daniel Folter as Jennifer’s killer. But she caught herself in time, smiling once more and inclining her head. “I would like to know how you answered the man,” she said eventually.

“I told him I didn’t know, that I heard a name mentioned in connection with the crime, but that I couldn’t say for certain that this individual was her killer.”

She frowned. “And he was satisfied by that?”

“Satisfied? No. But I told him that I had done what I could.”

Sephira’s brow remained creased, and she continued to stare at him so intently one might have supposed that she had the power to read his thoughts. “I don’t believe you,” she said after some time.

Ethan reached for his wine and took a sip, his hand as steady as an offshore wind. “What don’t you believe?”

“Any of this. Any of what you’ve said.” She shook her head, a small, disbelieving laugh escaping her. “Here I thought I might learn something of value from you, and you’ve been lying to me the whole time!”

“No, I haven’t.” She started to argue and he lifted a finger, silencing her. “I’ve barely lied to you at all.”

“But you admit that you have lied.”

“Of course I have. Just as you’ve lied to me. You and I are never going to be friends, Sephira. This entire encounter has been founded on a lie. And because I’ve proven a match for you in this little game, you’re suddenly indignant.”

She stared at him.

Ethan drained his cup and set it down on the table. “I’m disappointed in you.” He stood and sketched a small bow. “My thanks for a lovely supper.”

He stepped away from the table and started toward the door.

“You have no intention of leaving this matter alone, do you?”

Ethan paused momentarily in midstride, but didn’t look back at her. He was reaching for the door handle when she called his name.

Against his better judgment he stopped and faced her.

“I don’t have to let you leave,” she said. “My men are just outside that door. At a word from me…” She shrugged. “No one would miss you. No one of consequence.”

He had been expecting this. He didn’t have his knife, but there were other ways. Pushing up his sleeve, he dragged his fingernails along the underside of his forearm, leaving three raw streaks that quickly began to seep blood.

Sephira opened her mouth.

“Don’t!” Ethan said. “I’m leaving. Your men are going to give me my knife and let me go. Or I’m going to burn this magnificent house of yours to the ground.”

She looked angry enough to kill him with her bare hands.

“Call in Nigel and tell him to hand over my blade.”

“This isn’t over, Ethan.”

“It’s never over between us, is it?”

His calm only seemed to goad her further. “This is no longer amusing! I’ve warned you about pursuing the Berson matter, and you’ve ignored those warnings time and again. Well, fine. I’m done talking about it.”

“How convenient for both of us, because I’m done listening.”

She shook her head slowly, her cheeks flushed, her blue eyes wide with anger. Even now as she was threatening his life, she was as beautiful as any woman he had ever seen.

“You think your damned witchcraft will keep you safe?”

“It has in the past.”

“There are other ways,” she said. “You have a friend-a lovely woman. She owns a small tavern called the Dowsing Rod. It would be a tragedy if something were to happen to her or her establishment.”

The spell was on his lips before he could consider what he was doing. “ Discuti ex cruore evocatum! ” Shatter, conjured from blood! Power pulsed through the chamber, making the hairs on his arm prickle. Uncle Reg appeared beside him, glowing bloodred, grinning like a ghoul. In his rage, Ethan aimed the spell at Sephira, but he managed to steer it away from her at the last moment.

There was a sudden rending of wood, and the small table next to where she was standing exploded as if torn apart from within. Scraps of timber were strewn over the rug on which she stood, and flecks of wood dust coated her skirt. Sephira stared at what he had done, her mouth agape.

Ethan had already scraped his arm again, lest he need more blood to fight his way out of her house.

“If you or your men go anywhere near Kannice or the Dowsing Rod, I’ll kill you all. I don’t care if I hang for your murder. I’ll rip you apart just like I did that table. Now call in Nigel. I’m ready to leave.”

Sephira raised her eyes to his. At last, she called, “Nigel!”

A moment later, the door opened. Nigel paused on the threshold, noted Ethan’s bloody arm and the mess in the middle of the common room, then entered the house, though he left the door wide open.

“Give him his knife.”

Nigel pulled the weapon from his coat pocket and took a step in Ethan’s direction.

“Just leave it on the arm of that chair,” Ethan said, pointing with a bloodstained finger.

Nigel glanced at Sephira, who hesitated, then nodded.

The big man did as Ethan had told him.

“Now go stand with her.”

The man crossed to Sephira. Ethan retrieved his knife and walked to the door.

“Watch your back, Ethan,” Sephira said. “Don’t sleep. Don’t even blink.”

He returned the blade to his belt, his hand trembling now, though with rage or with fear he couldn’t say. He glanced back at her once more and left the house, Uncle Reg stalking beside him.

S ephira and her toughs didn’t come after him right away, though as he made his way back through the South End Ethan looked over his shoulder often, expecting at any moment to see them bearing down on him. Once he was away from her house the pounding of his heart subsided, and he began to wonder what in the name of all that was holy he had been thinking. Casting a spell in Sephira Pryce’s home? Destroying her furniture? Threatening to kill her? He might as well have stolen money from her purse as she watched, or called her a whore in front of her men.

If he needed any more incentive to find Jennifer Berson’s killer and be done with her father and the conjurer, he now had it. Sephira would never stop hating him; as long as he insisted on thieftaking in Boston, she would begrudge every coin he made. But if he could conclude this inquiry perhaps her desire to see him dead would diminish.

He decided to begin by speaking with Cyrus Derne. If Derne had lied to him the first time they spoke, Ethan wanted to know why.

It was midafternoon, and he knew better than to think that Derne would be at his home. Instead, he began the long walk across the city to Derne’s Wharf and Warehouse on Ship Street in the North End. He turned up his coat collar and hunched his shoulders against the rain. He walked at the edge of the road, keeping the iron posts that lined the thoroughfare between himself and the carriages and chaises. Rivulets of rank water ran between the cobblestones, gathering in the shallow trough in the middle of the lane and draining at intervals along the way. Carts and horses splashed him as they passed, chilling him, staining his clothes.

Derne’s Wharf jutted out into the harbor beside others belonging to merchants of similar means. Abner Berson’s wharf was only a short distance down Ship Street. Hancock’s Wharf, the longest in the North End, second in the entire city only to Long Wharf, sat just to the south of them both. All these wharves had large wooden warehouses where the merchants stored diverse goods and prepared them for market.