D. Jackson - Thieves' Quarry

Nigel and Nap stood out front watching the street. They couldn’t see Ethan, of course, but he took extra care to make certain that they wouldn’t notice his footsteps. After passing the front entryway, he crept along the north side of the house to the first window. From previous visits to Sephira’s home he felt reasonably sure that this window looked in on her sitting room, where he guessed she would be speaking to Spectacles.

Ethan knew better than to risk another listening spell. Still keeping to the shadows, he pressed himself against the marble exterior of the house and held his ear as close to the window as he dared. Closing his eyes, he tried to shut out all other sounds-the twitter of finches and sparrows, the whisper of the wind in the elms surrounding Sephira’s home, the occasional whinnying of a distant horse-and he listened. After a moment, he began to catch snatches of the conversation taking place within.

He thought that the first voice he heard was that of the bespectacled man. “… Might not have been on any of them. Your information might have been wrong.”

“It wasn’t.” Sephira’s voice. “I pay a good deal for the information that comes my way, and that money buys reliability as well as discretion. He’s out there. Or he’s already in the city, and you’ve failed.”

Silence. Ethan strained his ears, but heard nothing for several seconds.

“Come away from there,” Sephira said eventually. “We have matters to discuss and I want your undivided attention.”

“I told you, I felt a spell.”

“Yes, I remember,” she said, sounding impatient. “You also told me that it was some distance away. Back in Cornhill probably. And as I told you, that’s where Kaille lives. I’m sure he conjures all the time. It had nothing to do with us.”

“Well, what about the-?”

“That is enough, Afton,” Spectacles said, cutting off the other man. Ethan wondered if Afton was the brute he had seen with the bespectacled man.

“What is he talking about?” Sephira asked.

“It is not important.”

If Ethan needed confirmation that Spectacles hadn’t known Sephira for long, this was it. He would realize soon enough that she couldn’t be put off so easily.

“If you plan to remain in Boston for any length of time, Mariz, you’ll need to learn that I tell you what’s important, and what is not. Not the other way around.”

“Of course, Senhora. Forgive me.” Ethan heard little contrition in the man’s voice. “But you and I have more urgent business. We both stand to lose a good deal if the man we seek escapes us. That is where we should concentrate our energies.”

“Agreed,” Sephira said. “But if you’ve lost him-”

“I do not believe we have. You say that your information is correct and that he was on one of the ships. I take you at your word. In which case, I expect that he remains out there on the water even now, and will wait until the soldiers disembark before making his attempt.”

“You expect so, but you don’t know it for certain.”

“I know him,” Spectacles said. “He is not always the smartest of men, but he is cautious. Waiting is the safest way, and so he will wait.”

“There are hundreds of men on those ships,” Sephira said.

“Yes. You see my point.”

“He can hide among them, and escape when he’s ready.”

“Exactly. So rather than watching the ships, we should be looking for the items he has hidden. He will go to them eventually. He will not leave Boston without them. So if we can find them, we will find him.”

“But we’ve been through this,” Sephira said. “We don’t know where to look and we don’t know who else might be able to tell us. We have nothing.”

“I cannot help you in that regard. I know him. I do not know this city.”

“Right. So you should continue to watch the ships, and we will continue to search the city, just as I told you two days ago.”

Spectacles didn’t respond right away. Ethan thought he heard footsteps, and when next the man spoke, his voice seemed to come from right beside the window.

“Very well, Senhora. We will return to the waterfront.”

“Good. First though, I still want to know what your friend here was going to say.”

Another pause.

“I assure you, it was nothing. I felt a spell just a short time ago, as I told you. But I felt another pulse of conjuring power as well.”

Ethan leaned closer to the window, thinking that perhaps the man might reveal something about the powerful casting he had felt early that morning. He should have known better.

“When?” Sephira asked.

“Last night. Afton and I were in a tavern at the other end of your city, and I felt a spell, right there in the room.”

“What tavern?” Sephira demanded, biting off the words.

“I believe it was called the Dowsing Rod.”

“The Dowser,” Sephira said, her voice low. “You idiots! That’s Kaille’s tavern!”

“He owns it?”

“No, his woman does. But he’s there all the time. That was his witchery you felt. Damn it!” A pause, and then she asked, “Did you see him?”

“I would not know him if I had.”

“Well, he saw you. I’m sure of it. You felt witchcraft just a short while ago?”

“I have been telling you so.”

“Damn it!” she said again. “Nigel! Nap! Get in here!”

Boots scraped on the stone outside the entrance to the house, and the door opened.

Ethan had heard enough. Sephira was too smart not to put it all together. He hurried back across Summer Street and into the pasture. His conjuring still kept Sephira and the others-even Spectacles-from being able to see him, but he didn’t think he could rely on the spell for much longer.

He hadn’t gone far when Sephira’s voice reached him again. “… Him found!”

Ethan chanced a quick glance over his shoulder. Sephira stood at the entrance of her home, hands on her hips. Nigel, Nap, Gordon, Afton, and two other men had fanned out through her yard and the street in front of her house. Nap and Nigel carried pistols; the others held knives.

But Ethan was most interested in Spectacles. He stood with Sephira, but he had drawn his blade as well, and had it poised over his arm, looking like he was trying to decide what spell to cast. He would probably go with a finding spell first, followed by an attack of some sort. That was what Ethan would have done had he been in the other man’s position.

Ethan had little choice. He couldn’t make himself invisible to a finding spell-that level of craft was beyond him. Which meant that he needed to protect himself. Pulling his own knife from his belt, and still striding across the pasture, he cut his arm and whispered, “ Teqimen ex cruore evocatum. ” Warding, conjured from blood.

The ground pulsed, as he had known it would. Uncle Reg appeared beside him, ethereal in the bright sunlight. He had expected that, too. The thrum of the casting, and the shimmering appearance of Uncle Reg, would allow a conjurer to find him, even if he wasn’t visible to the naked eye. So he wasn’t at all surprised when he heard Spectacles-Mariz-shout, “There!”

The report of a pistol echoed across the pasture, and a bullet whistled overhead, a wild, blind shot.

Sephira shouted something that Ethan couldn’t hear. She sounded angry, though whether because the shot had been fired or because it had missed, Ethan couldn’t be sure.

He guessed that Nap had fired, although he didn’t look back to make certain. Nigel would know better than to make the attempt. Sephira’s toughs still couldn’t see him, and Uncle Reg was invisible to anyone who wasn’t a conjurer.

But an instant later, he felt power vibrate again in the ground, and he braced himself for Mariz’s assault. It reached him in mere seconds, like a sudden wave rolling over calm waters. A powerful spell, though one he didn’t recognize. It crashed into his legs, causing him to stumble momentarily. But his warding held; he felt the wave of power breaking, dissipating, retreating. Ethan kept his balance, and ran on.