D. Jackson - Thieves' Quarry

“So, Mariz here is just another concerned citizen,” Ethan said.

A dazzling smile lit her face. “Exactly.”

Ethan considered bringing up Simon Gant, but there were limits to what Sephira would tolerate, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to reveal just how much he knew. Keeping silent, he reached for an apple and bit into it.

“What is it these representatives of the Crown have asked you to do?” Sephira asked.

Ethan swallowed before answering. “They want me to find the conjurer who killed their men.” He eyed Mariz again. “What were you doing just after dawn yesterday morning?”

“Sleeping.”

“Alone?”

Mariz laughed. “Sadly, yes.”

“Do you think that Mariz here is the one who killed those soldiers?” Sephira asked. She laughed as well. “Is that what all this is about? Is that why you’ve been following him and listening to our conversations?”

The only thing worse than being intimidated and beaten by Sephira and her men was being ridiculed by her. Ethan knew this, because she ridiculed him a lot.

“There aren’t many conjurers in Boston capable of casting a spell that powerful,” Ethan said. “And since Mariz is new to the city, I thought it a possibility.”

Sephira shook her head, still chuckling. “Go home. There’s nothing more for you to learn here. It wasn’t Mariz. I assure you it wasn’t.”

“Pardon me for saying so, Sephira, but your assurances don’t carry much weight with me.”

The smile vanished from her face, leaving her expression stony. “Well, they should. And you ought to watch yourself. I’ve said you can go. I’d suggest you leave now, before I change my mind.”

Ethan took another bite of his apple and looked around the room. Nap and Nigel had straightened and were regarding Ethan the way hunting dogs would a fox. At a word from their master, they would attack. Mariz held his knife loosely in his right hand; his left sleeve was still pushed up.

Ethan stood and nodded to Sephira. “My thanks for the food.”

He backed out of the room, watching her men, expecting Sephira to sic them on him.

“How much are they paying you?” Sephira called after him.

“Enough to keep my interest,” Ethan said. “But probably not enough to draw yours.”

She laughed at that and raised her cup of wine in salute.

Ethan let himself out of the house, stepping past Gordon, who stood guard outside the front entrance. The big man didn’t try to stop him, but he did enter the house, no doubt to make certain that Ethan had left with Sephira’s permission. Ethan took one last bite of his apple and tossed what remained onto Sephira’s lawn.

He was confident that he had bought himself some time, but he knew that it came at great risk. Without lying to Sephira and the others, he had given them the impression that Simon Gant was dead, murdered with every other man aboard the Graystone. He knew Sephira well enough to understand that she wouldn’t leave anything to chance; if she had been intent on finding Gant, she would now be just as intent on confirming his death. And eventually, when she learned that he had gotten away before the spell that killed his shipmates was cast, she would be furious with Ethan. It wouldn’t make any difference to her that he hadn’t actually lied. But Ethan would deal with her when the time came. In the meantime, he assumed that he had a day or two in which to find Gant and figure out why Sephira was so interested in his return to Boston.

Ethan headed back to Henry’s shop, still intent on washing up and putting on a change of clothes. Mariz’s sleep spell had left him unsure of the time, and with the sky still clouded over, he couldn’t fix the position of the sun. But as he neared the streets that lay closest to Boston’s southern wharves, he saw that there were still plenty of people abroad in the city. It couldn’t have been too late in the afternoon.

He cut through the heart of the South End and soon turned the corner onto Cooper’s Alley. As he did, he spotted a lone figure lurking in the byway next to Dall’s cooperage. Even from a distance, Ethan recognized the man. He was slight and young, with the face of a lad half his age, but he wore the long black vestments and stiff white cravat of a minister. Trevor Pell.

Ethan slowed, looking around for Henry Caner, the rector of King’s Chapel, or perhaps Sheriff Greenleaf. Pell had proven himself a friend on more than one occasion, but he would have come to Ethan’s home only in the most dire of circumstances.

“I’m alone,” Pell said. “Except for this girl.” He squatted down and Shelly emerged from the byway, her tail wagging. “She’s been keeping an eye on me. She working for you?”

“Aye, she works for me,” Ethan said, grinning as he walked to where the minister waited for him. “Unless someone else gives her food. Then she’ll work for him.”

“Ah.” Pell gave the dog’s head one last scratch before standing. “Sounds like a thieftaker to me.”

Ethan grinned. “I suppose it does.” He looked around again. An old woman hobbled toward them carrying a basket of bread, and Shelly trotted off after her. “Are you just out for a walk?” Ethan asked. “Or did you come for a reason?”

“As it happens,” Pell said, his voice dropping, “I came looking for you yesterday, but couldn’t find you. I … I need to ask you some questions.”

Ethan nodded, understanding far more than Pell knew. “Aye, but not here on the street. Come upstairs.”

They went up to Ethan’s room. Once they were inside, Ethan retrieved a small pouch of mullein from the table by his bed. Mullein was one of the most powerful of all conjuring herbs, and it worked especially well for warding spells. After barely surviving the attacks of a powerful conjurer several summers before, he had made sure that he always had a supply on hand. Taking three leaves from the pouch, he said, “ Teqimen ex verbasco evocatum. ” Warding, conjured from mullein.

Pell jumped at the pulse of power, and started a second time when he spotted Uncle Reg leering at him from the corner of the room. The minister was not a conjurer; he had never learned to cast spells. But he had conjuring blood in his veins, and so could feel spells when they were cast, and could see spectral guides like Reg. And yet, for all the times he had been present when Ethan cast, he never seemed to get used to the thrum of power or the appearance of Ethan’s ghost.

“What kind of conjuring was that?” the minister asked, in a tremulous voice, still eyeing Reg.

“A warding spell. There’s a new conjurer in the city, and he works for Sephira Pryce.”

Pell faced Ethan. “Well, that may be the answer to the question I came here to ask. Yesterday-”

“You woke to the pulse of a powerful spell.”

“Yes,” the minister said. “You felt it, too.”

“I expect every conjurer in Boston felt it.”

“My first thought was that you had cast it,” Pell told him. “But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it felt too…” The minister trailed off, shaking his head.

“Strong?” Ethan suggested

Pell looked up. “Dark.”

“You have good instincts,” Ethan said. He told Pell what had happened to the Graystone and about his time at Castle William. Senhouse had asked for his discretion, and yet having been back in Boston for but a short while, he had already told Sephira and Pell of the Graystone ’s fate. But he knew that Sephira would keep his secret out of her own self-interest, and Pell would keep it because he was naturally discreet.

“Dear God,” the minister said, his face ashen. “Every one of them. How powerful would a conjurer have to be to do that?” He faltered, but then added, “Could you do it?”