D. Jackson - Thieves' Quarry

“No. I finally fell asleep and when I woke this morning, I was still alone.”

“Did he tell you anything else? Anything at all?”

She shook her head, her expression pained. “Very little.”

Of course. He had insisted on Diver’s discretion, and this one time his friend had done as he instructed.

“Did he say anything about someone he was supposed to meet? Aside from me, I mean.”

“He did say he had to meet someone-that he was doing it for you-but he told me nothing about her, either.”

Ethan felt a sudden tightness in his chest. “Her? It was a woman?”

“Yes, I think so.”

He had to resist the impulse to go back to Sephira’s home and smash it to pieces. What had she said to him just a short while before? You have friends, and I know who they are. Had she taken Diver as a prisoner before he even got there? Had she already killed him?

“Did he say it was Sephira Pryce?” Ethan asked, afraid to hear the woman’s answer.

“Miss Pryce?” Deborah repeated, sounding like that had been the last name she expected to hear. “Oh, no. He didn’t mention her at all.”

That stopped him short. “You’re sure?”

“I would have remembered if he had mentioned her. She’s a very important lady.”

How could he argue? “But who-?”

It came to him in a rush, stealing his breath. He had been staggeringly stupid for so long. And it was possible that his foolishness had cost Diver his life. I’ll be keeping an eye on you, he had told him. I won’t let anything happen to you. How could he have failed his friend so miserably?

“Mister Kaille?” Deborah said, leaning toward him, her forehead creasing with concern. “Are you all right?”

“Go upstairs,” Ethan said. “Don’t open your door for anyone other than Diver or me.”

“All right,” she said, wide-eyed and puzzled. “Do you know where he’s gone?”

“I have an idea, yes.”

He started away, heading toward Dock Square and the North End.

“Do you think he’s all right?” the woman called after him.

“I hope so,” he said without breaking stride.

* * *

The home of the sisters Osborne wasn’t far from Pierce’s Alley, but even running, his leg and knee aching, Ethan felt like it took hours to cover the distance. If Caleb Osborne was still alive, his daughters would know. They might well have been sheltering him. From the first day Ethan spoke to them, they had struck him as odd. Perhaps they had been hiding the truth from him all this time. Perhaps they had been working with their father to gain the riches he stole from Sephira. That would explain why they had been so reluctant to speak of Simon Gant. Not only did they fear the man, they also knew that their father intended to steal the pearls from him. They might even have known that he intended to kill his old associate.

As he approached the worn wheelwright’s shop on Wood Lane, Ethan pulled his knife free and pushed up the sleeve of his coat. He wanted to be ready if Osborne was there. Pausing at the base of the dilapidated stairway, he cut himself, then faltered once more. He wanted to try a listening spell, but any conjurer in the North End would sense the power of it. A conjurer in the room above him might well determine from the casting just how close Ethan was. He started up the stairs, taking each step with painstaking care and wincing at every creak and crack of the ancient wood. When at last he reached the door, he half expected to see it crash open, revealing Caleb Osborne, knife in hand, blood welling from a fresh wound.

But nothing happened, and when Ethan pressed his ear to the side of the building, he heard not a sound within.

He tried the door handle. Locked. Knowing that he was taking a risk, he spoke the unlocking spell again, and at the sound of the lock tumbling, let himself into the Osborne sisters’ room. As before, the floor and furniture were littered with colorful cushions. Molly Osborne had been working her fingers to the bone. The faint aroma of cooked meat hung in the air, but otherwise Ethan saw nothing to suggest that anyone had been there for hours.

He would have liked to search the place-for the pearls, for any sign that Diver had been there, for evidence proving that Caleb Osborne was still alive. But he didn’t dare take the time. Now heedless of whatever noise he made, he slammed the door shut and charged back down the stairs, stumbling halfway down. He stopped in the middle of Wood Lane, unsure where he should go next, panic rising in his chest like a river in flood.

And in that instant it came to him. Hull Street. Gant’s old house. If Osborne had worked with Gant, he would know of the place, and so might his daughters.

He broke into a run once more, ignoring the pain in his leg and the cold sweat on his back. Cutting across the heart of the North End, he dodged carriages and chaises and sprinted past clusters of British regulars, on one occasion ignoring their calls for him to stop, and wondering if he was about to be shot in the back.

When at last he reached the coppersmith’s shop, he slowed and readied himself: knife out; sleeve up. He wanted to summon Uncle Reg, but even that small spell would attract notice. He stole around the building into the enclosure in back, and upon seeing the run-down house, knew that at last he had guessed correctly. The tall grass surrounding the old shack had been trampled down, and the building’s lone window glowed with the warm light of a candle or oil lamp. The broken shutter had been repaired since the last time he had been here. He saw as well that the cart standing near the house had also been fixed. Had the repairs been done with conjurings?

Ethan slipped through the grass until he reached the pair of worn wooden steps that led to the door, which had been repaired as well. It hung straighter on its hinges, and something told Ethan that it would swing open easily, without scraping the floor.

He put his foot on the first step, and as soon as he did he felt the weblike touch of yet another detection spell. A keening sound, like an ocean wind whistling in a seawall, pierced the silence.

Ethan cut himself. “ Teqimen! Ex cruore evocatum! ” Warding, conjured from blood! Power from his spell pulsed, and was answered an instant later by a second pulse that emanated from within the house. He had time to think, Fire spell!

And then he was on his back, lying in the grass. The warding had held against the flames, but the sheer power of the attack had been like the kick of a mule. Reg, who had materialized as soon as he conjured, looked down at him, disapproval twisting his mouth.

The door flew open-as smoothly as Ethan had imagined-and Hester Osborne stepped onto the front porch, her mouth set in a thin hard line, her hair down. Seeing Ethan and the glowing ghost, she narrowed her eyes.

“Mister Kaille! What are you doing here?”

Ethan climbed to his feet.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he said. He had managed to hold on to his knife and he tightened his grip on it, weighing whether or not to cut himself again.

“This was Simon Gant’s home,” she said. “But I assume you knew that. My sister and I didn’t feel safe in our home, so we came here.”

“And where’s your father?” Ethan asked.

Her face seemed to turn to stone. “That’s not funny.”

“It wasn’t intended to be. I know that his body vanished from Castle William. For the the past day I’ve assumed that it was Gant who awoke him from whatever spell took his life. But I realize now that I should have known better. You’re a conjurer. I’d wager that your sister is, too, and that you’re both more skilled with your castings than Simon Gant. One of you woke your father, didn’t you?”