parchment in her hand. She stepped out from behind the bar and handed it to Ethan.
“This came a short while after you left,” she said.
Ethan unfolded it. It read simply “Come quickly.” It was signed by Mister Pell.
“Did Pell himself bring it?” Ethan asked.
Kannice shook her head. “A boy. No one I recognized.”
“All right. Thank you.”
“How did it go with Derne and Mackintosh?”
Ethan shrugged. “Derne wouldn’t see me; Mackintosh couldn’t tell me much.” He held up the note from Pell. “Maybe this will be something.”
She nodded, and Ethan left, hurrying down Treamount to King’s Chapel.
When he reached the church he found Mr. Troutbeck in the sanctuary. The curate looked pale and seemed agitated. Ethan expected the man to order him off the premises, but Troutbeck acted genuinely relieved to see him.
“Mister Kaille! Thank goodness you’re here.”
“What’s happened?”
“It’s Trevor-I mean, Mister Pell. He’s in the crypt. There was another body brought in, and he insisted on showing you. The mother has come to claim the girl, but he won’t let anyone take her. He merely says again and again that you have to see the girl first.” Troutbeck frowned and glanced back toward the stairs leading to the crypt. When he spoke again, he had lowered his voice. “He’s gone so far as to arm himself. He actually has an old sword down there.”
Any other time, Ethan would have laughed at the thought of Pell holding off Caner and Troutbeck with a blade. But at the mention of this newest death, he had been gripped by terror. A girl was dead. Her mother had come. Had he saved Holin’s life the night before only to lose Clara today?
“He’s waiting for me?” Ethan demanded, already striding across the sanctuary toward the stairway.
“Yes,” Troutbeck called after him. “Is this about the Berson murder?”
“I’ll tell you when I know.”
Then he was on the stairs, running down them so quickly that he nearly fell. Emerging into the candlelit corridor, Ethan saw the body lying on the same stone table that had held Jennifer Berson’s body only days before. Long, dark hair. A slight form.
Pell stood, the sword held loosely in his hand.
“Thank God you’ve come,” the minister said. “I didn’t know how much longer I could hold them off.”
Ethan barely glanced at him, but walked quickly to the table, his heart hammering. But when he was close enough to see the girl’s features, he exhaled, realizing that he had been holding his breath. Her coloring was similar to Clara’s, but it wasn’t her. He braced his hands on the stone table, closed his eyes for a moment, and took a long, shuddering breath.
“You were afraid you knew her,” the young minister said.
“Terrified is more like it.”
“Someone dear to you?”
“As close to a daughter as I’m ever likely to have.”
The girl had a pleasant round face and had just barely come into womanhood. She should have been wandering through shops with her mother, or perhaps with a suitor. She should have been anywhere but here, in this cold, dim chamber. But all Ethan could think as he looked at her was Thank God it’s not Clara.
He bent closer to the girl’s neck and face. He lifted her head, probing with his fingers for a lump or dried blood. But he found nothing. Like Jennifer, she was unmarked. “Where was she found?” he asked.
“Near the wharves again,” Pell said. After a brief silence, he asked, “Was she killed by the same man?”
“I believe so. But there’s only one way I can be certain she was killed by a spell.”
The minister winced, tight-lipped. “I thought that might be the case.”
“Do you want to leave?”
Pell drew himself up to his full height. “No. I’ll stay here.”
“Caner is worried about you,” Ethan said. “He fears that I’m going to ruin you.”
“I know. I don’t share his concern, and neither should you. I was ruined a long time ago.” He said it with a straight face, and for a moment Ethan wondered if some dark truth lay beneath his words. But then a small grin flitted across his features.
Ethan laughed. “Have you ever considered the possibility, Mister Pell, that you would make a better thieftaker than you do a minister?”
“I hadn’t until I met you,” Pell said. “Now, get on with it.”
Ethan drew his blade and stared at the girl for some time, wondering which spell he ought to cast. Either of the spells he had used on Jennifer Berson the last time he was in this building-reveal power, or reveal source of power-would tell him whether she had been killed by a conjurer. But Ethan wanted to find some way to learn more about the conjurer who killed her. Chances were he had masked his power, just as he had with the spell that killed Jennifer. Ethan needed some way to overcome whatever precautions the conjurer had taken. But how?
When at last it came to him, the idea struck him as so simple that Ethan laughed out loud.
“What?” Pell asked.
“I think I’ve thought of a way to overcome the concealing spells this conjurer’s been using.”
“And that’s funny?”
“It’s simple, and one of the oldest spells I know. I should have thought of it days ago.” He pushed up his sleeve and cut his arm. Then, as he had with Jennifer, he dabbed his blood onto her face, neck, and chest. “ Revela omnias magias ex cruore evocatas. ” Reveal all magicks, conjured from blood.
Pell inhaled sharply at the sight of Uncle Reg, whose glowing form suddenly appeared beside Ethan.
At the same time, the entire chamber came to life, as if Ethan’s blood flowed through the walls, the ceiling, the stone beneath his feet. The torchlight flickered, though the air remained still, and Ethan shuddered, as from a sudden chill.
“I felt that,” Pell said in a hushed voice.
Ethan didn’t answer. He kept his eyes fixed on the girl, saw the blood vanish from her skin. And then he caught just a glimpse of what he had been hoping for. The light spread from her chest, as it had when he cast the spell on Jennifer’s body. In mere moments, she was sheathed in that same silver light that had enveloped the Berson girl. But in the instant between the first glimmer of light, and the spread of that silver glow, Ethan saw a flash of color.
It was a rich golden yellow, the color of the sun’s first rays on the sands of a beach or the last glimpse of daylight in the western sky. Ethan’s first thought was that a color that beautiful should never have been used for killing spells.
“Did it work?”
“You didn’t see it?” Ethan asked.
“I see how she’s glowing,” Pell said. “Is that how she’s supposed to look?”
He frowned. “That’s how Jennifer looked after I did a similar spell.” He beckoned the man forward with a wave of his hand. “You saw the way the light spread over her body, beginning over her heart.”
Pell nodded.
“The spell I cast is supposed to reveal the nature of all conjurings that have been set upon her. That silver light…” Ethan shook his head. “That’s not a natural color for this kind of power. The silver is a masking spell, something the conjurer used to conceal his first casting. The first spell was yellow. I saw just a hint of it before the silver covered it over. That was the true color of his casting. It spread from her heart as well, and I think it would have covered her entire body, just as the silver does. She was used as the source for another killing spell.”
“By a conjurer whose power is yellow?” the minister asked, clearly trying to follow what Ethan was telling him.
“Basically.”
“But I didn’t see any color from your spell.”
Ethan smiled. “That’s because you haven’t cast a revealing spell. What I saw with that yellow was not really his conjuring, but the residue of it. All spells leave behind some trace of the conjurer’s power. They also leave some trace of the source used by the conjurer to make the spell work. There’s a spell to reveal that, as well.”
