Evann turned to me with a flourish. “My nephew, Dante Morris, of the Virginia Morrises.”
Mrs Hallingsworth smiled indulgently at me. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. Your family has an illustrious reputation.”
I smiled along with the ruse. “You’re too kind, m’lady,” I replied. Yes, my family name was Morris, and yes, I was from Virginia, but otherwise Evann had led the dear lady woefully astray. My father was a fisherman in a poor coastal village, not a planter aristocrat. But if privateering hadn’t already damned my soul, I doubted another lie or two would tip the balance.
“You simply must try the roast duck,” Mrs Hallingsworth said, leading us into the ballroom, where musicians had already struck up a lively reel. “One of the servants will get you a cup of punch, and you can’t overlook Cook’s benne seed wafers.” Her attention turned to me with the eye of a mother.
“And you, Dante, shouldn’t waste another minute when the band is playing. Come with me. I’ll introduce you to the prettiest young ladies in South Carolina!”
Evann and I were swept into the high spirits of the ball. It seemed to me that, for a curio-shop owner, Evann seemed to know everyone who was anyone in Charleston’s notoriously cliquish upper society, and they treated him with the fondness usually reserved for an elderly, quirky relative. After Mrs Hallingsworth had made my introduction, I was accepted as an approved and eligible bachelor, and managed to dance with the daughters of some of the most powerful men in the city. I was certain those same men would be horrified to know that their coddled darlings were waltzing with a pirate.
All the while, I kept my senses keen to magic. While more than one of the blue-blooded young ladies made me tingle, it had nothing to do with the supernatural. To my surprise, I picked up its traces on several of Charleston’s movers and shakers. Not water magic, but other forms of power. Land magic, not surprising given Charleston’s planter heritage. Charisma beyond the norm, good for swaying others to see things your way. Attraction magic, which led to the gathering of friends, power and money.
I chanced a look at the black-frocked Anglican priest who was engaged in a lively discussion in the corner. What might the good Father have to say if he knew just how many of his parishioners had more than a hint of magic to them?
Waltzing was a good excuse to circle the room without being obvious. I could keep my eyes on my attractive partner, while my magic swept over the bystanders as we circled past. Most of the people didn’t register at all with me, meaning that they were what they appeared to be and no more. But twice, as my partners and I passed the back corner of the room, my powers gave me an uncomfortable jolt, a wave of alarm.
“Thank you for this dance,” I said, favouring Sarah, my latest dancing partner, with a deep bow.
“The pleasure was all mine,” she drawled. She was so good at innocent flirtation that I knew it was a skill honed of long practice.
I murmured an excuse about needing more punch, and found a reason to go the long way back to the sideboard. I passed within a few feet of the place where my magic had jolted me, slowing as much as I dared to get a look at its source.
The elderly gentleman had his back to me at first, but he turned as I walked past, and I wondered if he sensed something, too. He had a shock of untamed white hair over bushy eyebrows and a furrowed face. His hazel eyes had a wary glint, and his lips were pressed tightly together, jaw set. In his prime, he might have been a tall man, but age had hunched him. I shook my head to clear it. No, it wasn’t age that made his shoulders slump. In my mind’s eye, my magic eye, I saw him clutching a chest against him, hunched over it to protect it with his body, to hide it from view. His eyes met mine, and I got a very nasty frisson down my spine. I was pretty sure I’d found our necromancer, and at the moment, I’d bet that he was wondering whether my magic posed him any threat.
“Dante! There you are!” Mrs Hallingsworth’s greeting was music to my ears. Our hostess took my elbow and steered me away from the old man, whose gaze, I was sure, followed me as I headed in the opposite direction. “I’d like you to meet my niece.”
“I’m embarrassed to ask,” I said, doing my best to look chagrined, “but I couldn’t place the older gentleman in the other corner. Should I know him?”
Mrs Hallingsworth chuckled. “I should say not – unless you’re a pirate! That’s Judge Heinrich Von Dersch. He served as the king’s highest magistrate in Bermuda before he moved to South Carolina on the eve of the war, and he’s been an absolute bulwark against piracy on the high seas. He’ll tell you that he’s hanged over three hundred pirates himself, and I believe him.” She cast a backwards glance. “He’s a stern fellow, but then, who wouldn’t be in his position?”
My hostesses’s words were gracious, but I could feel a tinge of fear. My good Mrs Hallingsworth had a generous dollop of magic in the form of charisma, though she probably didn’t know it and would be horrified to find out that her “charm” was indeed charmed. I was willing to bet that the tingle of fear she felt came from the feel of Judge Von Dersch’s magic: dark, grasping, and vengeful.
I spent much of the next hour engaged in light conversation with Mrs Hallingsworth’s lively niece Isabella. To my delight, Isabella was well-read, educated in the classics, and had travelled extensively abroad. She also shared her aunt’s charisma, which was difficult to resist, even when I knew it to be magic. Alas, I also knew any prospects there were doomed from the start, though I was reluctant to say good night when Uncle Evann came to collect me for the drive home.
A different servant brought us our cloaks. As we left, I made a point to look down at the step where I had seen the chalked symbol. It had been rubbed out.
“I want to look at something,” I said to Evann as soon as the door closed behind us. I led him around the house, bending low so as not to be seen out of the windows, an eye on the foundation stones of the great house.
“Look there,” I said in a whisper, drawing his attention to another of the intricate, graceful marks. Gingerly, I touched it. Magic quivered beneath my fingertips, of a sort I couldn’t readily identify. I slipped my fingertips together, puzzled. The marks seemed to have been made in a mixture of cornmeal and ash. Strange.
“There’s another one over here,” Evann said quietly. It was a different symbol, but of the same sort, and we found them at intervals all around the foundation stones, and a few more at the entrance to the servants’ kitchen.
When we were safely back on the street, I turned to Evann. “What did you make of all that?” I asked, interested to hear his thoughts before I shared my own.
“You’re the one with the magic,” Evann replied. “I was just there to get you in the door.”
I chuckled. “Forced to eat fine food and drink fine wine and be flirted with by some of the richest widows in the city.”
Evann sighed. “I do what I must for the cause.” He sobered. “As for those marks, I know I’ve seen something like that before, but not often. I’ll see what I can find when I get back to the store.” He gave me a sideways glance. “How about you? Did you pick up anything, or were you too addled by the beautiful ladies?”
“Considering that their fathers would line up to challenge me to a duel if they had any idea who had danced with their daughters, I’d say my attraction was tempered with a cold splash of common sense,” I said. “But they were pretty, weren’t they?”
“Focus, Dante.”
It was my turn to sigh. “As you wish. Yes, I picked up on something besides the symbols. There was an old man in the corner. Miserable-looking person, not exactly the life of the party. I saw a couple of the men talking briefly to him, but most people gave him a wide berth, and the servants did their best to stay out of his way entirely.”
“Judge Von Dersch,” Evann replied. “And what did your magic say?”
“He’s hiding something,” I answered, carefully sifting through my impressions. “I think he’s able to put a glamour on his magic, to make it seem different than it is. I sensed . . . falseness.” I paused again, thinking. “There was a feeling of doom around him, and the oddest thing was, I could swear it waxed and waned over the course of the evening. I barely noticed him when we arrived, but a few hours later his magic seemed to fill the room so that I could scarcely think. It gradually got better, but I wondered how many of the other guests with a hint of magic felt the same thing.”
“Between eighth and ninth bells, I noticed that the good Judge was standing completely alone,” Evann said. “I was watching him, too, but for a different reason. Sorren didn’t want me to mention it before we came, didn’t want to prejudice your read on the evening, but he thinks the judge is our necromancer.”
