Where had Evelina gone? He’d caught a glimpse of her leaving the dining room with Dr. Magnus, but it hadn’t been possible to see where they went. And his near-encounter with Magnus and Bancroft had proved that creeping into the ground-floor rooms wasn’t practical. Looking in windows wasn’t getting him very far, either.
Should have, would have. The story of Nick’s life. Well, now he was going to act, even if that meant embarrassing himself or tackling Magnus to the ground. Every instinct said the man was trouble on a demonic scale, and Nick’s self-appointed task was to keep Evie safe. It had been since the first day he’d seen her, a cherubic imp with long, dark ringlets and mud on her skirts. He wasn’t about to abandon her now.
He heard the maid leaving the parlor, her mop, bucket, and broom rattling as she shuffled away with her burden. Nick squirmed through the flower beds and around the corner, heading for deeper shadow.
This was the same side of the house as Evelina’s bedroom; he knew this wall well. There were a great many casement windows, all easily opened with a knife just like the one he carried. And, it was nighttime now, with this side of the house relatively free of ornamental lights, which meant he could climb without being seen.
Most of the upper windows were dark, but those on the first two floors were lit, stained glass panels floating like jewels in the darkness. Nick pulled himself up, using a drainpipe and the frames of the windows as handholds. After all that crouching and lurking, he appreciated the flow and stretch of muscle, even if his ankle was starting to complain again.
His line of ascent was between the stairway windows and the bedrooms. At the first bedroom, he saw one of the ladies’ maids repairing the hem of a gown for her visibly impatient mistress. He ducked out of sight, then clambered across, hand-over-hand, to peer in the stairwell window.
Shock speared him, making his hand slip an inch.
Dr. Magnus was dragging Evelina toward him by the wrist, making her stumble as she tried to twist away. In a flash, Nick had his knife out, working at the latch of the casement. With a hiss of pain and disgust, Evelina raised her free hand and slapped the doctor hard across the face. As the man’s face clouded with rage, the latch gave way and Nick pulled the window open, sliding through to the stairway and landing feet-first. It was farther to the floor than he’d bargained for, and he landed with a loud thud.
“Nick!” Evelina’s startled squeak echoed in the high vault of the ceiling.
Magnus wheeled around, a scowl of rage on his face. “What the devil are you doing here?”
He had a sudden instant of clarity. Magnus: powerful, wealthy, dangerous. Nick: half in rags, entirely out of place. Words deserted him. He raised the knife, figuring that would have to suffice.
“And you are her Galahad?” Magnus asked incredulously.
“Nick, be careful,” Evelina said in a low voice.
He could only spare a glance at Evelina, but he saw her look of gratitude. He was there, defending her, fighting by her side as he was supposed to be. The knowledge gave him courage as he crouched, knowing by sheer instinct that Magnus was waiting for an opening to strike—but how he would fight was anyone’s guess. Nick was no practitioner, but he had enough of the Blood to feel the prickle of magic in the air.
“Dr. Magnus, I would very much appreciate it if you left this house,” Evelina said in a tight voice.
Magnus’s expression grew even more dangerous. “You are not the owner of this place, nor are you his children. You have no power over the threshold here.”
Nick’s heart jerked in his chest, but a flood of white-hot anger surged through his blood, half of it at himself. He should have found a way to stop Magnus the moment he had misgivings about the man—which was mere seconds after meeting him.
Could have, should have. He was done with all that. “You heard the lady. It’s time to go,” Nick said.
“I think not,” Magnus replied coolly.
Nick lunged forward, one hand extended to push the man back, knife in the other as backup. An altercation would attract unwelcome attention, but under the circumstances what did it matter? Getting thrown out on his arse was the least of their problems.
But suddenly Magnus wasn’t there. Nick wheeled to look for him, and was gripped in wild, white-hot agony. The pain was so great, he felt suspended in the air, left arm extended, right fingers curled around the knife, knees bent, weight balanced on his toes. Every fiber of his body seemed to curl inward, retracting as the pain crawled up every nerve, biting, clawing, flaying him one shred at a time. Nick was aware of the knife falling from his fingers, the searing flash of light on the blade, the distant thump as it hit the carpet. Somewhere to his left, there was a rose-colored swirl as Evelina turned to grab for him, but he could not move his head—not even to spare his life. The roots of his eyelashes hurt too much to glance to the side.
A crawling sense of evil poured over him, questing fingers tickling his skin, looking for openings into his core. Frozen, unable to move, he cringed with horror at the feel of it clawing at his ears and eyes, wriggling up his nose and between his teeth, hunting for a way into his soul.
And then, something gave way inside and he crumpled. It didn’t happen quickly, but one muscle at a time lost its resilience, letting bone and tendon fail. His right knee hit the ground first, jolting his teeth and making him bite his tongue. Then his hip hit the carpet, and finally the rest of him. When his head smashed to the ground, the world had already gone black.
He had a distant, puzzled thought that he’d expected to die in a performance or maybe of old age and drink, not breathing his last on a rich man’s carpet.
“You bastard!” Evelina hissed, lunging for the knife.
Magnus grabbed her arm, bruising the flesh above her elbow. They were both crouched on the landing, almost knee to knee. Nick lay on a heap to her right, his chest barely moving.
Fury flamed through her blood, leaving her light-headed, delirious with the need to strike back. She snarled into Magnus’s face, baring her teeth.
His smile was nearly as savage. “So there is a tiger inside that soft white skin. Good for you.”
“What did you do to him?” She had the blade, the curve of it familiar in her palm. It was an old one, the ivory handle just as she remembered it from long ago, warm and smooth against her skin. Like Nick, it was part of a past that made her strong now.
Magnus answered by digging his fingers between her tendons, making it impossible to keep hold of the weapon. “Give it up, Evelina. You can’t fight me.”
“Watch,” she spat, but her grip released, dropping the knife to the carpet. She couldn’t help it. So she swung with the other fist.
He caught that hand, too, and shoved her backward with as much ceremony as if she were a bale of straw. She fell with a soft cry, too hampered by stays and skirts to resist. Magnus rose, his tall form looming over her, the knife in his hand now.
“You’re mine,” he said quietly, “as surely as if I bound you in chains and carried you away. I’ve been looking for a great many years. You hold the secrets I want. Give them to me, and I will teach you in return.”
Too angry to speak, Evelina glared.
“You want what I know. That simple fact will be magic enough to lure you.”
“You don’t know me at all.”
He gave a sepulchral smile. “If that thought comforts you, keep it.”
The need to deny his words swamped all common sense. She spat, the fat glob clinging to his elegant pant leg and sliding down like a glistening slug.
The look he gave her turned her bones to putty. “I can see I shall accomplish nothing more tonight. I’ll be visiting with you soon, Miss Cooper.”
He drove the point of the knife into the banister. It quivered and stuck, poised like an unexpected bird.
Then Dr. Magnus turned and descended the stairs. In a flurry of skirts, Evelina scrambled to her feet, pulling the knife from the wood with a grunt.
He must have heard her, but didn’t turn. Magnus was clearly confident that she wouldn’t throw it, even though his back was right there, just a few yards below.
Evelina rubbed the knife handle with her thumb, watching his form disappear step by step.
