The Etsey Series 1: The Seventh Veil (11 page)

Madeline moved her hands carefully from behind Charles’s neck and let his head fall gently to the ground. The magic was still humming against her fingers, and she felt her guides hovering behind her, waiting for her to release the power of the Morgan back to them. Still she lingered for a moment to touch Charles’s face. She smoothed her fingers over his sunken cheeks, over his eyes, which were still moving rapidly beneath the closed lids. She whispered one more spell, urging him into deeper stillness as she pulled tension from him. “
Rest, Charles
,” she whispered, giving the words a witch’s command. Then she pulled back the power and added in her own voice, “I will take care of you.”

The guides moved even closer, their tension palatable through the magic’s margin.
“Pull back now, and release to us. He is settled enough.”

Madeline nodded, but she lingered just a moment longer, placing her hand over Charles’s chest to take one more reading, finding it just as troubling as she had the first time. Then she rose and turned to the guides.

Four dark-gray shapes the size of men but with no human distinction of any kind surrounded and then moved through her, each element taking back the power it had given her to challenge the demon. They entered through her crown and ran through her body in a rush, making her tingle and gasp as they removed and redistributed energy. When they finished, they made a circle around her, holding her up as she rode through the rest of the reaction, stifling the sound she made when she cried out. She sailed up outside of herself, pushed out by the force of the alignment, and then she came back down, her mind, body, and spirit whole again. She grounded to her own magic, her own powers, then drew a deep breath and let it out again.

As she opened her eyes, the guides drew back and formed a line before her.

“I must take him to the cottage,” Madeline said. “And then I must study what he has told me to see what is true and to discover what the truth means.”

Madeline could feel their uneasiness and their disapproval.
“It is not appropriate for an Apprentice to take on such dark sources.”

Temper flared in Madeline. “I am fully capable. I am the oldest Apprentice currently practicing, and it is with the witch’s Council’s permission I act as full witch in the Morgan’s stead.” She unclenched her hands and pressed them against her heavy black skirts. “I intend only to seek.”
For now.

The guides huddled together, and soft silver sparks rose up from their forms as they consulted with one another. Madeline forced herself to remain cool and impassive, tamping down her anxiety and irritation with the delay. But when they reassembled again, she could not keep herself from bracing against their possible refusal.

“We agree to assist you in securing this patient and in seeking answers. But no further action may be taken from what is learned without our consent.”

The verdict chafed, but Madeline only inclined her head and stepped away from Charles as the guides moved in around him. She donned her headgear and watched as they lifted him, bearing him up as a thick gray cloud that floated several feet above the ground as they followed Madeline back toward Rose Cottage.

It was difficult to keep her thoughts in check as she walked; the guides were never completely absent from her, and they would be listening especially closely to her now. But her mind was like a storm, and she could only contain so much of it. She tried to keep her thoughts productive rather than emotional, to corral old feelings and girlish aches, and to try to postulate logically what could have brought Charles back to Rothborne Parish, to dwell on what could have induced him to wander alone onto the moor and at night to boot. She recalled the alchemist’s signature she had felt, and she spun out a little of her power to examine it more closely. He was not a guild alchemist, that much was clear. She prodded the signature again, then hissed through her teeth as she felt the charge push back against her.
Erotic alchemy
. Sex magic, it was called. But there was no greater perversion of sex or magic in the world, and it coated Charles so thickly it was nearly smothering him.

The magician had to be after the House blood. That didn’t even require magic to see, though it was a bald reach, especially for a rogue practitioner. It didn’t surprise her that Charles would fall into an alchemist’s net, but there was something particularly alarming about this magician and what he was able to do to Charles. It was far more disturbing to think the alchemist had learned enough to come here.

And if Charles is correct, Jonathan is alive and he is here too, with a demon.

Jonathan, Jonathan is alive.

Madeline stopped walking, shutting her eyes and drawing deep on her power to muzzle her thoughts. No. That couldn’t be true. He had gone to die. She had felt him leave. He had fallen into the curse, and his death had been certain. He
must
be dead by now, and by a terrible death at that. He was not here. He could
not
be here.

If you reached for him, you would know.

“No,” she whispered, and she opened her eyes.

She was at the top of the ridge, facing the woods and the great tree that guarded them. The fog was curling against the top of the ridge, growing thicker, but it could not engulf the tree. Behind her the guides stopped, disapproving. She ignored them, focusing on the tree to ground herself again. She would wait, and she would look for the truths, and she would face them as they came. She let out a slow breath, pushing the tension out of herself.

If Jonathan is here…if he is still alive…if he is hurt…

Something moved at the base of the tree, and when Madeline realized what it was, she went still. A man stood there, smiling at her.

Madeline blinked, but he was still there. And as she studied him, frowning, she saw that there was something wrong about him. Or rather, something distinctly different. He was dressed strangely, all in white, and he glowed even though he stood in the dark shadows, as if he himself were the light. He was not significantly tall, and yet he seemed huge. She could feel the power radiating from him all the way from the ridge.

He looked oddly familiar.

The man smiled at her and waved. Then he vanished.

“You are disturbed by something.”

Madeline was still blinking and staring at the space where the man had been, but when the guides spoke, she felt her thoughts tumble. They hadn’t seen him, she realized. They had neither seen nor sensed the man, the man who had stood there in plain sight, full of power.

Madeline’s jaw tightened. “I’m fine.”

She saw her sister standing at the edge of the garden, holding a lantern, and when Emily saw Madeline, her shoulders sank.

Madeline pulled back her veil and nodded at the cottage. “Emily, I have a patient. Hurry inside and make him a pallet by the fire.”

Emily hefted her skirts in one hand and held the lantern higher as she ran back to the house, her loose blonde tendrils bouncing against her collar in the moonlight. Madeline did not run, but she walked briskly, fixing her sights on her sister’s silhouette and pushing everything but healing Charles out of her mind.

The kitchen was warm and comforting, full of the scent of stew and drying flowers and a peat fire. Emily had a pillow and blanket ready over the padded board she kept handy for just this sort of situation, and she had placed it before the hearth. When the guides brought Charles into the room, Emily drew well back, trying not to look at the floating cloud. But once the patient was settled and the guides had retreated beyond her sight, she frowned down at the man on the pallet.

“Who is he?” Emily asked.

“An old friend,” Madeline said. “One I never thought to see again.” She crouched down beside Charles and placed a hand over his chest. The alchemist’s spell bit at her again, and she had to tamp down anger. “Water, please. In the funnel cup.”

Emily nodded and disappeared from view. Madeline stroked Charles’s hair tenderly. The Morgan would have tsk-tsked her for showing affection for a patient, and the guides would certainly note it, but Madeline didn’t care. She would ache for anyone as butchered as this, but to have it be
Charles
, after all this time—it would cost her more to deny the reaction than to show it.

The aberration was not lost on Emily, who eyed Madeline curiously as she returned with the metal cup with a long spout attached to one end. Madeline took it from her and placed it carefully against Charles’s lips, murmuring a spell to encourage him to drink in his sleep. She gave him a soft dream of sunshine and sweet wine and beautiful sunsets. But even in that, Madeline felt the black cords that bound him trying to resist the illusion. She beat it back easily with a satisfied smile. No alchemy would ever beat a witch’s magic.

Emily was frowning at Charles again. “He looks strangely familiar.”

That surprised Madeline until she remembered the portraits that hung at Whitby Hall. She hadn’t thought Emily had been much in the main living quarters, but then, when Lord Whitby wasn’t at home, anyone could ask for a tour of the place, Emily included.

“He is a Perry,” Madeline said, tipping the cup again. “The bastard son of Neil Perry.”

“The one by his sister?” Emily’s voice was full of censure. “The bastard through incest?”

“His name is Charles,” Madeline said with censure of her own. “And he hardly had a vote in the method of his conception.”

Emily gentled a little at that. “That’s fair. You’ve said that to others on my behalf often enough. Still—a
Perry
, Madeline? I may be only an Elliott in name, but
you
—Well, do you think this is wise?”

It pricked at Madeline’s pride to have both the guides
and
Emily cautioning her. “You think I am not competent to handle a patient from one of the Houses?”

“I think the Houses are a bloody tangle even without adding witchcraft.” Emily lifted Charles’s arm and glowered at Madeline. “Especially one whose skin is tattooed with alchemical spells.”

Madeline set down the cup and took Charles’s arm from her sister, pushing his sleeve up farther and squinting at the symbols inked along his skin. “This isn’t just a renegade alchemist. He’s
mad
.” She pointed to the runes, tilting Charles’s arm this way and that to reveal the whole of them. “He’s using sledgehammers to stun ants. These are the sorts of bindings used to hold demons. To be honest, they’re even stronger than that. I’ve never seen anything like them. It’s more than just overcompensation. It’s ludicrous.”

“Madeline, I don’t like this.” Emily gestured to Charles’s inert form. “You can’t treat him. Something bad will happen.”

The guides were silent as well as invisible, but Madeline could feel their agreement with Emily.

“What has spawned this sudden lack of confidence in my abilities?” Madeline gestured angrily to Charles’s arm. “You know very well alchemical spells are nothing to a witch. Even these are but the work of an hour for me.”

“I don’t doubt you, Madeline—you know that!” Emily sounded hurt. “But he is of a
House
! The Morgan said you must never deal with one of the Houses because
you
are of the Houses!”

“That was when I was still untrained,” Madeline insisted. “And she meant I was not to attempt advanced magic on them. Do you propose I leave him to die? Return him to the alchemist with my compliments? Even if he were not a friend of mine, you know I could never do such a thing.”

“You can call one of the other witches,” Emily said.

Madeline put her hands on her hips and laughed. “Yes, as I have called them to perform the Sealing Ceremony my mentor could not complete because she died unexpectedly. I sent for them what, seven months ago? They could be here within a day if they came by horse, and they could come in an hour if they used magic.”

“You know they are waiting because they wish to see what you will do, to make this part of your final test,” Emily countered.

Madeline swallowed her ire. “I am only proposing to help him, Emily. I will make him comfortable here and give him a small protection, and then I will consult with the guides in meditation. I will see what answers lie on the Plane and in the Void. That is all. For now, that is all I propose. I will make my decisions after I have more information.”

Emily looked unhappy, but she nodded. “I’ll keep him comfortable. But if he wakes up and starts acting on his creepy alchemist commands—”

“He won’t wake, not until I rouse him.” Madeline reached into her pocket and withdrew a small stone anchored to a silken cord. She held it in her palm and blew power gently across it. Then she crouched, closed her hand over the stone, and held it above the center of Charles’s chest. “By this stone I bind us, Charles Felix Perry. You will not wake until I wake you. You will not come until I call you. No other hold on you may override this command.” She placed the cord over his head and tucked it beneath his shirt. She rose and nodded to her sister. “I will be in my workshop.”

Emily nodded a little brusquely. Then, because she did not stay cross well, she added, “Good luck.”

* * *

Madeline hurried across the garden. She ignored the finger fog creeping over the hedges, knowing it was just the demon being spiteful. It couldn’t reach her in her workshop, and she had no intention of going anywhere else.

She felt better the moment she stepped inside. By design the workshop was entirely, completely Madeline: all of her, not just the witch’s facade. She wore black and covered her hair when in public, but here she was allowed to remove her veil in more ways than one. Here the walls burst with rich, lush color, red and orange and yellow and deep, centering browns. The floor was made of heavy planks of rich walnut. She still remembered the way they had felt in her hands as she laid them into place for nailing. Pots and books and jars containing supplies, notes, and spells filled every cupboard, and a tattered red sofa overflowing with fringed pillows against a far wall invited her to sit upon it and snuggle beneath the olive-colored afghan. The Morgan had wrinkled her nose at the cottage when Madeline had finished it, and she’d grumbled about aristocrats and their pride. Madeline didn’t care. When she took her full orders, her beauty would be ravaged, her hair would fall out, and she would be almost indistinguishable from any other witch. She would also have no more checks on her power. But she was not a witch yet, and the order allowed Apprentices to design their workshops in whatever way they saw fit, as an outlet for the last gasp of individuality. A witch was not an individual; she did not even keep her name once she was Sealed. But Apprentices were still attached to their egos, and though her tenure had been stretched longer than it should have been, that was still what Madeline was.