The Etsey Series 1: The Seventh Veil (18 page)

Emily could see them both now. The alchemist was a slight, balding man with weaselly eyes, and her rescuer was slightly taller and had a messy head of shockingly red hair. They were both of them dressed in what would be considered aristocratic fashion in Rothborne Parish, and though the red-haired man’s clothes seemed smarter than the alchemist’s, they both put poor Alan to shame.

The red-haired man stood eerily motionless. The alchemist scanned the fog, saw Emily, and rolled his eyes.

“You have the same sort of charm as your friend over by the witch’s workshop, I see. Well done.” He smirked and reached into his jacket. “Thankfully there does not yet exist a charm for this.”

He pulled out a pistol and aimed it squarely at Emily’s chest.

Emily heard the sound of claws against rock as the lake demon’s beasts came scurrying up the hill.

“Tell me where your sister is, Miss Elliott,” he said, “or I will shoot you.”

“The beasts are coming!” Emily cried, so frightened now she thought she might be sick. “The beasts from the fog—they are nightmares, and they will kill us!”

“Then tell me where your sister is, you stupid girl.” The alchemist sighed and swung the gun around so that its muzzle pressed against the red-haired man’s temple. “Perhaps I need to persuade you of the seriousness of my determination.”

Emily’s heart stopped, the sounds of the lake dying away as her entire world narrowed to the end of that silver pistol. The red-haired man’s eyes were wide and locked on her face. Emily’s own eyes filled with tears. She didn’t even know his name, and she was going to watch him die.

A sharp growl made the alchemist glance over his shoulder at the ridge.

The ghosts appeared behind the red-haired man, looming angrily over the alchemist. The small one took the red-haired man’s hand, and the two middle ones placed hands on his shoulders. The tallest took hold of the pistol and moved it very deliberately away from the stranger’s head.

Emily didn’t think. She just picked up her skirts and ran headlong at the alchemist.

Her movement made him turn back, and he glared at her as he fired the pistol. But the bullet went nowhere near his prisoner’s brain.

Emily shoved him backward onto the ground, grabbed the red-haired man’s hand, and ran.

“Hurry!” she shouted to him and pulled him back toward the cottage.

She crashed into Alan almost immediately; he was holding his head and limping, and he was fighting with the gate again. “The man is mad,” he whispered and kicked at the hinges.

Emily nodded to the red-haired stranger. “Let me through! Let me open it!” She pushed him aside and cried out in dismay. “You’ve jammed it!”

Alan swore, then braced himself on the rail and vaulted over the iron barrier.

“I’ll make you pay for that, you bitch,” the alchemist snarled, his voice bouncing off the fog.

“You’re right; we have to run!” the red-haired man said, and he tugged her away from the gate.

“We can’t go onto the moor!”  Emily cried, trying to drag him away.  “We can’t—”

He grabbed her wrist and hauled her up beside him, pointing ahead into the mist. “Look—they’re gesturing to us. I think they want us to follow.”

Emily saw the now familiar blue-gray light forming up ahead, where the four ghosts were waving frantically. She looked up at the red-haired man, stunned. “You can see them too?”

Behind them the alchemist began to chant.

“Stop talking and
run
,” the red-haired man said and tugged her toward the ghosts, onto the ridge, into the fog as it swallowed them whole and the sound of the beasts rose like a roar around them.

* * *

Madeline placed her hand on the magic veil that shimmered before her, trapping her inside a space just two feet beyond the bed where Jonathan lay. It shimmered at her touch, but it did not yield. Had she cast this, she wondered? Had the Catalian? Had it been the ghost he had seen?

Was this even real? It felt, in so many ways, like a dream. Was she truly here, guideless, trapped inside a magic shell as Jonathan wheezed and gasped behind her in his father’s bed? She wrapped her arms around herself and turned back to him. She felt disconnected and strange when she looked at the curtain, but when she looked at Jonathan, her focus narrowed and her duty was clear. She needed to heal him. She knew how.

And she knew the price she would have to pay.

Madeline kept her eyes on Jonathan as she stripped out of her heavy witch’s clothes, letting them pool in a black heap at her feet. She removed layer after layer until she stood in nothing but her white shift. White was a relative term, as it was gray with age and made of a dull, dreary linen. Still, it felt good to be lighter and not wear black. Fitting, somehow, to be nearly naked.

Madeline reached for Jonathan, touching him tentatively on the back of his hand nearest her. There was no reaction. She let her eyes fall closed as she gently stroked his skin, lingering over touching him, indulging in sensation and in memory. His body was ragged, but he was still beautiful in her eyes. They were not very witchlike, those thoughts, but there were no guides now. She ran her fingers over his chest, sliding them over the exposed skin, thrilling at the forbidden touch. He had dared her to touch him like this once. She had refused because it had felt like a trap and because she had wanted him so badly it had frightened her. Not now. Now she only wished for more time, for more chances—for more of everything. She shut her eyes and slid her fingers deeper into his shirt, savoring the feel of her skin against his skin.

She paused as she felt the silken cord tangle against her fingers, remembering the medallion. Surely
that
had been a dream. Surely he did not still have the charm, not after all she had said, after what he had done, after what she had not done—

She tugged on the cord, trying to drag the medallion back across his chest.

His hand closed over hers and stopped it.

Madeline jolted at the contact and tried to draw back; for a moment he held on to her, weakly but with enough pressure to keep her from retreating. She looked at his face, her heart hammering in her chest. He stared back at her, his eyes milky and lost. He saw her; she could tell by the way his pupils changed that he saw who she was and that he recognized her. Madeline felt herself go warm and soft as he stared up at her, and for a moment she forgot everything.

He is here, and he is looking at me
. Until she had taken her vows, her entire world had reduced to yearning for nothing more than this: one last moment to look at him and to have him look back. The heartbreak of losing him had nearly killed her, undone by her yearning for the mirror of his eyes. When she had bound herself to the Craft in the Circle of Stones, the witches had explained to her that this was conceit and fancy; she was not defined by this man, whether he broke her heart or bore her up like a queen. There was no magic in his look or his touch. Over time they had managed to convince her of this, and even now, with him once more, she knew they were right. She had learned from the witches that she could exist without him quite independently, and she had excelled in her life all on her own.

And yet as she looked at his face, as he looked at her, she remembered it all, and she knew they were also wrong. She was not defined by him. She could exist on her own, and she always would, with or without him. But there
was
magic in his eyes, because when he looked at her through them, she remembered how all it had taken was that look from him. Without a single word of spell, when they were together, she was instantly so much more.

And then he closed his eyes. “Go,” he said.

The word served as a slap, and Madeline was almost grateful for it. She had work to do, and she forced her mind back to it.

She returned her focus to Jonathan’s body, allowing herself no more wistful yearnings. In truth, the more closely she focused on him, the more her concern began to grow. Madeline could always sense death easier when she was inside a circle, but with Jonathan, she could do more than just feel it; she could
see
it. He had been stabbed everywhere. Lesions covered him, the entry points of wounds humming through him in thin red gashes that glowed inside the circle’s light. Each injury should have been his death. Poison coated the walls of his veins in addition to the scars, but it had not killed him, either. She remembered what the Catalian had said, how he could not die; she saw the evidence before her, and she shuddered.

The gash across his leg, however, was a different story than the rest of him. Whatever unnatural force had compelled healing on his other wounds was failing here. Madeline could feel it trying, but something strong was blocking the effort and swiftly gaining ground. But she could not tell what it meant to do. Kill him? Save him? Keep out the demon? Overtake it? If it was not of the demon, what was it? Well, she would find out. She reached for Jonathan, seeking with her mind and with magic, extending her hand over his body, closing her eyes as she began to cast her spell.

A hand reached up and slapped her arm, knocking her back. When she opened her eyes, she saw Jonathan propped up on one arm, his frail body heaving as he aimed the pointed end of his walking stick at her.

“Get out,” he shouted.

Madeline held up her hands in a staying gesture. “Jonathan, stop. I can help you. I’ve come to—”

He shifted the stick slightly to the left, pressed a button, and sent the casing flying against the magic wall. Then he aimed the sword at her, right at the center of her chest.

“Get out,” he shouted again.

“Kill him.”

Madeline startled and looked around.

“Kill him. Kill him now.”

Madeline clamped her hands over her ears. “Stop,” Madeline whispered. “Stop!”

“Madeline?” She heard the word faintly through her hands; she dared a glance at the bed and saw that Jonathan had lowered the sword and was watching her warily.

“I heard a voice,” she said, still unsteady. She lifted her hands from her ears, relaxing a little when the voice didn’t come again. Madeline wiped her hands nervously against her shift. She had to do this quickly. If there was something else inside the circle with them, she had to act. She had no more time. Lowering her hands from her head, she extended them before her and tried to focus her energy between her hands, making it loop up above her head. She felt the surge, but it was weak, and this time there was no blue fire with the spell. She needed guides.

“I am better than any guide.”

She cried out and lowered her hands, backing away until she hit the magic wall.

“Madeline,” Jonathan said, his voice weak but still tight with warning. “Go. Leave.”

“I can’t,” she snapped, searching for the source of the voice. There was still no sign of anything. She squared her shoulders and turned her palms upward, staring at them as she watched the energy build. “You came for a witch,” she said. “You’ve found one. Now let me help you.”

He flinched as if she’d slapped him, but his eyes went straight to her hair. He looked slightly relieved. “You aren’t bald. You’re no witch.”

She reached back to touch her hair self-consciously. “I am an Apprentice, and I am standing in for the Morgan until I can be Sealed.
Now be silent
.”

“Madeline, no,” he whispered. “That is not the life for you.”

“My life is mine to choose,” she snapped. Irritation boiled over, and she lowered her hands and glared at him. “You
aimed a sword at me
.”

His jaw tightened, and he nodded tersely. “Leave me, Madeline. Nothing good will come of this. You don’t know what lives inside me.”

“I do,” she shot back. “The Perry daemon turned demon. And I know how to help you, but you must be silent because I don’t have much time.”
I might already be too late
. She shifted her focus to his festering leg. “I may not be a full witch, but I’m all you have if you wish to live.”

His laugh made her shiver. “Well, there is your first mistake, Apprentice. I didn’t come seeking a witch to save me. I came to find the Morgan because I was fairly certain she would kill me. Nothing else seems to be able to.”

Madeline stared at him. She could see the slugs of poison moving slowly through the blood vessels in his face like worms. Understanding dawned, and she blanched. “
You
took the poison. Willingly.” She shook her head. “Why?”

He shifted his gaze to the ceiling, his jaw going rigid. “I’m tired. I should have died several times over. I wanted release from the pain. But that was months ago, and as you can see, it didn’t work.” He glanced down at the wound, covering it gingerly with his hand.

Madeline reached for his injury with her mind and felt the raw, angry energy stretch from knee to groin. “When did you receive this wound? Where?”

“Here.” He nodded at the ceiling. “In the tower.” He was very careful not to look at her. “From my father.”

Madeline stared at the festering wound, her mind spinning horrors faster than she could speak them. “The demon cannot be what is keeping you alive. It’s trying to overtake you, that I know. It is trying to fulfill the curse. Something
else
is trying to keep you alive. You’re carrying your own war around with you, inside your body.”

“What will happen to me?” His question was soft, his strength flagging. “What happens to a man who can be hurt and made very ill, but who cannot die?”

“Terrible things.” Madeline’s fingers curled against her sides, into her shift.
But I can save you.

He lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling as his breath came in ragged gasps between words. “My father had the demon. It passed into me when I killed him.” He paused and drew several wheezing breaths, then turned to her, his expression dull and defeated. “And now you see why I left. Why I shouldn’t have come back. Why you must go.”

“But I can help you!” Madeline took several angry steps forward until she was standing beside the bed. “I can save you!”

“I don’t want to be saved!” He coughed from the effort of his shout and covered his mouth with his hand; when he lowered it, it was full of blood. “I’d never intended to live and become my father! I won’t begin now, and I
won’t
let it do to you what it did to your cousin!” He sat up weakly and shoved at her. “Go!”