The Etsey Series 1: The Seventh Veil (27 page)

She led him to the front door, up the crumbling steps, and on to the inside, a sight she knew made the wreck of the outside look like nothing by comparison. The paper in the foyer wasn’t just peeling but bent double over itself, collapsed into a curled heap on the floor in several places. The curtains were rags, full of burn holes and tears, and sagged under the weight of years. Half the foyer’s ceiling lay on the floor, clustered around the empty chandelier chains dangling ominously in the morning light.

The ghosts were here now, and several others had joined them. They were all watching silently, looking a little eager. Stephen glanced at them, then craned his neck to take in the grand stair and the rail above.

“I never came north,” he said. “Not once. I heard about the old ruin they kept Father in during the worst of his madness, and I heard what he did here, but I never thought much of the place itself. I just assumed it was an old wreck. I never dreamed of ghosts or legends or beasts in the fog.” His thumb stroked absently at the back of her hand, his neck still craned, his eyes still moving over it all. “It feels sad. The room feels…sad. As if the abbey itself is weeping.” He shook his head and glanced down at her, rueful. “A silly thing to say, isn’t it.”

Emily didn’t think so at all; she had often thought the same thing of the abbey. She started to tell him so, stepping closer to him and renewing her grip on his hand. Before she could speak, however, a door opened in the hall above the stairs, startling them both.

They let go of each other’s hands.

“Emily.” Madeline appeared at the balcony, and she looked down at Emily and Stephen with surprise. “What is this?”

“This is Stephen Perry,” Emily said, feeling stupid for blushing. “He is—”

“Jonathan’s youngest brother,” Madeline finished. She tilted her head to the side and regarded him carefully. “What are you doing here, Mr. Perry?”

“I’ve come to see my brother. I wanted to warn him about Grandfather, and to—Well, I thought ten years’ absence warranted a reunion.” He looked a bit flustered and almost shy. It endeared him to Emily and made her want to take his hand again.

Madeline inclined her head in a nod, and it was then Emily noticed, for the first time, that her sister was more than a little weary. She looked wan, and if Emily wasn’t mistaken, Madeline’s hands were shaking as she tugged on her gloves. Her veil and headdress were draped over her basket, and she did not look as if she meant to put them on again.

“He is resting upstairs,” Madeline said to Stephen. “His equerry is with him and is assuming his care from here on. But he should be well enough for a visit in an hour, if you like. I ask you not to wake him until he rouses himself.”

“Thank you.” Stephen made a small bow to Madeline and turned to Emily. He stared at her for a moment, as if he couldn’t quite think of what to say. Then he bowed again, took her hand lightly, and brushed a dry kiss across her knuckles.

“Thank you, Emily,” he said so that only she could hear.

“You’re welcome.” She looked down at his jacket, which she was still wearing, then hurried out of it and handed it back to him.

He took it, bowed once more, and hurried away.

Emily stayed where she was, feeling bereft and more than a little dizzy as Madeline came the rest of the way down the stairs. She fell into step beside her sister, and neither spoke to the other as they turned and went back outside.

It was raining; it had been overcast and damp as she and Stephen had walked through the garden, but it was properly drizzling now. Without Stephen’s jacket, Emily shivered against the wet and cold. Madeline gave her a stern look of disapproval, then unwrapped one of her layers and handed it over to Emily.

Emily draped the long band of black linen over her head, peasant-style, and followed Madeline down the path.

The gardens, already difficult to navigate when dry, were quickly turning miserable in the wet. In addition to dodging gnarled vines and snagging thorns, Emily twice nearly lost her boots to the mud. The woods were a little better, but not by much. By now Emily was thoroughly soaked, her boots and skirts leaden with mud, and the little advantage the smoother path gave her was negated by her condition. Madeline had moved ahead of her on the path, as it was narrow, and Emily saw that her sister wasn’t faring much better. Her heavy layers likely kept her a little drier, but she faltered often in her movements. In fact, the longer they walked, the more Emily noticed her sister sway and stumble. Emily’s maudlin mood dissipated, replaced by concern, and when she saw Madeline start to fall, she rushed forward to her sister’s side to catch her arm before she went down.

Madeline righted herself carefully, but she didn’t dismiss Emily. In fact, she leaned quite heavily on her as they walked together through the last leg of the clearing. Emily was slogging through peaty mud and brambles again, but she couldn’t care, not when she had a clear view of her sister’s pale face.

“I’ll draw you a bath and make you a hot breakfast when we get home,” she said. “I’m sorry I’m not there with one waiting for you already.”

Madeline laughed a little bitterly. “I think if you weren’t here, I’d be tumbling into the mud.” She sighed and leaned her head briefly against Emily’s.

Emily wanted to ask what had happened, but she was beginning to think she didn’t want to know. She seized instead on something else that had been rolling around in her mind. “Madeline, what’s an equerry?”

The question seemed to surprise Madeline, but she didn’t hesitate to answer. “It depends on the context. Once an equerry served the royal household—a sort of right-hand man to princes and kings. When Etsey rid itself of kings, however, other nobles took to calling their higher-ranking servants equerries, and so, of course, did every up-and-coming member of the upper classes, noble or not. Generally now they’re assigned to the stables, but in the few titled political houses it’s a privilege of a lord or his heir to claim up to four equerries. They immediately have higher status than every other servant in his house, and in fact they’re higher than anyone else’s. They can move easily through all levels of society save private gatherings of other title holders, but even there they can enter on behalf of their lord.”

“Who is Jonathan Perry’s equerry?” she asked.

“A Catalian,” Madeline replied, and Emily thought she heard a smile in her sister’s voice. “A very opinionated, determined Catalian.”

Emily frowned. “Is it usual for foreigners to be equerries?”

This time she heard Madeline laugh softly. “No. I suspect Mr. Fielding’s advancement to that post was a great scandal. I also suspect Jonathan enjoyed making that kind of trouble immensely. His grandfather had always nagged him to take an equerry, but he would never have meant a Catalian. Especially one with the sort of background Timothy possesses.”

Emily wanted to ask about this, but Madeline had stumbled again. She silenced her questions and led her sister to the great tree that stood at the top of the ridge, marking the halfway point between the cottage and the abbey.

It was dry beneath the gnarled, heavy branches of the oak. There was a mossy old stone beside the trunk, and Emily eased her sister onto it before crouching down before her in the mulch of leaves and twigs. Madeline was very pale, and her eyes had a dark, dull quality that worried Emily.

“You need to call on your guides,” Emily said gently. It worried her that she needed to point this out to her sister. “If you’re this weak, you need their help.”

For some reason this seemed to make Madeline close off, her expression going blank and cool. “I only need to rest a moment,” she said in a tone that made it clear she would say no more.

When Madeline rose, she did not accept Emily’s arm, and when they passed her workshop, Madeline left her and disappeared inside. Emily hurried back to the cottage, rushing through the business of restarting the fire and making breakfast, a task which consumed her for the better part of an hour. Just when she had herself organized to take a plate of sausage and egg and fried dough out to the workshop, however, she heard a knock at the door—gentle at first, then almost immediately insistent. Perhaps this was Alan, come to explain. She put down the tray and hurried to open it.

The alchemist stood there, dripping with rain, sporting matching bruises on either side of his face.

For a moment Emily could only blink, and she almost doubted what she saw. But as he began to move, she decided to trust her eyes. With a strangled cry, she tried to shut the door.

He blocked it open. “Good morning, Miss Elliott. I’ve come to see your sister.”

Emily tried again to shut the door. “Go away!”

“I don’t think so.” Smith forced the door open and stepped over the threshold and into the cottage.

Emily stumbled backward. “Leave. My sister does not wish to speak to you.”

“Did you have an enjoyable evening on the moor?” His voice was dangerous and silky, and he took another step closer to her so that she had to back against the wall to get away. “What happened to your little friend?”

“You will leave. Now.”

Emily sagged in relief as her sister swept into the foyer; Madeline advanced slowly, menacingly on the stranger. Her right arm was extended before her, and her hand glowed a soft, eerie blue.
That
Emily had not seen before.

“
You are unwelcome in this house, Martin Smith
,” Madeline said, her voice low and hard and strange. “
Leave now, and do not return
.”

The man tried to step forward, but it was as if he bounced off an invisible wall. He blanched, tried again with the same result, and swore.

“
You will harm none who abide in this house
,” she said, her hand glowing harder now. Her eyes were burning too. “
Not you or any of your agents
.”

He cried out in rage but fell back another step, clearly against his will. Then he took a better look at Madeline and grinned. “You have no control. Your magic is unstable. Be careful, little girl, or it will burn you.”

“
The magic of the Craft turns the trickery of alchemy to dust
.” Her voice was very thick now. It was starting to scare Emily.

The man was grinning. “You’re practically on fire. It’s killing you to stop me. You must submit almost your whole will to the magic to use it. How interesting. I wonder, Apprentice, how long you can last.”

“
As long as it takes
.” Now it wasn’t Madeline’s voice at all.

“Stop it!” Emily cried. Her hand closed on something hard and iron—
the pan
. The pan she’d taken to the door when Alan had come. She gripped it, lifted it, and swung it around, raising it high with both hands as she rushed at Martin Smith. She swung the pan at his head, and the force pushed him back to the door, tripped him over the stoop, and landed him flat in the yard, where he did not move.

Emily gripped the frame of the door and leaned out after him. “And stay out!” she shouted, then slammed the door and threw the latch.

She turned around just in time to see Madeline crumble to the floor.

Emily rushed forward and managed to catch Madeline before her head cracked against the flagstones; she helped her sister carefully to her feet and supported her as she led her up the stairs. Once in her room, Emily wordlessly set to undressing Madeline, starting with her boots and working her way through the muddy layers. Madeline let Emily pull her into a sitting position, and she raised her arms this way and that to assist Emily’s ministrations, but when Emily started to unbutton her sister’s dress to strip her to her muslin shift, Madeline’s hand reached up quickly to stop her.

Not, however, before Emily had undone enough buttons to realize that her sister was, in fact, not wearing her shift at all.

“He can’t come back.” Madeline’s voice was her own again, but it was weak and slurred. “That is a binding spell.”

“You aren’t well,” Emily said.
And you are missing some clothing.

“I just need to rest,” Madeline said, hastily redoing the buttons with trembling hands. She fell back against her pillow and let her eyes fall closed, as if they were too heavy to keep open. “I just need to rest, and I will be fine.”

“You need to eat something,” Emily insisted, though her mind was still preoccupied with the missing shift. Why had Madeline left it off? She
never
took it off, not even for a bath, not unless she was in the Stone Circle, and even then it was the first thing she put back on.

“I need to rest,” Madeline said again, sinking deeper into the pillow. “If only I can rest, then it will all be right again.” But there was a sense of desperation in her tone, as if she were not certain this would be the result but rather hoped it would be.

Emily could hear the rain coming down harder now, the
patter patter patter
feeling both cozy and isolating at once. Something was very wrong here. She was sure of it, but she didn’t know what, and she didn’t even know how to ask. She reached out and touched her sister’s cheek gently, then rose quietly from the bed.

She nearly tripped over the pile of dirty, muddy clothes and boots, but the sight of them cheered her a little, for here at least was something she could do. I can clean up, she decided, and gathered the discarded veil and robes and footwear. But as Emily put her hand on the doorknob, she was stopped by the faint, soft sound of her sister’s voice.

“They’re gone.”

Emily turned to look at Madeline; her sister had opened her eyes, but she was staring off into nothing, not seeing Emily at all. “They’re gone. The guides won’t come to me any longer. They’re gone.”

She did look at Emily then, and her eyes were so hollow that Emily felt gooseflesh break out across her arms.

“Rest,” Emily whispered back, then cleared her throat so she could speak more firmly. “Just rest. Much may look different when your strength is restored.”

Madeline closed her eyes. Emily watched her for a few moments, wondering if she would speak, afraid now of what she would say, but Madeline remained silent. After several minutes, her chest rose regularly in the steady rhythm of sleep.