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April 9 - April 15, 2024
“She’s a clairvoyant, of course.” Baillie adjusted his glasses. “If he ever came across her, she would know exactly what he was doing. That’s why I sent her away, not he .
“Confused?” he asked. She nodded. “It’s a side effect of chaocracy.” She glanced up at the upside-down trees. All the dancers had gone to bed. The snow—was it snow?—had settled around him, more like puffs of fur than crystals of ice. “And you used a lot of it.” Some distant part of him knew that was wrong. He couldn’t have done that. He didn’t know how.
“Sugar makes sad things better.”
Truer words never have been spoken lol
It was no wonder he’d struggled with chaotic spells. They’d been buried beneath everything else.
“The house—” “Is fine,” she finished. “You only hit the edge of it, and Owein has already repaired it. However, the trees and . . . Well, we’ll have some spare firewood this winter and rabbit stew for dinner.”
“Merritt, do you realize how amicable you are?” He chuckled. “I know a housekeeper who would have disagreed with that sentiment not too long ago.” “Amicable and tidy are not synonymous.” At least his hands had warmed up. She should probably get a bath drawn for him. “You are a good person, Merritt. You are nothing short of delightful.”
“Maybe,” she said softly, carefully, “they’ve stopped talking because you finally started listening to yourself.”
“Might I assume you’re staying the night?” She folded her arms and lifted her nose. “Don’t tell anyone. I have a sparkling reputation to uphold.” “Says the woman who’s already shared my bed once.” Mortification stripped her insides like turpentine. “That was not my doing, it was Owein’s! And I was technically still in my bed—” Merritt beamed at her.
The room changed; it was the same room, but she was elsewhere in it, her back pressed to the mattress, Merritt’s hair against her cheek, the sensation of his mouth on her neck, and— And— Hulda dropped the cups. Two of the three shattered against the floorboards. “Hulda!” Merritt leapt from the bed and rushed to her. “Are you all right?” She blinked, but the vision was plastered behind her eyelids. She was most definitely unrobed, and so was he, and his hand was on her— Dear Lord, what had she just seen? But that was a stupid question. She knew exactly what she had seen!
Lol awkard . Did she glimpse their wedding night?
Had she been wearing a ring? She hadn’t seen her hands in the vision. She’d seen Merritt’s, but it was the wrong hand! And it was on her . . . on her .
Still, as mortified as she was, she had to admit that she was equal parts embarrassed and delighted.
“Not mind reading, no. But hallucinations, yes. Though I’m not sure such a thing could be procured. It’s illegal here and in England,
What Merritt said had, well, merit.
Haha
She swallowed. “Mr. Lidgett. Stanley Lidgett, the man who is . . . was . . . Mr. Hogwood’s steward. “He knew Silas was here.”
know his voice. I . . .” Her flush drove the chill back even further. “I fancied him, once upon a time. I know his voice.” “Oh.” The surprise on Merritt’s face morphed into something bordering mischievous. “Did you, now?”
For all we know, Silas was having”—she blushed—“. . . conjugal visits.” “Or using a cup,” Merritt offered. Hulda met his eyes, unsure of his meaning . . . and then it clicked, and her jaw dropped. “Really, Merritt!” He shrugged. “Makes sense.”
Mwaaa
“Unless the estate was seized by the Crown,”
Ma’am, was he not in office on October 15?” That was the night it happened—the abduction, the fight, the death. She blinked. “Oh, no. That was Constable Harold. He retired and moved to North Carolina. Quite suddenly, they tell me.
“You Canadian?” That gave Merritt pause. “Not the last time I checked.” Wade shrugged. “Figured only a Canadian would wear his hair like that.” “Ah, well.” Merritt pulled his hair behind him, as though he could hide it. “My barber died a couple years ago, and I never got over it.”
Lol
“Heard there was some woman inside in nothing more than her drawers.” A flicker of heat coursed up Merritt’s torso. It was one thing for him to tease Hulda about that, but he apparently did not like it when another did, especially another man.
“Can I talk to Charlie, then?” But Wade shook his head. “He ain’t here no more. Left around the same time Harold did. Acting real strange.
Legs skittering over the floor, infested but alone. The thought pushed into his mind like a nightmare, dark and thick. Owein shook his whole body like he was wet, and it faded away.
When had Myra accessed her bag? Surely she wouldn’t have snuck into the hotel in the middle of the night! Hulda hadn’t left it unsupervised anywhere . . . That woman in the street, who’d run into her so violently . . . had it been Myra? Had she been right there and Hulda hadn’t noticed?
“BIKER has control of more than you realize. The man who threatened me—I’m sure it’s a man—somehow figured it out.”
Her heart pounded as though Thor himself were striking it.
The Thor reference has my approval! <3
Myra took a moment to collect herself. “There’s a secret facility in Ohio that banks blood from wizard cadavers and placentas.” Hulda’s lips parted. She hadn’t expected that. “My associates and I are trying to find a way to amplify, or possibly re-create, magic outside of genetics. It will be completely lost otherwise. Some say by the year 2000. We’ll lose all of it.”
The facility. The facility was important. Illegal, and important. Surely a means to re-create, synthesize, grow magic was highly valuable to society . . . but she suspected the cadaver restrictions weren’t the only laws being broken.
The time had passed for Hulda to protect Myra’s confidence, and she trusted Merritt.
a story that made him want to sink his fist into Walker’s stomach and rip free the testicles from between Baillie’s legs.
“I failed her.” Squeezing her knee, Merritt asked, “Who? Myra?” Hulda nodded. “Didn’t she fail you first?”
she was a balm to his anger and confusion, and while he knew incarceration likely hit her harder than it did him, he was grateful they were together.
That was a nice thing about writing—when someone read it, they had no idea how long the author had taken to compose it, or how many times he’d discarded something terrible and replaced it with the right phrase. They only saw the finished, polished product.
I so identify with this!
She lifted her glasses and dabbed the corners of her eyes with her knuckles. “I just . . . I never thought this would be an option for me. I never thought anyone would ever . . .” She dabbed and laughed, sniffed, and Merritt’s stomach climbed back to its space below his diaphragm. “Oh.” He tried not to smile but did a terrible job of it. “Well. I apologize that the men in your life have been muttonheads, but then again, I suppose I should thank them—” This time he wasn’t able to finish the sentence because Hulda was kissing him.
A hand grasped her forearm—not Merritt’s, but Baptiste’s. He said nothing—one glance into his glimmering eyes told Hulda all she needed to know. If she returned to that prison cell, they would never let her back out. So when the Frenchman pulled her toward the door and out into a growing storm, she didn’t hesitate to follow.
suppose being a fugitive might make a trip to the post office unpleasant.” “Is not so bad,” Baptiste said, which earned a confused look from Hulda and a chuckle from Merritt.
Beth shrugged. “I’m not worried about it. If I’m stopped and identified, they can’t detain me. Besides”—she smiled—“most white men can’t tell me apart from any other Black woman.” Merritt sat up. “That’s preposterous.” Beth smiled knowingly at him, which told Merritt he was quite wrong and should probably say nothing more on the subject.
I completely forgot Beth was black. I knew Fletcher was but forgot how Beth was described.
Merritt grumbled low in his throat. “Are you dangerous, Mr. Fernsby?” Her voice carried a hint of mirth, yet sounded wholly serious at the same time. Merritt shifted his weight to one leg. “I think we can agree that I’m the least dangerous person here.”
“Baillie, or Walker?” “Alastair Baillie.” Myra sneered. “I’ve known Mr. Walker a long time. He’s being played like a fiddle.” Merritt nodded. “So Walker isn’t a psychometrist?” Half a laugh escaped Myra’s mouth before she clamped down on it. “Absolutely not. That man is the unluckiest wizard in the world.
“Even if you can,” he said with care, “negative feelings have barbs. They . . . last, whether or not an enchantment helped them along.”
Myra slipped through a side door, telling Owein, “Light on your feet,” as they went. Owein glanced at his paws to check, then realized she hadn’t meant his feet were glowing.
Life’s better sweet than sour, my mother would say.”
Because that was the plan—they were all to focus on one emotion, as hard as they could.
“What’s going on?” asked a feminine voice from the door. Miss Steverus had arrived right on time. She was unknowingly playing confused.
“You might remember I’m a clairvoyant, Mr. Walker. I apologize for this demonstration, but on that paper you’ll see the name of every person Baillie manipulated in the last few minutes, along with a time stamp of when it happened.” Baillie lost all color in his face.
It struck her that Mr. Baillie would go to the same penitentiary he’d gotten her and Merritt thrown into. There was something ironic about that. It didn’t make her feel good, but it did make her feel safe.
How strange that the vision of Baillie that had made her believe his story had actually proven to be a peek at his unwinding.
“If not there, Whimbrel House.” “It’s not magicked anymore. You know that. It has no need of BIKER.” She raised a delicate eyebrow. “That is not what I meant.” Hulda warmed.
And Myra Haigh vanished into the shadows, as though she’d always been part of them.
