The man threw back an elbow, hitting Elsie square in the breast before throwing her off. Quick to his feet, he spun away as Ogden ripped the curtain rod from the wall.
Wincing, Elsie barely had a moment to stand before the floor came up around her shoes, holding her in place. Then the attacker held out his hand, and Elsie recognized the shape and glimmer of the rune before the magic even started.
Wind.
Elsie lifted her hands just as the rune burst toward her in a hurricane-sized torrent, ripping paintings off the walls and books from the shelves.
It stopped the moment it met Elsie, her fingers tearing the magic apart.
And the aspector’s eyes . . . they weren’t surprised at all. They were . . . nothing. Like they weren’t his.
He was Merton’s puppet, for sure.
He sent out the gust again, even stronger than before. Oddly enough, the spell holding Elsie to the floor helped her keep her footing as she broke the rune, just as she had with Nash’s lightning. The aspector didn’t let up, but continued casting, again and again and again, a continuous loop of torrents. He threw pens and papers around the bedroom, but the projectiles only rustled Elsie’s hair and clothing as she untied each and every one. If anything, it got easier—the rune never changed.
A shot rang out, opening up a wide gash in the gray-clad man’s arm before embedding itself in the wall. Ogden. Ogden had reached the pistol.
The wind stopped instantly, and the man ran back for the window, liquefying it as he passed through, the glass no different from the pouring rain save for how it steamed against its frame.
Elsie bolted to the window, looking into the town. She couldn’t see him—
But she did spy someone in her peripheral vision, and when she turned toward the doorway, Miss Irene Prescott stood there, eyes wide, her mouth a perfect O.
Elsie froze. How long had she been standing there?
Behind Miss Prescott, Emmeline ran for the stairs.
“Em, stop!” Elsie shouted. “Don’t call the police!”
The maid paused, unsure. They couldn’t call the police, not again. Certainly Ogden would be able to clear the way, but the more people involved, the trickier it became. They couldn’t risk any more suspicion on either of them.
“I couldn’t get in,” Ogden murmured, picking himself off the floor. “He had a barrier on his mind, another’s rational spell. I couldn’t read his thoughts, learn who he was, nothing.”
“Ogden,” Elsie hissed, and he turned to see their witnesses.
Miss Prescott licked her lips. “You’re not a novice, are you?”
Elsie opened her mouth, closed it. Rain pattered the window ledge, cooling the melted glass into twisted, reaching fingers.
“I can explain. That is . . .” She glanced to Ogden. “It’s not what it looks like.”
Miss Prescott shook her head, but seemingly more in wonder than disdain. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Please, Miss Camden. You must show me.”
Ogden tapped his head. Elsie felt a rational rune moving toward her, and because it was from Ogden, she didn’t stop it. Inside her mind, his voice said, <I can erase her memory.>
Elsie responded. <Then do it . . . after I see if she’s an ally.>
Because judging by the expression on the older spellbreaker’s face, Miss Prescott might be more fascinated than anything else.
Ogden moved toward the window, searching the ground below.
Rubbing coldness from her hands, Elsie said, “All right. Downstairs. Both of you.”
Overhead, thunder groaned.
CHAPTER 14
The problem was, Elsie couldn’t explain how she knew a thing about spellbreaking without revealing how she’d learned, which involved the Cowls. And she couldn’t explain the Cowls without mentioning the crimes they—and she—had committed.
Knowing Ogden could wipe Emmeline’s and Miss Prescott’s memories at the drop of a hat gave her courage. Emmeline was so loyal and kind Elsie didn’t actually worry that she’d act against them in any way. But Miss Prescott was a wild card. Elsie still understood her only as well as one might understand a painting viewed from across a room.
And so, Elsie chose her words very carefully. She began with the workhouse, where she discovered her abilities for the first time. She discussed the Cowls, but left off the victims’ names—it seemed more tasteful to do so, less real. By all means, if Miss Prescott really wanted to know, all she need do was read the papers. She ended with what had happened upstairs. She used Lily Merton’s name, feeling no need to protect a murderer, but didn’t specify Bacchus’s role in anything.
“And I believe strongly that he is the same person who attacked Master Hill.” Each syllable was pronounced. Elsie clasped her clammy hands together atop the table. Ogden twisted his head back and forth like a bird, ensuring no sudden customer would interrupt or overhear them.
Emmeline, at the table’s head, was wide-eyed and pale as a porcelain doll. Miss Prescott had been entirely animated during the story, as though it were a wholly fictional tale reenacted with hand puppets. Now, with the explanation over, a stiff silence fell over the room. It was so hushed Elsie would have heard an ant crawl across the floor. That is, it was quiet until Miss Prescott started tapping her fingers against the tabletop, slowly at first, then quicker and quicker. She worked her mouth, tightening it, relaxing it, pursing it. Her eyes crinkled, then her forehead. She seemed to be having a rather intense conversation with herself.
Emmeline worried her lip and stared at the ceiling, perhaps trying to work out a response.
And so Miss Prescott took the honor for herself. “That is utterly marvelous.” She shook her head. “It’s genius, really . . . not that I support murder or crime in any fashion. But when you think about it objectively . . .” She cleared her throat. “But you must tell the authorities! Then Master Merton will be out of the way—”
“Miss Prescott,” Elsie interrupted.
“You really should call me Irene, after all that.”
Elsie paused, considering. This was going strangely . . . well. “You’re not under a spell, too, are you?”
The fellow spellbreaker laughed. “No. I’ll let you check if you’d like.”
Elsie considered it for a moment. “No, thank you. But the point is that we cannot tell the authorities without condemning both Ogden and myself. We surely wouldn’t live through it.”
Irene blanched. “I suppose that’s right. But you might be granted clemency.”
Ogden said, “Might is not a guarantee.”
Frowning, Irene’s fingers tapped with yet more fervor. “Yes. The laws of aspecting are very strict. I don’t think it’s a risk I would take.”
“And . . . you two are just fine with this?” Elsie blurted, gaze shifting from Irene to Emmeline.
Emmeline peeped, “I-I am. It makes sense of some things, really. I think . . . I won’t tell, I promise.”
Elsie offered Emmeline a faint smile. She wholeheartedly believed the younger woman. Besides, if Ogden were turned in, Emmeline would be out a job.
“I suppose you could just take it right out of me, hm?” Irene glanced at Ogden. “That’s why you risked telling me at all.”
Ogden paused, then nodded.
Irene quieted a moment, save for her drumming fingers. “Miss Camden—Elsie, if I may—is one thing, but an unregistered rational aspector with master spells . . . that is a little harder to stomach. There are reasons rational magic is so strictly regulated.”