Выбрать главу

Friday, Irene and Elsie set out before dawn for Her Majesty’s Prison Oxford, where Master Phillips was being held. The same place where Elsie had spent three days herself.

Elsie described the points of the knot of the spiritual spell on the way there, and Irene explained how they would work this trip into Elsie’s studies. Aspector prisons were the most secure jails in the country, and they employed spellbreakers to keep prisoners in line. “It’s a grim job, but a well-paying one,” she offered.

Elsie had no desire to step into Her Majesty’s Prison Oxford again after today, let alone make her living there.

The ride seemed to carry on forever, though the journey had felt even longer in the back of a prison wagon. Her nerves danced when they finally arrived at the stone behemoth, her mind inventing scenarios of being found out and caged once more. But surely Merton wouldn’t surface now, when she was supposed to be dead, and Irene . . . she trusted Irene. The woman had no reason to sell her out.

A guard led them to the prison warden, who wore the pin of a physical aspector himself. Not a master’s pin, like the one Bacchus had, but a blue one that indicated his specialty. Elsie wondered briefly how experienced he was—Intermediate? Advanced?—but didn’t ask. His office was as gray and stony as the rest of the prison, with a single barred window facing south. He sat behind a simple desk nearly empty but for a hibiscus plant sitting on the corner, along with a large magnifying glass and a cup of cold tea.

Irene introduced them, referring to Elsie as her apprentice. She had already telegrammed ahead, so their arrival was expected. Leave it to Irene to not miss a detail. Despite what Elsie had once thought of her, Irene Prescott was one of the most competent people of Elsie’s acquaintance. Elsie did not like to think where she would be had the London Physical Atheneum assigned her a different tutor.

“And you believe this spell to be on his person?” The warden, who looked about Ogden’s age, sounded skeptical.

“I know Master Phillips,” Irene assured him. “From what I’ve studied of the spell . . . well, he exhibits the symptoms. You must let me check. Send as many guards with me as you wish.”

“I found your telegram very interesting.” The warden leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. “Because he, too, claims there was a spell on him.”

A shock jolted up Elsie’s spine. Of course Master Phillips knew. He’d been actively fighting it that night on his estate, just as Ogden had been at the docks.

Irene kept her composure. “Then surely the truthseekers have confirmed it.”

The warden frowned. “I don’t know of any way a physical aspector could get around a truth spell, but yes, they have. You’re welcome to look, Miss Prescott, but we’ve seen no evidence as to a spell, and he can’t tell us who placed it. Unless you know.”

Irene glanced to Elsie. “That is yet to be determined.”

The warden’s gaze shifted to Elsie, but he didn’t complain about her presence. Irene had told him she wished to expose her student to all aspects of spellbreaking. He shrugged. “Very well. He’s in our highest-security holding, but I’ll send a few extra guards with you just in case, myself included.” He stood and gestured for the exit. Once in the corridor, he spoke quietly to a nonspellmaking guard on hand, who left to collect three men to attend them. Elsie noted two were spellbreakers and one was a spiritual aspector.

Had the prison’s own spellbreakers attempted to confirm Master Phillips’s claims, or were they simply there to prevent him from using his magic? Elsie glanced to Irene, whose face was a stiff mask.

The warden, keys in hand, led them to Master Phillips’s cell.

Elsie set her jaw to keep her teeth from clattering as the warden led them deeper into the castle, and then down, down, down, each stair growing darker, until sunlight vanished completely. Simple aspected lights hung from the walls, but not nearly enough to brighten the place or add the slightest bit of cheerfulness.

The warden had not lied: the cells were heavily guarded. There were two armored men to each one, plus more who stood guard at the exits or simply paced back and forth, ready to spring into action. Several of them nodded to the warden as they passed, eyeing Elsie and Irene curiously. They were the only women on the floor.

Master Phillips was in the second-farthest cell from the exit. His hands were gloved with enchanted mail, and his wrists and ankles were tied. He wore gray prison clothes and looked haggard, his beard growing in like someone had seasoned him unevenly with pepper and salt.

It struck Elsie viscerally that she’d been lucky to come here as a spellbreaker. Spellbreakers had no power over iron and stone—they were no more dangerous than the average prisoner and were treated as such. But spellmakers could warp their environment, physical aspectors especially. Master Phillips lacked even the simplest freedom of movement. He eyed them without recognition until he spied Elsie. Afraid he might say something, she hung back and let Irene take charge.

“Spellbreaker, Phillips,” the warden said, handing his keys to a guard, who unlocked the heavy door. “Looking you over for a project. Don’t try anything. I’d hate to bind you further.”

Phillips said nothing, but glanced at Irene with such sorrowful eyes Elsie’s heart hurt. The prison spellbreakers entered first, coming to stand on either side of Phillips. Irene stepped in next, pulling her skirts beneath her so she could kneel before the master aspector.

Elsie pushed forward, watching. Irene dipped her head, placing her ear on Master Phillips’s chest as if she were a doctor and this were a perfectly normal examination. Phillips murmured something to her, and it took a moment for Elsie’s brain to put the sounds together.

“You won’t find it,” he’d said.

Elsie held her breath. Irene investigated him, his front and back, his legs, even going so far as to lift his shirt. Then she turned, bright eyes first finding Elsie, then the warden.

“I’m afraid I was mistaken.” Her voice was fragile, uneasy. “I must further my studies, it seems. There isn’t a single spell on him.”

Elsie wrapped a hand around the bars, needing something to balance her. There were only two ways a spell like that could be vanished from Master Phillips’s person. First, if Merton had truly thought of everything and arranged for it to be removed before turning him in. The second . . .

Lily Merton might be truly dead.

CHAPTER 19

It was hard, pretending everything was normal. To walk to Squire Douglas’s home to have a bust design approved, to fill out Ogden’s ledgers, to greet customers when they came. Their worlds kept spinning even though hers had stopped.

Master Phillips would almost certainly be executed, in the end, but the truthseekers’ findings were delaying the inevitable. He had said, and meant, three things—that he wasn’t the killer, that he hadn’t stolen opuses, and that he’d been under a spell. But there was no evidence to support Master Phillips’s claim other than his own words . . . which was not enough to exonerate him. A person could believe something to be true that wasn’t—a selfish person might think themselves kind, or an ugly person think themselves beautiful. And so truth was a sticky thing of wavering substance, not enough to acquit a man, especially when so many of the missing opuses had been found at his home.

With no evidence to support Master Phillips’s claims, he would probably be ruled as insane and his trial would proceed. Though surely there were alibis from others to show he wasn’t near, say, Viscount Byron or Alma Digby when they met their ends. Perhaps the confusion would keep Master Phillips safe long enough for Elsie to figure out what on earth Merton was up to, if she was even on Earth anymore.