Sephira’s men had put Mariz in a cramped bedroom at the far end of the upstairs corridor. Aside from the small bed and a bureau of drawers near the single window, the room was unfurnished and quite plain compared to the rest of the house. There were a few personal items on top of the bureau-a cotton kerchief, a hairbrush, a pair of simple sewing scissors-leading Ethan to guess that this was the quarters of one of Sephira’s servants.
A man who Ethan assumed was a doctor stood beside the bed, bending over Mariz, who lay on top of the covers.
Afton hovered on the other side of the bed, glaring at Ethan.
“Has he moved or made any sound?” Ethan asked.
The doctor looked up from his patient and shook his head. “He’s having some difficulty breathing, but I can’t see why. And there’s a welt on the back of his head. I’m afraid there’s not much I can do for him. He needs rest, and time.”
“Very well,” Sephira said. “Thank you, Doctor.”
“Of course, Miss Pryce. I’ll come back tomorrow if you like.”
“Yes, fine.”
The man closed up his medical case, glanced at Ethan again, and left the room.
“Leave us,” Sephira said to Afton.
The big man looked like he might argue, but seemed to think better of it. He cast one final warning glance at Ethan and left as well.
Once Ethan and Sephira were alone, she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the wall that was farthest from the bed. “Go ahead.”
He had cast spells against her and her men many times, but Ethan had never conjured while Sephira watched him. He had to admit that it made him uncomfortable, though he couldn’t say why.
He pushed up his sleeve again and pulled the knife from his belt.
“You’ve had that the entire time?” Sephira asked.
Ethan grinned, knowing that Nigel would have some explaining to do.
He cut his arm, dabbed blood on Mariz’s face and neck, and drawing on the blood that continued to flow from his arm said, “Revela potestatem ex cruore evocatam.” Reveal power, conjured from blood.
His spell rang through the floors and walls of the house. Uncle Reg winked into view and bared his teeth at Sephira. She, of course, was oblivious of all of it. But a moment later, she gave a small gasp.
Light had blossomed on Mariz’s chest and spread like a bruise over most of his torso. Orange light, just like the glow Ethan had seen on the dead soldier aboard the Graystone.
“What is that?” Sephira asked, her voice hushed.
“Power,” Ethan said. “The residue of the spell that struck him in New Boston.”
“But that color. Does all witchcraft look like that?”
“Every conjurer’s power looks different. And this color I’ve seen before.”
She looked up from Mariz, her eyes meeting Ethan’s. “Where?”
“On a dead soldier aboard the Graystone. I believe the spell that hit Mariz was cast by Simon Gant.”
Chapter Twelve
Ethan left Sephira’s house a short time later. He had wondered if she might try to keep him there, to force him to tell her more of what he knew. But the idea that Simon Gant had come so close to killing Mariz seemed to have frightened her. Perhaps he should have enjoyed her discomfort, but the truth was it unnerved him.
As he neared the heart of the South End, he saw that the streets were far more crowded than they had been earlier and that almost everyone was heading toward the waterfront. Ethan cut through the smaller lanes, avoiding the mobs, and soon reached Battery March, which afforded him a clear view of the harbor and Long Wharf.
Hundreds of British regulars had already mustered on the wharf. They stood in strict rows, resplendent in red and white, rifles at their sides. Longboats were converging on the wharf from the naval vessels still anchored in a broad arc around the city’s wharves and shipyards. Each of the boats carried additional soldiers, and even from a distance Ethan could see that still more men waited for transport aboard many of the navy ships. The occupation had begun, and by the look of it Ethan guessed that this first wave would bring more than a thousand men into Boston’s streets, more than he had thought, more than Kannice, Kelf, and others had spoken of since the ships appeared in the harbor. This for a city of fifteen thousand people.
There was nothing anyone could do to prevent the regulars from coming ashore. Had there been, Ethan was certain Samuel Adams would have thought of it by now. Rather than watch the soldiers gather on the wharf, Ethan left the South End and made his way up to King’s Chapel.
The chapel was one of Boston’s older churches. It might also have been one of its least attractive. It had been rebuilt several years before, and its refined wooden exterior now was concealed within an austere stone façade. In a city with a history of devastating fires, the new exterior made sense, but it gave King’s Chapel a forbidding, ponderous look. Worse, the chapel remained unfinished, with no spire or bell tower to offset the heavy look of the sanctuary.
Still, Pell seemed to enjoy serving the King’s Chapel congregation, and he always expressed great admiration for the Reverend Henry Caner, the chapel’s rector, a sentiment Ethan did not share.
Within, the chapel was far more welcoming. Graceful columns, painted in shades of tan and brown and crowned with intricate carvings, supported the high ceiling. Sunlight streamed through the windows, two stories high, that lined the main sanctuary, lighting boxed pews of natural wood. A portly man in black robes and a white cravat stood at the raised pulpit beside the altar at the far end of the church. Caner.
He turned at the sound of Ethan’s footsteps, peering across the distance and squinting.
“Who is that?” he asked. He had a deep voice, a homely but friendly face, and a genteel manner; Ethan could see why others liked him.
“It’s Ethan Kaille, Mister Caner.”
Caner straightened, his bushy eyebrows knitting. “What do you want? You’re looking for Trevor, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir. He told me-”
“He’s not here.”
“All right. If you can just tell me where to find him, I’ll leave your church.”
“I don’t believe I will tell you, Mister Kaille. But I’ll thank you to leave just the same.”
Theirs was an old feud, and Pell, unfortunately, was their battleground. In fact, their hostility for one another grew out of their shared affection for the young minister. Caner, Ethan knew, wished only to protect Pell from what he believed to be Ethan’s corrupting influence. And though Ethan believed that the rector’s concerns were misplaced, a part of him admired the man’s devotion to Pell.
“I’ll wait for him,” Ethan said, slipping into the nearest pew and sitting.
The rector glowered at him, perhaps thinking that he could cow Ethan into leaving. When he realized that this tactic wouldn’t work, he went back to reading in the enormous Bible perched before him.
After several minutes of this, Caner sighed, the sound echoing in the sanctuary. He descended the curving stairway from the pulpit and walked down the aisle to where Ethan sat.
“You’re holding him back,” the man said. “Don’t you understand that?”
“Holding him back in what way?”
“He’s been with us for several years now. Too many years. He’s been reading for orders. He should have sailed back to England by now for his ordination. He should be out in the countryside, leading a congregation of his own. But as long as you involve him in your intrigues, as long as you convince him that Boston is too exciting to leave, he will never follow his calling.”
At least the rector no longer thought that Ethan was leading Pell to Satan, as once he had. Caner knew that Ethan was a conjurer-although he often called him a witch-but he had come to accept that Ethan usually used his powers for noble purposes. Still, Ethan wasn’t willing to take responsibility for Pell’s career path.