The boy looked both pleased and surprised. Perhaps Ethan had been too quick to judge. The smile was entirely Bett’s, and with it he was quite handsome. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, sir.”
Ethan extended a hand. “Ethan Kaille. I’m your uncle.”
He half expected the lad to recoil; he was his mother’s son, after all. But he gripped Ethan’s hand fairly beaming. “Of course! I remember you now, Uncle. You came once, when I was just a boy.”
“Aye, I did. It’s good to see you again.”
“George?” came Bett’s voice from within the house. “Who’s there?”
“It’s Uncle Ethan, Mother,” he called back to her.
Bett entered the hallway and joined her son at the door. She didn’t look happy to see Ethan, but she managed to hide this from George and said, “Good day, Ethan,” in a passably civil tone.
“Good afternoon, Bett.”
“I take it you’re here to see Geoffrey.”
“Yes.”
“George, go fetch your father.”
Ethan could see that the lad didn’t want to leave. But he said, “Yes, Mother,” and flashed another smile Ethan’s way. “It’s good to see you again, Uncle.”
“And you, George.”
The boy went off to find Geoffrey, leaving Ethan with Bett. He knew better than to think that she would invite him into the house.
“He seems a fine lad.”
“Thank you. He is. He doesn’t know you’re a conjurer.”
“Or, I assume, that spellmaking runs in our family.”
Bett lifted her chin. “That’s right. He’s a God-fearing young man, and I intend for him to remain so.”
“And so he thinks the reason he never sees me is that you and I dislike each other?”
“He knows you’re a thieftaker, and that we don’t wish to bring that element into our home.”
“Ah,” Ethan said. After all their years of feuding, he had thought that Bett couldn’t hurt him anymore. But this stung.
“I’d thank you to keep away from him, Ethan. He’s young still. I’m sure he finds the idea of what you do exciting, even enticing. I don’t want-”
“I understand, Bett. Rest assured, I’ll do nothing to corrupt him.”
Mercifully, Geoffrey arrived a moment later.
“I didn’t expect to see you here, Ethan,” Brower said, joining Bett in the doorway and extending a hand.
Ethan shook it. “No, I don’t suppose you did. I won’t keep you long.”
Brower smiled bracingly, the way he might if he were about to embark on a long and unpleasant journey. “Very well. Let’s walk.”
“Thank you, Bett,” Ethan said, glancing at her one last time.
“Are those bruises on your face?” she asked, as Ethan started to turn away.
He raised a hand to his jaw, having forgotten his injuries. The pain from Gant’s blows the other night had abated, but it seemed the marks remained.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Just part of my exciting life.”
He started down the path toward the cobblestone lane. Geoffrey caught up with him as he reached Middle Street. They followed the thoroughfare to Princes, and Princes around the base of Copp’s Hill up toward the Charlestown ferry, walking into the teeth of a cold wind.
“You have news?” Brower asked at last.
“You should have the sheriff look for a man named Simon Gant,” Ethan said. “He’s a conjurer, and so he’s dangerous. He’s also a former associate of Sephira Pryce.”
“Gant,” Geoffrey said. “That name is very familiar.”
“He’s the soldier who was missing from the Graystone. You would have already been told that he’s a deserter.”
“Yes, that’s it. Unfortunately, the sheriff is busy with the rabble occupying the Manufactory. Aren’t officers in the army already looking for this man, Gant?”
“You would think they would be,” Ethan said, unable to keep the disdain out of his voice. “But they give no indication that they’re interested in finding him. That’s why I thought that if you could convince Sheriff Greenleaf to join our effort, we might have a better chance of apprehending him.”
“I see,” Geoffrey said. “And you’re certain now that he’s the one who killed all those men?”
“As certain as I can be.”
“Why did he do it?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out. It may have had something to do with a lost parcel of smuggled pearls. Sephira Pryce is looking for him, too. Or more precisely, she’s after the pearls.”
“I take it he’s also the one who beat you.”
Ethan glanced Geoffrey’s way, expecting to see a mocking grin on the man’s face. But he appeared to be in earnest.
“Yes, he is.”
“Is that common in your line of work? Being assaulted?”
“Are you contemplating a change in profession, Geoffrey?”
Brower’s laugh was high-pitched and very loud. Ethan was certain he had never heard it before.
“Hardly,” the man said. “I was merely … curious.” Ethan noticed with some surprise that his cheeks had turned crimson. “I find what you do intriguing.”
“Bett’s worried that George will follow my example and become a thieftaker. Maybe she should be more concerned about you.”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” Geoffrey said with a bit more of his usual stiffness. He halted. “Is that all you wanted to tell me? That I should enlist the sheriff’s aid in finding Gant?”
They hadn’t yet reached the ferry, but Ethan was ready to turn around, and Brower seemed to be, too. The wind still blew a gale and the clouds overhead were darkening with every gust.
“Aye,” Ethan said.
They started back the way they had come, falling into an uneasy silence. After walking some distance, Geoffrey cleared his throat and glanced Ethan’s way.
“Have you been to the Common to speak with the commanders there? Are you sure they know of Gant?”
“Oh, they know of him,” Ethan said. “I was on the Common this morning, trying to interest Gant’s captain, a man named Preston, in the matter. But he’s more concerned with keeping the men he has than with pursuing one who’s already deserted.”
“To be honest, I cannot blame him,” Geoffrey said. “Desertion has been a problem among the regulars in the other colonies. Now that they’re here it will be for us as well. I’ve heard that Dalrymple has already lost soldiers in the one day they’ve been in the city. The army doesn’t pay their men very well, and this occupation is a good deal more than most regulars signed on for.” Again, they walked a distance in silence. Their moment of mirth had passed, and it seemed that once more Brower didn’t know what to say to him. When at last they came within sight of Geoffrey’s home, he stopped again and extended a hand. “Well, thank you, Ethan. I’ll see to it that the sheriff is told of this man. And if we find him, I’ll also see to it that you receive the ten pounds’ reward I mentioned the other day.”
“Thank you, Geoffrey.”
Geoffrey hurried off to his house, and Ethan walked toward the Dowsing Rod, his collar turned up against the wind. Before he was halfway to Kannice’s tavern, large cold raindrops began to pelt down on him. He kept his head down and cursed himself for not wearing a heavier coat. By the time he reached the Dowser he was soaked and bone-cold.
Just as he stepped through the door, he felt power surge through the stone under his feet. He spun, half expecting to see Gant standing behind him, a bloodied blade in his hand. But the street was empty, and the casting, powerful though it was, had passed him by. Too many spells, too much power. He wasn’t used to sensing so many conjurings. Most spells in Boston came from him or from Janna. But with Mariz and now Gant walking the streets and conjuring every day, he felt vulnerable. He wondered if this was how other conjurers in the city felt when he cast.
He thought of going back out into the rain to see if he could find whomever it was who had cast that spell. But Kannice had spotted him, and she hastened to the door and tugged him inside. Seeing how wet he was, she ordered him up to her room for a dry pair of breeches and a shirt. When he came back down, she hung his coat and waistcoat, as well as the damp breeches and shirt, over chairs that she positioned by the bright fire burning in her hearth. She sat him at a table and brought him a bowl of the previous night’s stew that she had heated on the cooking fire in her kitchen.