“Ethan! What are you doing here?”
“He can’t answer you,” Hester said.
“Why not? What have you done to him?”
“It’s called a binding spell. He can’t move at all, not to speak, not to conjure, not to help you in any way. It’s just you against the two of us, and we’re both capable of doing to you what we’ve done to him. So sit still, and keep quiet.”
Diver faced Ethan again, a question on his youthful face. All Ethan could do was stare back at him. After a moment or two of this, Diver seemed to realize that the woman had spoken the truth.
“What happened to his arm?” Diver asked. “And that bruise on his face-where did that come from?”
“My father,” Hester said, as if the words tasted bitter in her mouth.
Diver slumped against the wall and reached up once more to the gash on his head. “Your father,” he repeated. “A fine man. He’s the one who did this to me, too.”
“Keep quiet,” Hester said, taking her seat once more, the pistol still held ready.
Diver fell silent, but not for long. “He wasn’t happy when he found out I didn’t have the pearls. The first time we met, I was able to put him off, but not the second. When I didn’t have them, he got angry, pulled out a gun. I tried to run, but he must have used a spell on me, brought me back here.” He gestured at the bruises on his face. “The rest you can see.”
Hester leaned forward in her chair. “Stop talking! We don’t want to hear this.”
But of course, Diver was saying it for Ethan’s benefit, not hers.
“The first time we spoke, he offered me twenty pounds-not a lot for pearls, but enough to make me think that he must think he can get a lot for them. He wanted to know where in New Boston I found them. He asked if they had been near the church. And I told him that they had. That seemed to be the right-”
Hester was on her feet again, standing over Diver, the pistol pressed against his chest.
“Another word, and I swear I’ll kill you!”
Diver stared up at her, his mouth clamped shut.
“Don’t you think I understand what you’re doing?” She gestured back at Ethan, waving the pistol. “You’re telling him all of this. And I want you to stop!”
“Hester, it’s all right,” Molly said, meek and scared.
“No, Molly, it’s not! So just shut your mouth. All of you, keep quiet!”
Molly’s face crumbled and tears slipped from her eyes.
“You see?” Hester cried, glaring down at Diver, looking and sounding more like her father with every word. “If you would just keep silent-”
The report of the pistol was deafening, and for the span of a heartbeat or two, no one moved or said a word. Gray smoke filled the room, along with the acrid scent of gunpowder. At last, Hester looked down at the pistol, which she still held, a look of stunned incredulity on her face.
Molly screamed and pointed at Diver with a trembling hand.
Blood had begun to spread over his chest, staining his shirt and waistcoat. He looked toward Ethan for an instant before his eyes rolled back in his head.
Ethan struggled with all his strength to break free of the binding spell, to bolt from his chair to Diver’s side, to roar his friend’s name. But the binding spell held him fast. He could do nothing but watch as his friend’s life bled away.
“Molly, quickly!” Hester said.
Their eyes met. Molly nodded, pale, her lips trembling.
“Extrica ex alligatione!” the two women said as one. “Ex cruore evocatum!” Release binding! Conjured from blood!
The two ghosts appeared again-red and yellow-and at the same time the blood on Diver’s clothes vanished. The shack was electric with their conjuring. And Ethan felt life flow back into his limbs.
“Get this rope off me!” he said.
Hester rushed to him and cut the rope.
Once free, Ethan flung himself out of the chair to the floor by Diver’s side. His friend’s skin had turned cold and gray. He was breathing still, but already each breath sounded labored, and as thin as parchment. Blood had started to soak the front of his shirt again, but much less this time. He had lost too much already.
Hester hovered at his shoulder. “Do you know how to … how to get it out of him?”
“There’s no time for that! He’s dying!”
“So what do we do?”
“A healing spell,” Ethan said. “All three of us.”
“Have you ever cast a spell with another conjurer, Mister Kaille?” Hester asked him, her expression grave.
His mouth twitched. “No.”
“Then you aren’t ready. It’s not just a matter of casting at the same time. It’s … I haven’t time to explain it. Molly and I will do this. We owe him that.” She grimaced; Ethan thought she might have meant to smile.
“Your knife, Molly,” Hester said to her sister. “He hasn’t enough blood for another casting.”
Molly stood beside her sister, a blade in her hand. The two ghosts joined them, holding hands, so that where their fingers met, the light turned to that familiar orange Ethan had seen so many times in the past few days. He stood and backed away, allowing Hester and Molly to kneel on either side of Diver. The two women cut themselves, dragging the blades over the backs of their wrists in unison, performing a ritual he was sure they had practiced for years. Dropping their blades, they both touched their free hands to the cuts they had made, covering their palms and fingers with blood. Then each laid a crimson hand on Diver’s wound, Molly’s beneath Hester’s.
“Remedium ex cruore evocatum,” they said together, their eyes closed. Healing, conjured from blood.
The surge of power felt different this time. It wasn’t a single pulse that came and went. It growled in the wood of the house, like some mammoth beast. Ethan said nothing. He watched, tight-lipped, his heart pounding, racing.
Hester and Molly looked like marble statues, their bodies rigid, their faces as pale as bone. Had it not been for the sweat on their faces, Ethan might have wondered if they had reached too deep with their casting.
Ethan couldn’t see Diver’s wound, so he didn’t know if it had closed up. The bloodstain on his shirt hadn’t spread further, but that could mean that he had died. The gray pallor-the color of death-clung to his face, his hands, and with the women’s hands on his chest it was hard to see if he still breathed. But neither Hester nor Molly paused in their efforts, so he refused to give up hope.
So intent were all three of them on Diver that they heard nothing from outside until a boot thudded on the wooden stairs and porch, and the door swung open once more.
The women turned as one toward the door, their faces like those of children caught playing some forbidden game. Ethan turned, too, a whispered curse on his lips.
Caleb Osborne stood in the doorway, his pistol aimed at Ethan, his dark, angry glare fixed on his daughters.
Chapter Twenty — Two
“What, in the name of all that’s holy, do you think you’re doin’?” Osborne demanded. He stormed into the house and kicked the door closed.
Ethan kept quiet and watched Hester and Molly. They stared back at their father, also saying nothing. Hester raised her chin, defiance in her hazel eyes. Molly gaped at Osborne, terror etched on her face.
“I asked you a question, girls! I want an answer!”
“The pistol went off,” Hester said at last, stooping to retrieve the weapon. “He was talking and I wanted him to stop. And I yelled at him, and I must have … I don’t know. But it went off and- The bullet hit him in the chest. There was blood and- We released Kaille so that he could help us heal him. He would have died.”
Osborne rubbed a hand over his mouth, his face reddening. “I see. And you never gave a thought to what I said before I left? That he was gonna die anyway?” His voice grew louder with every question. “That I intended to kill him? Did you forget everythin’ I said?”