9
"OH." PEARL BLINKED as she absorbed that information. "So you only call spirits and angels out of heaven?"
Grey shuddered ostentatiously. "Angels, no. Like demons, angels were never human. They do not answer a conjurer's magic. They have been known to appear from time to time and take a hand in setting things right, but I have no desire to encounter one. They are . . . fearsome creatures. But that does leave us a great many spirits to call upon. And frankly, wouldn't you rather deal with the denizens of heaven? I know I do."
"But what do we do-" She caught herself and corrected. "What will you do about Mr. Galloway? It seems cruel to leave him netted like this."
"Oh, I'll free him. He'll go straight back to the place where he died. Too bad we can't follow him, but perhaps-"
We can follow him, Grey. Mary startled Grey when she spoke. We can follow, and I'll come right back to tell you where he went. Where it happened. And Davy can stay and watch.
"Didn't you say you were murdered, little spirit?" Pearl asked Davy. "Not so long since?"
A week ago, yeah, the child spirit answered.
"So how is it you are spirit and no longer a ghost?"
He shifted on her arm. Guess I didn't mind dyin', did I? I was some mad at Mother Nan for wot she done while I were livin', but she done me a favor, killin' me. 'Cause she can't 'urt me no more. A grateful ghost don't stay ghost long.
Pearl nodded thoughtfully, then Grey watched astounded, as she gathered a morsel of her magic and fed it into the two new spirits through the sigil painted on her arm, giving them back the strength they'd expended in the conversation with the angry ghost.
Grey growled. "No more experiments."
Pearl narrowed her eyes at him. "It wasn't. Not this time. When you painted the sigil, that was an experiment, but this wasn't, because we did it before."
"You will not deplete your own strength by giving it away to others." He cared because it was his duty to care. Because she was his apprentice. No other reason.
Liar.
"It's not my strength I'm giving away. I have all this magic. Still. I got rid of the overload, of the vastly too much, but a great deal remains. I should use it. Correct?" She looked up at him with those gold-over-blue eyes and Grey had to struggle to recall the meaning of her words.
"Carefully," he said when he remembered. "Very, very carefully."
"So can't I-carefully-give Mr. Galloway some of his own innocent-blood magic back to him?"
Grey sighed. "How do you know it's his magic?"
"It feels like him." Pearl gave a tiny half-shoulder shrug. "I don't know how I know, I just do."
A deeper sigh oozed out of him. "Let's see if the spirits can track him back to the site of the murder, and then-" He shook his head, hands propped on his hips holding back the sides of his frock coat.
"Then what?" She bounced on her toes, all annoying eagerness.
"Then you may rid yourself of some more of this ‘great deal' of magic," Grey said with less than his usual graciousness. He didn't like worrying over her. Over anyone.
"Thank you, sir."
Sir. Again. Grey lifted an eyebrow at her, trying his version of the duke's imperious expression.
Pearl blushed her almost-secret blush. "Thank you-" She cleared her throat. "Grey."
He gave a brusque nod. Better. "Are you ready, young friends?" he asked Mary and Davy, as he draped an arm around Pearl again and she took hold of his hand. "Got your ‘don't-look' spell wrapped close around you?"
The two spirits hunkered down against the sigil on Pearl's arm and the ink paled, just as it should. Yes.
"Right, then," With the toe of his walking boot, Grey erased part of the sigil binding the ghost of the murder victim as he addressed it. "On your way, but return when I call again." He wiped out the rest of the sigil and the ghost exploded.
Its substance filled the entire cellar with a sudden, bitter cold, then vanished before Grey could work up a shiver. Mary and Davy vanished with it. "That's that, then."
"Now what?" Pearl ducked away from his encompassing arm.
Grey grimaced. She wanted magic from him. Knowledge. Not passion or possession. Why was that so hard to remember? "Now we go on about our business and wait for our young spirits to return with news."
"And what is our business?"
Grey glanced across the cellar and cursed to himself. "I am afraid that business shall have to wait."
Pearl turned to follow Grey's gaze. "Mr. Ferguson!"
The wizard sat slumped against the cellar wall, unconscious once more, so pale his freckles stood out like ink spots on parchment. And Pearl ran to flutter over him.
Grey bit back more curses. Ferguson was apparently more sensitive to conjury than anyone realized, as well as sorcery. Ferguson was one of Grey's Briganti. Grey had brought him into this place, where they'd loosed enough magic to stir up a hurricane. The man was Grey's responsibility, and of course he had to be seen to. Grey would have to handle the fact that Pearl was seeing to him. Or he could see to Ferguson himself.
Grey sent Pearl up the stairs, into the hospital proper, to find a servant or someone with a water basin and cloth. And someone to pick up the mess the ghost made. He'd have to reinforce the warding, too, since he was the one who'd erased it to call the ghost.
When she returned with one of the newfangled nursing sisters in tow, Grey had loosened the young man's clothing and done his best to clear away the lingering magic. Ferguson's color looked better. The sister washing his face and wrists brought him around.
Ferguson began apologizing the minute he could speak coherently. "Useless. Worse than useless. Sorry, sir. Deepest, abject apologies. Won't happen again."
"No, it won't," Grey said when waving the apology off didn't shut the man up. "Obviously you'll need to work on your shielding a great deal more before you're let out in the field again."
"Yessir. Sorry, sir." Ferguson tried to sit up, paled, and sank back against the wall. Pearl hovered several steps above, beyond the sister. Good.
"How did you ever get past your qualifying examinations if conjury affected you this strongly?" Grey scowled down at his investigator. Such a weakness was a liability in a Briganti, whichever branch the man worked.
"It doesn't, sir. Or, it never has before." Ferguson was more upright now, leaning against the old stone wall. "But I think I was still wobbly from the-the sorcery. And-" He frowned. "The conjury was different. More. It had an unusual flavor to it. One I couldn't properly shield against."
Grey folded back his coat to prop his hands on his hips as he scowled at the floor. "Seems we should add a new class on shielding, now that sorcery's come back to us." He shook off the thought. The school wasn't his responsibility. I-Branch was, though, and the conjurer's guild. He'd have to set up training sessions for both. But that was for later.
Once the warding was back in place-a fairly simple matter of putting magic back into the sigils carved into the bricks-Grey got Ferguson up the stairs, into a cab, and sent home to his lodgings to spend the rest of the day recovering. Then he hustled Pearl off to one of the new French-style cafés for luncheon when he realized the time. No wonder she looked so pale. He had no business having responsibility for an apprentice if he couldn't remember to keep her fed. He had no business with responsibility at all.
BY THE TIME Mr. Carteret finally believed that Pearl had dined to an elegant sufficiency-meaning she was stuffed to the ears-she was beginning to worry about the two spirits. They were so very young and weak, and they'd been gone quite a long time.
"Where do you suppose they are?" she asked as they exited the café, shivering a little against the October chill. "Your spirit. The ones you sent off to . . . you know."
"Ah." He seemed to come back from far away and gestured. Writing a sigil on the air? Or a mere fluttering of hands? With him it was difficult to tell. Maybe that was why he did it. "She is no conjurer, dear heart. Don't steal away her warmth."
And the chill went away. Some of it did. He was speaking to a spirit. Mary-he called her "dear heart." It was so frustrating not to be able to see. But she wouldn't grab at his hand, much as she might want to. Ladies didn't do that sort of thing, and she was fairly certain apprentices didn't, either.
"What? What does it say?" She couldn't stop herself asking.
He didn't seem to hear. "Indeed she is, so give her a bit more distance," he said, still not talking to Pearl, though she supposed it might seem so to others. "It's only polite."
Grey held out his ungloved hand with a distant smile and Pearl slipped hers into it, thrilled that he'd remembered her presence and thought to share the spirit's information with her. He turned and began an aimless-seeming stroll down the street, hand in hand. The girl-spirit floated wispily along between them, sort of hovering over their hands. Did she look fainter than before? More transparent?
"What did you discover, dearest?" Grey asked.