Heart's Blood(23)

Mr. Carteret. Not Grey. It was hard to remember to think of him as Mr. Carteret when he kept insisting she call him Grey. But she had to. She had to try, any rate. It felt too dangerous to think of him any other way.

"How is your friend?" Pearl asked. "The one who went with you?"

Oh, fine. He's found a grand place to hide and watch. Mary did a little midair dance. I saw the place where our ghost was murdered, she said, her voice-

Pearl's first thought was that it sounded tinny, distant. But it didn't sound. She didn't hear it with her ears. The words didn't just appear in her mind, either. She "heard" them with the same sense she detected magic with. Which likely explained why Mary sounded so faint. She was borrowing Grey's-Mr. Carteret's-magic to hear her.

Want to see? Mary whirled with excitement, becoming even wispier around the edges.

Grey-Mister-oh, stuff it. She was tired of trying. It was a losing battle, anyway, her walls crumbling under the cannonade of his astonishing appearance and unexpected kindness.

Grey sighed. "No," he said. "I do not particularly wish to see. But I suppose we must."

He hailed a hackney cab from the corner ahead. When Pearl was settled and he had climbed in next to her, she indulged her curiosity about the little spirit.

Mary most resembled a fragment of fog that didn't blow away. Sometimes a sweet face formed out of the fog. Sometimes it came together in a youthful, dancing, almost invisible figure. But mostly she was a wisp of fog.

The ghosts in the cellar hadn't been like that. They'd looked like themselves. At least, she assumed that was what they'd looked like in life. Male and female, young and old, gap-toothed or wrinkled or brawny or thin. Maybe that was another difference between ghosts and spirits. Was it something she ought to know? After all, she was learning sorcery, not conjury.

"Does our friend look a bit faded to you?" Pearl asked instead. That was of concern to both of them.

Grey frowned at the drifting spirit. "She's expended a great deal of effort on our behalf, so it's likely. It requires energy to act on our plane. As soon as she shows us the location, she can rest. Time is different where she is, so she can rest a long time, and return only minutes after leaving, if we need her."                       
       
           



       

"What if I lick my thumb again? Pass it over the sigil?" Pearl had buttoned up her cuff for lunch in the café. Grey held that hand, so she wouldn't have to let go to unbutton it again. She reached across to begin.

"No need." He moved her hand away. "She has enough energy for this, and if she doesn't, I will share."

Pearl frowned at him.

He lifted an eyebrow. "Who is the conjurer here? And who is the magic-master?"

She sighed. "You, and you."

"Which means?" The other eyebrow went up to join the first.

"You know more about spirit magic than I do."

"I know more about all magic than you do. And therefore when I say you shall not work it, you will not."

"Yes, sir." She knew he was right. But she felt useless, not helping in some manner. Maybe when she finished reading her book he would allow her to do more. She was still carting it around with her, though she'd almost forgotten it in the hospital cellar.

The hackney ride back to Whitechapel and the docks was too rough to attempt to read, with all the starts and stops due to traffic. The shouting in the streets didn't help, either. Pearl didn't bother opening the book. She rode in the cab holding onto her magic-master's hand and told herself it was only to borrow his conjurer's vision.

The spell in the cellar calling the ghost had tired him. It wasn't strange that she noticed. Of course she would pay attention to her magic-master's welfare, to the dark circles beneath his eyes and the droop at the corners of his beautiful mouth.

During the conjuring of the ghost, Pearl had shared with him the magic she'd taken in from all the innocent blood in that cellar. Innocent blood, but not necessarily innocent souls. Even the blackest soul could be wrongfully killed, she supposed. But that wasn't the point. The point was that she had used the magic to strengthen Grey. Could she do it again? Now?

It wouldn't violate his ban on experimentation. She'd done it already. He knew it just as well as she did. Now, if she could just remember how she'd done it.

There was a faint resonance echoing between them. A familiarity, as if a piece of her resided with him. And a piece of him existed inside her. They'd sworn their oath of apprenticeship in blood. That exchange must have created the resonance.

If so, it could prove useful. Pearl reached for that echo of herself inside Grey, and the magic there slid into synchronization with hers as easily as reaching out to take his hand. She gathered up some of the load of magic she carried, holding back what tasted of Angus Galloway, and let it trickle through the conduit between them.

She fed it into him slowly, alert to any sign that he noticed what she was doing. The magic eased his exhaustion-she could see it-and she didn't want him to stop her. Giving him the magic didn't take anything from her. She had more than enough. And in this part of London, she only had to reach out to gather in more. Murder and assault lurked in every alley.

His blood soaked up the magic, to a point. Before she realized the blood had taken all it could hold, the magic began to layer itself along his bones.

How did she know that? Pearl told herself she would look it up later, and pulled the extra magic back out of him.

It came easily, which eased her concerns. She considered letting it stay, but she didn't know what the magic sheathing his bones would do. Act as a reserve energy supply? Eat away at his bones from the inside? Or perhaps nothing at all. That made it experimentation, and therefore forbidden. She stored the magic back where it had come from. Her own blood, most likely.

"What are you doing?" Grey demanded, breaking his grip on her hand.

"Nothing." Pearl hoped she didn't sound as guilty as she felt. How had he noticed? She'd been careful. He'd said he wasn't sensitive to sorcery. "What makes you think I was doing anything?"

One of those expressive eyebrows winged upward, screaming his skepticism. "Perhaps because you protest so vigorously. Or perhaps because I am feeling more vigorous." He scowled at her. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing. Truly. I was . . . stirring the magic around." It could be described that way. "Moving it here and there. And touching. There's a great deal of it roundabouts here. I was-" She did it now, reached out and touched the waves of magic oozing from the alleyways. "It's a bit like trailing your fingers in the water, when you're rowing in a boat. I was just . . . tasting."

He scowled at her a little longer, suspicion in every angle of that handsome face. She stirred the magic a little more, hoping he could sense it. There was so much. A flood tide of blood magic just waiting to be scooped up and used, eager for justice. After a long, narrow-eyed moment, he huffed out a faint breath and sat back in his seat.

"I suppose it is logical," he said, "that if you can sense my conjury when we are holding hands, I can sense your sorcery in turn."

"Exactly." Pearl beamed happily at him, just as he sat up straight again and called out to the cabbie.

"Turn here. To the left."

She dared to touch her little finger to the back of his hand and was gratified when he clasped it again. Mary's eager little face had coalesced out of her foggy manifestation, looking straight ahead as the cab driver made the turn.

There. The face disappeared and a hand formed, down where a hand ought to be, pointing at an empty, rather derelict warehouse. The broad doors, meant for rolling in casks or backing in wagons, were fastened shut by a shiny new padlock. That's the place our ghost came to.

Magic, created by the spilling of a man's innocent lifeblood, foamed around the building in agitated waves, driven by the captive ghost. Pearl siphoned some of it off. It was getting easier with the practice.

Davy popped up. It 'appened 'ere, guvnor. Can ya feel it?

Grey nodded, distracted. The cabbie drew his restless horse to a halt and Grey helped Pearl alight, dismissing the man with an extra coin for his trouble. Horses didn't like ghosts, or so Pearl had heard. They didn't seem to mind spirits, though.

"Young friends," Grey said to the hovering spirits. "I have one last task for you. I need you to pass a message to my Briganti. Meade, primarily. I need a full investigations team here straightaway. With a set of bolt cutters."

Mary and Davy both saluted and vanished with matching cheeky grins.

Grey seized the lock and yanked at it, testing its strength, Pearl supposed. "The river police have a station just one street over. I can go fetch them," she offered.

"You're dressed like a lady now, not a street urchin. Even with your ‘don't-look' magic, you're not safe alone." Grey scowled at the warehouse. "But I don't want to leave this place unguarded."

"Why? It's broad daylight. He won't bring another victim here now." She shrugged. "It's padlocked, so whatever's inside is obviously important to the killer. He won't abandon it. Why not wait until he comes back and capture him then?" But what if-