Heart's Blood(66)

"The murderer is trying to work magic with his crimes," Pearl said. "Perhaps he thinks he can work greater magic by killing a magician. He saw his opportunity when I left Katriona alone, and took it."

"Or perhaps Katriona's disappearance has nothing to do with murder or magic," Grey said, losing patience with pessimism, "and everything to do with the vagaries of the fifteen-year-old female mind."

"She's sixteen," Pearl said. "But that still leaves her vulnerable to far too many ordinary dangers. I should never have left her to walk back alone-but who would have thought she would vanish in the few yards from your house to the hotel, with Harry's house between?"

"The fault, if any exists, is mine," Grey said. "For insisting. But that is not important. Has a search been organized?"

"Yes, Harry is," Elinor said. "And Jax. We're part of it. We were to ask if anyone here-one of the servants, perhaps-saw anything, since this is the last place anyone saw Katriona."

"McGregor!"

The butler had vanished sometime in the past several minutes, but he always responded promptly to bellowing.

"Yes, Magister?" And there he was, bowing respectfully.

"Would you inquire among the staff as to whether any of them saw what happened to the young lady who was with Miss Parkin earlier? She, the young lady, seems to have gone missing."

McGregor gave Pearl a bow and a starchy smile. "It is good to see you again, Miss."

"It's good to see you, too, Mr. McGregor."

Grey should not feel jealous of smiles bestowed on servants. He did not wish smiles of his own.

Lie, whispered Polonia. Were they still here?

McGregor bowed again and vanished. The ladies fidgeted as they waited in silence. No one, including Grey, felt up to chatting. None of the servants had seen anything, however. They had been keeping themselves busy. Grey knew why. They'd been ignoring the "conversation" in the front parlor.

The search progressed. Harry inquired at the homes of the other upstart magicians who lived on Albemarle Street, including Sir William's. Grey was designated the official inquirer at all upper-crust homes-most of those in the area, once off Albemarle. As the black sheep son of the Duke of Brandon, Grey had a cachet that got him through the doors of the snootiest. He was still too disreputable for the highest sticklers, but few of those stuck at the possibility of gossip.

The ones who did had their belowstairs servants' area invaded by McGregor and Harry's butler, Freeman, inquiring politely as to whether anyone had seen the young lady in her grass-green gown and tartan pelisse. No one had.

Grey, and sometimes Pearl, expected that at any moment the errant girl would walk through the door of the hotel, expressing surprise that any should be searching for her. But as the day wore on, that expectation grew more and more difficult to sustain. The other students were sent to bed under the supervision of Fiona Watson, and Grey called out the Briganti.                       
       
           



       

Colonel Simmons was resistant to having his enforcers involved in what was surely a mere schoolgirl prank, until he was reminded that sixteen-year-old girls faced more dangers than sixteen-year-old boys, and that in addition, she was a half-trained magician. Half-trained conjurers and alchemists could wreak sufficient havoc to bring out the Briganti. Why would he think a half-trained sorceress any different? The search extended through the night without success.

A footman at Brown's Hotel was eventually discovered who had seen Katriona in discussion with a young gentleman. A nursemaid in the nearby park with her charges the next morning admitted to seeing the girl with the same young gentleman on more than one occasion. And on Tuesday, with no other sign of the girl, Simmons called off his enforcers, declaring that Katriona must have eloped with her follower.

Grey wasn't so sure. He had a bad feeling about the situation, and his bad feelings usually paid out. Especially when Harry, Amanusa, Pearl, Archaios, Elinor, and a dozen others admitted to similar feelings.

I-Branch stepped up its pace, some of them continuing the search for Katriona, others digging deeper into the wealth of evidence from Galloway's murder, and the few scraps of it from Rose Bowers's. The alchemists' forge had been repaired and was roaring nonstop.

Wednesday, Amanusa and Harry, and Jax of course, came into the I-Branch office, their faces wearing ominous expressions. Grey motioned them into Pearl's ex-schoolroom, which he had begun to use for conferences like this one.

"Bad news?" He looked from one to the other as Amanusa sank onto the chaise, and Harry sprawled in a desk chair. Jax took up his usual post standing behind Amanusa.

Harry shrugged. "Too soon to tell about mine, but it is news. We're not sure if it was a conjurer with wizardish talents, or a wizard with conjurish leanings who did th' deed, but it definitely weren't an alchemist. Wasn't." He belatedly corrected his grammar, a sign of his agitation. He didn't bother with corrections when his mood was even-keeled.

"Well, this news is bad." Amanusa bounced on the long end of the chaise, changing position. "It's not Cranshaw."

"He didn't push Pearl into the forge?" That crime came first to Grey's mind, and it annoyed him. "Or he didn't murder Rose and Angus?"

"Both. Nor did he kidnap Katriona." Amanusa sounded disgusted. "I stole a ride in his blood and rummaged around in his mind." She shuddered. "Not a pleasant place, especially for poor Cranshaw. Someone needs to study methods of healing the mind as well as the body. Be that as it may, he has had nothing to do with any of this. Or rather, with anything but the stirring up of the public about sorcery and women using magic."

She paused. "I did get Sir William to authorize my spell. It didn't feel right to go poking about in Nigel's thoughts on my own authority."

Grey frowned. "Are you sure? He's such a rabid opponent-"

"But he's a rabid rabbit. He's incapable of real violence. Good at inciting it, but not so good even at conspiring in it." Amanusa sighed. She held her hand out to her husband, who assisted her to her feet. "Back to the salt mine Grey calls a workroom. I left my students practicing lancing."

"Good God," Grey exclaimed. "The floors will be awash in blood."

"Hardly. They're practicing on themselves. Most of them haven't managed to pierce the skin yet." Amanusa shook her head in mild disappointment.

Harry stayed behind when the others left, watching Grey from his sprawl in the chair.

"What?" Grey folded his arms as he leaned against the wall, uncomfortable with Harry's staring.

"You should let Pearl remake the familiar bond," Harry said, his expression daring Grey to break eye contact.





25




"YOU ARE OUT of your tiny little mind." Grey didn't shout. He never shouted. He did uncross his arms. And look, his hands had made themselves into fists.

"No, I ain't," Harry said. "I never saw you work magic like that, before Pearl lent you some o' hers. Amanusa says it's voluntary. You 'ave to agree before anything can happen, even after the bond is made. She can't force you, an' neither can you force her. It's no different than your familiar spirits."

"I do not exchange blood with my spirits," Grey snapped out. "Alchemists do not have familiars. So, one, what would you know about it? And, two, a familiar spirit is not the same thing as a sorcerer's familiar. It is simply a spirit known to me. One I have worked with before. There is a relationship of trust and familiarity between us." He bore down on the word. "Nothing more. They are simply my friends."

Harry shrugged. "So where's the difference? An' maybe you should share blood with your spirits. Even I could sense wot 'appened when Amanusa put the blood and water on the sigils at the dead zone, 'ow they perked up.

"You an' Pearl was partners in the magic. Friends. She never pushed you to do anyfing you didn't want to do. Other way round, most o' the time. You're angry 'cause it caught you by surprise, an' you think it made you like Jax. But you're not Jax. Hell, Jax ain't Jax anymore. Talk to 'im. 'E'll tell you."

Harry climbed to his feet. "Think about it. We need the magic. We need all the magic we can get, and it's stupid to throw away any we can use."

"I will not be controlled by anyone but myself," Grey snarled.

"But you are." Harry shook his head sadly. "If you're still doin' things 'cause o' what your dad did to you, then he's still controllin' you. Whether you do things to please 'im, or to spite 'im, it's still because o' him. Isn't it?"

He studied Grey another moment. "Talk to Jax," he said, and he left the room.

It galled Grey no end to admit that Harry was right, which was why it took him the rest of the day and all night to reach the point where he could do it, talk to Jax. He kept waking to explain why remaking the bond was a bad idea, or that he did not do anything because of his father. And then realizing that the bond might be a good idea, and that his father still loomed too large over his life. Change was necessary.

Far too early in the morning, Grey found himself pacing the lobby of Brown's, trying to wait for a less ungodly hour. Before he wore a hole in the carpet, a footman appeared to usher him upstairs, into Jax's dressing room.