The Etsey Series 1: The Seventh Veil (39 page)

She opened one eye in time to see Alan, his face practically purple now, come charging toward them, but Whitby stopped him with his cane, striking him hard across his middle. “Tell my grandson he will hear from me very soon,” he said. Then, shepherding Alan out with smart raps of his cane against his backside, they were gone.

Timothy didn’t let go of Emily, for which she was grateful, as her dizziness hadn’t abated and she wasn’t certain she could stand. He shifted her with him as he moved to the door and threw the latch, then murmured gently to her as he led her down the hall to the kitchen, still half embracing her, his hand never leaving her neck. He seated her at her rocking chair beside the fire and brushed a kiss against her forehead. “I have to leave you for a moment,” he said gently, still applying his fingers in their strange pattern against her spine. “But I will be back very quickly. Take deep breaths and hold tight to the arms of your chair.”

What have you done to me
? Emily wanted to ask, but she couldn’t seem to speak. He lifted his hand from her neck, and she began to spin—her head did, at any rate. She cried out softly as she felt herself swirling away, arousal and confusion swimming inside her. She felt as if he were still kissing her, all the strange sensations rising and cresting inside her but never releasing. Emily tipped her head back against the chair and tried to breathe, but it was difficult to keep a rhythm. She felt jumbled, almost lost—

He pulled her hands from the chair, forcing a warm mug into her hands, then helped guide it to her lips. “Sip generously,” he urged her, still gentle as a lamb. “The water is only tepid, just hot enough to release the oils of the herbs.” Emily drank. The tea was thin and oddly sweet and sharp at once. “Sweetroot, lemon balm, and honey.” He made her drink again. “It’s swifter with cardamom, but I doubt you have any of that in Etsey.”

“Workshop,” Emily whispered, coming back to herself. “For spells. Very expensive—
six
loads of lavender for one ounce.”

His soft laugh made her feel warm, but the erotic edge to her thoughts was fading. “It’s not expensive in Catal.” He stroked her hair. “Feeling better?”

She opened her eyes and watched Timothy come into focus. “What did you
do
? It was—it was
magic
!”

“Not magic. Just science and a dash of art, I hope.” He sat back on a stool he’d dragged in front of her and looked rueful. “I’m very sorry, but I knew it had to be good to get rid of Whitby. That was the
riturla mohra
, according to my culture, but Etsians like to call it the ‘courtesan’s kiss.’ They believe it to be nothing more than an erotic trick, but that isn’t so. It was very sacred in the pleasure gardens, employing the disciplines of energy, erotica, metaphysics, and a few things I fear will not translate. There were strict rules for its use—I broke six or seven of them just now, for which I apologize.”

Courtesan’s kiss
. “It was as if you took me out of my own mind. It was so—” Emily couldn’t decide if she should be embarrassed or not. “I didn’t…I didn’t know kisses could do that.”

“Yes. Etsians do seem to have a difficult time with the concept of sex as an art and metaphysical discipline. If it isn’t rigidly confined or twisted and confined to dark corners, your minds unravel at the merest thought.” He sighed, but he was smiling devilishly. “You are a sensual and beautifully responsive partner, Miss Emily. I can tell. You are wasted on the magistrate’s son.”

Emily blushed hotly and stared down into the tea. She was beginning to feel as if she were herself again, but she could tell it would take some time for that strange fire inside her to die down completely. Thankfully she no longer wanted to jump into Timothy’s arms and beg him to take her hard against the floor. She blushed again and rubbed at her cheek. “What…what do we do now?”

“We need to find what Whitby is searching for,” he said, rising to his feet.

“But
what
was he searching for?” Emily asked. “Madeline took nothing of his.”

“She took the demon out of Jonathan.” Timothy stared into the fire, grimacing. “Before he disappeared, Jonathan told me he’d let it slip to Whitby that Madeline had removed it, and now Whitby is intent on taking it back. We cannot let that happen.”

“But we need to search for them!” Emily stood, then had to grip the mantel to stabilize herself. “We need to find Madeline!”

“Much as it pains me, I must insist we find this captured daemon first, Miss Elliott. Jonathan would argue it is the more important point. Whitby in possession of the demons was something that greatly disturbed him. And at this point, we can likely assume the pair of them are together and can help one another. We can hope this, if nothing else.”

Emily thought of that black fog and all the nightmares that lived inside it. “But I don’t know what she put the daemon into.”

“It will be something she brought with her or something she took away from the abbey. There was precious little in that room, so we can assume for now it was something she brought from here. She almost certainly brought it back.”

“She would hide it,” Emily said. “She would hide it in her workshop. Nothing in the cottage is secure enough for something like that.”

Timothy nodded, looking grim but pleased. “I assume the workshop is locked? Do you have a key?”

Emily nodded and started toward the sink basin, catching chairs and the table for support along the way. “There is a spare behind the water pipe.”

He steadied her briefly as he slid past her. “I will fetch it. Where on the pipe?”

“The top.” Emily leaned hard against the table and watched Timothy open the basin cupboard doors and wedge himself beneath. “On the back, tied with string. The string is painted gray to match the pipe. It is in a small scrap of waxed fabric.”

“To make it appear as a patch, not a key storage,” he finished, his voice muffled by the cupboard. “Well done.”

He struggled for a moment inside the cupboard, backing out once to remove his knives before reinserting himself, contorting to stick his head back inside. Emily watched his long legs bend, extend, then shift open, tightening his strange pantaloons taut against his groin. Emily felt herself begin to heat again, and she went back to her chair, reaching down to the floor for the space where she had left her tea. She would be finding that cardamom once they were in the workshop; she didn’t care how much lavender she had to sell to replenish it.

“Ha! I have it,” he called, crawling back from beneath the basin. He stood, holding the key before his face as he nodded at the door. “Are you ready, Miss Emily?”

Emily downed the last of the tea in one gulp and set it on the table. “Yes,” she said and followed him to the back of the kitchen. But as she stood on the stoop, she looked back at the room, feeling sudden reluctance to leave. She let herself linger for just a moment, then shut the door tight, found the key from her pocket, and locked it before turning away to follow Timothy across the garden.

* * *

Emily and Timothy sorted quickly and quietly through Madeline’s workshop. It felt strange for Emily to be inside without her sister. She had to force herself to search thoroughly and not simply gloss over everything in an effort to keep from feeling she was prying. Timothy seemed to have less of a compulsion, but he did take exceptional care with every item he shifted and inspected.

They amassed a small and hodgepodge pile of items on the sofa, but none of them seemed too likely to contain a daemon.

“We don’t have everything she had with her that night,” Timothy said. “The skull isn’t here, to start.”

“She said it was broken.” Emily frowned at the workbench. “She had her rune cup with her, though. I thought that was strange, because the runes weren’t inside it. And I don’t see it here now.” She looked down at the floor, at the rug in the center of the room. “I think we need to search her cellar.”

They had the rug moved and the cellar door open within moments, and Timothy insisted on going down alone. Emily lit a lantern and held it over the opening for him. The cellar was small and close and crowded. Timothy sifted through boxes and crates, blowing at thick dust and batting away cobwebs as he searched. “Nothing here looks as if it’s been disturbed for some time.”

“She would magically shift the dust and put it back to make it appear that way,” Emily said. She gestured with the lantern at a shelf behind him. “Try there.”

“It’s all old books,” he said. “Though—wait. Here’s a chest.” She heard him struggle with it, then peered down into it with him as he propped it on a middle rung of the ladder. She watched him take out a leather-bound journal, a silver candlestick, and a broken watch.

Emily smiled a little sadly. “Her father’s things. I didn’t know she’d kept them.”

Timothy glanced up at her. “
Her
father? Not yours?”

Emily shook her head. “I’m my mother’s bastard.”

“But you bear her husband’s name.” His eyebrows lifted. “Unusual for this country. I am impressed with Hamilton Elliott.”

Emily laughed sadly. “It wasn’t for love of me but his pride. Hamilton pushed my mother to abort me, then to give me away, but she wouldn’t. He formally adopted me to dull the scandal and keep people from publicly shunning either my mother or me, but he never showed me any affection.”

“Ah.” The awkward moment expanded between them, and he sifted through the box again. Then he paused. When he spoke, he sounded cautiously excited. “I think this may have a false bottom.” He braced the box against his leg, tugged smartly at the side, then laughed in delight as the bottom half of the box fell away in his hand. “Yes! And—” He paused, reached inside, then drew his hand back quickly. “Yes. The cup is here.” All the joy was gone from his voice. “It contains the demon.”

“How can you tell?” Emily asked.

“Because I felt it every time I brushed my hand against Jonathan’s skin for years. Now that I know what it is I felt, it isn’t something I will soon forget.” He glanced around at the dusty shelves. “We need a sack of some sort. I don’t wish to touch it for very long.”

Emily sat up and leaned back, keeping the lantern over the cellar opening as she glanced around the room. “Madeline’s basket?”

“That will do, if you can provide a cloth as well.”

She set the lantern down and went to fetch both for him, then passed them down. He used the cloth to extract the cup, wrapped it inside and placed it in the basket, then passed it up to Emily. The cloth shifted as she took it, and she found herself staring down at the cup as Timothy made his way out of the cellar.

It wasn’t large, and it was very ugly. It was made entirely of wood, but though the surface was worn and faded, there was not so much as a crack upon it. It was not carved of a single kind of wood, but was rather several different types merged together somehow, held together with what she didn’t know, but it was apparently very strong.

“There are carvings on it,” she said, surprised. “Little symbols etched all along the sides and all around. They were never there before.”

Timothy took the basket from her and carefully replaced the cloth. He extended his arm to her. “Come. We will take this back to the abbey and hide it, and then we will look for Jonathan and your sister.”

They locked the workshop tight again and set off across the ridge. It was a bright and sunny day, rare enough in northern Etsey, but it seemed almost scandalous for it to be so crisp and warm when it had been so rough the night before. Timothy nodded, impressed, at the great tree, but Emily’s eyes were all for the lake. The mist was thin but focused in the center. She watched the black water ripple in a breeze that was not there, and she shuddered and turned away.

Timothy tensed when they entered the woods.

“The dark sprites can only come out at night,” Emily assured him. “I’ll make you a charm at the abbey. You shouldn’t have gone this long without one.”

Timothy nodded. “Thank you.” Then he glanced at her. “How are you faring?”

She smoothed her hand over her hair, but she didn’t blush. “Fine. Just feel a bit strange.”

“I apologize again. It’s not meant to be something unfinished. I would offer to assist you, but—”

“That’s quite all right,” she said quickly. Then she added, a little shyly, “You’re a very handsome man, but…well, it would be awkward, and you
are
… I did think you only cared for men? That way?”

He smiled, looking almost boyish. “The final performance would be somewhat more of a challenge, yes, though may I point out that is not necessary for your personal release. For you, Miss Emily, I would be creative in my endeavors. Though I might suggest…” He spoke very delicately. “It is the release which matters, not by whom it is administered. In point of fact, a partner is not required.”

Emily held up a hand to stay him. “Please—no more.” She pressed the hand to her cheek. “Goddess bless, but are all Catalians this
graphic
?”

“We are not shy about sex, no. Though as a courtesan, I suppose I am more cavalier about it than most.”

She wanted to ask him more about that, of what it was like to be a courtesan, about Catal, about this marriage ceremony that apparently began with a kiss that could turn her insides into pudding. She liked Timothy. Not that way, despite what that kiss might have her thinking now, but she did enjoy his company. He was a good man, better than most she had met. And he hadn’t blinked at all over her parentage. He’d
liked
the idea that Hamilton Elliott had accepted her. She tightened her hand lightly on his arm as they came through the last of the abbey garden and headed for the front door. She would make him a very special charm. She would make him a quick one now, before they departed, but she would make him a second one later, the best she had ever made.

But when they came through the door into the foyer, she stopped short. Thirteen ghosts stood in a line before them, from the entrance to the hall and over to the archway to the ruined wing, blocking the way to both and to the stairs.

Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

“Wait,” she whispered, tightening her grip on Timothy’s arm. She turned to him, ready to try and explain the ghosts, but then she saw the expression on his face. “
You
can see them?”