Whisper the Dead (The Lovegrove Legacy) (13 page)

Jutting out from the ironwork was a small thatched cottage, no larger than the fruit-seller’s stall. Pink smoke curled out of the holes in the roof between a veritable legion of gargoyles. They were only the size of teacups, but they covered every inch, like grass growing on a manicured lawn. A bell hung on a post, more rust than iron. Cedric rang it but it stayed silent. “She’ll hear it,” he assured them. “It’s best not to surprise the Toad Mother.”

“How will we know if she … oh.” Emma interrupted herself when toads emerged from the tiny fenced-off area in front
of the green door. There were dozens of them, squatting on the stones and moving slowly between the pots of herbs. They had to pick their way carefully between live toads and glowing toad familiars that gave one an unpleasant shock when touched accidentally.

“Visitors,” the Toad Mother said, emerging from her house. Her voice was as earthy and dark as her magic. She wore a simple woolen gown and a shawl over her shoulders. Her hair was unbound, brown, and streaked with gray. Her eyes were a strange pale green. She was beautiful in a hypnotic, slightly sinister way, like a cobra waiting to strike. She tilted her head. “Cedric.”

The toads hopped slowly toward him. He didn’t seem concerned, but Gretchen saw the way he angled himself so that he was slightly in front of the cousins. His smile was easy and uncomplicated. “Toad Mother,” he said with a bow.

“My little ones have missed you,” she said. Her voice seemed to multiply, as though there were several of her, all whispering together. She wore a silver toad necklace crouched in the middle of her collarbone, and there were tiny toad bones braided into the fringe of her shawl.

Her gaze drifted to the moths covering Emma’s antlers, and her lips pursed. “That’s a nasty piece of business, my girl.”

“Yes.” Emma nodded, not bothering with explanations or excuses. “It is.”

“What have you brought me, then?”

Gretchen frowned, feeling for the reticule she always forgot to carry with her. “I don’t have any money,” she whispered.

“Me neither,” Penelope whispered back. She unclasped the ruby pendant on a silver chain around her neck. “Only this.”

“But that’s not what you want, is it?” Emma asked steadily. “The last time I bought a magic charm, money never changed hands.”

“Clever girl,” the Toad Mother approved, waiting.

“A lock of my hair,” Emma offered.

She laughed. “What would I want with that? I’ve got my own hair, don’t I? And I’m not One-Eyed Joe, collecting trinkets.”

“What do you want then?” Emma asked quietly.

“Let’s talk, shall we?” The Toad Mother beckoned. Her witch knot was the color of dried blood. The ospreys wheeled away from her house in a panic of feathers. When the moths drifted too near, their wings turned to flames and smoke.

Emma took a deep breath and started to follow. Penelope and Gretchen were right behind her, practically tripping on her hem.

The Toad Mother looked over her shoulder, her glance withering. “Only you.”

Emma nodded, her cheeks pale but her posture resolute.

“But …” Penelope would have kept walking if Cedric hadn’t caught her hand. His fingers twined with hers. Gretchen paused when the toads glowed a vitriolic swamp green.

“Is it safe?” Penelope whispered to Cedric.

“Aye,” he said. “Safe enough.”

• • •

“Damn it,” Tobias snapped as he caught the musky, earthy scent of the fox-girls again. “They’re leaving the bridge.”

“Fox-girls never hunt in the city,” Cormac pointed out for Godric’s benefit. “That can’t be good.”

They left London Bridge behind, following Thames Street along the river. Ships crowded the river and gulls screeched for food. “There are too many broken wards and too few Keepers,” Tobias said. “If we can’t get it sorted, it will threaten the authority of the Order. The Carnyx are already patrolling every night because we can’t cover all of London anymore.”

Tobias strode along, trying not to look as though he was sniffing the wind. There was something to be said for having the reputation of being a haughty viscount. People expected his nose to be up in the air.

“Still, you’re right,” Cormac continued. “My sister Talia is having more nightmares than usual. She keeps screaming about London being covered in ice and bones.”

“Have you taken her to the dream temple?”

“She can’t sleep when she’s there, which makes it difficult for them to truly analyze her dreams.”

“Even the ghosts seem out of sorts,” Godric admitted. “Scared, almost.”

“Makes sense,” Cormac said. “They’d feel the magic in the city more keenly than we would.”

There was a faint chorus of yips just under the general chaos of the streets as they turned off toward Fleet Street. Dust billowed out from under carriage wheels and street-sweeper boys darted back and forth between the horses. “This way.”

They passed redbrick coffeehouses and chocolate houses, the pavements outside teeming with passersby. Burning sugar and roasted coffee trailed from the open doorways, momentarily sweetening the competing smells of runoff, horses, and fox-girls. Still, a gang of fox-girls shouldn’t be difficult to track, even without scent markers.

Before they could pass through the Temple bar gateway, where Fleet Street turned into the Strand, Tobias stopped. “They’re in the Inner Temple,” he said, pushing through the wooden arched doorway of a Tudor-style house. Beyond lay the long brick buildings where barristers did their work, and extensive gardens. He vaulted over the decorative railings with their pegasi and griffins and into a moat of roses. Petals stuck to his shoes as he made his way to the orchards.

Among the quince and walnut trees were five fox-girls in their customary red cloaks. They were tall, with dark flashing eyes and pupils too oval to be strictly human. They yipped and taunted a shadow hiding in an upper branch. Tobias had a sense of quivering but not much else. His wolf stirred, sensing both prey and predator. The fox-girls felt him before they heard him.

They turned their heads slowly, all smiles and snarls. They wore mostly brown or white dresses under their red cloaks, leather belts bristling with daggers, even though in Tobias’s experience, they preferred running their prey to ground until they were too exhausted to fight back.

“She stole from us,” the fox-girl with the auburn braid said defensively, before anyone else could speak. Godric bowed, ingrained politeness stronger even than wild girls. Come to
think of it, he was likely well used to wild girls, being Gretchen’s brother.

Tobias peered up the walnut tree, finally catching a glimpse of a girl in a gray dress. She was barely twelve years old, with dirt on her nose and her hem. Tobias the wolf instantly knew her for a rabbit-girl. But she reminded Tobias the gentleman of his little sister Posy. Worse yet, rabbit-girls rarely traveled alone. If the rest of her family came searching for her, it would be next to impossible to hide the altercation from cowans. Especially barristers and solicitors, trained to look keenly. Magic already shimmered around them, glittering in the bright afternoon.

“You can come down,” he said softly. “They won’t hurt you.”

She shook her head mutely.

“Oi, she’s ours,” the redheaded fox-girl snapped. “We’ve a right to hunt her, by witch rules and shifter rules both.” Unlike Tobias, fox-girls never hid their shifter blood.

“What did she steal?” Cormac asked lightly, as if they were discussing how she took her tea.

“A moonstone,” a fox-girl with skin like sweet chocolate answered. She nodded to the redhead. “Kitsu saw her.”

Tobias bit back a sigh. Rabbit-shifters never could resist anything to do with the moon, and fox-shifters were notorious for dealing savagely with thieves. They were territorial and fearless.

“I didn’t steal anything,” the rabbit-girl whispered, voice trembling. “Honest.”

“I
saw
you,” Kitsu insisted hotly. Tobias had to hold her back and was nearly bitten for his trouble.

“Anyway, didn’t think the Order had the time to bother with us,” one of the girls said. “Shouldn’t you be out there dealing with warlocks and uncontrolled magic?”

“We always have the time,” Tobias said sharply, exchanging a grim glance with Cormac. “Especially when you take your hunt out into London. You know it’s forbidden.”

Kitsu shrugged out of his grip. “It was one of you Greybeards who told us to take it off the bridge.”

His eyes narrowed. “I beg your pardon?”

“Said we’d have more sport if we took to the streets.”

“You’re lying.”

She bared her teeth. The others shifted to stand behind her, bristling. Cormac stepped forward with his lazy, charming smile. “Ladies,” he said. “I think we can agree there’s no sport to a girl up a tree.” They scowled at him. He spread his hands, unconcerned. “Chasing a viscount”—he winked—“now that’s a proper sport.”

The redhead snorted but her stance softened slightly, despite herself. “Not everyone wants a lordling,” she said.

“True,” he agreed. He bowed, taking her hand and pressing a kiss to her knuckles, which were scratched and bruised from digging through brambles. “But you can’t blame me for trying.” He straightened. “Let us hunt more pleasurable pursuits. There’s a bounty on a herd of piskies running loose and stealing horses. I reckon fox-girls could hunt them down before anyone else.”

They glanced at one another, intrigued. “How much?” Kitsu demanded.

“Two guineas.”

She whistled. “That’s a bleedin’ fortune.”

“Worth abandoning this hunt?” Cormac asked. “If I tell you where they were last spotted?”

“Aye,” she agreed reluctantly. “I s’ppose so.”

Tobias gestured to the rabbit-girl. “You don’t have to be afraid now.”

She climbed down gingerly, her face pale between the leaves. The light glinted off an egg of milky white crystal slipping out of her pouch. It landed in the dandelion leaves, just before she did.

“Oi,” Kitsu shouted, making a grab for her. The girl kicked back savagely, slipping the moonstone back into her pouch.

“Thanks, gents.” She threw Tobias a smug smile and vanished into the greenery.

Whenever Gretchen took a step in the direction of the Toad Mother’s house, the smoke from the chimney turned to green sparks and stank of stagnant water. The toads advanced and the shock they gave when touched made her teeth clench and the taste of copper and burned salt sting her throat. There were welts on her ankle bones and scorch marks on the bottom of her dress by the time she gave up.

Cedric just leaned against the bricks of the confectioner’s shop and waited patiently. If the window display was anything to go by, witches preferred their sweets to perform tricks. There were singing marzipan birds and cakes that turned from white to lavender to red every time you blinked. Cats and dogs and even a hedgehog all came to pay court to Cedric. Even the
marzipan birds seemed unduly interested, singing loudly and pecking at the glass.

Penelope just rolled her eyes when Gretchen looked surprised. “It’s always like this,” she said. “The stable has as many stray cats as it does horses.”

Cedric just shrugged. “Animals understand me, is all.”

Since there was a white mouse curled up in the trouser cuff of his left leg, Gretchen was inclined to believe him. There was even a marmalade tabby, glowing with magic, who approached him and didn’t immediately try to eat the mouse. The cat was familiar, but she couldn’t think from where. She crossed her arms, staring hard at the cottage again. “She’s been in there for ages,” she said.

Penelope stood up from where she’d been trying to coax the hedgehog into her hand. Worry flitted across her face. “I know.” Her glowing spiders scurried over the stones, trying to sneak around the toads. They flicked their tongues and the same green sparks as had burst out of the chimney singed the spiders. Penelope flinched.

“Stop that,” Cedric told her calmly. “You’ll only annoy her, and believe me, you wouldn’t like her annoyed.”

“He’s right,” Moira agreed from the roof of the confectioner’s shop. “Annoying the Toad Mother is a good way to go home with warts. Or a goat’s head.”

Seeing her there in her patched trousers and battered hat reminded Gretchen where she’d seen the marmalade cat before. It was Moira’s familiar. “This isn’t your usual neighborhood,” Moira said, shimmying down a trellis and landing in a crouch.
“Bit ragged for you, inn’t it? Watch your backs, the Rovers are always about lately and they’re not the friendly sort.”

“Emma’s inside,” Gretchen replied.

Moira whistled through her teeth. “After all the trouble I went to keeping her alive, what’s she gone and done that for?”

Cedric nodded to the white birds lining the rail and the moths floating between them.

“Oh,” Moira said, understanding immediately. “Rotten luck.”

“As bad as the time you tried to set fire to Atticus’s hat,” Cedric said.

Moira elbowed him. “That was your fault.”

“Hardly.”

“You gave me the matchstick!”

“Well,” he said with a wink.

Penelope watched them carefully, her expression unreadable. “Speaking of keeping Emma alive,” Gretchen said to Moira. “You helped her buy that cameo to hide her from the Keepers, didn’t you?”

“Aye, but One-Eyed Joe’s all out. Ever since the Sisters made their reappearance, witches have been coming in from all over. Some as far as the Orkneys, even, to get their charms.”

“Don’t they have markets of their own?”

“Yes, but the goblin markets are the biggest, and One-Eyed Joe’s the best,” she answered proudly.

“Can he make more?”

She shook her head. “Not anytime soon. Those are his most complicated pieces, and he can’t exactly be obvious about it. Greybeards are always trying to raid his tent.”

“Wouldn’t work anyway,” Cedric put in. “Tobias Lawless is a tracker. Once he has your scent, he can find you.”

Gretchen turned to Moira with a conspiratorial grin. “Maybe I can introduce you. I want to see if his icy disdain freezes his head clear through so it falls right off his shoulder.”

“Deal. If you can control your brother. He’s right daft.”

“Probably,” she agreed easily. “Why this time exactly?”