Whisper the Dead (The Lovegrove Legacy) (31 page)

Tobias was pacing the not inconsiderable length of the room, a frown between his eyebrows. There were bruises showing where his sleeves were rolled up his forearms. She assumed they were a result of his altercation with the Wolfcatchers. His head snapped up. “Who’s there?” he demanded, stalking toward the door.

She poked her head in. “It’s just me, sorry to startle you.”

That brought him up short. “Gretchen.”

He looked wretched and sad and lost. That decided it and she stepped farther inside. “I was just going to see if I could find some sweets.”

He stared at her. “Sweets.”

“Yes, they’re for eating,” she replied, teasing him. She’d known enough black moods to know that sometimes nothing would do but to be startled out of one.

“There’s gingerbread on the tray over there.”

“Excellent,” she said briskly, marching past as though she wasn’t wearing a nightdress she’d borrowed from Posy. It was just slightly too short, flashing her ankles as she went. She imagined Tobias would be scandalized instead of distracted. More’s the pity.

Now really, where had that come from?

“Yes, we’ll have cake,” she said firmly, cutting generous slices of the molasses-dark gingerbread. She added some dried apricots from a china bowl. She handed him a plate and a silver
fork, the tines glinting in the firelight. He accepted it, manners kicking in, no matter his current emotional state. She’d considered that kind of control a weakness, but now she wondered.

“They say you’ll be the next First Legate, you or Daphne’s brother. How will that work with all of your other duties and … secrets?”

“Uncomfortably, I’m sure.” He offered her a ghost of a smile.

“Your family doesn’t seem the type to bow to the Order.”

He snorted. “You’ve the right of it.”

“I knew I liked them for a reason.” She had another bite of the cake, mind swirling with wolves, witches, and warlocks. “Why would Sophie steal Lilybeth’s bones?” she asked. “If it was even her?”

“She must be gathering power for a spell,” he answered.

Something about it tickled at the back of Gretchen’s mind but she couldn’t quite figure out why. It sounded familiar somehow.

“She’d have to be storing the magic somehow, wouldn’t she?”

“Yes, but we can’t seem to find her anywhere. It’s like she’s disappeared.” He swallowed another mouthful of gingerbread. “We assume she’s hiding inside Greymalkin House, where we can’t reach her.”

“How would she have gotten in?” She’d needed Emma for that, last time.

“Another good question.”

Gretchen surveyed the room as she ate. It was grand and imposing, full of books with gilded lettering and the smells of
leather and smoke. A globe stood in one corner, along with a backgammon table and several chairs clustered around the stone grate. There was only the fire to light the room. She noted the empty coffee cups lined up on a shelf and wondered what made him fear to sleep.

“You don’t approve,” Tobias said softly.

She looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Of the library. You practically skipped through the family parlor upstairs with its dog-chewed table legs and clutter.”

“It’s comfortable. This is very grand, I’ll grant you, and believe me I’ve seen all the libraries in Mayfair, but how can you prefer it?”

“It’s simpler,” he replied.

“Is it?” She licked a grain of sugar off her lip. Tobias’s fork clattered against his plate. “Why’s that, I wonder?”

“It just is.”

“There’s something I’ve been wondering, listening to your brother talk.”

“I should warn you, my brother is … radical.”

Gretchen snorted. “You’re just as radical, Tobias. It’s only that your opinions differ.”

“I suppose.” He paused. “I’d never thought of it that way.”

“He made it seem as though you only rarely ‘wear the wolf,’ as he put it.”

“True.”

She stared at him. “You can’t be serious,” she said, as shocked by that as by any of the rest of it. More shocked, actually. “I’d be shifting all the time.”

He nearly smiled. “Yes, I imagine you would.” He stared
unseeing out of the dark window while she stared at his pale reflection. “But I have never truly worn the wolf before today.”

“In London, you mean.” She thought of the cramped carriage and the agitated horses and the oblivious crowds pressing all around. “Yes, I can see why.”

“No. I mean, ever.”

She moved to stand in front of him. “How can that be possible?”

“I shifted once on my thirteenth birthday,” he said. “It’s tradition. But never since then, not until the wolfsbane potion. It interferes with control, but shape-shifters must wear their animal to drive poisons and dark magic from their bodies.”

Gretchen’s head fairly spun. “I don’t understand. Why would you waste such a gift?” she asked, inadvertently echoing the same question his family and Cormac had been asking him for years.

“A curse, you mean.”

“Do not tell me that you are all conflicted and brooding over this. Why wouldn’t you just enjoy it? You’re daft.”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Explain it to me then,” she insisted quietly. She wasn’t sure why it was so important. Except that something about the conflict with his own nature, touched with sadness, reminded her of her brother when the ghosts drove him to drink too much. “Please,” she added when he still didn’t speak. “I’d really like to understand.”

“The wolf wears you as much as you wear it,” he said tightly. “You can forget yourself.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“You can forget your duties, as well.”

“And for you that would be terrible indeed,” she allowed. They were so near she could feel the warmth of him, contrasting with the cool draft from the window behind her. The coals shifted in the grate, sending up sparks.

“You noticed the scars on my mother’s face?”

She nodded.

“They were put there by Wolfcatchers.”

“Well, surely that says more about humans than wolves.”

“Perhaps. But the danger is the same.” He pointed to a small family portrait hanging between the bookshelf and the window. “That’s my older sister Gaelen,” he said, pointing to a girl with dark brown hair and gray-green eyes. She was as pretty as a porcelain doll. “My family prefers to stay in the country. It’s much easier that way. But Gaelen doesn’t have a choice.”

“Why not?”

“She’s gone feral. She barely bothers to return to human shape, and when she does, she can’t stand to be around people. She’s not able to cope with them.”

“What happened?”

“Four years ago, she found her lover’s bloody pelt strung on a tree branch to be tanned. A Wolfcatcher had found him in the woods. He was still collecting his trophies when Gaelen stumbled across them.”

Bile rose in the back of Gretchen’s throat. “No.”

“She killed him. And she’s never been the same since.” His voice was rusty as the story spilled out like iron nails from an old tacking box. “I swore that night that I’d do whatever it took
to keep my family safe. Our kind can’t risk attending the academy unless we have iron control. So I trained hard to contain my magic.”

“And then you joined the Order,” Gretchen said, understanding. She assumed his brother had decided to join the Carnyx at the same time, to protect the shifters from the Wolfcatchers. “Oh, Tobias, I’m so sorry for you and Gaelen, both.”

“Why me?” he said. “I wasn’t wronged.”

“Weren’t you?” she asked simply. “Weren’t you robbed of the joy in your true nature?” He looked as though he didn’t know what to say to that. “Still, how can you have kept it a secret? You are not exactly anonymous. All the Wolfcatchers in London must have a bounty on you.” She shivered at the thought.

He only shrugged. “As a Keeper I smell like magic every day. To detect wolf on me is difficult. And there are the charms, of course.” He shook his head. “I’ve never told anyone any of this, aside from Cormac and the First Legate.”

“What’s so wonderful about control anyway? To hear you and my mother talk, it’s a magic shield against bad manners, pestilence, and disease.”

“It’s what separates us from the beasts.”

“Hmm, pity.”

“There is an entire city depending on me, not just my own family.” The fire had dwindled and the darkness of the library held them in its palm. They could pretend they were anywhere. “Without control,” he added hoarsely, as his eyes locked onto hers and his hands slid up to grasp her upper arms, leaving a trail of delicious shivers in their wake, “anything can happen.”

“Isn’t that the point?” She didn’t pull away. Couldn’t have.

He brought her closer, up against his chest, even as he lowered his head to kiss her. His hand tangled in the cropped curls at her neck, his thumb resting along her jaw. He nipped at her mouth, and she stood on her tiptoes to get closer. She felt everything—the fire, the taste of gingerbread on his tongue, the secrets between them. He pressed her back against the wall until wolves and warlocks were forgotten, until it was only two witches and a stolen moment before the battle breaks.

When the kiss ended, too soon, he rested his forehead against hers, struggling to reclaim his usual discipline.

Her breath trembled when she finally released it. “I’d say control is overrated, wouldn’t you?”

Gretchen spent the early morning hours in the gardens, still unable to sleep. She drank tea on the terrace until the sun was too bright and the spring flowers too cheerful to ignore. She wandered the paths, making note of the kinds of plants she found and their magical application. Why, it was practically like taking an exam. She felt positively virtuous.

The gardens, much like the house, started off formal, with a fountain made of leaping fish, box hedges, and dainty benches set on pebbled paths, before it deteriorated into a pretty sort of wilderness.

It wasn’t long before Gretchen came across Posy in one of the shadows, sitting up in a poplar tree with a book and a half-eaten apple. “Hello.” She tilted her head up, shielding her eyes with her
hand. That she hadn’t been wearing the customary bonnet when she’d stumbled onto Tobias’s carriage went without saying.

Posy smiled shyly. “Hello.”

“I haven’t climbed a tree in a dismally long time,” she announced. “That must be rectified immediately.”

Posy goggled at her. “But you’re a lady.”

“All the more reason to climb trees, if you ask me.” She hauled herself up onto the lowest branch, steadying herself.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Posy said dubiously. “Are you sure you know how?”

“Oh, Posy, you’ve just dared me to do it now. And I never could ignore a dare.” She pulled herself up from branch to branch, pausing to tie her skirts into a knot between her knees when they got in her way. “This is much easier in breeches,” she huffed, wriggling into the crook where the main trunk split into two. Catkins dangled like braids of golden hair.

She peered through the branches to the pebbled paths and the mossy wall at the edge of the property. “Lovely,” she declared. She gestured in the direction of the wall. “How have the neighbors not found you out?”

“There are spells and wards,” Posy replied, her voice small, as though she wasn’t accustomed to speaking easily with other girls. “And we have so many dogs about, if they were to glimpse anything, it’s easily explained.”

“Clever.”

“It was Tobias’s idea,” Posy said proudly.

“Yes, I imagine it was.”

Posy’s tail curled over the branch, soft fur ruffling in the
breeze. When she saw that Gretchen noticed, she flicked it out of sight.

“Did you know I’m a Whisperer?” Gretchen said lightly. “I’m still getting used to it. My ears bleed sometimes. It’s not very attractive. I’d much rather have a tail.”

Posy’s smile was shy and sweet, like sugared violets. She fairly shone when she forgot to cringe away into the shadows. Gretchen caught sight of Tobias walking the paths below them. She wondered how often Posy laughed. And if Tobias even knew how to.

She plucked a handful of catkins, which were soft and slightly sticky. “I think I can hit him from here.”

Posy giggled before clapping her hand over the mouth to stop herself. “You wouldn’t.”

“Oh, Posy.” Gretchen grinned. “There you go, daring me again.”

She waited until he’d turned the corner before lobbing them. They flew into the rosebushes on the right, missing him completely. He turned his head sharply.

“You missed,” Posy pointed out.

“That was a little misdirection,” Gretchen disagreed. “Now I have him exactly where I want him. Looking the other way.” She sent another volley of missiles. They pelted him like sticky green rain.

She hadn’t counted on his proximity to the fountain though.

He ducked the attack, pulling up the hose lying in the grass, currently filling the stone basin. And aimed it directly at them. They scrambled down the tree, shrieking with laughter. Cold
water dripped from their hair and Gretchen sputtered out a mouthful. Tobias leaned against the fountain, grinning.

“You knew we were up there,” Gretchen accused.

“You’re rather hard to miss.”

Posy wrung water from her hair and looked from Tobias to Gretchen and back again. She wandered away, still giggling. Gretchen felt awkward. Not because she was soaked through or because Tobias was a wolf, not even because they’d kissed, but because she didn’t particularly feel like punching him in the face.

“My sister has been lonely. You seem to be good for her,” he said. A catkin clung to his arm like a giant caterpillar.

“I’ve never been accused of that before.”

“It is rather unprecedented.”

Gretchen was going down
to breakfast when Ky arrived, bloodstained and grinning. He smelled like violence and the Thames, with that hint of pine she was starting to associate with wolves. “Did you find him?” she asked.

“Who, love?”

She rolled her eyes. “The Wolfcatcher who attacked your brother, of course.”

“I’m sure I was out drinking with the lads,” he replied. “Isn’t that what aristocratic boys do?”

“And I was working on my needlepoint,” Gretchen returned. “Because that’s what gently bred ladies do.” He snorted a laugh. “Tell me about the Carnyx,” she added, fascinated by all the aspects of this new hidden world.