A Breath of Frost (31 page)

“I know,” Cormac returned easily. She’d noticed he always seemed more comfortable when there was no one else around. At the moment there was no one in sight. They were alone save for a rabbit eating dandelion leaves. “With the Sisters and the gates and now the ghouls, the Order is concerned for everyone’s safety. They especially want Rowanstone students to be escorted.”

At the mention of the gates, Emma felt another stab of guilt. She hadn’t broken her mother’s bottle on purpose, but she felt the weight of the ramifications all the same.

“I am but a glorified footman,” he said with a twinge of bitterness. “But God and Country and all that rot.”

“You sound rather cynical for a Keeper,” Emma noted, intrigued despite her constant resolve to resist him. He shrugged one shoulder and let it fall, his easy smile returning. She was learning to recognize which of his charming smiles hid darker secrets and that was definitely one of them. His fingers brushed her as he walked beside her. The wind kicked up.

She glanced around, mortified. Did he know she was causing
the wind because she was nervous around him? Dust snapped the hem of her dress. The wind pushed harder. She frowned.

She wasn’t
that
nervous.

The wind wrapped around her and gave her a great shove.

She remembered the last time she’d felt it do that.

“Oh no,” she said, digging her heels into the grass. “Not again!”

There was no fighting the inexorable wind. Cormac and Penelope each took one of her arms but it only served to wrench them in their sockets. Cormac and Penelope let her go, doing their best to keep up. The trees tossed back and forth and the grass flattened around her, but the water of the Serpentine in the distance was still as a glass mirror.

Emma tripped over the foot of a girl half draped over the lower branch of an oak tree. Tiny icicles dripped from the bottom of her sleeve. Her lips were dusky blue with cold. She was utterly still, her eyes frozen wide open.

The wind died. Emma scrabbled backward. She met Cormac’s eyes wildly, remembering vividly the last time she’d been dragged to a dead girl by a strange storm. Unlike Margaret York, this girl was dead before they found her.

And they weren’t alone any longer in a wild corner of the park. They had an audience.

Worse still, it was Daphne.

Daphne, Sophie, and Lilybeth
hurried toward them, the flowers on their matching bonnets trembling with their shock. “We were waiting for our footman to secure us a boat when we heard someone shout,” Daphne said, staring at the body in the tree.

A Keeper chased them from the path on the other side of the shrubbery. “Lady Daphne, wait!”

“Damn it,” Cormac swore, stepping away from Emma so abruptly she stumbled. He wouldn’t even look at her, when a few moments ago, she’d been sure he was about to hold her hand. “Virgil.” He greeted the other Keeper with a stiff nod.

Virgil whistled through his teeth when he saw the body. He proceeded to puff up his chest and step in front of Daphne and her friends. “Nothing to be afraid of,” he said pompously. “Your father himself asked me to protect you.”

“Why do I keep stumbling over dead girls?” Emma asked
bleakly, her teeth chattering. She felt cold all over, like there was ice under her skin. Penelope rubbed her arms, trying to warm her.

“Yes, why is that exactly?” Daphne asked sharply.

Cormac took a pinch of the crushed apple seeds, quartz crystal, and mugwort herb he kept in his snuffbox and tossed it up. It hung suspended for a brief moment, before glittering into an arc of sparks to guide nearby Keepers to the spot.

“Oi, I can handle this,” Virgil complained, though he’d yet to do more than glance at the body.

“You don’t have the authority,” Cormac relied blandly.

“And you don’t have the magic.”

Cormac’s jaw clenched.

“And I see that though your sisters aren’t here to save you this time, you’re still hiding behind skirts,” Virgil added with a sneer.

Emma decided right then and there that she didn’t care for Virgil one bit. Thunder growled in the distance. Cormac shot her a quick, startled glance, before resuming his formal polite posture.

“Poor girl. Should we call for a doctor?” Sophie asked softly, her eyes very bright.

“It’s too late for that, I’m afraid.”

“Did she fall out of the tree?”

“I don’t think so,” Cormac said. “Do you recognize her? Is she Rowanstone?”

“She doesn’t look familiar so I don’t think she’s a fellow student,” Daphne replied. Shock made her skin shine like a pearl,
sweat dampening her hair so that it slipped from its complicated updo. “And she’s not dressed like society.”

He crouched next to the body, frowning. She wore a simple dress in washed-out brown muslin and no jewelry. Her bonnet was made of straw with a few faded silk leaves. Her limp hand dropped, fingers uncurling. He stripped off her left glove while the others waited, breaths held.

The girl had a witch knot and it was altered, the ends unraveling.

“Greymalkin,” Cormac confirmed. “What are these pinpricks on her fingertips?”

Penelope leaned over gingerly for a closer look. “Those are from an embroidery needle,” she said. “But to have that many? Even as a dressmaker’s assistant, that’s a lot.”

“Are you sure that’s what she is?”

“With those particular calluses and those pinpricks? Yes.”

“You have the same marks when you embroider?”

“Not that many,” Penelope shook her head. “Not all at once.”

Daphne stepped closer to Cormac, glaring at Emma. “You found Margaret York as well, didn’t you? Did you have something to do with this as well?”

“I tripped over her.” Emma replied, fuzzy with shock.

“I don’t believe you,” she said. “You’re a
Lovegrove
. My father warned me about your family.”

“Emma’s not a murderer,” Penelope said, incensed. “
We
just got here! It could just as easily have been your fault!”

Virgil looked as though Penelope had just slapped him. “I
was escorting these ladies and I can assure you they are most proper, gentle girls.”

Daphne sucked in a breath. “And I’m telling my father you said that. He’s the First Legate.”

“We
know
.” Penelope shot back, unimpressed. “My father runs a brewery. So what? Emma still didn’t do it. It’s absurd for you to accuse her. And we just arrived,” she added acidly. “With a
Keeper
. Don’t you think if she
was
to blame, Lord Blackburn would have already secured her?”

“Blackburn’s not much of a Keeper,” Virgil put in, eyeing Emma suspiciously.

She narrowed her eyes at him. Lightning flashed in the perfectly clear spring sky. The crack of it hitting a tree made him jerk so violently he dropped his iron-wheel pendant. Daphne also jumped, looking pale. When Cormac offered her his arm, she took it with a grateful smile. He still wouldn’t look in Emma’s direction. She strongly considered bringing the lightning a little closer.

“Until the investigators arrive, we need to follow the trail before it grows cold.”

“The Order has investigators?” Penelope asked.

“The Order has everything,” Cormac replied without inflection.

“I can follow the blood curse,” Daphne said briskly. “Lilybeth, stop
crying
.”

“But she’s
dead
.” Lilybeth was moaning and squeezing Sophie’s hand so tightly the other girl winced.

“Yes, and unless your tears have healing powers, they won’t help. Now hush.”

Daphne squinted at the girl and then at the ground all around them. She pointed her finger, following the trail.

The residue of magic traveled over the stones straight to Emma.

“I told you she was involved,” Daphne said. Lilybeth looked like she might faint. Virgil stepped forward, reaching for Emma. Cormac shifted to stop him but Penelope was faster. She kicked him in the shin. Virgil squawked in pain, clutching his leg. Keeper or not, he wasn’t sure how to proceed now. He was accustomed to girls who swooned and fluttered. Though, to be fair, Daphne was doing neither.

Penelope took off her glove, swallowing thickly. “Are you sure?” Emma asked her when she realized what she was doing.

She only nodded and reached out to touch the girl’s arm. Penelope went faintly green.

“What do you see?” Emma whispered.

“Not her murder,” Penelope assured her, sweat beading under her hair. “I can’t control the flashes I get. I can only tell you that her name is Alice and she worked as a seamstress, as we thought. She sewed out in the street under the gas lamps at night.” She shivered and opened her eyes. “That’s all.” She blinked several times. “Why do I taste leeks?”

Daphne was trying not to gag behind her gloved hand. “Blood curse.”

“Oh. I can see it now too,” she added, grimacing. “It does lead to you, Emma,” she said apologetically. “But
also
,” she said sharply before Virgil could react, “to Sophie and Lilybeth.” She rubbed the spot between her eyes. “To all of us, actually.”

Daphne’s lips pursed. “It’s everywhere,” she admitted sourly, wiping her hands on her gown, as though the residue had left traces on her skin.

“How dreadful,” Sophie murmured, just before her eyes rolled back in her head. Cormac caught her before she hit the ground. Lilybeth started to weep again. The investigator finally arrived, ducking under the concealing branches. He saw the body and cursed under his breath.

“Not another one,” he said, looking sad and exhausted under the scars on his face. He snapped his gaze onto Cormac and Virgil before examining the girl. “Report.”

“She’s been marked,” Cormac confirmed.

He sighed. “Damn.” He paused, eyebrows lifting. “Lady Daphne. Are you hurt?”

“Not at all. Lord Blackburn has been with us the entire time. And Virgil, of course,” she added when he went beet red with the need to be noticed.

“Good, good. How’s your father?”

“Very well, thank you, Sir Reginald.” She shot Emma and Penelope a smug glance.

Reginald squinted at Emma and Penelope. “I don’t know you two.”

“They’re
Lovegroves
,” Virgil said as though he were confessing that they were spies for Napoleon.

“Is that so?”

Emma and Penelope stepped closer to each other. Emma had no desire to be reacquainted with the magisters. “Actually, it’s Lady Penelope
Chadwick
,” Emma pointed out.

“And Lady Emma
Day
,” Penelope added.

“I was with both these ladies and I can assure you they were not involved,” Cormac said.

“How did you come to find the body?”

Emma swallowed. “A wind pushed me.”

“A wind?” Reginald frowned at Cormac. “A harpy? No one mentioned any sightings recently.” Harpies were strange bird-women who attacked with all the force of storm winds. They were local to Greece but occasionally traveled farther.

“No, sir. We detected no other creatures in the area. Lady Emma is a weather-witch.”

“That still doesn’t explain why the wind brought her here.” He rubbed his chin, watching her thoughtfully. She tried not to squirm.

“I don’t understand it either,” she finally offered.

“Perhaps it’s a simple matter of magic reacting to magic?” Cormac suggested. “After all, Lady Emma comes from a very powerful and ancient family. She may be more sensitive to magical undercurrents than we are.”

“Than
you
are, certainly,” Virgil snickered.

“That is not helpful,” Reginald snapped.

“My apologies, sir.”

“Hmm. See all the ladies home, would you, Blackburn?” Reginald ordered. “I’ll speak to them again after I’ve had time to investigate the matter further.”

“Certainly. We’ll have to go on foot though.”

Lilybeth shook her head frantically. “It’s not safe. I’m not going. He doesn’t even have any magic.”

There was a strangled silence. Daphne nudged her hard. “I’m not afraid,” she said.

“We have a carriage waiting at the end of Rotten Row,” Virgil interrupted smoothly. “I can see Lady Daphne, Lady Lilybeth, and Lady Sophie back to the academy, but I’m afraid there isn’t space for everyone else.”

“Actually, we prefer Lord Blackburn’s protection,” Emma announced in ringing tones she hadn’t quite meant to carry so far.

“Fine.” He dismissed them curtly and turned to assess the victim.

Cormac, Emma, and Penelope began the walk through the park and back to the school. “What did she mean you don’t have any magic?” Emma finally asked him, burning with curiosity. “You’re a Keeper.”

He didn’t look at her but his expression was faintly mocking, almost bored. She knew he was hiding some darker emotion. “The Fairfax family has been a witching family since before the Battle of Hastings.” The corner of his mouth lifted wryly. “Nearly as long as the Lovegroves.” He shrugged. “But magic can skip generations, or individuals.” He turned his left hand over to show her his bare unmarked palm.

“You don’t have a knot.”

“No. I joined the Order anyway, like every other Fairfax male. I had to train harder than everyone else. I still do. And I have to prove myself worthy every single day.”