Whisper the Dead (The Lovegrove Legacy) (32 page)

“My brother will have told you we’re savage.”

She grinned. “Yes, but he’s said the same about me.”

“We protect the wolves from the Wolfcatchers and the warlocks. Someone has to,” he added defensively.

“I agree.”

“Do you have any idea how many of us are tortured and killed for our pelts or teeth? We’re not even animals to them, only magical trophies.”

“So you fight.”

“Often and well.” She saw the swagger in him, so different from her own brother’s easy affability. “We can’t all bow to the Order like Tobias.”

“He fights for you as well,” Gretchen said, suddenly feeling the need to defend him. “For all of us, really.”

“He’s ashamed of his heritage.”

She shook her head gently. “I don’t think that’s true. His way is just different.” She nodded at the daggers on his belt. “Are those magical? May I see one?”

He lifted his eyebrows at that but handed her one. “It’s sharp, mind.”

“Wouldn’t be much use if it wasn’t,” she remarked, testing its weight and wicked point. It wasn’t ornamental in the way of antique or ritual daggers, but there was a certain beauty to the ironwork on the wooden handle.

“It’s quite nice.” Gretchen handed it back reluctantly. She bent to retrieve the dagger she’d worn tied above her ankle since the night they’d stumbled across a kelpie. “Tobias’s hat on the side table,” she announced, before throwing it. It flew with little flourish, but it flew true, puncturing the tall, crowned beaver-pelt hat.

“Blimey.” Ky whistled. “You’d make a fair Carnyx.”

She grinned. “I know.”

Gretchen lingered over breakfast but she knew it was time to go home. Rain gathered, perfectly reflecting her mood. The first few drops hit the windowpane like fat silver coins. The clouds were mounds of whipped cream, edged with blackberry icing. She could just make out the shape of Posy as a small wolf racing between the trees, fur in wet spikes, tongue lolling. She bounded and leaped about, looking so pleased with herself it was impossible for Gretchen not to smile as she watched.

Remembering what Tobias had said about wolf-charms, Gretchen hurried out into the garden as the carriage was brought round. She kept to the hedges, water trickling down the back of her neck. She circled the garden until she found a paw print in the soft lawn on the other side of the ornamental garden. She waited for it to fill with rain before collecting the water in a small vial. She tucked it up into her sleeve and returned to the house.

Tobias found her entering through the conservatory, using her shawl to rub the wet from her hair. Her dress was thin and damp, and she was grateful for Posy’s dark blue spencer keeping her arms warm. The glass house was redolent with the perfume of lilies and waxy white jasmine flowers.

“The carriage is waiting,” Tobias said. She hoped she heard a twinge of disappointment in his voice, to match her own. He was impeccably dressed in a morning coat and simple cravat.
When he glanced at her mouth, she felt the heat start in her belly and travel up into her rib cage. She shivered, suddenly flushed within and chilled from the rain without.

“You’re different here,” he added quietly, turning to stare at the row of orange trees and the wet hedges beyond.

She tilted her head. “As are you.” Though he still looked so solemn and serious, at some point it had gone from being irritating to sweet.

“I thought you argued and challenged everything as a matter of course.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Sometimes I do, but it’s only because I’m continually constricted by my birth or my gender or social etiquette. I have always known I am not a pretty dress who happens to speak and move, but here I have finally felt that to be true. You have no idea how liberating it is.”

He finally looked away from the gray rain. “No one would choose this life, Gretchen.”

“You’re wrong. I would.”

“You say that now. But the secrets would eat away at you. You have an open nature. I don’t think it would sit well.”

She shook her head. “Being quiet and proper because you are hiding a beautiful secret is vastly different from being quiet because it is assumed you must have nothing to say.”

He quirked a smile, softening his stern beauty. “It was much easier when I didn’t like you, you know.”

She smiled back. “Why, Tobias, that was positively romantic,” she teased.

The rain continued to beat on the glass roof, like a stampede
of horses in the sky. It swallowed up the words they could not say. Tobias was the first to straighten, as if going to war.

“Are you ready?”

She thought of the rainwater safely hidden in her sleeve.

“I am now.”

Godric was waiting at a discreet distance from the Lawless townhouse, leaning against a lamppost and scowling. Rain dripped from the brim of his hat when he surged forward, spotting her. The Lawless gates were barely open when he was pounding on the carriage door. Gretchen opened it and stepped out, grinning.

“What the hell is going on?” Godric demanded as their wolfhound-familiars chased each other in happy circles around them.

“I thought Emma and Penelope told you,” she replied, dropping her voice so as not to be overheard.

“They did.” He looked at her steadily. “I’m assuming they left out all the important bits.” He turned to glower at the house. “I’ve half a mind to drag Tobias out here for an explanation.”

“Don’t you dare,” she said. She smiled up at the coachman. “Never mind. I’ll walk home.”

“In this weather?” He sounded more resigned than aghast. She had a feeling Tobias was the only one in the family who didn’t run about in all types of weather and at all hours. He nudged the horses into a backward walk, easing the carriage back into the drive.

Gretchen slung her arm through Godric’s, the rain already
soaking through her dress. Mud splashed up under the wheels of the other carriages on the road. The sky was a bland uniform gray, nearly low enough to touch. “I’m perfectly fine,” she assured her brother. “Or will be as long as you tell me Mother doesn’t suspect anything.”

“No,” he grumbled. “She thinks you’re at Aunt Bethany’s house.”

“Good.”

“I was going to come fetch you myself,” he admitted. “Until Penelope tackled me.”

“Also good.”

He slid her a sidelong glance. “She’s stronger than she looks. And she’s vicious. She bit me.” When Gretchen laughed he smiled begrudgingly, but only for a moment. “What happened, Gretchen?”

“I can’t tell you,” she said apologetically.

He stared at her incredulously. “You tell me everything.”

“I know. But this isn’t my story to tell.” She nudged him with her elbow. “They only took me in to keep me safe.”

“From what?”

“I can’t tell you that either.”

He made a sound of frustration. “You can’t be serious.”

“Just trust me, Godric. Everything is fine.”

“You said that the time you convinced me to set that rowboat on fire for your mock Viking funeral. I lost my left eyebrow. It took all summer to grow back.”

• • •

Gretchen dreamed of wolves every night.

Her mother dragged her to the dressmakers to look at bolts of fabric, and even as she was stuck with pins, all she could think about was wolves.

She attended the opera and heard not a word of any song, only howling.

She walked down Bond Street with her cousins, looking at ribbons, oranges, jeweled hair pins, and glove buckles, but all she could see in the windows were wolves.

She stayed up late at night, craning her head out of the window to hear howling. She wasn’t sure if she was hearing dogs, foxes, or wolves, but she listened anyway.

She read everything she could find on wolves and shape-shifters. Wolfwater would allow her to shift into a wolf, but only once. She took to carrying it tucked into her corset, just in case.

She sought glimpses of Tobias at balls and soirees and interminable supper parties, but the Order had taken its Keepers off surveillance. Every available Keeper was needed to fix broken wards and ground wild magic that lashed out like an electric storm. Mostly they were needed to track down Sophie.

News of Sophie’s escape reached all the witching families, right down to the hags scratching a living selling tinctures in Whitehall. There were so many protective spells hanging from every door and garden gate, carriage lantern and horse bridle, that they made the fog sizzle. Gretchen sneezed once and a swarm of gargoyles attacked her bonnet.

Oracles and soothsayers worked day and night to locate
Sophie but couldn’t narrow it down beyond London. The area around Greymalkin House was strictly patrolled and off limits. The Order had even taken to searching homes and interrogating witches at random. When Gretchen noticed a sudden surplus of milky white pendants the size of marbles, Emma told her they were meant to glow when in the presence of a Greymalkin. Emma spent most of her time dodging anyone wearing a necklace, which was proving difficult.

Gretchen watched a herd of sleek black pegasi fly over the street. Or was it a flock? Either way, it didn’t bode well for the success of the Order’s attempt to control the magical backlash. Neither did classes on defending oneself against curses and dark magic, though Gretchen enjoyed the latter a lot more.

Penelope stepped down out of the carriage, a thick linen apron wrapped around her dress.

“We’re not baking cakes,” Gretchen told her, grinning.

She adjusted her gloves. “Daphne is the one throwing the spells today,” she said. “I mean to be prepared this time.” There was a lace fichu tucked into the neckline of her dress, covering every inch of her chest and throat.

The school halls were unusually quiet, the floor creaking as they made their way to the ballroom. The smell of smoke and burned salt prickled in Gretchen’s nostrils. They joined Emma. “What did we miss?” Gretchen whispered.

“Nothing yet.” Emma glanced at Penelope. “Are you planning to gut fish in that outfit?”

“Laugh now, but when you get boiled beets all over you, I’ll
be the one laughing,” Penelope replied primly. “Isn’t that what this class is all about? Being prepared?”

Daphne took her position at the front of the room, next to Miss Hopewell. Her chin was lifted haughtily, but Gretchen was learning to read the uncertainty under the gesture. It wouldn’t help her duck boiled beets though.

“Girls, your attention, please.” Miss Hopewell clapped her hands. “Today we will be casting shield spells, just like the Ironstone students did at the demonstration.” She paused when one of the younger girls raised her hand. “Yes, Agatha, what is it?”

“My pendant is glowing!” She held up the crystal, wide-eyed. The girls around her stepped away, as though she were contagious. Frantic whispering erupted. Emma paled, even as Gretchen and Penelope surreptitiously stepped in front of her.

Miss Hopewell sighed. “Never mind that. Protective spells like that always go off in the ballroom,” she explained. “If you’d been listening in class, you’d know that. There’s too much magic residue and spells actively seeking you out. Look around, most of your pendants are glowing.”

Emma released her breath. Gretchen and Penelope parted, looking innocent. Miss Hopewell had already returned to her lecture.

“You want a shield of light that will envelop you. A bubble works best, but we’ll start small and work our way up to that. Blue light is preferable. Take a moment to picture it in your mind’s eye and then pull magic from yourself. It helps to concentrate on your witch knot. It can act as a conduit.”

“What about daggers?” Gretchen asked. “Throw one of those and you’re right as rain.”

“A lady does not go about stabbing people,” Miss Hopewell said severely.

“But ladies go about being murdered, is that it?”

“You are not going to die, Gretchen,” Miss Hopewell said, exasperated. “I do wish you’d stop being so violent. There is no need for it. We have the Order to keep us safe.”

Gretchen scowled. “But—”

“And should you miss with your beloved dagger,” she continued, “then you’ve just handed your opponent another weapon, haven’t you?”

“I don’t intend to miss.”

“No one ever does,” she said. She nodded to Daphne. “Begin.”

Daphne tossed a handful of red wax wafers into the air, the kind used to seal letters. Each had a word scratched into the surface. They hovered for a moment, before transforming into hornets, magpies, and red sparrows with sharpened beaks.

With a flick of her wrist, Daphne released them all at once. Her magic hurled them with lethal accuracy. The girls fell back a step, throwing up energy shields with varying degrees of success. Blue light flared up and down the ballroom. The smell of burned fennel and apple was thick. Catriona and Clarissa had the best shields, repelling all spells until the wax wafers melted away. Cormac’s sister Olwen flickered in and out of view, though her shield remained, glowing brightly.

“Good,” Miss Hopewell interrupted when everyone was red-faced and panting for breath. “Daphne, you may join the
others now and work on your shield. If you are tired, draw power from the earth, from the trees in the garden, and from the water falling in the fountain. But never, never, from each other.”

“Why not?” one of the girls asked.

“Because it would drain a person of his or her power and energy. Not to mention that it is very rude indeed.”

Miss Hopewell marched up and down the line like a general, flinging elf-bolts. They left welts when they made contact, leaching energy until one felt feverish and ill. One of the girls fainted. Gretchen had to put her own hair out when it accidentally caught fire. Emma’s antlers got tangled in a volley of elf-bolts and bled green sap. Furious, Emma fried the bolts with lightning bolts that shot from the chandelier.

Gretchen’s magic fizzled out before the others. She tried to force her shield to stay active, but it fell apart in a rain of blue sparks. They hit the floor, leaving pockmarks. She wiped sweat off her brow crossly.

“Shields won’t do any good against Sophie,” Daphne said beside her, sounding as frustrated as Gretchen felt. “I told my father as much.”

“And what did he say?”

“That the shields are only meant to protect us long enough for a Keeper to finish the job.”