Thieves' Quarry (The Thieftaker Chronicles) (36 page)

“Now!” their father said, sounding like he was speaking to ten-year-olds.

“He warded himself,” Hester said, her voice shaking. “I tried a spell against him before. It didn’t work.”

Osborne grinned. “Do it the way I taught you. Together.”

Molly made a small sound in her throat, like a trapped animal. Hester laid a hand on her sister’s arm and looked to her father once more.

“Do it!” Osborne’s words seemed to lash at the women.

Hester continued to glare at him. He stared back at her, daring her to defy him. And in the end, she looked away.

“It’s all right, Molly,” she said, her tone gentle. “It’s just a binding.”

Ethan watched them all, looking back and forth between the young women and their father. He knew better than to reach for his knife, but he remembered the two mullein leaves he still carried with him. They weren’t enough for a powerful casting, but perhaps a simpler spell would be enough. He had a feeling that if he could overpower Caleb, the women would let him take Diver and go.

He began to speak a spell to himself. “
Conflare ex verbasco
—” It would have been a heat spell, one that would force the man to drop his pistol. But as soon as Ethan began to recite the Latin, Uncle Reg’s bright eyes snapped to his face.

Osborne saw this. “Stop it!” he shouted, turning the pistol on Ethan.

Ethan faltered—only for an instant, but that was enough. With one quick stride, Osborne covered the distance between them. He slammed the butt of his weapon into the side of Ethan’s head.

Pain exploded in Ethan’s temple and white light flared behind his eyes. He staggered, fell to the floor.

“Now!” Osborne said, his voice like a hammer. “The spell! Cast it!”

A heavy silence fell over the room and Ethan tried to rouse himself. Before he could, he heard the women say in unison, “
Corpus alligare ex cruore evocatum.
” Bind body, conjured from blood.

The spell that rumbled like thunder in the floor beneath him, that pulsed through his body with such force it seemed to make his teeth clatter, dwarfed any spell Ethan himself had ever cast, save the one that he had sourced in the life of Shelly’s mate, Pitch. Whatever Hester and her sister had done rivaled a killing spell, something Ethan had never thought possible.

That the spell worked just as the women had intended, carving through his warding as if it were paper, came as no surprise. He couldn’t move. He had lost all control over his limbs, his neck, his mouth. His gaze could roam, but beyond that, he was helpless. On the other hand, he still felt everything. His head ached where Osborne had hit him; the rough floor pressed against his cheek, his arm, his side. He was growing more uncomfortable with every breath. But he couldn’t do anything about it.

He heard footfalls by his head and back and felt himself hoisted up into a chair. He started to tip over to one side, but Osborne braced him before he fell back to the floor.

“Rope,” the man said.

Hester nodded to Molly, who hastened to the back room and returned with a long piece of ship’s rope.

“Tie him up,” Osborne told her. “Just enough that he won’t fall over.” He smiled. “Spell’ll take care of the rest. But just in case, take his blade.”

Ethan hardly heard him. His mind was reeling from what he saw, and with the implications for all that had happened over the past several days. Hester’s red ghost had appeared again with the binding spell. It stood beside her. And a second ghost followed Molly everywhere she went. This one was a young woman who looked very much like the young man glowing at Hester’s shoulder. Both of the ghosts had large dark eyes, aquiline noses, and full, sensuous mouths. These features seemed odd, almost womanly, on the red figure of the young man; they were far more attractive on the glowing girl. Still the ghosts resembled each other; they were related, perhaps even brother and sister. This was not surprising, since Hester and Molly were sisters.

What had sent Ethan’s mind careening down a dark and troubling path was the color of Molly’s ghost. She was yellow. Bright golden yellow.

He stared at the shade for several moments, then shifted his stare back to Hester’s bloodred ghost. Yellow and red. He hadn’t seen either color before this day. But he would have wagered all he owned that when blended together, the yellow and red of their spells would leave a residue of brilliant orange. The same orange he had seen aboard the
Graystone
, on Mariz, and on Gant.

Osborne hadn’t killed anyone. His daughters had done it all. Together, their separate conjurings working as one.

He felt light-headed, sick to his stomach. The truth had been right there in front of him for so long, since that first day when he went to speak with them. Still, even knowing this, he couldn’t reconcile those yellow and red ghosts with what he had observed of the two women. They weren’t killers. They couldn’t be. And yet, ninety-seven men were dead; ninety-eight if he counted Gant. Killed by power that glowed orange.

He stared at them, at their ghosts, yellow and red. He wanted to ask them why, whether their father had forced them. But he could no more speak than he could stand up and walk out of the shack.

“What now?” Hester asked, looking to her father.

Osborne put on an old begrimed coat. “Now, I go out and look for some pearls. I might even be able to sell them.”

“But you don’t know where they are,” Hester said. “You told us that before.”

“Well, I’ve more of an idea than I let on. Gant told me some before he died. And Sephira don’t need to know I ain’t got them yet. Just as long as we agree on a price. The rest’ll take care of itself.”

Hester didn’t appear convinced, but she also didn’t seem concerned. She eyed her father a moment longer and turned her attention back to Molly, who was staring at Ethan, looking both frightened and contrite. Osborne retreated to the back room and soon returned with a second pistol. One he placed in his coat pocket. The other he handed to Hester.

“You girls watch him,” Osborne said. “And keep a good eye on his friend, too. If he wakes, bind him up like Kaille. You can shoot them if you have to. One or both.”

“We can’t keep them like this forever,” Hester said.

“Don’t need to. I’ll talk to Sephira, come back here and learn what I can from these two. And then we’ll … well, we’ll deal with them.” He looked at Diver once more and pursed his lips. “One of you girls ought to clean that blood … Or better yet.” He swung his gaze Ethan’s way, the cruel smile on his lips Ethan’s only warning of what was coming.

He heard the man whisper his spell, felt the pulse of power, and saw the glowing blue ghost of an ancient soldier, much like Reg, appear beside Osborne. Flames erupted from Ethan’s sleeve. They licked at his neck and face, the heat sudden and intense. Terror stole his breath. He couldn’t bat at the flames or rip off his shirt or drop to the floor and roll over the burning clothes to smother the blaze. He felt his skin blistering and he couldn’t even scream.

It took the two women several seconds—which might as well have been hours—to understand what was happening. Ethan could smell burning cloth, hair, flesh, and perhaps they finally did, too. Molly gave a small yelp and both women rushed forward to put out the fire.

They managed to extinguish the flames in mere moments, though it seemed to Ethan that they took far longer. His arm throbbed, and he could feel burns on his neck, as well.

No one in the room spoke. Osborne’s smile had vanished, and he was staring hard at his daughters.

“You were awfully quick to save him,” the man said. “Like you was worried ’bout him.”

Neither woman spoke at first.

“Well?” Osborne said.

“You would have preferred we let the house burn down?” Hester said at last. “It wasn’t him we were saving; it was us.”

“Well, that’s good. ’Cause when I come back, he’s a dead man. You understand that, don’t you?”

Molly blanched. Hester nodded.

“Why did you do it?” Molly asked, her eyes brimming with tears. She wiped at them, leaving a dark, sooty smear on her cheek. “You didn’t have to burn him.”

Osborne pointed back to Diver. “There was blood on his face. Kaille coulda used it to conjure. So, I did instead.”

The women looked down at Diver, as did Ethan. The blood on his friend’s face and hair was gone, washed away by Osborne’s conjuring.

“All right, I’m goin’. Watch him. Even without that blood, he’s dangerous.” Osborne turned to Ethan once more. “I shoulda asked you ’bout them pearls before Hes’s spell shut your mouth. But we can deal with that later.”

He left the shack, his boots scraping first on the porch and then the stairs. Still the women said nothing. They seemed to be listening, and Ethan did the same, until he could no longer hear the man tromping through the tall grass.

Ethan’s one hope was that Hester and Molly might help him once their father was gone. That hope evaporated as soon as Osborne was out of earshot.

“You’re a fool!” Hester said, rounding on him, her hands on her hips. “You wouldn’t listen to me. You couldn’t just leave when I told you to.”

Ethan flicked his gaze to Diver and back to her.

“Yes, I know. Your friend. He’s as stupid as you are. You can’t save him. So you’re both dead, and Molly and I will have two more souls to worry about.”

“I don’t want to do any more conjuring, Hes,” Molly said.

Hester took her hand. “I know, love. Neither do I. Why don’t you sew some more? That always helps.”

Molly cast a furtive glance Ethan’s way one last time and crossed to a chair at the far end of the room. One of her bright, patterned cushions lay on the floor, and several more scraps of matching material rested on the arm of the chair. Molly sat, took up the material, and soon was absorbed in her craft. She didn’t look happy, but the sewing did seem to calm her.

Hester, on the other hand, remained where she was, watching Ethan, the pistol still in her hand.

Ethan thought once more of the mullein in his pocket. He thought he could make a spell work without speaking it aloud. The problem was, two leaves weren’t enough for any casting that could overcome the combined might of the sisters Osborne. He couldn’t defeat their binding spell. He might be able to heal the worst of Diver’s injuries, but the women would use a conjuring to bind his friend, or worse. He could light a fire, or bring the roof of the shack down on them all, but he and Diver were both helpless to escape. He was more comfortable than he had been in the gaol, but the invisible shackles conjured by Hester and Molly were no less effective than Greenleaf’s chains.

The wood of the shack was too old and lifeless to provide much power for a spell. On the other hand, there was more than enough grass outside for several castings. But bound as he was, by both conjuring and rope, he would have to give much thought to which spell he chose to cast. Hester had the pistol, both women could conjure, and Ethan had Diver to worry about as well as himself.

He considered an illusion spell. Though the rain had stopped, leaving him with little water for an elemental spell, there was no reason he couldn’t use grass to send for help using an image of himself as he had at the prison. But as soon as he cast the spell, and sent such an image to Kannice or Pell or anyone else who might have been able to come to his aid, Hester would feel the spell and know that Ethan was conjuring.

Which left him back where he had been before he started thinking in circles: helpless, a captive.

He again glanced at Hester, but then looked away, and let his gaze settle on Molly instead. At first she took no notice of him, so intent was she on her sewing. After some time, though, she happened to look up and catch sight of him watching her. She dropped her gaze, but a few seconds later her eyes flicked his way a second time.

Looking down once more, she shifted in her seat, bent lower over her work, and stared hard at the thread and cloth, seeming to will herself not to glance his way anymore. And yet, seconds later she did.

A small whine escaped her and she looked over at her sister.

“Hester?” she said.

“Stop it, Kaille.”

Ethan didn’t look away.

Hester stepped forward, planting herself directly in front of him so that he could no longer see Molly. He raised his eyes and she slapped him hard on the cheek. Not only did it sting, but it also turned his head enough that he could no longer see Molly. Hester smiled with grim satisfaction and took a seat near her sister, in a chair that was also outside of Ethan’s line of sight.

After that, time slowed to a crawl. Hester remained where she was, Molly sewed, and Ethan sat doing nothing, waiting to be killed.

He must have dozed off, because the next sound that reached him was a low groan that cut through his slumber. He woke with a start, his neck and arms and legs feeling stiff. Someone—Hester—walked to his chair and roughly turned his head so that he could see Molly again, and, more important, so that he could see Diver.

His friend groaned a second time, and his eyes fluttered open. He started to sit up, but stopped when he saw Hester standing over him, the pistol trained on his heart.

“Stay right where you are,” she said.

Diver nodded, groaned again, and raised a hand to the gash on the side of his head. “Where are—?” he started to ask, looking around the shack. But when he spotted Ethan, he stopped, his mouth falling open, astonishment and despair in his gray eyes.

“Ethan! What are you doing here?”

“He can’t answer you,” Hester said.

“Why not? What have you done to him?”

“It’s called a binding spell. He can’t move at all, not to speak, not to conjure, not to help you in any way. It’s just you against the two of us, and we’re both capable of doing to you what we’ve done to him. So sit still, and keep quiet.”

Diver faced Ethan again, a question on his youthful face. All Ethan could do was stare back at him. After a moment or two of this, Diver seemed to realize that the woman had spoken the truth.

“What happened to his arm?” Diver asked. “And that bruise on his face—where did that come from?”

“My father,” Hester said, as if the words tasted bitter in her mouth.