Wizard of Most Wicked Ways (Whimbrel House #4)

Chapter 22

July 11, 1851, Blaugdone Island, Rhode Island

Friday morning burned hot and bright; the light streaming through the bedroom window cast long rectangles over the cream-colored blanket on Beth and Baptiste’s bed, the shape warped by the presence of the body beneath it. Blightree’s breaths were long and even, albeit raspy. He had not woken—not since he fell in the line of duty, and not since Owein had arrived at dawn. Not that anyone had witnessed, at least.

Owein sat in a chair by the window, occasionally leaning it onto its back legs. He picked at his nails; he’d missed dirt under them from the digging, despite a long, too-hot bath afterward. He couldn’t seem to get all the granules out. The smell of rich loam and decay clung inside his nostrils, the back of his throat. He’d been drinking a lot of strong tea, trying to get it out. His most recent cup, now empty, perched on the windowsill.

Mrs. Mirren stepped in then, opening the door carefully as though worried she’d wake Blightree, though waking would be the best thing for him. But stepping lightly around the sleeping was a habit all self-aware humans seemed to have, and it was a hard one to break. When she took the chair on the other side of the bed, she spoke in hushed tones. “Anything?”

Owein glanced to Blightree. The wrinkles in his face had somehow deepened, despite his relaxed countenance. “No changes.”

She nodded, expecting as much. “Thanks for watching him.”

Setting all four legs of the chair on the floor, Owein asked, “Why is there no change?”

Mirren kneaded her hands. “Mr. Blightree and Silas Hogwood share a very rare combination of spells. Life-force transferring and kinesis. You’re well aware.” She tipped her head toward him.

Owein was. They were the spells that had moved his spirit from house to dog to Merritt to man. Silas had performed the first; Blightree the second and third. “But Blightree is still here.” He gestured weakly to the bed.

“More or less,” the storm conjurer replied. “It all happened so fast, but I got a good look, and, well.” She glanced at the necromancer’s face and sighed. “Mr. Blightree is here, but Silas Hogwood used those spells on him. I think ... I think he didn’t have time to finish it. He was outnumbered. We stopped him, but he still moved the soul. Halfway out, I suspect.”

Owein straightened. “Halfway?”

“That’s my theory,” she specified. “I’m no necromancer, but I’ve worked alongside them for years. Lord Pankhurst and Miss Watson agree with me, but we can’t move it back. Not even Mr. Blightree’s sister could move it back. She doesn’t have the kinesis.”

Owein studied Blightree, looking over him as though for the first time. What must that feel like, to be only half inside your body? He tried to remember the sensation of moving from form to form, and to imagine it stopping midspell. But he couldn’t. He found himself reaching into his trouser pocket—not for the communion stone he still hadn’t returned, but for the grease pencil there. He’d taken it from the kitchen late last night. Just in case.

“Even if Mr. Blightree were alert,” Mrs. Mirren continued, “you can’t move your own soul.”

“Why not?”

Mrs. Mirren rubbed her eyes.

“Sorry,” he offered weakly.

But she shook her head. “I don’t mind at all, Mr. Mansel. The company helps pass the time.” She offered him a grim smile. “I’m not sure. I suppose ... Forgive the grotesque metaphor, but imagine you’re holding a knife, and you have to stab someone else, or stab yourself. Which would be easier?”

Owein grimaced. “It wouldn’t be right to—”

“Ethics aside,” Mrs. Mirren pressed. “I mean the physical act itself. It’s easier to stab the other person. We hesitate when it’s us. We know it’ll hurt. We know we control the knife. We have to overcome a different kind of mental wall to perform the act that doesn’t exist when we perform it on someone else.” She considered her own words a moment. “I think it’s like that, anyway.”

“So,” Owein proceeded carefully, “it’s like being in a ditch. I can lower the rope to get you out, but I can’t lower the rope to myself.”

Mrs. Mirren snorted. “That is a much more suitable metaphor. Yes, I think it’s like that. If it weren’t”—her gaze shifted to the window—“I don’t think Silas Hogwood would have stayed where he was.” She inhaled deeply and let it all out at once. “And now that it’s only him in poor Charlie’s body, I ... I don’t know. None of us do.”

Owein chewed on the inside of his cheek, mulling that over. Noticed, again, the dirt under his fingernails. “Mr. Blightree’s sister ... That’s Oliver’s mother?”

Confusion weighed down Mrs. Mirren’s forehead a moment before understanding lifted it. “Oliver Whittock, yes. Abitha Whittock. She can’t fix this”—she gestured to Blightree—“but we’ve reached out to her regardless. Though I doubt the queen will send her. Too risky, to lose both of her necromancers.”

It took a beat for Owein to recall that he was now a necromancer, too. How strange. “Are there not others?”

“There are always others.” Her voice hardened slightly. “But not like Mr. Blightree. Not like Silas Hogwood. They have a rare combination of necromancy and kinesis that not even Mrs. Whittock possesses. Despite the royal family’s best efforts over the years, the magic is dwindling. My parents’ marriage was arranged based on spells alone, and yet I am still nothing compared to my grandmother.” She allowed herself to slouch. “The necromancers you’ve encountered, Mr. Mansel, are some of the strongest in the world. A few more generations, and they will cease to exist. At least in the way we know them today, and no amount of breeding can stop that.”

Unless BIKER’s technology proves successful, repeatable. He picked at the dirt wedged beneath his thumbnail. She was right, though. By the time BIKER’s experiments solidified enough to make a difference, magic would have faded even more. But Owein didn’t need to worry about magic later, only magic now . He’d give it all up to stop this madman from hurting his family. But that wasn’t a deal he could make. So instead, he would take more. As much as this secretive BIKER chemist could give him.

He shuddered, remembering the agony of the vial he’d taken in Providence, the serum derived from Silas Hogwood’s corpse. He’d have to be careful with the next one. He had to plan for anything.

He had to save them all.

“Mirren,” a muffled voice sounded in her pocket, and she reached inside to retrieve a column of selenite. “There’s a company from Connecticut asking for instructions.”

It took Owein a moment to place the voice as Lion’s. It was the most he’d ever heard the man talk.

Mirren pressed her thumb into the communion rune on the stone. “A whole company? Here?”

“Just a commander. Relegated here by the federal government. East side of the island.”

“I’m coming.” Mirren slipped the communion stone into her pocket and gave Owein a tight smile. “I’ll be back.”

Owein nodded, and Mirren left the room, leaving him, once again, alone with Blightree.

Letting out a long sigh, Owein picked up his teacup, swallowed a few dregs, and set it down again. Maybe he should bring it to Hulda and see if she foresaw anything in the leaves. He glanced out the window, spotting Pankhurst down below, leaning against a post of the porch railing, lighting a cigarette. A hawk swept by, but it wasn’t Fallon. Red hawk, perhaps? Owein didn’t know his birds of prey particularly well.

Turning away, he leaned his elbows on his knees and rubbed his face. He should probably try to get some sleep. His bones ached with weariness, but his mind ran circles like a fox-chased hare, over and over in the same tracks until the pattern threatened to drive him to insanity. Maybe he’d dig out Hulda’s recent notes on etiquette and study them, just to focus on something else. Maybe he’d reread Cora’s letters, again.

“Wish I had your thoughts,” he mumbled, glancing at the sleeping Blightree. “After me, you’ve lived the longest of all of us. There’s wisdom in your kind of age.”

Not so much in Owein’s. He’d spent so much of it tethered to one place.

He sat for a little while longer, until his back started to ache. Then he stood, stretched, and looked out the window again, scanning the island and the sea beyond as had become habit, seeing nothing untoward. He stepped closer to Blightree, listening to the clawing of his breaths, and sighed. “If Oliver had healing powers, the serum didn’t jump-start them,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”

Reaching down, he gripped Blightree’s exposed hand. “I’m sorry,” he repeated.

Then startled when Blightree gripped him back.

His pulse sped when he felt magic, hot and quick, shoot up his arm and into his chest. The room shifted out of alignment, its colors muting into shades of gray. Owein felt himself falling, yet at the same time surging upward—

It stopped, all at once. The grays froze, the movements ceased.

And Owein saw Blightree lying in his bed, yet sitting up at the same time.

Owein blinked, or tried to—his body wouldn’t move. It felt ... heavy, like the needling sensation he got when he fell asleep on his arm. Heavy and distant.

“You’ve nothing to be sorry for,” Blightree responded. The version of him that was sitting up. The one lying down—the more opaque, solid one—didn’t move at all.

Owein gaped. “What ... How are you doing this?” He tried to swallow, but that, too, felt distant. Looking down, Owein saw himself just below him. Saw himself, slumped over the side of the bed, his hand still clasped in Blightree’s. But then he spied another him, a translucent head and shoulders, jutting out of his slumped crown.

“Don’t panic,” Blightree murmured. “I’ve merely shifted you over a bit, so I can talk to you.”

“ Shifted? ” Owein glanced between them. Remembered what Mirren had said, about Blightree being half out of his body, half in. “You’ve pulled me out of my body?”

The spirit version jutting out of the necromancer’s body offered a small smile. “It’s much easier with a soul I’ve moved before. My magic is familiar with you. I couldn’t have done it with the others.”

Owein nodded, forcing himself to embrace the strangeness of the situation. Blightree wouldn’t hurt him. One by one, his nerves settled.

“Are you ...,” he began, then reconsidered. “I suppose it’s nonsensical to ask if you’re all right.”

Blightree frowned. “I’m not in pain. Not pain as we know it. But there’s a dead, deep ache I cannot describe.”

Owein’s spirit shifted closer, though, tethered to his body as it was, the movement strained. Looking down at himself, he flexed the hand not entwined with Blightree’s. Found he could do it, but with a delay. The hand felt thick, again, like he’d fallen asleep on it, and the skin had passed the needling sensation and gone straight to sleep.

Was that how it felt for Blightree, too?

“I can relay any messages you have,” Owein offered.

Blightree chuckled without humor. “What will I tell them? Silas is a maniac with too much power. I’ve never dealt with someone quite like him. I should have been more careful.” He sighed without any passage of air. “You think I am wise, Owein, but even an old man can be a fool.”

That meant Blightree had heard him, even asleep. “I’m sorry.”

Spirit Blightree shook his head. “Don’t be. And I’m not surprised Oliver didn’t manifest any magic; I’ve a brother who didn’t, either, despite my parents’, and their parents’, and their parents’ best efforts. Though I’m not sure what ‘serum’ you’re referring to.”

Owein didn’t explain; the serum and its science belonged to Hulda and the United States government, not to him. “I’m sure he had other good qualities,” Owein offered. “Magic isn’t everything.”

Blightree looked him up and down. “An interesting statement, from a young man riddled with it. What would you have done all these years without it?”

“Moved on,” he answered.

Blightree needed no explanation; he merely nodded.

Owein glanced down at himself once more. “What was he like? Oliver?”

Blightree considered for a moment. “He was a quiet boy. Very shy and withdrawn. Nervous. That is not to say he was a recluse. He was very bright. Musically talented.”

“That explains the weird calluses when I first came over.”

Blightree smiled, and a hint of the gesture flickered on his physical mouth as well. “Piano and violin. He had a great interest in mathematics. Music and math, they have similar qualities.”

Owein nodded. “What do you think he would have done, had he lived—”

“Owein.” Blightree leaned his spirit self forward. “Oliver Whittock is dead.”

Owein wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

“Oliver is dead,” Blightree repeated, softer. “It is only Owein now. I will not discredit your curiosity—it’s only natural to want to know. But I want you to live your life, not Oliver’s. Do not let his passing inhibit you.”

Owein stared a moment, feeling his physical heart beat a little harder.

He hadn’t known how much he needed to hear that.

Distantly, he felt Blightree’s hand squeeze his own. “However,” the old man continued, “I am still happy to consider you my nephew, if you’ll allow it.”

Owein’s lip twisted upward. “I’d be happy to.”

Blightree smiled, but it faded. “I’m losing my hold,” he confessed, and through distant ears, Owein heard the man’s stomach gurgle. “It’s very tiring, my dear boy.”

“I understand. I’ll come back, after you’ve rested.”

He nodded. “I would like that.”

Another, swifter falling sensation engulfed him, spinning the grays of the room into black.

Owein opened his eyes to the white bedspread pressed against his face. His knees ached where they pressed into the hard floor, and his right shoulder blade zinged as he lifted his head. His hand still clasped Blightree’s, but the necromancer’s grip had gone lax.

“Thank you, Uncle Will.” Owein carefully pulled his fingers free. “Somehow, I’ll save you, too.”