Chapter 11
MARIETTA
I reread the note Gabriel had handed me as I paced the kitchen.
Ferris was secure in a house hidden in Lower East Gildon.
Safe. At least for the moment. He was liable to do any number of stupid things—like walking out because he became bored, or because he didn’t grasp the seriousness of the matter.
Though perhaps he did. He had looked shaken when we’d met at a hidden spot in Westerly Park, before disappearing with Gabriel’s men.
Gabriel had been strangely silent since Coroner’s Court.
No quips, no barbs. He had held and comforted me, but his gaze had been strange and unfocused.
It still was. And if I had thought him diligent and hardworking before, a new intensity underlined every motion.
He was buried in tomes and treatises, laws and pamphlets.
Notes fluttered everywhere. Timelines and dates, initials and locations.
I’d tried to read a few, but if they’d been incomprehensible before, his shorthand had become a language unto itself.
We hadn’t discussed last night, though with the events of the morning, there hadn’t been time for tiptoeing, discomfort, or passionate declarations.
“Marietta?”
I turned to him. Another strange thing. Gabriel never hunched. He held himself as if he were two steps away from seduction—as if at any time he could rise and have me begging for a kiss.
He still looked kissworthy, with his hair falling over his forehead, his green eyes intent on mine, his lips parted on the question of my name—but his body curled over his cryptic notes.
“Yes?”
“Stop pacing.”
It was a relief to hear him say something normal. I dropped into the seat across from him. “I need something to do. If you tell me what you are researching, I can help.”
I fingered the wooden token he had given me on our first outing.
I hadn’t taken it off since. The comforting buzz of protection was addictive.
Less restrictive than gloves, and less powerful, but better.
More focused, personal. I had increasingly noticed similar plain charms in taverns and on the street worn by working-class men and women both.
Not always on wrists. Sometimes attached to cords around the neck, or pinned at the breast or waist. But brushing by a person wearing one gave the same buzz of magic. Comforting. Familiar.
And far stronger now. Both in how I felt it and in the way it resonated. A night spent shifting my understanding of magic, a night spent in his arms... The world vibrated around me.
He looked at the spread of books and papers.
“Why don’t you visit Ferris? Make sure he is settled, remind him not to leave.
” His voice was casual. The hair on the back of my neck rose.
“I’ll have the carriage take you in a very roundabout way, just in case.
You may want to tear your way out of the vehicle by the time you arrive, but I’ll pack a lunch. ”
It all sounded reasonable. But how often had reason been my companion? “And you?”
His lower lip slid between his teeth. “I’m going to sit here and pore over legal documents. Nothing exciting,” he said, voice bland.
“Oh?” The air around me vibrated strangely, as if in disagreement. But he was looking through documents again, and I did want to speak with Ferris. To make sure he stayed safe.
Besides, I trusted Gabriel, didn’t I?
“Find out where he was last night. If anyone can vouch for him, we’ll submit their testimony to Dresden or just publish it in the papers directly.
Also, here are the dates of the other murders.
” He handed me a slip of paper. “See if he can remember where he was on those days. I can send someone to your house to gather the correspondence records if he needs help with his memory.”
He tapped a forefinger against the scarred table. “I had Billy pay your servants and turn them out with the proper papers.”
I supposed I ought to be displeased that he had acted without asking, but it was what needed to be done. “I will pay you back. Thank you.”
His shoulders relaxed slightly, but tension remained. He looked at me through his hanging locks. “I thought you might be angry.”
The arrogant, supremely confident man I’d first met was still there, underneath, waiting to be unleashed, but something had muted him momentarily.
“I might. But there is little doubt nothing in the house would remain intact otherwise.” Which could still hold true.
I was once again glad I’d already moved my important items, and Kennen’s as well.
“The lock spells will be changed as soon as the spellsmith arrives.”
“Thank you.”
His eyes followed my mouth as I formed the words. I ran my fingers over my lips. To want his lips on mine while everything in my life fell apart. Comfort, desire, unease.
“The carriage driver is resting in the next house to the south. He knows where to go. For your safety, you will not. Tell him to come talk to me and I will send you on your way.”
~*~
GAbrIEL
I waited no more than a few minutes after the carriage wheels clicked down the street to grab my spellstaff and set off. I arrived at John’s half an hour later.
“Gabriel.” His face lit with surprise as he greeted me in the drawing room. He looked me over. “You look terrible.”
“Why, thank you, John. I appreciate that.”
He motioned toward his study and closed the door behind us, sealing it with an interference charm. “I take it this conversation shouldn’t include listeners.”
“Even servants as well behaved as yours have ears and mouths.”
John leaned forward. “I heard there was another murder.”
“The first victim of the Vein Ripper was Iris Forester.”
He blinked. “Steelcrest’s old crony?”
“And the second victim was Celeste Fomme.”
He stared at me, then pushed back in his chair. “Truly?”
“Yes.”
“She was a tyrant, but dead? And in that…way?”
“Yes.”
He moved a piece of paper across his desk and then another, as if trying to find the answers in parchment. “Why haven’t they released their names until now?”
“As far as I know, they still haven’t been identified.”
His head shot up, his eyes narrowing. “How do you know then?”
“I saw the sketches of the victims. The third was Estelle Moreton. Octavia Winstead was murdered last night.”
John shook his head. “No.” He looked at a portrait on the wall. “I spoke to her recently, you know. Octavia told me she was being stalked. I didn’t believe her.”
This was news to me. “You spoke with her? When? Has she been reported missing?”
“Doubtful. She said she was leaving for the country. That the city wasn’t safe. I thought she had already left. We are hardly friends. But she came to me weeks ago for help.” He crushed a paper in his fist. “I hired an investigator for her, but I didn’t believe her. I should have done something.”
I held my tongue. Octavia had been overly dramatic and given to fits. It was hardly surprising that John hadn’t taken her seriously. That wouldn’t make him feel much better, though. I knew that firsthand. “Did she say anything? Have any idea who was stalking her?”
“Some Steelcrest servant.” He shoved his fingers through his hair, and I was glad the action took his eyes away from me, or else John would have seen my stiffening, the fear I couldn’t mask in time.
“Did she say which one?”
“Thom, Thaddeus, Thorne—Thorne! With the surname...” His lips pursed. “I have the report synopsis somewhere. Warton, Worster, Worley? Worley, I think that was it. A footman.”
Relief so enormous that it was painful crashed through me.
“Gabriel?”
I feigned a cough. “Forgive me, go on.”
“Said he had shown up outside her rental more than once. He’d just stare at her from across the street. She found it creepy.” John absently pushed his pen. “Dead? All of them?”
“Four of them,” I replied tightly, their goading faces surfacing in memory.
A look of sympathy settled over his face. Ice dripped down my spine.
“What do you know, John?” Why look at me that way?
“Only that they had their ladies’ club and they would torture some of the servant boys in the household by making promises and pretending interest. I assume you ran afoul of that at some point.”
If only. If only that had been the extent of it.
“The footman probably caught a lure and became obsessed.” He shuddered, then tilted his head. “Can you imagine what would lead someone to do something like that?”
Being obsessed with something? Yes. Killing people? No.
“But this is good news too, is it not?” He tapped his desk. “Not the murder part, but the timing. Lady Winters’s brother will have to be released.”
“Unfortunately, the inquisitor on the case is proving difficult. Law enforcement is now after her older brother as accomplice and co-murderer.”
His jaw dropped in shock. “What? How the devil did they determine that?”
“Stubbornness, vengeance, wanting to keep the public from panicking? A bad mix. Unfortunately for the panic, Ferris Winters has gone missing.”
John smiled. “How unfortunate indeed. I commend you.”
“Do you have the report from the investigator?”
“No, I told him to report to Octavia directly. I paid him to follow the creep. You were working on other cases, and I figured you wouldn’t want to revisit anything to do with the old grounds.” He rubbed the side of his neck. “You ran and never returned.”
I said nothing.
“When the investigator finished a few weeks ago, he told me he didn’t find much.
But maybe he saw something that would help?
I know he was following the footman during the time of the first murder—I was at the Plakens’ rout when the news came that a ripping had just occurred in Carowell, and I paid the investigator before the rout for another week. ”