The Raven Spell (Conspiracy of Magic #1)(28)

“Aye, and whatever I learned was apparently enough to get me killed.”

Edwina thought back to that morning. There had been others on the street. There always were, day or night. The number of rough sleepers in the city could fill the ranks of an army. Any one of them could have been on the foreshore before she and Mary climbed the stairs down from the embankment. She hadn’t been looking for anyone else on the shore, but it didn’t mean they hadn’t already come and gone. It was mere chance they’d found Ian in time to accidentally save his life.

“What now?” she asked.

He finally took his eye off the shore and turned his attention fully on her. “Thank you again, Miss Blackwood. For sending the constable to find me. I might have died otherwise, left unconscious with the tide rising. And I intend to find out why.”

“You mean for the second time,” she said, flushing after staring so deeply at him she’d noticed the flecks of gold in his green eyes.

“Undoubtedly. I was sent to the city to find Sir Elvanfoot’s son. That was my only mission. Whatever I discovered led me to the river’s edge, and I will find it again. I just have to start at the beginning. Retrace my steps.” He was taking a last, lingering look at the scene when his gaze snagged on a young face at the top of the embankment staring down at them. Not the boy from the lane but a lad of seventeen or eighteen perhaps. The young man grinned beneath a mop of unruly blond hair. Even from twelve feet away, Edwina could see the discoloration of his teeth, the pockmarks on his face, and the greasy ring around the collar of his jacket. An uneasy feeling rose up in her humors.

“Tide turn up any keepers?” the lad called down when he’d been spotted. His smile faded and he gazed out at the river, ignoring the pair of them below as he sucked on the stem of a thin black pipe.

“We should probably get off the shore,” Edwina said.

Ian followed her lead until they stood at the foot of the narrow stone stairs leading up to the embankment. From the ground looking up, the steps were steep and narrow, slick from slime and mud, and without any benefit of a guardrail. And now they were blocked by the boy smoking his pipe. Two other ragtag youths joined him at the top of the steps. Then two more until there were five of them crouching above, watching like birds of prey.

“Let us pass, please,” Edwina said.

“Might be we should shake out your pockets first and see what the river’s brought us,” the lad answered, his eyes glinting hard at Ian, knowing he was in full control of the moment. “Anyways, might be one of you’ve got something on you that would be happier with me.”

He seemed to think himself a dandy by the way he stood, confidently tucking his thumbs in the pockets of his brown-and-yellow plaid coat while he held the pipe tight in his rotten teeth, yet unaware he was still just a young street tough in hand-me-down clothes for all the world to see. The rest of the boys, one in a crushed top hat that sat lopsided on his head and the others dressed in mismatched plaids and paisleys too threadbare to hand down to even an unloved sibling, bore the scruff of first whiskers. They were a wiry and ravenous-looking lot, and hungry not only for a meal but for something more. The eagerness in their eyes as they tracked their prey from above sent a foreboding shiver through Edwina as she wondered why she hadn’t thought to arm herself with a ten-inch hatpin too.

“Does he mean to rob us?” Edwina asked Ian and clutched her shawl a little tighter.

“He’s a canny one, if he does,” he replied. “The tide is rising and we have nae choice but to climb the stairs straight into his hands.”

Edwina cast an eye up and down the shore. The strip of rocky land was abandoned. The smart ones had already climbed to high ground. It was just them and the gang of boys left to negotiate the distance between the shore and the embankment.

“Best come up now before the river swallows you for supper,” the dandy said, then spit on the street as a black cab rolled past behind him.

“What do we do?” she asked. “Climb or swim?”

“Come now, surely those aren’t our only options,” Ian said.

Ian squinted and smiled up at the lads. He couldn’t mean to reason with them, Edwina thought. Or charm them. This wasn’t some quiet countryside village in the north. These were street thieves with hunters’ hearts. Now that they were on the chase, they wouldn’t stop until they got what they were after. But other than a few pence and the trinkets she’d found on the shore, Edwina had nothing of value they’d be satisfied with. Nothing material, anyway. Ian was fit enough, she knew, after embracing his solid body while they’d carried him up the stairs and laid him in their father’s bed, but even he couldn’t take on five desperate youths alone. And using magic against mortals was strictly forbidden in public. He’d be arrested.

To her surprise, Ian neither cajoled for their release nor championed for a fight. Instead he smiled and began reciting a line of poetry as he moved to stand in front of her in what she interpreted as a gallant gesture of protection. “If good, go forth and hallow thee,” he called up. “If of ill, let the earth swallow thee. If thou’rt of air, let gray mist fold thee. If of earth, let the swart mine hold thee.” He continued quoting his poem while the boys gawked openmouthed. “If a pixie, seek thy ring. If a nixie, seek thy spring.”

When he finished, the boys’ stern, unholy faces broke into laughter. One slapped his knee and pointed. “He’s raving mad, this one.”