The Raven Spell (Conspiracy of Magic #1)(30)

The sound of horse hooves tramped by beside the pavement as the shape of a wagon sailed past as though floating above the road surface. A whistle blared in the distance, and Ian saw the train’s headlamp shine just bright enough to form a halo. Men walked by him in black frock coats, but they were as good as ghosts in the fog. He waited, scanning the promenade while hoping to spot Edwina’s shawled shadow emerge from the mist. “Aye, I may have overdone it,” he admitted aloud when he couldn’t see ten feet in front of him, but he didn’t dare clear the air. Not yet. Not while her spell was still in flux. But where had she gone? “Miss Blackwood, are you there?” he called out.

As soon as he spoke her name, Edwina climbed up the embankment stairwell. Her skirt was soaked to her knees, and she shivered beneath her black shawl. She nodded she was fine, though she looked anything but.

“What about you?” she asked. “Are you all right?”

“Fair enough.” Ian wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “What were you thinking? I had them distracted. There was no need for theatrics.”

“Theatrics? There were five of them,” she balked. “The one with the”—she vaguely pointed to her eyes—“the ghost stare had a knife. Pardon me for panicking. I thought they meant to spill our blood.”

“Of course they did. But the day I canna handle five mortal lads is the day I should retire and take up sheep farming for a living.”

She blinked back at him, half-disgusted, before marching up the promenade, barely dodging out of the way of a man hauling a handcart full of turnips. Ian caught up to her in front of a wrought-iron park bench beneath a line of plane trees and begged her to sit so they could take a breath.

“Your skirt’s soaking wet.” Ian cast his eye about the hazy street until he found what he was looking for. “Stay put,” he said, “while I fetch something to warm you.” Across the carriageway a woman tended a coffee stall with two big copper urns mounted atop a wagon. He dashed over the road while fishing a penny from his pocket.

As he waited for the coffee, his spell faded, and the fog thinned. People’s faces came into view at a reasonable distance again, yet the buildings remained partially obscured except for the odd spire or clock tower rising above the normal city miasma. Edwina waited on the bench with her shawl wrapped over her head. Ian returned and sat beside her, mindful to keep a respectable distance between them.

“I’m told one can get away with almost anything in the city and people won’t bat an eye,” he said, handing her the coffee in a chipped white mug. He waited to see if she’d calmed down or was the type to hold a grudge over a few scrappy words.

She let the shawl fall from her face as she accepted the cup. “That’s what my father believed too. It’s why he brought us to the city.”

“Dinna fash yourself,” he said, leaning back. “The lads won’t put two and two together. They couldn’t have seen anything. Besides, they’re halfway back to their mothers’ laps by now.”

“This is your doing,” she said and stretched a hand out as if she could hold the last of the mist in her palm. “That poem you recited. You called up a fog with those words.”

“The boy in front of the shop isn’t the only one who knows a rhyme or two.” He leaned in a few inches closer and thought he felt the afterglow of magic still rising off her. “I’d thought you’d use that hypnotizing voice of yours on the lads. But then you surprised me altogether. I’ve never seen anyone call birds like that before.”

She dipped her head to sip her coffee, as if to hide behind the edge of her shawl. He’d made her feel self-conscious, talking about the conjuring in public. He couldn’t deny the spell had inflamed his curiosity about her, about her magic. In fact, he had a million questions for her. But first she asked one of him.

“How were you able to use a mortal’s poem instead of an incantation?”

“Ah, that. A trick my father taught me,” Ian said and brushed a speck of river mud from his trousers. “He calls it an incantation incognito. Poets’ words work best. Even though the couplets are written by mortals, their words still have power. You see it in the way they’re able to move hearts and minds by putting words together in the right order. If a mortal has the power to move a human’s emotions with mere words, that’s an alchemy all its own. And something we can use to our advantage.”

“But why would you?”

He cleared his throat and, as nonchalantly as he could, checked the promenade in each direction to see if anyone was paying more attention to them than they should. “Mortal words,” he explained, “they dinna raise the attention of the Witches’ Constabulary. You can use them to disguise the source of your magic. For when you’re left with nae other choice but don’t want to be found out. You simply hide your intention behind a veil of plain but relevant words rather than use an incantation. The magic will adhere if they’re crafty enough.” He gestured to the fog as proof. “I was fair convinced all the city witches used that spell, living so close together as they do.”

“Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” she said, as if storing the lesson for later.

“For when mortals push things too far.”

“You attack the poor sods often, do you?”