Spellbreaker (Spellbreaker Duology, #1)(75)

Elsie rolled her lips together, then stiffened. Her breath caught in her throat, and it took half a second for her to push it out. “Water staffs?” she asked. Pre-enchanted tools that called up water from the ground and even the air. Hands cold, she added, “Y-You said this happened a week ago?”

“A week tomorrow.” Elsie’s expression must have been dire, for Agatha laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Terrible, isn’t it? Him and another boy, as well as one of their professors. To top it off, there ain’t even an opus to send home. Fire ate it up, too. Professor John Clive—that was his sponsor—sent his regrets himself, before he . . .” Agatha’s words caught, and she turned her head to clear her throat. “Sorry, lass, that one is still fresh.” Withdrawing her hand, Agatha took in a shuddering breath. “Still can’t believe it. None of us can.”

Elsie tried to swallow and found she couldn’t. “Agatha. Where . . . Where is the academy?”

She tilted her head, confused by the question. “Up in Colchester. Why?”

Elsie might as well have bled out on Agatha’s doorstep. It couldn’t be a coincidence. The same time, the same place, the same magic . . .

She had disenchanted those water staffs.

Which most certainly meant the Cowls had started the fire.





CHAPTER 21



Elsie stumbled back from the porch.

“Miss Camden?” Agatha followed her. “Are you all right?”

She couldn’t breathe. It couldn’t be true. It simply couldn’t be. Ogden was one of them, after all, and he didn’t have a foul bone in his body! And she . . . all those deaths . . . she . . .

“Just . . . too much today,” she muttered, sure she sounded intoxicated. “I need a moment.”

“There’s beds just upstairs—”

But Elsie shook her head and fled from the house. Fled so fast she was tripping over her skirts. She stumbled all the way to the well by the road, then gripped its sides and leaned over the dark pit, cool air from between the stones whispering against the sweat on her face.

It’s a misunderstanding.

“Oh dear, you look sick. Don’t turn up your stomach in there, though.” An older woman approached, hair pinned messily under a threadbare cap. “Take a sit here. You’re Agatha’s visitor, ain’t you?”

Elsie numbly allowed the woman to guide her to a nearby stump. To draw up some water for her to drink. Elsie swallowed the stale liquid until her belly hurt and she had to stop or suffocate. She spilled some on her dress, but couldn’t bring herself to care.

“There.” The woman set the bucket aside. She, too, had black on her, though her dress was a simple brown. She offered a soiled handkerchief, but Elsie waved it away. “Did you get some bad news, dear?”

Elsie cradled her aching head in her hands. “You could say that.” She could still feel the end of the pistol against her forehead. The touch of the weapons beneath her hands in Colchester. The Cowls had offered such a compelling explanation in their letter.

But who else would have disenchanted the water staffs?

She felt a hand on her shoulder. It tightened in reassurance, then lifted. “It’s all bad news around these parts. Might help to get it off your chest.”

Elsie could have laughed at the notion were her body not so heavy. “I doubt that.”

She picked at the black scarf tied around her left sleeve. “One of our own lost a boy.”

“I heard. I’m . . . sorry.” She had to croak out the last word.

“Just yesterday we got a telegram saying his sponsor had passed, too.” The woman’s voice squeezed tight, and she coughed. “So terrible.”

Lifting her head, Elsie asked, “Professor Clive?”

She nodded. “Agatha must’ve told you.”

Elsie sighed.

“It’s all a mess, what’s happening in London. All those stolen opuses. It’s terrible.”

Sitting up straight, Elsie said, “His opus was taken?”

“The report claimed as much. He didn’t just go missing; there was vomit on the library floor, full of poison. Someone broke right into that atheneum and did him in.” She wiped her wrinkled eyes with the handkerchief. “One less good man in this world.” Managing to smile, she added, “At least your ails can’t be as bad as that, hmm?”

But Elsie’s body felt cold in the afternoon heat. “Which atheneum?”

“The London one.”

Elsie stood, nearly knocking her head on the edge of the well’s roof. “There are two in London.” She knew she sounded forceful, but she had to know. “Physical and spiritual.”

Don’t say physical. Don’t say—

“Well, he was a physical aspector, so I suppose the first.” She eyed Elsie like she was half-mad.

Maybe she was. She was ready to scream, or weep, or . . . she didn’t know. Her thoughts were retreating from her, almost to the point where she forgot to breathe.

Too much of a coincidence. She had been in Colchester. She had disenchanted security at the Physical Atheneum just before leaving for Juniper Down.

“I need to talk to your constable,” she croaked. Gossip was well and good, but she needed solid information, not hearsay.