Spellbreaker (Spellbreaker Duology, #1)(89)

Raising his free hand, he put the knuckle of his first finger under Elsie’s chin and lifted her face so she’d look at him. “Do not disparage yourself for having courage.”

She looked away, then back. She was so close. If he wanted to, he could lean in and—

He pulled his hand away. “What can I do?”

She took a moment to think. Glanced at their linked hands. “I know you’re exhausted, Bacchus, but—”

“Name it.”

“Just stay, until he wakes.” She squeezed his hand back. “Just . . . stay.”



Ogden was released the next morning. Bacchus used his own funds to hire the carriage back to Brookley. Their parting had been so bleary, so sleep deprived, that Elsie could barely remember it. But it had gone . . . well. She would be content if not for the myriad questions still plaguing her. How would they explain this to Emmeline? She and Ogden would have to work on their story together.

After she got answers.

Elsie waited only long enough for the horses to pull forward before she said, “I need to know what that spell was.”

Ogden, who looked haggard, rested his head in his hands. “A spiritual spell. I don’t know how it works. You would think mind control would be rational, but this was more than that. It went deeper.”

“Who was controlling you?” Elsie ignored a bump in the road that jarred the carriage.

His hands looked limp between his knees. “I don’t remember. He didn’t want to be known. But it’s been . . . a decade, Elsie. I can’t remember exactly . . . The aspector didn’t want me to know. It’s mud. But.” He hesitated and looked at her.

Her heart cracked down the middle. “But it must have happened when I entered your life.”

The American’s words whispered inside her head, You’re a pawn.

He nodded, looking sick. “Elsie, the spell was there, but he couldn’t control every aspect of my life. He couldn’t control my thoughts. I think of you as a daughter. I . . .” He swallowed, and Elsie pinched herself so she could focus on a physical pain rather than the anguish blooming inside her. “I was hiring. He must have noticed me after I took you on . . . then realized what I was.”

“A rational aspector,” Elsie said, then cleared the forming lump from her throat. “A master rational aspector.”

He nodded. “I was very careful with my spells. I made you think the drops only glowed faintly. I miswrote the spells on my arm so I wouldn’t absorb them.”

“Your physical spells—”

“Those were real.” He rubbed his hands together. “I learned those before ever meeting you, for my art. I made sure you saw only those. I did what I had to, what he wanted me to, to keep you from figuring it out.”

She shook her head. Why control Ogden and not her? Then again, the Cowls had come into her life when she was a child . . . They’d been her savior, her religion. One didn’t need a spell to sway the heart of a desperate little girl.

A chill bloomed between her shoulder blades and coursed down her limbs. She was the one who’d fled to the stonemasonry shop from Squire Hughes’s household. She had led the Cowls right to Ogden. They had learned his secret, and made him a prisoner.

Had Elsie stayed put, he would never have been their victim.

Oh, if only the carriage would swallow her whole. She pressed her hand to her chest, as though she could force her heart to stay in one piece by the pressure of her palm. A decade. A decade of having his will usurped by another, all because Elsie hadn’t wanted to scrub dishes for a pompous nobleman.

Put it away. She tried to bury the realization deep. She needed to get all the pieces in place before she let them fall apart. Put it away, for now. But God help her, the anger hurt.

“Why did you not register?” Her voice was a harsh whisper, despite there being no way their driver could overhear. She needed to push on, to save her despairing realizations for another time. “Why have you pretended to be what you are all this time?”

He shook his head and leaned back in his seat. Stared at the crack of window between the door and the curtain.

“Ogden, I deserve to know.”

“You do.” His fingers dug into his knees. “I’m a liberal thinker, Elsie. Always have been. I used to be on the parish council, even.”

She nodded, recalling that bit of history. She focused on it, to keep herself from darker thoughts.

“Did you know all registered aspectors, spellbreakers included, must report to the queen whenever summoned? To work on whatever she needs? To go to war if she demands it? The idea that I could sway a political ratbag with the power of my mind, without him ever realizing it, was intoxicating. At one point, I believed I could sway all of them to create just laws, my laws, and never get caught. And then, the idea that I could convince someone to love me . . .” His voice choked, and his hand went to his neck as though he could fix it.

Elsie pressed her lips together, her own throat tight. The folded opus page beneath her bodice poked her collarbone.

A full minute passed again before he continued, “You might have noticed. I don’t love the sort of people I’m supposed to. When I started on this venture, I was young and foolish. I didn’t respect the will of others. But don’t worry. Life has a way of teaching us wisdom, when we’re ready for it. I didn’t get into too much trouble.”