Spellbreaker (Spellbreaker Duology, #1)(90)

Elsie leaned forward and touched the hand still on his knee. “I don’t blame you.” She understood the desire to feel wanted, needed.

Ogden sighed.

“I never detected it before,” she said.

He lowered his other hand from his neck to his heart. “You rarely got close enough. Even I knew it was well hidden. And when he was watching . . . I could make you not see it. Do it quick enough that you wouldn’t sense the spell.”

Hadn’t she suspected as much? With his ability, he could turn her mind away from its presence, pluck the memory right from her brain. How often had that happened? Had she connected her work for the Cowls to the opus crimes before, only to have that knowledge washed away? How many times had she heard the song of the spiritual spell on Ogden’s person, only to forget its tune completely?

“Then how do I remember now?” She couldn’t face the other questions yet. “How did I get it off you?”

Ogden shook his head. “He was worried. Stressed. Elsie, I was fighting him as hard as I could.”

The shaking. The stalling.

“And he, in the end . . . he wanted you, too.”

Elsie pressed her lips together. That explained the contradictions in the rational spell he’d put on her. It was Ogden telling her to go home and this spiritual aspector’s influence telling her to come with him. The Cowls wanted Elsie now, just as they’d wanted her when they’d taken her from the workhouse. How utterly ironic, for them to finally pull her into their fold. After years of Elsie pining for their approval. A few days earlier, Elsie would have readily joined them. She would have done so blindly.

That must have been why Ogden had told her about the St. Katharine Docks in the first place. Because he knew that’s where he’d go if his controller ever decided to pull him from Brookley.

“I haven’t openly fought it in so long,” Ogden went on. “I wanted to appease him. I tried to make my efforts subtle. Thus all the churches.”

Elsie straightened. “That’s why we hop from cleric to cleric?”

Managing a weak smile, he said, “I wanted to study the spiritual aspectors. I wanted them to see me. I don’t know. I was fishing for anything. It took me years to figure out the rune without him noticing. And years to tell you.”

“Without him noticing,” she finished.

He nodded.

She hugged herself. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—”

“You couldn’t,” he interjected. Now he reached forward, pulling one of her hands free and holding it between his own. “But I knew you were the only one who could free me. If I had left on that boat, I would never be free. It took years for me to learn the rune without him noticing. I gave you every clue I could. He realized it, in the end. But I would rather die fighting him than live as his puppet.”

Elsie’s thoughts flew back to Juniper Down, to the strange man who’d held a gun to her head. He had been a spiritual aspector. “The person controlling you wasn’t American, was he?”

“What?”

She described the man in detail. She thought again on his mention of articles, but she still hadn’t figured out what he’d meant by that. So much had happened she hadn’t yet found time to consider it.

Ogden released her. His forehead wrinkled. “I . . . I don’t remember. I know I saw him that first time. But the spell forbade me to think on it, and after so long, I can’t recall. I don’t think so. But this American knows something. What was his name?”

“I don’t know.” Failure tasted sour in the back of her mouth, but she stiffened. “But you could draw him, Ogden. I could describe him to you, and you could draw him.”

His eyes brightened. “Yes.” He smiled. “Yes, Elsie. I will.”



“Well, it’s quite the misunderstanding!” Emmeline crowed. Elsie had never seen the young maid so angry. “To have them chase you like that!”

Emmeline stirred the pot of jelly like she was beating a rug, but she’d accepted the tale easily enough. Elsie and Ogden had both since cleaned up. Elsie thought of the police, the docks, the spells. And she thought of Bacchus. Of his seat beside her in the small hospital room, his low voice, his hand engulfing hers. When was he leaving for Barbados? Elsie hadn’t even asked. He could be setting sail even now, for all she knew.

She thought of his cheek beneath her lips, which made her face burn. Foolish woman, she thought, breathing around a rusted spike in her chest. God save her, it shouldn’t hurt this much. Maybe Ogden could smooth this sensation away from her, too. And yet . . . she wasn’t sure she wanted it gone. It was too soon to tell.

That night, after Emmeline had turned in and things felt more or less normal, Elsie dressed down to her nightgown and robe. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she unfolded the opus spell she’d taken from the dock.

She couldn’t read it in full. Barely in part. But she didn’t need to—she could cast this spell without any knowledge. Without any drops. She traced her fingers over words she recognized: Memoria, perdita. Memory, lost. The word oblivio made her think of oblivion. She’d have to get a Latin-to-English dictionary, but she was almost certain this spell was one of forgetting. The faded red ink told her it was a rational spell, which leaned to her theory. And judging by its length, it might even be a master spell. From whom, she’d never know. But seeing the way Ogden had wept and trembled on that dock . . . Maybe it would come in handy. She hoped not, but she couldn’t convince herself to do away with it.