Chapter 15

ETHANIEL

“Marble Hill’s just up ahead, sir,” the carriage driver yelled out. “You got a specific spot in mind, or you want me to drop you off wherever?”

Ethaniel opened his eyes and forced his hands to unclench. He was sick with worry over Aubrey and Calix, even though logic told him they were likely fine, if not soot-covered and exhausted. But the thought of leaving the city behind without them made his stomach burn with acid. Hell, even going to Marble Hill had been trying; it had been far too tempting to wait across the street from Aubrey’s apartment.

But he’d caught sight of a few people dressed in dark clothes fleeing the building, headed toward a single man walking up the sidewalk, sticking to the shadows. Ethaniel had tucked himself into an alleyway to catch his breath, but it had been punched right out of him upon seeing Vincent again so soon, and so close to the fire his people had clearly set in an attempt to smoke them out.

If Vincent was here, no one linked to the book he now carried was safe. Dread had bloomed in him, forcing Ethaniel out of his low crouch so he could slink along the side of the building, out of eyeline of anyone from the Golden Order.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he’d muttered as he’d clutched the satchel close and, when he was sure he was safe, had broken into a dead run for the nearest well-lighted area, hand out to hail a carriage.

Ethaniel needed to gather his thoughts and his strength. He needed to set his mind right. And he needed to contact Calix and Ethaniel. For that he’d need privacy; working complicated patterning in view of others, even when it was completely legal, would make others instantly suspicious. He didn’t need that kind of attention. “Do you know of any good inns nearby?” he called out to the driver. “A clean place? There’s a hearty tip in it for you. ”

The driver chuckled. “I didn’t think you was the whorin’ type. Yeah, Lacey’s is good, mostly travelers and a few local tipplers.”

“Perfect,” Ethaniel replied as he leaned back against the carriage seat and put a protective hand on the satchel.

Lacey’s looked like a decent place even from the outside, which was an accomplishment given most of the roads in Marble Hill were barely roads at all, but packed dirt and a bit of gravel. The winter melt had turned most of that into puddles and ruts, and Ethaniel’s bones ached as he climbed out of the carriage and handed over the fee for the drive and the promised tip. The driver, an older man with graying stubble along his chin, was kind enough to wish Ethaniel luck before snapping the reins and disappearing into the night.

Ethaniel stared up at the brick building. The green shutters were a nice touch amidst all the mud and water, and past them he could see a few shadows moving about, backlit by flickering only candles could produce. The rain that had started on the way over was now a fine mist and it clung to his hair, his clothes. Ethaniel tightened his grip on the satchel and strode inside.

Warm air hit his face and Ethaniel breathed in the scent of herbs and firewood. A roaring fire to his left, a small but very clean check-in counter to his right, and coming down the stairs was a woman dressed in all dark blue, her blonde hair elaborately braided and hanging over her shoulder. She had wide, expressive eyes that widened even more when she saw Ethaniel’s bedraggled state.

“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry!” she said as she walked around the other side of the counter. “We had a few last minute arrivals and I was getting them situated. I’m Rose, the owner. Did you need a room?”

“If I’m not too late,” Ethaniel said with a small wince. “I got a bit caught in the weather.” He sniffed at the air, stomach growling. “Is there anyone still in the kitchens?”

Rose nodded. “Our cook’s working on bread for tomorrow, but she has some dinner leftover. Or the tavern down the street serves late.” Her gaze flicked to the rain-dashed windows. “Though I don’t imagine you fancy going back outside.”

Ethaniel gave a small laugh at that, but when it threatened to bubble up inside him — a symptom of the day’s challenging events and the lingering pulse of Aubrey and Calix’s kisses — he could only shake his head. “I’ll stay here, thanks.”

Rose showed him to a small but very tidy room and promised a warm meal would be brought up soon. Ethaniel sat in the single chair by the window, put the satchel on the floor, and stared down at his boots.

Tracking patterns weren’t completely unknown to him, but he’d need more than someone trained in that magic. Ethaniel had half a mind to ask a policeman for help, but that would draw too much attention. They could likely find Calix and Aubrey, but that would endanger many lives, and none of them wished to pull more innocents into this mess.

He drummed his fingertips on the table. A plan. He needed a plan. And supplies. This late in the day, many shops wouldn’t be open, but small towns like Marble Hill usually had someone willing to reopen for a few extra dollars.

Before he left the room, Ethaniel gave a fleeting glance to the satchel. He could hide it, or keep it on him. Keeping it on him might draw attention. Hiding it might draw The Golden Order to those in the boarding house.

Shit.

Ethaniel slung the bag back over his head and headed downstairs. He caught Rose as she turned the corner with an armful of blankets. “I was just coming up to give you these,” she said, smiling. “Did you need anything else?”

Ethaniel put on a smile for her sake and said, “Do you happen to have a map of the city? It doesn’t need to be terribly recent.”

Rose nodded and immediately went over to her little counter, setting the blankets aside and digging around in a drawer. “I’ve got one from last year, I think. You heading into the city?”

“Out, actually, but I also need to give a friend directions here.” Ethaniel was surprised at how smoothly the lie tumbled from his lips. Maybe the day’s events had rattled him enough that nerves were no longer an issue. “And do you happen to have charcoal and perhaps a few blank pages of paper?”

Ethaniel slid a few bills across the counter, but Rose waved him off. “You aren’t asking for anything terribly difficult. I’ll bring it all up with the food, if that’s all right.”

By the time Ethaniel was settled in his room — as much as he could while damp and still shaky — there was a knock at the door. Rose passed him a tray packed with a tureen of soup, a bottle of beer, half a loaf of still-steaming bread, and a bowl of cooked carrots. Then she ducked past him to set his requested supplies on the small, chipped table across from the bed.

Ethaniel thanked her profusely, saying, “This is honestly too much. But I’ll eat every bit of it, and thank you again for the supplies.” Memories of Aubrey’s kiss, Calix’s touch, made him suck in a harsh breath. “Your kindness serves you well, and it is appreciated more than I can begin to explain.”

“No explanation needed.” She sniffed and gazed out the window. “New York’s not very friendly to most, especially those of us trying to make a living on the edges.” Rose gestured to his scarred knuckles — all the times he’d poked himself with enchanted needles or had minor patterning mishaps. “You work, like I do. We’re not for Manhattan or Wall Street. So the most we can do to get along is show each other kindness.”

Rose left him with a mountain of food and more than enough to think through.

Ethaniel only stopped to strip out of his sodden outer layers and, with the fireplace heating the room to almost uncomfortably hot, set to work on tracking Calix and Aubrey. He grabbed a few mouthfuls of soup and bread in between removing articles of clothing, but his focus was on them.

He didn’t want to think about it.

Losing them

Ethaniel swallowed hard, the taste of misery and worry heavier on his tongue than the soup. But with the map spread out on the small table, some tiny reassurance swelled in him. Distance on foot or by horse was one thing; on a map, great distances, miles upon miles, could seem miniscule in comparison. Marble Hill to the Village seemed a mere pittance. And he could work with that, even knowing what little he did about tracking patterns.

With care, Ethaniel rubbed the charcoal stick over his index and middle finger, and drew a line on the path the carriage had taken him. That was his route, and it established the first part of the pattern. The rest was a mess of guesswork and intent, since the only times he’d ever done anything like this was years ago, when Jeremiah had taken him hunting in northern New York state. Jeremiah had always thought of patterning as “intent made corporeal”, since good patterners could strictly follow a pattern with impeccable preciseness, but they also had to learn to improvise. Jeremiah also likened it all to “messy mathematics”, where sometimes the number two really meant two and a half if you wanted the end result to function correctly.

Thinking of Jeremiah in the middle of all of this seemed to open a new fissure in his heart, so Ethaniel refocused. “Here, and here,” he whispered as he drew two more lines from the Village to Marble Hill, this time with his middle finger. Routes Calix and Aubrey might take. He couldn’t ask the pattern to scour the city for them, but if he let it follow a few direct paths, he at least would have some answers.

Calix’s satchel and the little velvet bag that had been in Aubrey’s vault held the final pieces. Ethaniel pulled out his needle kit from deep inside his coat and carefully plucked a fraying thread from the string that closed the velvet bag. Whatever was in it wasn’t his business, so he turned to the satchel.

Temptation lay in letting his sight focus in on the book’s patterns again. After you find Calix and Aubrey, he told himself. But even touching the bag’s flap to pull away a loose thread sent a shiver down his spine. It made his hands tremble as he carefully tied the two threads together, then placed them in the middle of the map.

With his palms on the map, Ethaniel closed his eyes and waited. Every pattern was different, but for him it was about connection. Ethaniel would put his hands on a shirt, or a jacket, or a set of handkerchiefs purchased for someone’s newly betrothed, and he would use his connection to the garment — and the work he’d invested in it — to forge a bond with it. A trusted bond, a sacred one. Blacksmiths made connection with metal, bookbinders with paper and leather, modistes with lace and ribbon. And he with a bit of clothing and some needle and thread.

A map was just paper and ink. But for him, in this moment, it meant so much more.

He remembered the twist of Aubrey’s lips when he was amused but didn’t want to show it. How Calix’s eyes lit up when he encountered Ethaniel’s patterning magic.

Aubrey’s strong arm over his shoulders.

Watching them kiss, how it burned in his belly.

The way they felt, how they smelled.

How they’d turned his little world upside down.

Ethaniel trusted they were alive, and trying to find him.

Behind the darkness of his eyelids, Ethaniel saw the flash of power. It started as little tingles running up and down his fingers, his hands. Then, like a magnet, his right hand was yanked forward, index finger shooting out like an arrow to land squarely on the New York Botanical Garden.

Ethaniel’s eyes flew open and he looked down at the glowing lines of the map, how the threads he’d bound together had unraveled to chart a course from the Village, up along the East River, to Soundview and then north.

The Botanical Gardens were a newer addition to that part of the city, a massive undertaking Ethaniel had only heard about. But if they were in or near the Gardens, Ethaniel figured they were safe. It wasn’t the most direct route to Marble Hill, but their path made sense if they were trying to evade anyone tracking them.

“Now the hard part,” he murmured as he refocused on the map. “Let’s see if I can contact them.”

He’d never done this before. It was honestly far out of the reach of his own magic, but he had to try. Vincent used to say that all magic was capable of all things, if the caster believed strongly enough. That there wasn’t just “patterning” and “enchanting”; that humans had given certain spells those names to make better sense of a force much stronger, and much more foreign, to the natural order of their world. To mold, then wield the magic for their own purposes. Even when handled with care, magic was really only suited for a select few.

Ah, Vincent. What have you gotten us all involved with? Your beliefs about magic have been there since we were young, but I only now have come to understand how that’s driven you to such hateful delusions.

“I hope you can feel me even from here,” Ethaniel muttered as he ran his index fingers down the threads. If some tiny part of his lovers lived within those single threads, he would feed it his care, his devotion, his loyalty. And hope that they paid him back.

Ethaniel pictured their faces.

Staring back at him were two sets of eyes, one like cool glass and the other decadent amber. But they lingered only for a moment, and then he saw another set. Like his, but slightly wider set, a few more lines around his eyes, despite Ethaniel being older by four years.

And then came the pain. Like an ice pick through his skull, sudden and sharp and so, so cold. Ethaniel yelled, reeled back in his chair but tipped it too far, and he crashed to the ground. He was blind from the pain, unable to focus on anything but the agony carving out his skull. Even through that pain, Vincent’s voice came to him.

It shouldn’t have been possible. But then again, that damned book was rewriting the rules he thought he knew about magic and connection. About reality. Yes, Convergence was definitely to blame for opening him up to Vincent’s pull.

I’m sorry, brother. But you shouldn’t have been in that house. Now a fire blazes through a block of the Village. Why would you make friends with such a wealthy twat? He can’t understand your life, your struggles. He’s always had everything handed to him.

Calix Addington. Earl Batherton, Calix Addington.

Did you know he was nobility? I won’t repeat my arguments to you about how the ‘ruling class’ should be eliminated entirely. That their wealth should go to the people. And the church. And places like mine that help others. That promote goodwill and grace, and the rightful truth about magic. You’ve heard it more than enough by now.

It’s why we stopped speaking, after all.

So did you know who he was? Or did you like that someone of Earl Addington’s so-called stature had come to Uncle Jeremiah’s shop? Did you like the attention? Did the Earl look at you with his big doe eyes, softening you up so you’d do as he needed?

Has he whispered sweetly to you? Make you feel seen? Heard?

Is he yours?

Yes, I know. I’ve always known. But you’ve always been discrete. Until your most recent lover. It’s hard to miss Aubrey Lavigne, tall and broad and so well-dressed, well-mannered. A proper gentleman in their dying age. Or, so he wants the world to believe.

Did Aubrey take you to the third floor of The Minotaur’s Labyrinth? Did he show you the….perversities that go on there? Did he ask you to join him?

Nowhere is private, not completely. My spies see many things. They’ve seen Mr. Lavigne.

And tonight they saw you, fleeing a burning building carrying a gray satchel.

Turn it over to me. And I’ll never bother you, or Mr. Lavigne, or Earl Addington again. If you meet with me, you can return to your life, and help our uncle return to health.

The pain flooded out of him all at once and he was left on his back, hands clenched around his head, his sight barely returning by inches while his ears rang. He wasn’t able to answer the knock at the door, but heard Rose call out. He couldn’t answer, couldn’t get his tongue to work, to form the words he needed to put off the innkeeper.

Too late, too late, he thought as a key scraped in the lock, and then she burst inside, a look of worry on her face. That look morphed into real concern when she saw him.

“Oh no,” Rose said as she rushed to his side. “My goodness, what happened? Are you all right?” Ethaniel’s mouth wouldn’t work, so he just nodded. “You don’t look all right,” Rose said, her tone drenched in worry, as if Ethaniel must truly be addled. “Let’s get you up.”

Rose helped him to his feet, then steered him to sit on the edge of the bed. His head hurt terribly and Ethaniel had to work his jaw a few times to spit out, “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. I heard a yell, gave me quite a start, and had to check with everyone. I’m sorry I didn’t find you immediately.” She glanced around the room with narrowed eyes. “Are you injured?”

Ethaniel didn’t like lying, but here it was necessary. “A bad headache came on all of sudden. I get them sometimes when the seasons change.”

Rose clucked her tongue in sympathy. “Ah, I’m sorry to hear. I’m glad you’re all right otherwise. Can I make you some tea?”

Ethaniel put on a brave face and shook his head. “I think I’ll just lie down. My thanks to you, though.” He paused, remembering what Calix had said about an enchanted carriage business in the area. “Is there a carriage business nearby? Or a stable? I’m in need of a horse.”

Rose nodded, and Ethaniel nearly sighed with relief that she kept her gaze on him, instead of tracking to the table and the evidence of his magical experiment. “There is! Strauss and Co., not a half a block north, has fine carriages and they also take on passengers. There’s a stable there as well, though I don’t know if they have many horses for sale at a time.”

Ethaniel thanked her profusely, handed her another dollar for her troubles, and waited until her footsteps faded before sinking back on the bed again. A horse was his best bet; he was a good rider and knew how hard to push himself and a horse across the few days it would take to get to Auburn.

Head still ringing, Ethaniel quickly made a list of things he’d need, then turned the gas lamps off except one by the door. Before he let sleep claim him, he disenchanted the pattern he’d cast on the sword while hiding in an alley before hailing a carriage. Shrinking patterns weren’t difficult, and were quite useful in his line of work. It had been tricky casting it on a fucking sword, but he’d managed to get it down to the size of a crochet hook, which let him shove it in his tailoring kit. New York City was a lot of things, but he’d likely not get away with carrying a sword about.

Ethaniel very carefully slid the blade under his pillow before settling on his back and closing his eyes. He had to get out of town, but he needed rest. Vincent’s jabs at him, at Calix, and at Aubrey lingered on the edges of his mind. If his brother was reaching for personal insults, then he was frustrated. He would scale back and examine his plans, then come back with a new approach. Setting fire to the building was likely not planned; it wasn’t Vincent’s style of sticking to the shadows and knifing enemies when they were most vulnerable. A fire was splashy and would make the papers. It would bring attention too close to home. That would make Vincent uncomfortable. He’d need to leave tomorrow, and stay disappeared. Trusting that Calix and Aubrey could get out, could meet him at Calix’s estate up north.

Ethaniel was putting a lot on trust these days. He hoped that approach wouldn’t fail him just yet.