Disenchanted & Co., Part 1: Her Ladyship's Curse

  “I don’t pay the Eye in coin. We have an evening together now and then to settle our accounts.” She turned as a houseman answered the bell. “Madam Eagle and a friend to see the master.”

  We were shown into a dark hall lit only by candles and made to wait there as the houseman went to the back of the house. I noted the marks marching along the wainscot railing. They weren’t runes, but something like them. “For pity’s sake, Rina. I thought you were smarter than this.”

  “The Eye is very dear to me,” she said, wagging a finger under my nose. “If you care to remain in my good graces, then you’ll hold your tongue and let him do his work.”

  “Work.” I felt like spitting. “Swindling you out of sex for nothing.”

  “Do shut up, love.” Rina smiled as a small man in an oddly cut white robe emerged. The lack of light made it impossible to make out his features. “Master Harvison.”

  “Madam Eagle.” He bowed low before turning to me. “Madam’s friend.” He did not bow to me but glanced at Rina. “She is not a believer.”

  “Neither was I when I first came to you, Harvi.” Rina put a hand on my shoulder. “But my dear friend is in desperate need of your wisdom.” When I opened my mouth to disagree, she stomped on my foot. “I would consider it a personal favor if you would see for her.”

  “Please,” Harvison said, gesturing down the hall. “Join me for tea.”

  We followed him into a shabby but comfortable little den. I’d never seen such furnishings, all made of gleaming lacquered woods and delicate little cushions. A table that sat too low to the ground had a brazier set in its center and a tray with tiny cups. A bowl of dark herbs and some twisted brown roots waited to be used, probably to poison someone.

  He lived among the best bookmakers in the city, but I didn’t see one book. There were plenty of scrolls, however, each tied with twines of various colors and stacked on end in big porcelain pots. Magic spells were usually written on much smaller rolls, but perhaps his handwriting required more paper for his nonsense.

  “Please, be seated.” Harvison went around the room lighting oil lamps, until they shed enough light for me to clearly see his face. One dark eye gleamed, sharp and bright, but where the other should have been was only a smooth stretch of skin.

  I leaned toward Rina. “He’s only got one eye,” I whispered.

  “No, young miss. I have two,” Harvison answered for her. “The other lies beneath the flesh you see. So it has been since I first drew breath.”

  I watched him fill two cups with his brew, but when he reached for a third I spoke up. “None for me, thank you. I’m a little off tea right now.”

  “You’re insulting my friend,” Rina hissed.

  “She is being only cautious,” Harvison said. “Something experience teaches us, but fear strips away.” He gave me his full attention. “You have been crossed by magic many times.”

  “Not so I’ve noticed,” I told him. I made out the peculiar shape of his eye, but it wasn’t the droop I was accustomed to seeing. “Where are you from, teller?”

  He bowed again. “Here. My father bought my mother from Hokkaidō before the Imperial Family instituted the blockade.”

  Now the odd-looking runes in his hall made sense. “You’re half Nihon.”

  “And half Torian,” Rina put in.

  I’d deal with her later. “Every Nihon, pureblood or not, was deported after the blockade. The Crown has denied them residency ever since. So how did you manage to stay in Rumsen, Mr. Harvison?”

  “My mother was property, not wife,” he said simply. “My father claimed me as the same, until he discovered he could sire no children with his wife.”

  Keeping slaves had been banned before my birth. “Did he have you declared his heir?” When he nodded, I relaxed a little. “So you’re a freedman.”

  “I have never been anything else.” He gestured to the cushion on the floor opposite his own. “Now I will see for you, madam’s friend.”

  I thought of the teller who had tried to chase me out of her shop, and climbed down awkwardly to sit on the cushion. “What do you want? Hair? Fingernails? Spit? Blood?”

  “Your hands, please.” He stretched out his own, palms up.

  I’d never touched a slave, declared or not, and Nihon universally despised Torians. I might not get my hands back.

  I will free you, my gel, very soon, Dredmore said behind my eyes, and then you will be mine.

  I clapped my hands over Harvison’s. The moment I touched him, he went stiff and still. I watched his face, but I didn’t see him twitch or take a breath.

  Slowly he withdrew his hands. “I am blinded.”

  “I didn’t touch his good eye,” I assured Rina. “I swear.”

  “What I mean to say is that I cannot see for you, young miss,” Harvison said faintly. “You are like the ward, and the warded.” He stared at my neck. “You wear a talisman.”

  “A necklace, with a pendant,” I corrected. “Most women wear them.”

  “May I see it?”

  My first impulse was to say no, but then I thought of what Harry had said about my pendant. “All right.” I reached back for the clasp.

  Harvison remained silent for a long time as he studied my pendant. Only when Rina cleared her throat did he seem to remember we were in the room. “Forgive me, dear ladies. This is something of a puzzle.” He regarded me. “This was given to you, was it not? When you were very young.”

  I nodded. “It was a gift from my mother.”

  “The stone is powerful. Or perhaps I should say, it contains power.” He placed the pendant gently on the table, and I noticed his hand shook as he drew it back. “You must wear it at all times, or you will be in grave danger.”

  “Danger she’s got aplenty. Lucien Dredmore’s after her,” Rina said tightly. “Can’t you see how that right bastard will try to take her?”

  “He cannot.” Harvison gave me a sad smile. “If the onmyouji is to possess her, she must give herself freely.”

  “Right, then, that’ll never happen.” I stood. “Thank you for not pretending to see something. Rina, we should go.”

  My friend ignored me. “She’s been cursed. Is that what you’re saying?”

  Harvison made a helpless gesture. “She is beyond me, dear one. I believe she is beyond all who see.”

  “Then see for me.” Rina dropped down and put her hands in his. “See if I lose her to that conniving devil.”

  Harvison nodded toward me. “She must leave the room.”

  “Oh, she will be glad to.” I stalked out, brushed past his houseman and through the front entry. I was more angry with myself than Rina for allowing her to involve me in this rubbish. She did it out of love; I knew better.

  Wrecker eyed me from the carri. “Had enough of One Eye, then, Miss Kit?”

  “That I have. Be a sport and turn your head.” As soon as he did, I waved down a horse-drawn cab. “I’m going home. Rina will be furious, but tell her I said to tough it.”

  “Just be careful, miss,” Wrecker suggested. “Her won’t like knowing something bad’s happened to you.”

  I nodded and let the driver help me into the cab. Once I was shut in, I wrapped my hand around my pendant, holding it so tight it cut into my palm. What Harvison had said about it containing power was nonsense, of course . . . but I kept remembering how his hand shook. Before I could think better of it, I reached back and thumbed the clasp, releasing it so I could pull the chain from my neck. I thrust the pendant into my reticule and dropped it on the bench beside me.

  Harry White appeared on the rear-facing seat. “Took you long enough. What were you waiting for, lass? Her Majesty’s Diamond Jube?”

  I curled my hands into fists. “My mother wore only two pieces of jewelry when she was alive,” I told him. “One was her wedding ring. What was the other?”

  “A gold chain round her left ankle,” he replied at once. “On the chain hung a silver ring set with seven stones in the shape of a star. Three
rubies, three sapphires, and a black diamond.”

  No one knew about my mother’s anklet but my father and me. “You gave it to her.”

  “Technically, no. When she came to the morgue to identify me, she took the ring from my body.” He showed me his left hand, and the pale circle left around the base of his fourth finger. “Your father had the ankle chain made.”

  “So she could hide it under her skirts,” I guessed.

  He nodded. “Anyone who saw it would have treated her very badly.”

  “Because you were a spy.”

  “No, my dear,” he said. “Because the star was my mark. Because I was Houdini.”

  I stared at the specter. “You’re Houdini.”

  “I was.”

  “Harry Houdini the escape artist,” I said. “The man no manacle, lock, or prison could hold. The greatest mage who ever lived. The supreme master of all the arts, shadow and light.”

  He inclined his head.

  I thumped the carri’s side panel three times with my fist and called out, “Stopping here.”

  The cab came to a halt, and the driver jumped down and opened the door. “Can’t stop here, miss. ’Tis yet near a mile.”

  I reached for my reticule. “I’m tired of riding with a lying jackass.”

  “What did you call me?” the driver demanded.

  “Not you,” I said, gesturing at Harry. “Him.”

  “Perhaps I should have mentioned before,” my grandfather put in, “that no one but you can see or hear me.”

  “What?” I turned on him. “So now you’re only haunting me?”

  “Something like that,” he agreed.

  I regarded the driver. “You see the man sitting in the seat across from me, don’t you?”

  He ducked his head in. “I don’t see no man, miss.”

  “He’s right there. Right in front of your nose.”

  The driver pushed his cap back to scratch his pate. “I don’t drive them what been bespelled, miss. Naught but trouble they are.”

  “Apologize and tell him to drive on before he shouts for a beater,” Harry suggested.

  “I’m so very sorry,” I said to the driver. “I had a bit of a bump earlier, and now I’m seeing things that aren’t there.” I rested my head against the cushions. “If you would be so kind as to drive on, I’d be eternally grateful.”

  “As you will, miss.” He shut the door and scrambled up top.

  “You’re a terrible liar,” Harry said. “You get that from your grandmother, you know.”

  I closed my eyes. “According to the documents I found in the city’s protected archives, I have no grandmother.”

  “On the contrary, you’re named after my Charmian.” He crossed over and sat beside me. “How did you get into the archives?”

  “I turned into a specter and walked right past the guards; got that one from you.” I looked at him. This close he seemed as solid and real as a living, breathing man. “Why are you haunting me, Harry?”

  “I’m your guardian.” He waited until I stopped laughing before he added, “Well, I would have been if your father hadn’t meddled in things he didn’t understand. Nevertheless, I am most definitely not your enemy.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “It’s the other way round, dear gel. You have only to call on me, and I will rush to your side.” He pulled down the window shade. “Unless it’s daylight outside, or course.”

  I didn’t understand his aversion to sunlight. “But if you can’t go outside during the day, then where do you go?”

  He gave me an inscrutable smile. “Beyond this realm.”

  “So you spend all your days in the netherside, is that it?” I should have known he’d lie to me. “Do you perform there as the Great Houdini for all the other spirits, or do you just lie about doing nothing?”

  “I don’t care for where I go.” He sniffed. “I would stay here if I could.”

  “That’s it, then.” I picked up my reticule. “I’ve had more than enough nonsense for one night, Harry.”

  “My birth name was Ehrich Weiss,” he said quickly, “and I was not an agent for the Crown.”

  I loosened the ribbons and reached inside. “Your papers say differently.” As soon as my fingers touched my pendant, Harry promptly vanished.

  Perhaps this was what Harvison meant; perhaps my pendant contained the power to chase off bloody stupid men who annoyed me beyond all measure.

  “I need a few more of you,” I told the pendant, before I refastened its chain around my neck.

  Once the driver reached my flat, he brought the cab to a stop, but he didn’t climb down to help me out. He also drove off before I could pay him, and the last thing I heard before he turned the corner were the protective curses he was chanting.

  At noon on Friday I took a cab to the Silken Dream, where Bridget came to whisk me back to her private workroom and dress me herself.

  “You look awful.” Bridget, dressed in a lavender gown that should have clashed with her red hair and somehow didn’t, looked marvelous. “Burning the candle in the middle as well as at both ends, are you?”

  “Be nice to me,” I said. “Last time I was here, someone tried to cut my throat in your alley.”

  “So the beaters told me.” She encircled my waist with a measuring lace. “Two snuffmages, and you without a scratch. Why am I not surprised?”

  “I’ll have you know they gave me a very nasty cut.” I held up my arm. “The chief inspector personally bandaged it.”

  “Rina said he did quite a bit more.” She propped her hands on her hips. “Was the bandaging before or after he let someone try to poison you with joy?”

  “He didn’t know they’d try again at the Yard, or he would have stopped them. He’s a friend.” I wound my good arm through hers. “Just like you.”

  “I can’t toss you in the gaol,” she chided. “Much as I want to these days . . .”

  Bridget not only dressed me in the heavenly blue gown intended for the empty-pursed Lady Richmond, she had Sarah brush out the rat’s nest on my head and arranged it into a crown of shining, interlaced coils. I only protested when Bridget brought a jeweler’s case into the dressing room.

  “You can’t bedeck me in baubles,” I told her. “Walsh believes I’m poor.”

  “You are poor,” Bridget said flatly. “But you’re going to dine with one of the finest families on the Hill, so it will be assumed that you have enough connections to borrow something decent. Which you do. Now shut up.” She took out a small waterfall of liquid silver strands and draped them around my neck. “These are spun quicksilver. Don’t fuss with them or they’ll tangle.”

  “I won’t breathe.” The slippery weight of the cool silver made me shiver, then I winced as she snapped two heavy clips on my earlobes. “I don’t like earbaubs.”

  “One does not call perfectly matched snow pearls ‘earbaubs,’” she corrected, coming around to inspect my face. “Yes, that will do. Now a wristlet.”

  Instead of more pearls or quicksilver she wound a snake made of small sapphires around my wrist. Its eyes had been fashioned from tiny clear globes, each containing an even tinier red glowworm.

  I held my arm away. “This is too much. I’ll only smash it.”

  “It’s warded, and you’ll wear it for me.” She cupped my face between my hands. “Or I’ll tell Charlie everything, and he’ll have his men whisk you onto a yacht bound for Bali before you can sneeze.”

  “You wouldn’t.” Of course she would, and Charles would do anything to make her happy, even if it meant shipping my ass round the world ten times. “I can deal with the Walshes one more time.”

  “You’d better,” she warned, “because after tonight, Rina won’t let you go within a mile of the Hill.” She kissed my cheek. “Nor will I.”

  Once Bridget had sprayed me with a little of the outrageously dear French perfume she wore, she sent me off to the Hill in her own coach. I’d ridden in the crystal-sided coach once before, w
hen she and Charlie had sent me home from their castle in it, but this time it felt different. Since real wealth was forever out of my reach, I’d never considered what it felt like to be treated like royalty on a regular basis. It was a bit like strolling about in a dream where nothing could touch or harm you.

  My dream evaporated when I passed Dredmore’s coach coming from Walsh’s Folly. A terrible panic seized me at the thought of seeing him again, until I forced myself to breathe and relax. It had been a dream, nothing more, and he couldn’t assault me in front of the family.

  A footman in tails and gloves leapt off the back of the coach and helped me down. He glanced at the house and murmured something in French about waiting for me.

  Delightful as the ride had been, it had to end, so I smiled at him. “I’ll be fine, thank you.”

  This time the butler was waiting outside the door for me. He watched Bridget’s coach depart and then gave me a somewhat creak-kneed, respectfully low bow.

  “Mistress Kittredge, you are very welcome.”

  It had to hurt the old winge to say that, so I merely nodded and let him usher me along like the fine lady I wasn’t.

  The family had assembled this time in a larger reception room adjacent to the formal dining hall. The butler announced me at the door before discreetly withdrawing.

  Lady Diana pounced on me, clamping her hands on mine. “It is so good of you to come,” she said, her voice as tight as her eyes were reddened and puffy from weeping. She turned to the side and beamed at her husband. “Darling, you remember Miss Kittredge.”

  Nolan Sr. ignored me and glared at his wife. “I thought I’d made myself clear about visitors, Diana.”

  “I asked Miss Kittredge to dine with us before we had that conversation, my dear,” she said. “She has been most helpful to me.”

  “As what?” Montrose said. “Your procurer of men?”

  “Forgive my brother, Miss Kittredge.” An older woman sitting beside Miranda rose. She had a narrow face and frizzled hair but kind eyes. “Stepmama?”

  “Yes, ah, Miss Kittredge, this is Lady Laurana Walsh, my elder stepdaughter.”

  Laurana didn’t curtsey but held out her hand, which I shook reflexively. “I’m the spinster who does good works,” she explained. “When last you called I was working with the wretched foundlings at the school my mother founded in Scoursie. We try to teach them to read and write, even if it’s simply their names. Keeps them from being claimed by farm overseers as runaway pickers.”