Whisper the Dead (The Lovegrove Legacy) (11 page)

“They don’t,” Moira replied grimly. Glowing feathers drifted between them. A gargoyle made of cheap river mud broke away from a balcony overhang. Another followed from a soot-stained cornice. “That’s curious,” Moira said. It was clearly more than curious as she was suddenly holding a dagger, a charm made of iron nails, and a pouch of salt.

And then it became very apparent as to what was agitating the gargoyles.

“Who’s that?” Gretchen goggled. Her throat went dry. Godric’s hand slipped into hers, and she honestly wasn’t sure which of them he was comforting. She held on tight regardless.

Moira let out a sigh that was half reverence and half fear.
Her voice, usually all sharp attitude and sarcasm, trembled. “The White Lady.”

A woman glided into the courtyard between several buildings tilting together as though they had secrets. Not a woman, Gretchen corrected herself, a spirit. She glowed violently, outlined in frozen moonlight and fire. She wore an old-fashioned white dress with panniers under the beaded silk, and diamond pins in hair powdered and piled high with ringlets. Ropes of diamonds hung from her hair and looped to chandelier-like earrings. From these chains a white veil fluttered, obscuring her features—all but her eyes, which were lined with kohl and stared savagely. They were gray as ice, nearly colorless with their vicious focus.

Gretchen shivered, even before the white birds followed, flying in from all of the alleyways, the sound of their wings like ice falling from a church steeple. They seared the air behind them as they passed. A cat yowled from an upper window, swiping at one.

“Don’t let them touch you,” Moira warned.

“Why not?” Godric asked, waving his hat at them when they flew too close.

“Because they’ll steal your memories away. Knew a girl once who forgot her own name. She even forgot she was a witch.”

Gretchen angled herself shoulder to shoulder with her brother. “Is this more magic leaking from the wards?”

“Reckon so. The White Lady’s meant to be confined to the markets, inn’t she? And yet here she is.” Moira shook her head. “Best pray the others don’t get loose too.”

“Why, what do they do?” Godric asked, even as he searched for an escape.

“The Grey Lady will steal your thoughts, and the Red Lady … Well, you don’t want to know what she steals.”

The gargoyles swarmed. Chimney pots were clipped by stray wings and talons. They dodged the missiles, covering their heads. “How do we banish her?” Gretchen asked, rubbing her ear where a chunk of brick had bounced of the wall and scraped it. The White Lady turned her head sharply, spearing her with a glare. There was a red heart-shaped patch at the corner of her left eye.

A white bird screeched and dove for Gretchen. Godric yanked her out of the way at the last moment. Moira fumbled in one of the pouches hanging at her belt, withdrawing a shard from a broken mirror. “What’s that for?” Gretchen asked as Moira held it up.

“What do they teach you at that school?” she asked, turning the mirror so that it shone the White Lady’s reflection back at her. She bared her teeth, a glimpse of a snarl under the delicate fluttering veil. Moira kept the shard steady, even though it had nicked her thumb and blood ran down to her wrist.

“Mirrors can block magic,” she explained. “Sometimes.”

“This time?”

“We’re about to find out.”

The birds continued to attack and be attacked in turn. Feathers filled the air. Blood smeared the gargoyle’s stone teeth. The sound of so many wings was faintly sickening as it shivered
through the tiny courtyard. Gretchen scrabbled on the ground for stones, bits of broken pottery, and glass from a shattered window. She pitched them all at the birds as the White Lady continued to advance.

The sunlight bounced off the mirror and pierced through her veil. Moira craned her neck to make sure the White Lady’s reflection was properly centered in the broken mirror. Then she dropped it facedown on the ground and smashed it with the heel of her boot.

The White Lady screeched once, sounding more like a gull than a woman. She shattered into glittering dust and was gone. Her birds faded away.

“Why is she even allowed in the markets, exactly?” Godric inquired, brushing mud off his sleeve. “She’s a right nasty piece of work.”

Moira shrugged. “Some folk will pay handsomely to be rid of a few memories.”

The gargoyles remained, circling overhead. More detritus smashed on the ground. Someone gave a shout of alarm from the street. Before too long they would attract the kind of attention that also attracted the Order. Moira wasn’t the only one who wanted to avoid them. Gretchen could do without another lecture. She’d lost whichever Keeper was trailing her this morning, but she wasn’t keen on explaining why she’d ditched him.

“How do we turn them off?” Gretchen asked, titling her head back to watch the gargoyles.

“We don’t. There’s too much magic about.” Moira shrugged,
sounding distracted. Her gargoyle tried to perch on the brim of her hat. “They’re not bothering anyone and I have things to do.”

“We can’t just leave them,” Godric insisted, touching her arm. She bared her teeth at him. His fingers dropped away. “The Order will come. If what you say is true, won’t they suspect Madcaps are behind this?”

Moira swore ripely. Godric waited patiently, too accustomed to Gretchen’s outbursts. “What do you suggest, Greybeard?” she finally asked.

“There’s a gargoyle trap on the roof of the Ironstone Academy, isn’t there? It’s in Mayfair by—”

“I know where it is,” she cut him off mildly. She pulled a chicken bone from some long-ago supper from her pocket. It was wound around with red thread at one end and designs were painted on the other. She snapped it in half. The gargoyles turned their heavy heads in her direction. Whistling a strange tune, she leaped to the next building.

The gargoyles swooped down toward her. She clearly wasn’t afraid of them, but they could inflict considerable damage accidentally. A playful swipe with a stone claw could break her shoulder or send her tumbling to the cobblestones. She ran as fast as an alley cat.

Gretchen and Godric followed, less sure of their footing. Gretchen launched herself over decorative iron scrollwork several stories above the city. Godric looked like he wanted to throw up. When he wasn’t looking smitten by Moira.

When they finally reached the roof of the academy, they leaned wearily against the chimney pots to catch their breaths. Even Moira was gasping, her tangled hair damp with sweat. The gargoyles circled them lazily, finally settling on the huge symbol marked out on the roof in bird bones and salt. An open barrel filled with whiskey and milk sat in the center.

“Thank you,” Godric said, smiling at Moira. “You’re very brave to have helped us. I’ll make sure the Order knows to whom it is indebted.”

She stared at Gretchen. “Is he daft?”

“No,” Gretchen replied fondly. “Just kind.”

“Tobias kissed you?” Penelope squeaked an hour later.
“Tobias?”

“It was only to break the spell,” Gretchen insisted as Emma squeezed past her. Gretchen knew Penelope would pounce on it. And if Gretchen blushed she was sure to make a remark. “Never mind that; I just chased off the White Lady and a swarm of gargoyles.”

Penelope waved that away. “I want to hear about the kiss.”

“It was nothing. What were we supposed to do? Let you all sleep for the next hundred years? Now, are you going to let me in, or what?”

The front hall and main parlor of the Chadwick family townhouse was a hothouse of roses, tulips, and hyacinths. Pink and yellow petals drifted over the marble floor, and pollen clung to the tabletops. They’d run out of vases and had resorted to
painted teacups, set out on the windowsills and beside each of the chairs.

“It smells like an old lady in here,” Gretchen said. Emma had already arrived and was handing her shawl to the butler, Battersea. A moth flew out of her hair.

“It smells like a garden,” Penelope corrected.

“Same thing.” Gretchen shrugged, following her into the drawing room. “Who sent you all those tulips?”

“Lord Beauregard,” she replied, looking softly at enough tulips to fill Carlton House. “Isn’t Lucius just a lovely name? He sent over a pair of pink silk gloves as well to replace the ones he spilled wine on.” Penelope held her arm straight out to stop Gretchen when she moved toward the parlor. “Don’t even consider it. I want details. Did anyone see you? Your mother will have you married by morning if she finds out about it. I danced with Mr. Abbotsford twice at the Pickford ball and she lectured me for an hour that I was too free with my favors, and in her day I’d have as good as declared my engagement with such behavior.”

Gretchen shuddered. “I know. She’d say my reputation was at stake or some such rot and force us to marry.” She had no intention of being coerced into marrying Tobias. Even if he was such a surprisingly good kisser. “It’s not like people don’t kiss all the time. I saw Oliver Blake and Ada Grey vanish into the shrubbery just last week at a dinner party. That was perfectly acceptable as long as no one saw them. It’s daft.”

“Bah. As if I care a fig for them. I want to know about your kiss. Was it divine?”

Emma’s smile was sly. “It must have been, to break the spell so quickly.”

Gretchen became suddenly very interested in the tulips. “It was magic.”

“Oh ho!” Penelope hooted. “I’ll bet it was!”

Gretchen rolled her eyes. “I meant actual magic, you goose.” She refused to consider the fact that she’d relived the kiss a hundred times in her head already. She’d been so engrossed in the memory, she’d nearly tripped down the stairs this morning on her way to breakfast. Breaking spells was tiring work, was all. She’d stop hearing wolves howling every time she shut her eyes as soon as she recovered.

“Did he send flowers at least?”

“Of course not. It wasn’t romantic, Pen. As if it could be.” She half smiled. “Anyway, I kissed
him
actually. His pathetically polite kiss on the back of my hand didn’t do a thing to stop the spell.”

“
You
kissed
him
?” Penelope beamed at her.

“It was nothing. I’m sure he’s forgotten about it already.” Even if she couldn’t.

Emma’s smile was too knowing, too sympathetic. “I thought Cormac was indifferent at first too.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

“It just was,” she said crossly.

“Perhaps I ought to kiss Lucius,” Penelope suggested with a wicked smile. “He’s taking entirely too long.”

Gretchen raised an eyebrow in her direction. “Or Cedric?”

“Why would I do that?” She sounded almost panicked. “He’d laugh at me.”

“He would not.”

“You’re just trying to change the subject,” Penelope muttered, suddenly deciding that she preferred to be in the parlor after all.

“And my daughter here would have me believe she isn’t a popular debutante,” Aunt Bethany said from her favorite Egyptian chair. It was painted black, with cats for armrests and intriguing hieroglyphs along the back. She was surrounded with so many flowers she looked like Titania in her dark green dress, embroidered all over with tiny leaves and white birds. She’d no doubt done the needlepoint herself; it was too extravagant and beautiful to be anyone else’s work.

Gretchen grinned at her. “The lads all love Penelope; it’s the girls who get all lemon-faced.”

Penelope wrinkled her nose. “Those boys only like me because I’m an heiress.”

“And because you’re kind,” Emma put in.

“The same two reasons the girls make lemon faces,” Gretchen added, stealing a slice of gingerbread from a silver platter. “And also because you’re unfairly beautiful.”

“I’m fat.”

“You’re stupid,” Gretchen retorted immediately, with an affectionate pat to the arm. “Not fat.”

Penelope stuck out her tongue. “Clarissa called me fat.”

“Clarissa is a canker-blossom.”

Penelope grinned. “You’re cursing in Shakespearean. I’m so proud.”

“I try. And since when do we care what a muttonhead like Clarissa says?”

“We don’t,” Penelope admitted. “I just forget sometimes.”

An osprey landed on the nearest windowsill. It pecked at the glass, its dark eye gleaming like the jet beads the Keepers used to break spells. Aunt Bethany set her embroidery hoop down. “That’s rather odd.”

Another osprey landed next to the first. Moths flew out of the fireplace, in a cloud of dusty wings.

“Blast.” Emma sighed. “Not again.” She rubbed her arms, chilled. “They were all the familiars of the three Sisters.”

Aunt Bethany nodded thoughtfully. “A side effect from bottling them, no doubt. You’re not a Lacrimarium and yet you worked their magic. There are reasons they train for so long.” She drummed her fingers on her knee, watching the ospreys flap their wings frantically. “We need the Toad Mother,” she added finally. “She has spells for this sort of thing. A kind of magical purification.”

“She sounds … odd,” Penelope said with a smile. “I can’t wait.”

“I want you girls to be exceedingly careful,” Aunt Bethany said, the little frown lines between her eyes suddenly becoming deeper. “The Sisters are dangerous.”

“But they’ve been bottled.”

“All the same. My father, your grandfather, was a Keeper for the Order when the Sisters went on their last rampage. Decades later, he still had nightmares. And he kept the house spelled against them until the day he died.” She rubbed her arms, staring unseeing at the ospreys still pecking at the
window. “They killed so many people at a winter ball once that he said the blood never washed off the floors. There’s a reason the magpie is their crest. They steal and hoard away magic, using whatever means they can.” She turned back to the girls. “Remember your rhymes.
One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told.”

“Isn’t that for how many magpies you can count?” Gretchen asked.

“Yes, where do you think children’s rhyme and folklore come from?” her mother replied. “And there were Seven Sisters when they were at their most powerful. It took centuries to banish them all.”

“We’ll be careful,
Maman
,” Penelope said soothingly. “Promise.”