Her Ladyship's Curse

When I left I passed a number of magic shops and tellers, most just opening for night business. While I generally ignored them for the nonsense hope peddlers that they were, Dredmore’s warning and Lady Diana’s strange wounds caused me to glance in a few windows.

Mages, tellers, and other practitioners of the dark arts were a clannish bunch and rarely socialized outside their ranks—Dredmore being one of the few, annoying exceptions, though he had once been titled, which evidently made him less repulsive to the tonners. They invariably lived where they worked, in small cramped lofts above their shops, which offered any and every sort of magic one could desire, from seeings to seekings to special charms.

The latest addition to their industry were warders: specialty mages who charmed wardlings forged of silver that were supposed to cast protective charms over people and homes and even whole buildings to protect them from the netherside and—what else?—ward off harmful or evil spells. One could hardly find a window or threshold in the city that hadn’t been adorned with a wardling.

What was interesting to me was just how many wardlings I saw in the windows and over the doors of the magic shops. Pretty as the inscribed silver disks were, they were as useless as oversize coins. Still, warders had been growing very influential of late, which baffled me to no end. I’d never thought that the other charlatans in their trade would ever believe that manner of foolishness.

I approached an old native shaman, who crouched in front of a neighborhood stable. He’d drawn a circle in the dirt around a white rat that had been tied to a large stone. I looked away as the old man used his blade to nick the rodent’s neck; I knew he’d use the blood to paint some strange design over the threshold of the stable. One of the local’s mounts must have died suddenly; the superstitious natives wouldn’t touch another horse in the same stable until the rat-blood ritual was performed. I had no love for rats, but seeing any creature bled for something so meaningless revolted me.

I didn’t realize I’d stopped in front of a richly decorated window until the middle-aged female proprietor unlocked the shop door, stepped out, and spoke to me. “See your future, miss?”

“I’m not a believer,” I said absently, and nodded toward her window, where she had displayed a row of inscribed silver disks hanging from neck chains. “Are you lot selling wardlings as baubles now?”

Her expression turned shuttered. “Pr’aps you’d best move on, miss. ’Twill be dark soon.” She turned and went back into the shop.

Tellers were the least offensive of mages, so I followed her in. “Hang on,” I called after her. “I changed my mind. I do want a seeing.”

“Sorry, can’t. I’m about to close.” She scampered behind a long counter covered with hundreds of lit candles, vials of colored stones, and large blueglass spirit snuffballs. “There’s another teller four doors down. She’ll see for you. She sees for anyone.”

I’d never patronized a teller before, but I vaguely remembered one of Rina’s gels comparing them to strumpets in that they demanded payment before service was rendered.

She wanted the money first, then. “How much is it?” I asked as I reached into my satchel for some coin.

“As I said, I’m done in for the day, miss.”

“You only just opened your door,” I reminded her. “Why won’t you see for me?” Something occurred to me. “Do you know a witch named Gert?”

She flicked her eyes over me, as if she were afraid to look at me too long. “No. And I never seen the likes of you.” She made a funny gesture and whispered, “Hope never to see again.”

“Spells are nonsense,” I informed her, in the event she was about to cast one. “Might as well save your breath.”

She gave me a frightened look and the next thing she said came out in a hill country accent. “Ev doan nowhat to ye, elshy. Lave oof m’now.”

Something buzzed in my ears. “What did you call me?”

She didn’t utter another word but spun and ran back into a storeroom, slamming the door and locking it behind her.

I dropped my coin tuck back in my reticule and resisted the urge to give it a swing and smash a few candleglasses. That was when I noticed the dozens of smoke wisps rising around me, and how dark it had become inside the shop.

Something had blown out the teller’s candles. All of them.

At home I ran a bath, but while I was undressing something snapped and slithered down between my breasts. I didn’t realize it was my pendant until I pulled it out of my bodice and stared at the broken links.

“Damn me.” The chain was older than me, and thanks to my tussle with Dredmore in the carriage it had finally snapped. I left the pendant on my vanity and went to the little cashsafe I kept behind a painting of New Yorkshire. I had another chain I’d taken in lieu of payment from a silversmith with a fireplace he thought haunted but that I’d found occupied by a nesting owl.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

I whirled around to see a strange old man standing in my bedchamber. “Who are you?” I yanked up my bodice to cover my chest and glanced at the door and the windows, all of which were still closed. “How did you get in here?”

He held up hands that looked too long and narrow for his short, thin frame. “I’m not going to hurt you, lass. In fact, if you’ll give a moment to explain, I may be of some considerable assistance to you.”

“Stuff that.” I grabbed a prodder from the hearth and brandished it. Wrecker had once shown me the best spots to cripple a man and I remembered all of them. “Get out of here or I’ll cosh in your skull.”

He shrugged. “Go ahead.”

“I’m not jesting with you, old man.” Was he a burglar or a rapist? “I don’t know what you want, but I’ve nothing worth nicking.”

“You’ve everything I gave you, Charm, as well as a few things I didn’t.” He began wandering around the room, touching things that were not his. “Don’t the maids ever dust in here?”

“I don’t have maids. What the devil are you doing? Don’t touch that.” I went after him as he peered at my pendant. When I tried to grab him, my hand passed straight through him, as if he wasn’t even there. My fingers came away stiff with cold, as if I’d held my hand to a block of ice.

“Bloody hell.” He was a ghost, and he was talking to me. “Who are you?”

“I’m free, love. After twenty years of waiting and watching.” He drew back from my vanity. “Though I imagine your da is spinning like a top in his grave. He never did like me, you know. And your mother . . .” He gave a shudder that made his form shimmer.

He was a ghost and a loon. “Why are you haunting me?” I demanded. “I don’t know you. I didn’t kill you.”

“That, my gel, is a very long story.” He eyed the window. “I’d leave you in peace, but it’s still daylight. My sort can only go about freely after dark.”

“Well, you are not staying here all day,” I told him.

“I’m not inclined to. You’ve a green stone in your left pocket,” he told me. “Give it to me.”

Here was a chance to find out more about the real nature of ghosts versus the nonsense the magic trade always spouted about them. I took out the pebble and tossed it to him. Instead of passing through him as my hand had, it landed in his open palm. He closed his fingers over it and frowned.

“Nasty bit of spell put on this.” He made a fist, relaxed it, and bits of green gravel fell to the floor. “Whoever gave this to you wants you dead, Charm.”

“It’s not mine.” The magical nickname made me glower. “And I’m called Kit.”

His white hair ruffled as he shook his head. “Your name is Charmian Constance. Your mother called you that after your grandmother.”

“You have the wrong Charmian,” I told him through my teeth.

“Your father’s name was Christopher Kittredge, wasn’t it? Your mother would have taken his name. She could never use mine.” His expression turned thoughtful. “I’m not certain she even knew it.”

My jaw dropped. “You were married to my mother?”

“No, I was her father. I’m your grandfather, Charm.” He sketched a bow. “Harry White, at your service.”

Talking to this mirage was giving me a headache. “Go haunt someone else, Harry White.”

“The daylight problem, as I mentioned, prevents my departure.” He started toward me. “Then there’s the fact that you’re in grave danger. Dark forces are gathering.”

It was almost exactly what Dredmore had said. “What dark forces?”

He gestured at the vanity. “You’ll need to wear that at all times, my dear.”

Is that what he was after? My pendant? I went over and picked it up. “I do already,” I said, turning around to face him. “Now what—”

I discovered I was talking to myself, as it seemed that Harry White had done the same as every ghost I’d ever encountered: vanished without a word.

Chapter Five

Being the only female tenant in my office building had some advantages, like the use of a lavatory I had to share only with the occasional female client (rare) and my own chutes for rubbish, post, and meal drops (none of the other tenants wanted the contents of their tubes mixed in with a woman’s). The only significant drawback to being the sole woman on the premises was my lack of staff; I had to deal with anyone and everyone who came to call—even some of the other tenants who wandered past my door.

Tonight it was Horace Eduwin Gremley the Fourth, a clerk from the second-floor title office. Horace the Second, a semirespectable land broker, had arranged the job for his grandson when Horace the Third had deserted his wife and son for the lure of gold. I knew the lad’s father had been swept off and drowned while unwisely panning during an early thaw, so I tried to be tolerant.