to change my daily routine. Indeed, the man with whom I spoke made it clear to me that I was not to do so.”
Ethan shook his head. None of this was as he had expected. “He merely told you to search for other conjurers?”
“Not even to search for them. To keep watch, to tell him of any spells I felt or spectral guides I happened to see.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“No. But I believed—” He clamped his mouth shut, his gaze sliding away.
“You believed what, Grant?” When the clerk didn’t respond, Ethan tightened his hold on the man’s cape and shook him. “What did you believe?”
“It might have been foolish of me, but I believed I had been hired by a friend of the patriot cause, someone who suspected that … that loyalists were using spellers to spy on Adams and the others. I suppose that sounds ridiculous.”
Ethan had battled such a conjurer several years before. He shook his head. “Not so ridiculous, no.” He adjusted his grip on the man. “What were you to do if you found anyone? What did you do after our encounter at the Green Dragon?”
“I was to write a missive describing who and what I had seen, and deliver it to a predetermined location.”
At last. Ethan’s pulse quickened. “Where? Where did you take those missives?”
“That’s quite enough, I think.”
Ethan sprang to his feet and spun, gripping his knife. At first he saw no one. But then Ramsey—or rather the faintly glowing, conjured illusion of him—appeared from the darkness, like a ship emerging from mist.
The figure did not spare Ethan a look, but stared straight at the clerk. It wore Ramsey’s familiar sardonic smile, but its eyes gleamed as would embers in a hearth.
“I’m disappointed in you, Grant.”
Grant appeared more perplexed than frightened. “Who are you?”
“The man who gave you those five pounds you’ve been telling Kaille about. I would have thought that much money bought not only your cooperation, but also a modicum of discretion.”
With Ramsey’s illusion still watching the clerk, Ethan slowly moved his blade hand toward the other. If he could draw blood and cast a finding spell while Ramsey was conjuring, he might locate the captain in spite of whatever precautions he might have—
“Don’t do it, Kaille. Whatever spell you’re trying to cast will only make matters worse.”
“Worse for whom? For you, Ramsey? Do you think I care?”
“You’ve outlived your usefulness,” the figure said, addressing Grant again. “Not that you were terribly useful to begin with. But nevertheless…” He smiled again.
A conjuring surged through the ground beneath Ethan’s feet. He couldn’t keep himself from glancing at Reg. The ghost was already watching him.
Grant let out a strangled cry and clawed at his chest. His mouth was agape, but he did not seem to be able to draw breath.
Ethan knelt next to him. “Grant?” He glared up at Ramsey’s illusion. “What are you doing to him?”
“Nothing at all. You’re doing it.”
“Grant!” Ethan said again.
The clerk’s eyes had gone wide. His hands still clutched his heart. He fell over onto his side, his unbroken leg kicking spasmodically.
Ethan fumbled in his coat pocket for the three pouches of herbs. Removing several leaves from each—he didn’t bother to count them—he said, “Tegimen nobis ambobus ex verbasco et marrubio et betonica evocatum.” Warding, both of us, conjured from mullein, horehound, and betony.
The conjuring rumbled, an answer to Ramsey’s spell. But Grant continued to flail silently.
“No,” said Ramsey’s illusion. “I’m afraid that didn’t work.”
“Damn you, Ramsey!”
“Damn me?” the illusion said. “Damn me? Thus far, I’ve done you a favor Kaille. You ought to be thanking me!” He pointed at the clerk. “I can kill him in as many ways as you can conjure. I can slice open his throat or shatter his neck, or do any number of things that will make it seem that he has been killed on this deserted lane by a more powerful man, a man seen with him on King Street only moments before. Or I can let him die as he’s dying now, in a manner that will draw little notice. Earlier it was your choice that mattered; now it’s mine. Depending upon what I do in the next few moments, you could be gaoled tonight and hanged tomorrow. You shouldn’t be damning me; you should be begging.”
Ethan stared back at him, shaking with rage, at Ramsey and at his own impotence.
The illusion cocked its glowing head to the side as if considering options. “What to do. On the one hand,