if I’d said that?”
“Probably not, but it would have been nice to hear.”
He lifted her chin with a finger, making her look him in the eye, and he kissed her softly on the lips. “First of all, Sephira Pryce, while beautiful, is the cruelest, most wicked, least trustworthy, most self-affected person I have ever met. And second, her beauty, while undeniable, is nothing next to yours.”
Kannice smiled. “Now that was much better. You should have started with that.”
“All right. Ask me again.”
She laughed once more. “That’s not—”
“Ask me again.”
She rolled her eyes. “Do you think Sephira Pryce is beautiful?”
“Sephira Pryce,” he said, scratching his chin. “I’m not sure I know who that is. Oh, of course. You’re referring to that mean old sow who lives on Summer Street. I suppose she might be attractive to some—mostly the blind and the infirm.”
“Leave,” Kannice said, a thread of laughter lingering in her voice. She pushed him toward the door.
“But I haven’t gotten to the part where she’s not as lovely as you.”
“I don’t care. Go away.”
“I’ll be back later.”
“I’ll have moved to Newport.”
It was his turn to laugh. She followed him to the door so that she could unbolt the lock. He stepped out into the bright daylight, but then turned back to her. “Lock the door.”
“Kelf will be here soon.”
“And when he arrives you can unlock it.”
“My lock is not going to stop Nate Ramsey.”
She was right, of course, though he didn’t care to be reminded of this.
“Humor me,” he said.
There was a note of indulgence in her voice as she said, “All right.”
He struck out southward along Sudbury Street, which soon became Treamount. The lanes were more crowded this day, and the snow had been trampled down further, making walking far easier than it had been even the night before. Carriages and chaises steered past him, the hoofbeats of their horses muffled, the turning of their wheels on the packed snow as quiet as the gliding of sleigh runners.
The sky was a deep azure and cloudless. An eagle circled on splayed wings high overhead, white and chestnut against the blue. Lower, gulls soared in great flocks, their cries sounding thin and mournful.
It was a sparkling morn, brighter than any Boston had seen in recent weeks. Yet those Ethan encountered in the streets seemed uncommonly solemn. Ethan wondered how long it would be before the pall from yesterday’s funeral lifted.
As Ethan walked along the edge of the Common, he considered what he might say to Sephira. Notwithstanding what he had told Kannice, he wasn’t yet ready to share with the Empress of the South End his fear that Ramsey had returned. He knew nothing for certain; he was not entirely convinced that his suspicions were based on anything more than his lingering dread of another confrontation with the captain. There was another conjurer in the city; he knew that now. Though he could not yet shake the conviction that Ramsey was responsible for all that had happened in the past several days, the evidence he had gathered thus far—his own fruitless search of the waterfront, Uncle Reg’s assurances, the fact that he had yet to see Ramsey’s aqua power on any of the men affected by the spells—pointed him in a different direction.
More to the point, Sephira hated Ramsey with a passion that surpassed Ethan’s own, and with good reason. The previous summer, during a pitched battle between Ramsey’s crew and her toughs, Ramsey killed Nigel Billings, the yellow-haired giant of a man who had been Sephira’s most trusted lieutenant. If Ethan so much as suggested that Ramsey might be back, she would tear the city apart searching for him, with potentially tragic results for herself, her men, and any innocents who chanced to get in her way.
But without mentioning Ramsey, Ethan didn’t know how he might convince Sephira to allow Mariz to help him. She did not approve of their friendship, and she would be reluctant to do anything that might deepen it. Though he racked his brain, trying to come up with ideas, he still had not thought of anything by the time he reached her home.
Sephira’s mansion stood at the south end of Summer Street, near the Old South Meeting House and across the lane from d’Acosta’s Pasture, an expanse of grazing land that was usually filled with lowing cows and flocks of crows.
The cobblestone path leading from the street to Sephira’s house had been cleared, but otherwise the snow blanketing her yard remained pristine, making her impressive