Spellbreaker (Spellbreaker Duology #1) - Charlie N. Holmberg Page 0,2

home from behind. Despite the crowded nature of the city, these estates didn’t have a second row of buildings at their backs. The wealthy demanded nice gardens to accompany their nice houses. Meanwhile, their tenants worked their land and paid their dues without so much as a cheers! sent their way.

Which was precisely why Elsie didn’t feel bad about breaking the law.

It would be sneakier to do it at night. Surely a burglar or the like from one of the tales in her novel reader would have acted at night. But Elsie was already a single woman venturing about on her own; she needn’t ruin herself by doing so after sundown. Times were changing, yes, but people’s minds were slow to keep up.

A man passed by her, tipping his hat in greeting. Elsie smiled and nodded back. Once he’d left, Elsie touched the brick wall encircling the Turner home, letting its roughness pass beneath her fingertips. Searching for anything magicked.

A few feet ahead of her, a rune shimmered once and shied away, as though embarrassed by Elsie’s scrutiny. A physical spell, if she could see it. Different spells manifested themselves to her in different ways. She could feel rational runes, hear spiritual ones, and smell the temporal. Physical spells, however, liked to be seen. They were the dandies of the magic world.

The thing all runes had in common was their knot-like quality. At least, Elsie liked to think of them as knots. And like knots, they could fray over time. The more masterful the spellmaker’s hand, the more stubborn the knot was to untie. The ones she could see—physical spells—were made of light and glitter, bright and pretzel-like, loose if the man casting them had been lazy or simply wasn’t talented.

Aspectors were usually men, anyway.

There were two kinds of wizards in the world—those who cast spells, and those who broke them. The spellmakers, known as aspectors, paid a king’s ransom for the spells they took into their bodies, yet another means of benefitting the rich and rebuffing the poor. But God had a way of making things even. He’d been generous with the other side of the coin, for spellbreakers were born with the ability to dis-spell magic, and it didn’t cost them a farthing.

Elsie couldn’t handle any of the four alignments of magic herself, but she could detect spells and unravel them like knots. This spell was decently tied, but not terribly so. An intermediate or advanced physical spell of hiding. It concealed a door, Elsie was sure of it. And it just so happened that Mr. Turner had a habit of “losing” his tenants’ rent and forcing them to pay double. The people who depended on him for their livelihoods could barely keep food on the table, while this man lounged with the peerage and had servants at his beck and call. This was the sort of injustice the Cowls often addressed—with Elsie’s help. She would disenchant this door, and the Cowls would take back the money he had stolen. Very Robin Hood of them. And Elsie was their Little John.

Pushing her palms into the spell, she pulled on the ends of the knot. There were seven of them, and she would need to unravel them in the reverse order of their placement. Fortunately, Elsie had encountered this spell before. She’d know how to proceed, once she found the loose end.

In a matter of heartbeats, the spell faded, and the creases and hinges of a brick-heavy door became visible to her eye.

“Who goes there?”

Elsie’s heart leapt into her throat. She pulled away from the wall as though it had stung her. It was not a constable, but a man in a fine waistcoat and trousers, a gold watch chain swinging from one of his pockets. Upon recognizing his face against the late-afternoon sun, however, Elsie almost wished it had been a constable.

Squire Douglas Hughes. The squire who presided over her hometown. Brookley was close enough to London that it wasn’t particularly odd for her to see him here. But it was bad luck.

Not because she feared he’d recognize her—despite the fact that she’d worked in his house for a year, she doubted he would—but because Squire Hughes was the epitome of everything she hated. He was rude to the common folk and a sycophant to the aristocrats. He hoarded his money and passed off his squirely duties whenever he could, and when he could not, he bore them with the utmost disdain and didn’t attempt to hide it.