Spellmaker (Spellbreaker Duology #2) - Charlie N. Holmberg Page 0,27

graves, and my own. I’ll never influence you with magic.”

The hidden opus spell tucked beneath her sash grew heavy. She thought about the horrible things Merton had manipulated her into doing, and about Bacchus, whose understanding and patience surely had limits—limits she was pushing. But she had no idea how much of her life such a spell would erase . . .

“Unless I ask you to,” she added in a soft voice.

He raised an eyebrow. “Unless you ask me to.”

Content, Elsie retrieved her candle and made her way back upstairs, leaving Ogden to ponder alone in the light of only one.

The British Museum’s repository for newspapers was an unremarkable and unassuming building, lacking in any refined architecture or color, but Elsie was hardly interested in its exterior. Ogden held the door for her, and she slipped inside, almost immediately being greeted by rows and rows of books, drawers, and shelves. At least they were notably organized.

After a moment, Ogden pointed. “This way.”

Elsie followed him. “Did you spy into a curator’s mind for that?”

Ogden gave her a flat look and pointed to a sign indicating newspapers and their dates. Feeling foolish, Elsie followed.

Only problem was, she didn’t know precisely what dates she needed. How long had it taken the American to sniff her out? Still, if the articles weren’t indexed by name, it would be a nearly impossible task to sort through even a year’s worth of newspapers. Especially since she doubted the curators would permit her to simply take whole stacks of newspapers home to rifle through.

An older gentleman strode by, glancing once at her and Ogden before continuing on his way.

“Here.” Ogden pointed in the direction from which the man had come, to a wall full of tiny wooden drawers. Elsie had to remind herself not to run as she approached. There were drawers organized by date, by region, and—

“By author,” she whispered, touching the handwritten surnames on one of the drawers. She quickly reviewed the display, dropping to her knees to reach the C’s. She pulled out one that read, Calladine–Cook.

Ogden crouched beside her. The drawer was much longer than she had thought. Hundreds of cards were crammed into it, all handwritten, some in different penmanship and colors of ink. It made her think of aspecting, but there were no spells to be found here. She carefully separated the cards with her nails, one by one. She found what she was looking for fairly quickly, thanks to the magic of alphabetizing.

Her name, Camden, Elsie, was scrawled along the top. She pulled the card out. It wasn’t very full, boasting only three article titles. But locations were listed for each, and she and Ogden quickly divided them and began their hunt. Elsie ended up in a section for Irish newspapers, and in the time it took her to find the correct one, Ogden had already pulled both English papers. Instead of moving to one of the tables near the entrance, they set the papers atop the card cabinets.

“Here,” Ogden said, pointing to an article. “It’s on the front page.”

Elsie leaned close to him, reading, Valuable Items Stolen from American Estate.

“Hmm,” she hummed.

Ogden glanced at her.

“Why would that make the front page of a London newspaper?” She pointed to the large letters spelling out the Manchester Guardian. It was dated April 5, 1887. Eight years ago.

Both of them hushed as they read the article. It was short, not even continued on a later page. And it was incredibly vague, never actually stating what had been stolen from which estate. One line was curious, however: The inquirer would gladly pay a high price for the black birds. It felt like it meant something. There was nothing else about birds in the article. The effect was jarring.

Ogden pulled out the other newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, in which Elsie’s name was printed on the second page, under a headline reading, Spiritual Aspecting Across the Pond. Again, the article was brief unto the point of meaningless. It had been published last year and had a typo in it: A shame if things were to take a Turner and end entirely.

“I could have written something better than this,” Elsie commented, flipping back to the front page.

“For such bad journalism written by a nobody—no offense,” Ogden offered, “the author, presumably Lily Merton, must have paid a good sum to have the articles put at the front. To make them more noticeable.”

Elsie pulled up the News Letter, the Irish paper, and sure enough, the article with her