hand toward the far door. “I kin knock for you if you want, but . . .” She sucked in an audible gasp of air, her voice trailing off into nothing.
“I’ll announce myself,” Hero told the girl, who dropped a quick, relieved curtsy and bolted back down the stairs.
“Agla, On, Tetragrammaton,” exclaimed the voice at the end of the hall.
Biting her lip to keep from laughing, Hero pushed the door open wider.
A short, plump figure shrouded in a white linen robe, her face hidden by a deep, monklike cowl, circled the room in slow, measured steps. She held an open book in one hand, in the other a flask of holy water such as a Catholic priest might use. “Per sedem Adonay, per Hagius, o Theos,” she intoned, punctuating each phrase with a flick of the holy water. On the room’s scrubbed wooden floor was drawn a circle upon which were positioned a strange assortment of objects: an earthenware vessel filled with glowing coals; a naked sword blade; flasks of perfume. The pungent scents of myrtle and musk permeated the room. The robed figure was so focused on reading the incantations from her book and stepping precisely around the circle that she didn’t notice Hero until she was nearly upon her. Then she looked up, her step faltering, her jaw sagging, before she clamped it shut and went off into a peal of laughter.
“Losh!” she exclaimed in a pronounced Scottish brogue. “Frightened the sense out of me, you did. For one hen-witted moment, I actually feared all the laws of the universe had reversed themselves and the silly spell worked.”
“What? You were trying to conjure me, were you?”
Miss Abigail McBean pushed back her cowl and set aside her holy water. “Not you, exactly.” She pointed to a woodcut illustration in her book. “The angel Anael, who rules the tenth hour of Tuesday—or at least, he does according to Peter de Abano, who wrote this thing back in 1496.”
Hero studied the illustration. “You think I look like that, do you?”
In mock seriousness, the Scotswoman held up the open book with its illustration beside Hero, as if comparing the two. “Hmm. Well, you’re female, of course. And you don’t have black hair or six-foot gray wings. Not to mention a wand tipped with a pine cone and decorated with ribbons.”
Hero tweaked the book from her friend’s grasp and studied the title. “Heptameron,” she read aloud. “I take it this is one of your grimoires?”
“It is.” Miss McBean pulled the linen robe off over her head, transforming herself from an exotic, vaguely menacing figure into a plump woman in a simple sprigged muslin gown. She had a pretty round face with a small nose, full, rosy cheeks, and a head of riotously curling rust-colored hair that she’d tried rather unsuccessfully to contain in a bun. “Its English title is Magical Elements. I’ve been wanting to try this incantation for weeks, only I just got the hyssop.”
Hero studied her friend’s unlined, pleasant face. “If you don’t believe in these spells, why do them?”
“Because I know of no better way to understand what these men were trying to do and how they felt when they did it.” She nodded to the calfskin-bound manuscript Hero had tucked beneath her arm. “What’s that?”
Hero held it out to her. “I’m told it’s called The Key of Solomon. Ever hear of it?
Miss McBean took the manuscript with a hand that was suddenly not quite steady. “I’ve heard of it.”
Chapter 22
S
ebastian was careful to wait until after twelve o’clock to pay a call on the Park Street home of his aunt, the Dowager Duchess of Claiborne. The house was not, technically, the property of the Dowager but belonged to her son, the present Duke of Claiborne. But the Duke, a stout, mild-mannered man well into his middle years, knew himself to be no match for his formidable mother. Rather than assert his rights of ownership, he simply lived with his growing family in a much smaller house in Half Moon Street, leaving Henrietta in possession of the grand pile over which she had reigned as mistress for more than half a century.
Born Lady Henrietta St. Cyr, the elder sister of the current Earl of Hendon, she was one of the few people who knew that she was not actually Sebastian’s aunt, although the world believed her to be. But neither Sebastian nor Henrietta was the type to allow technicalities to interfere in their affections.
He found her seated at her breakfast