The Raven Spell (Conspiracy of Magic #1)(9)

He ought to blurt it out. Tell the inspector about the women. About the strange blue light he’d seen rising off his body. The hollow sensation that followed in his head, arms, and chest, as if they’d taken something not from his person but from his being. But instinct held him back. Even he knew it was fantastic. Unreal. And probably a dream of the unconscious.

He shook his head. “My hat? A wallet perhaps? I have no idea if there might have been cash in it.”

It did seem odd he had only a single card with a name on it. No other papers or identification. An old pipe, a pocket watch with mysterious initials, and a worthless piece of paper. And the knife. But he’d hidden that from the inspector under his blanket. He didn’t know why, other than some instinct had urged him to do it.

The inspector dismissed the idea with a glance and a shrug, suggesting he was of the opinion the man he was looking at was nothing more than one of the common indigents who roamed the streets looking for work and lodging. Why else would a man voluntarily remain in a hospital if he was able to sit up and speak? And with no visitors come to check on him? “A robbery, most like. And yet this pocket watch was not taken off your person? Gold plate, at that.”

The man flinched when the inspector picked up the timepiece. He had the strongest desire to swipe the watch out of the man’s hands, but why would such a thing even matter? Willoughby held the gold piece in his hand and pushed the lever to open it. “Rotten luck, that. Not working. The mechanism is broken. Still, any thief would have nicked it right off, wouldn’t you think?”

“Of course.” Of course! But then what had the women taken? Something beyond this man’s understanding and jurisdiction, of that he was certain. And yet he felt compelled now to speak the odd vision into existence, if only to testify and measure his own sanity. “There were two women. In shawls.”

“Women?” Willoughby raised a curious brow. “You mean tarts?”

No, there’d been no whiff of perfume, no scent of dried sweat, no breath tainted with alcohol and sweet cachous. His brain was working fast to remember as many small details as it could before they all spilled out the wound at the back of his head with the rest of his memory. His hand reached for the reassurance of the knife beneath the blanket. “Nae,” he said. “Young women, though. In black. Long fluttering shawls and dark hair coiled at the nape of the neck held with silver combs.” His inner vision cast an image for the inspector to contemplate. “Like that one.” He pointed to the dark figure of a shawled woman standing in the corridor, but by the time Willoughby looked, the woman had gone.

But he had seen her, hadn’t he? Or had the crack on his head bruised his brain so that he could no longer tell the difference between what he saw and what he imagined? The thought sent a nauseated tremor through him.

The inspector faced him again, making a small “hmm” sound as he pursed his lips, as though already dismissing the account as frivolous. “I’ve got a man asking around the docks if they saw anything untoward this morning. Yours isn’t the only report we’ve had of robbery of late. My guess is we’ve got a gang of street thugs who’ve grown overly bold. Rest assured we’ll have them apprehended. In the meantime, if anything else occurs to you, please report it to a city station or one of our constables.” Willoughby handed him a printed card with his contact information, not unlike the bloodstained one gracing his belongings inside the bedpan; then the inspector doffed his hat and departed. Case closed. Or at least wrapped up unless or until he could recall anything else.

After Willoughby had gone, the image of the women lingered, too real to be imagined. They’d spoken over him. Touched him. Yes, they’d felt for his pulse before taking something. Everything. And when they’d gone, a void of nothingness had spun in their wake.

“Sounds like our Blackwood sisters,” the nurse said as she folded a set of bedsheets near enough to his cot to have overheard the conversation. Seeing him steady his eyes on her for more information, she retracted her comment. “Not saying it was them. It’s just they do wear long black shawls and silver combs in their hair, the two of them. Lots of women do, of course. Only they volunteer at the hospital on occasion. Could be they were here this morning when you came in. That’s why you know them. Easy to understand how that might have got in your head, love.”

And yet he knew the memory—his only memory—was of the muddy bank of the stinking river, not the hospital. The smell climbed in his nostrils to remind him of how he’d lain on the ground when they’d taken something from him.

Whoever or whatever he was in this life, he gripped the knife with conviction. “Could you tell me how to get in touch with these sisters so I might pay my respects when I’m well?”

The nurse nodded and smiled, and he inwardly did the same when she described their shop on Old Bridge Road.





Chapter Six


Curse the stars. Why couldn’t that man have done the proper thing and died in the mud where they’d found him? Edwina took that back. Wasn’t wise to speak ill of the dead. Or the living. Besides, she rarely meant the terrible things that came first to her mind. It was just the flint and spark of discharging flighty emotions. It was either that or let them get bottled up inside her, waiting to explode at an inopportune moment. A trait of her father’s that had taken seed in her demeanor. Something that had never served him, or her, well in the past. And yet intuition told her there was a great deal to be regretful about should the man still walk this side of the veil hanging between life and death.