Page 46 of Blackwicket (Dark Hall #1)

I had no sense of the time, knowing only that I’d slept so long my limbs didn’t feel like my own.

Mind muddled, I roused, throwing open the shutters to a dreary afternoon.

I didn’t want to see Inspector Harrow, not while I was still piecing together what had occurred in the early hours, when he’d introduced me to desire I’d never experienced.

I reminded myself, again and again, that we’d both been reeling from the traumatic events of the day, eager to occupy ourselves with something other than dark thoughts.

Still, the Inspector’s admission of being a stolen child, his face becoming monstrous in the golden glow of the lamps, haunted me.

As did the ghost of his hands on my thighs.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I leaned on the dresser, crowded with all the powders and perfumes my sister had collected.

I imagined turning the clock back to the night I’d left, choosing to stay instead, choosing my sister over freedom.

Maybe we could have been safe together. Maybe she’d be alive, and I’d be an asset of the Brom, helping her operate an illegal boarding house.

I touched several bottles, assessing the extensive array of fragrances, many of which I’d sold to customers at Galton’s.

One bottle caught my attention, emptier than the rest. I brought it to my nose, savoring the scent of summer jasmine, before recognizing who it brought to mind: the smoky-voiced Thea who ran High Tide for William, thorny and puzzling.

I returned the bottle and hugged my arms to my chest for comfort while I contemplated the photos on the walls.

They needed to be taken down and stored.

It pained me to see all the people who may have exploited my sister for her abilities, her position of influence over William.

I considered the blackberry flowers pressed inside the frames, displayed in no particular order.

Goosebumps rose on my flesh, spine straightening as I made the horrible connection.

I quickly dressed, still tucking my blouse as I hurried into the hall to the Inspector’s room. Without calling his name, I banged on the door with the flat of my hand, never relenting. He wouldn’t be able to ignore me, no matter how badly he wanted to.

The door opened abruptly, and there he stood, dressed and shaved, his hair precise, with not a strand out of place. He’d returned to being the cold, authoritative man he’d always been, the crack in his armor repaired.

“What’s going on?” he barked.

I looked him dead in the eye, “Fiona was poisoning people.”

Moments later, we stood side by side in my girlhood room. The Inspector filled the space, the slant of the ceiling making him seem taller than ever. He took stock of the photos, his countenance growing ever more stern.

“The Blackberry jam. Fiona put a curse in each jar.” I tapped the glass of a picture frame where white flower petals had been pressed. “Blackberry flowers.”

“And what makes you think these photos and the cursed jam are related?” The tone of his voice suggested he was humoring me, sparking my irritation .

“When I first visited the Vapors, William and Thea spiked my drink with a curse.”

His eyes cut to me, the slight twitch of jaw muscle indicating he didn’t appreciate I’d never mentioned this.

“It didn’t work,” I said. “I recognized it, but many people wouldn’t. In my case, it was a test, but Fiona may have been using the same tactic to infect unsuspecting people, and I don’t think she was doing it for the Brom.”

“Then who?”

“Mr. Farvem said he trusted Fiona, helped her, and believed she would improve things here in Nightglass. From what I know, Farvem and his family hated the Brom. Fiona was in a special position to cause them damage.”

“A compelling theory with little evidence.”

“What do you know about the Veil, Inspector?” I pivoted, still unraveling my line of thought, hoping it would reveal something that made sense.

The silence that followed my question was a touch too heavy, betraying that I’d struck close to something.

“The old war unit?” Inspector Harrow asked.

I nodded.

“The Authority prefers people stay pretty tight-lipped about that part of history. How did you hear about it?” he asked.

“Farvem mentioned it while he was trying to murder me. I figured it was pertinent.” My flat delivery encouraged a blunt exhale of amusement from the Inspector, who appreciated the morbid humor.

When our eyes met, he adjusted his attention back to the photos, tucking the hand closest to me into his pocket.

“Well,” he said, choosing to tell me. “The powers that be back then discovered a way to use stronger magic wielders as vessels for Drudge. When it started benefiting them, they made more Drudge, enlisted more capable magical folk, and then lost control of them. If a magic user didn’t die from consuming too many curses, they went mad. ”

Like mother. Like Thomas.

I shivered, and perhaps it was my imagination, but the Inspector seemed to move a fraction closer.

“Then the Veil was formed and tasked to take care of the problem they’d created for themselves.

But members became fanatical and didn’t stop with the magic users who carried Drudge.

They began going for anyone who could so much as light a spark on their fingertips.

Between the Veil and the Military making monsters, this world became a lost cause for magic. ”

“My mother never taught us much about life before the war. She thought it was irrelevant to our daily lives. Do you know who we were fighting?”

The Inspector regarded me with a look I’d have mistaken for regret if I believed him capable of it.

“No. Only that they thought what people here were doing with magic was an abomination and needed to be stopped.”

I examined his face. This wasn’t Inspector Harrow’s history.

It belonged to a world that didn’t belong to him, one he’d been whisked to before he was old enough to remember anywhere else.

And when he arrived, he was handed suffering, molding him into the brutal man he was, with tainted magic woven so deep it was likely irremovable.

“Maybe there are still people who feel that way,” I concluded. “Maybe my sister did.”

“That would take rather extreme self-loathing.”

“Or enough hatred toward those hurting her that she’d join another side just to escape them.”

“You’re very perceptive, Eleanora,” he said, and the comment wasn’t laced with dry sarcasm or condescension. “In the last several years, there’s been a rise in violence directed at magic users. ”

Bitterness climbed my backbone, and I resisted a quip that the Authority needed no help with that. It wasn’t the time.

“It’s linked to a growing faction of anti-magic ideologists.

They function under the name of that special unit from the war seventy years ago.

They’re the antithesis of the Brom in all ways but violence.

The ends justify the means, and they believe they’re doing something good.

So, you may be on to something,” he motioned to the photos.

“Each of those people marked with a blackberry bloom is on the Authority list of missing persons.”

“Are you sure?”

“I know the faces. They’re a smaller part of the reason the Authority established a presence here in Nightglass.”

I rubbed my arms, the static of my magic tingling as my anxiety rose. Since letting my power free, it was formed to the shape of my emotions, and such a thing took some getting used to.

“What was my sister doing?” I wondered out loud.

Of course, Inspector Harrow didn’t answer.

If either of us had known the truth, we wouldn’t be standing here, staring at dozens of photos of missing people, all with my sister smiling warmly next to them.

The silence allowed me to notice how close I was standing to Harrow.

I wanted to move past this moment, find an excuse to rush him from my bedroom, but every option would betray my discomfort, not of having him near, but of wanting him to be.

The silence stretched, and I realized he must still be studying the pictures, letting his mind work and make connections.

But when I glanced at him, he wasn’t examining the wall of photographs. He was looking at me.

“Eleanora…” he said.

A raucous pounding resounded from downstairs, someone banging at the door, followed by unintelligible shouting. My pulse had already jumped in response to the Inspector speaking my name, but the new shock drove it further .

“Not more trouble,” I pleaded, trailing behind Inspector Harrow as he hurried to glance out his room’s window into the driveway below.

“I know that car. Brom,” he said, striding angrily toward the stairs, grabbing his shoulder holster and gun from the desk as he went. There was an alarming change in his brow, a tightening of his broad mouth.

“Maybe we should ignore it,” I suggested, struggling to keep up with his strides. He halted, and I almost collided with him.

“Do you expect the house to protect you from someone trying to get in?” His question was unnecessarily pointed, because I’d already realized how ridiculous it was to consider hiding when Blackwicket House had allowed entry to Farvem and, for argument’s sake, Inspector Harrow.

Any defenses it possessed were compromised.

“Either way, we shouldn’t lie low. There’s a child with them. ”

A fresh wave of alarm propelled me into motion alongside him, and I barely registered the stairs under my feet.

When we reached the bottom, the Inspector extended a hand to belay me as he positioned himself in a blind spot to the left of the door and drew his gun.

He nodded, giving me the signal to confront whatever new nightmare awaited us on the porch of Blackwicket House.

I opened the door to Ramsey, the grizzled chauffeur, and Coppe, who held the body of a listless boy in his arms.

Jack.