Ian explained what he wanted the boy to do, waited until he agreed, then leaned his head against the brick wall long enough to come out of the fog of a dead man’s memory of being murdered.
Chapter Ten
The hired hansom cab slowed to a stop in front of a coffeehouse. Edwina had plenty of time to consider why she’d been summoned on the mile-long journey through the congested streets. The boy had described the man as being in a terrible state and having some sort of fit. She imagined any number of things that might have gone wrong for Ian. He might have been robbed or beaten, or perhaps he’d made good on his promise of visiting a pub and discovered he didn’t like who he remembered himself to be when he drank. “Might be dead already,” the boy had warned when he’d shown up inside her shop, eyes wide with wonder at all the shiny objects for sale.
The boy looked much less sure of his prediction as he followed Edwina out of the cab and pointed. On the other side of the street, Ian sat inside a doorway, hunched over and holding his jacket tight around him as he pressed a white-knuckled fist against his lips. He made an attempt to stand by holding on to the wall when he noticed her cross the road, but Edwina told him to stay where he was and knelt beside him.
“How bad is it? You look a fright.” Edwina took out a bundle of herbs from her purse and gently crushed them with her fingers so that their aroma released under his nose.
“I dinna know what’s happening to me,” he began, but then the boy interrupted, asking for his payment.
“Delivered her like you asked.”
“Never mind that,” Edwina said. “Help me get him to the cab and I’ll pay twice what he owes you.”
Once the boy recovered from the promise of newfound riches, he got his shoulder under one side of Ian while Edwina lifted from the other. Between them they held his body upright long enough for him to stagger to the cab. Edwina gave the boy a gold coin she’d found in the mud a fortnight earlier, thanked him for his honesty, and then instructed the driver to return to the shop posthaste, offering him a twin of the coin she’d given the boy. As they pulled away, Ian collapsed against her shoulder, muttering about his brain splitting in two and “so much blood.” She soothed him with a tune, humming a healing spell as they rolled through the city, wondering what had gone so terribly wrong.
By the time the cab returned to the shop, Ian had recovered enough strength to walk inside under his own power. Mary met them at the door. “Goodness, what happened to him?”
“Something went wrong with the spell,” Edwina answered. “Quick, help me get him upstairs.”
“Upstairs?” Mary locked the shop door and checked the street as if looking for nosy neighbors spying on them. “Wherever do you mean to put him?”
“Father’s bed. He can rest there until I get this sorted.”
Mary muttered something about propriety and regret, then begrudgingly helped get the man up the stairs and laid out on the folding bed. They managed to remove his boots and get him under a quilt, while he moaned about the blood in his throat and the pain at the back of his head. He wrestled with his covers and his brow grew damp with sweat, so Mary offered to fetch a cool cloth and some hot tea to settle him.
Edwina inspected him for any bleeding but found no new wounds—only the one that had preceded their acquaintance. Fearing his injury was internal, she held her palm to his forehead and said, “There now, Ian, you’re all right.” But he was far from all right. Something had gone terribly wrong. His mind and body were rejecting either the spell or the memory, yet she had no cure for either.
“Why do you keep calling me by that name? What is this place? What’re you doing to me? Help!” he screamed. “Help me!”
He’d been more sober in the cab, responding to the name Ian without issue. Even then he’d slipped in and out of lucidity, sometimes eyeing her with suspicion and pulling away and other times squeezing her hand and thanking her for coming to get him. But what had gone wrong? She’d done the spell exactly right, hadn’t she? Curse Father for his selfish wandering! He’d have known what to do, while she was left to guess, possibly destroying a man’s mind in the process.
Mary returned with the cool cloth on a tray along with a small teapot, cup, and dainty pitcher of milk. “Any better?”
Edwina took the cloth and pressed it against Ian’s forehead. He was merely warm to the touch, yet he writhed as if he suffered from brain fever. “No, something’s not right,” she said, regaining her confidence. “I’m certain I did the spell correctly, so it must be the memory itself. Perhaps too much time had elapsed to return it to him?” She turned to Mary. “What should we do? Can you remove the memory from him again?” Ian let out the strangest noise in his throat, as if he were drowning. “Oh, Mary, you must. Now!”