“Regrettably, not as uncommon as you might think, and yet still against the laws of our Order of Witches.” He returned his attention to Ian. “You did not catch her, by the way. She slipped away in the middle of the night, back to her people. However, you did save my life by applying the correct antidote in the form of a purging spell. I smelled of codfish oil and rosemary for a week.”
“You’re mistaken. It must have been somebody else. I dinna remember any of that.”
“Your imp was not there,” Elvanfoot reminded him. “You explained to me you routinely ordered him to stay away while working cases, after that dreadful incident with the parents murdering their child because they believed she was a changeling. I assume you told him to stay away when you came to the city to look for my son as well, which is why you can’t remember.”
Perspiration dampened Ian’s skin. There was a fair amount of empathy in Elvanfoot’s demeanor, yet his tale was a dream from another life. There was naught but denial in Ian’s mind that he’d been involved in a case of a wife trying to poison Sir Elvanfoot. Yet the echo of truth in the case involving the child confused him. He knew that to be true. Knew that he’d quit the Constabulary because of it. He could still feel the sting in his heart at what he’d witnessed, yet he could not bring up the details.
Elvanfoot reached in his pocket for the small black book. He opened the silver clasp, and a slip of newspaper slid out from between the book’s pages. He unfolded it and held the article up for Ian to read the first paragraph, where he was named as having saved the life of Sir Elvanfoot, inventor of a smokeless propellant used in the Seven Nations War.
Hob slunk away and crawled into a wicker basket.
The implication was clear. Four days of missing memories in a city he wasn’t from was a manageable setback, but he couldn’t possibly know how much else he’d lost—intimate moments that might earn him a wink on the street, a life-changing handshake with a superior, or the fallout of a past assignment with the Constabulary he could no longer recall. The consequences of what else might have been lost sobered him, stripping him of his nonchalance. Was living with those gaps a forfeiture he could abide? If there was a way to restore what had been lost to the mist, shouldn’t he take it? If those missing four days could be returned to him, what mystery might they solve? For him? For Elvanfoot? For a city at the mercy of a ruthless killer?
“Show me the spell that can assure me the memory is mine and I’ll do it,” he said.
Edwina rested her hand on his arm as she begged him with her eyes. “Ian, are you sure?”
Before he lost his nerve, he patted her hand and said that he must be. For his sake. And George’s.
“Miss Blackwood, if you could retrieve the baubles your sister has collected,” Elvanfoot said as he cleared a space on the shop counter, “we can then begin.”
“Of course,” Edwina said and excused herself. A moment later she came down the stairs holding a wooden jewelry box. “She’s still sleeping. I’m almost certain she could identify the source of each and every one of these if prodded. They are that dear to her.” She glanced back at the stairs as though ashamed at the deception of taking her sister’s things without asking. “But perhaps it’s best to do this while she’s asleep. Goodness knows we owe you your restored peace of mind,” she said to Ian, setting the box down on the counter.
Elvanfoot opened the lid. He did not touch anything, but he clearly took inventory. “I hadn’t expected so many,” he said. “So many lives. So many memories.”
Ian leaned in for a look. To think one of those small blue orbs, each like a tiny world unto itself, held everything he could ever remember inside it. There had to be a dozen or more, each one representing a person’s life like his own, though presumably their owners were all dead now. Philosophers might ask if a capsulized memory removed from the body could survive past a soul’s demise, but he knew already that it could, having briefly lived in the mind of another man’s recollections.
Elvanfoot looked sidelong at Edwina as the wrinkles in his brow deepened in probing curiosity. “How long has your sister had this ability?”
She hesitated at first before admitting it began at age twelve. At her maturity. She and Mary had both experienced changes in their abilities then.
“Both?” The old witch grew thoughtful as he scratched his beard. “Yes, I believe I’m beginning to appreciate the rarity of your situation.”