Ethan remained utterly still, listening for a footfall or the scrape of a boot sole on cobblestone. Anything that might reveal the whereabouts of the conjurer who had summoned that little girl out of the mist. A horse-drawn chaise rattled by in the distance, and a dog barked. Closer, a man sang “Rail No More, Ye Learned Asses,” loudly and off pitch, the familiar lyrics slurred together. But Ethan heard nothing of the conjurer.
“Damn,” he whispered. He realized that he was crouching again, and clutching his blade so tightly that his hand had begun to ache. Slowly, he straightened up. After another moment, he sheathed his knife.
He started walking again, watchful, still straining his ears. He halted every few steps, to make certain that the conjurer wasn’t using Ethan’s footsteps to mask his or her own. But he was sure that the other conjurer had already managed to steal away. As he came within sight of Henry’s shop, Pitch and Shelly came bounding out of the darkness to greet him. He knelt and allowed them to lick his ears and face.
“Where were you two when I was talking to the ghost girl?”
They wagged their tails, regarding him with curiosity. Then they began to lick him again.
“All right,” he said, standing. “You’ll get no food from me. Go find Henry.”
At the mention of Henry’s name, they wheeled and ran back to the shop. Ethan followed and walked around back to the stairway that led to his room.
Pausing at the bottom of the stairs, Ethan listened once more and scanned the stairway and the alleys on either side of the building for any sign that he had more visitors. The last thing he wanted was to end his day with another beating at the hands of Sephira’s men. Convinced that no one else was there, he started up toward his door, his legs heavy.
As he reached the first turn in the stairway, though, he saw a shadow move above him. He grabbed his knife, slashed it across the back of his hand, and shouted the first thing that came to mind.
“ Pugnus ex cruore evocatus! ” Fist, conjured from blood!
He heard a man grunt, then stumble. The fatigue in his legs forgotten, Ethan took the steps between himself and the shadow two at a time. The man was still doubled over when he reached him, and Ethan wasted no time. From a step below, he threw a hard punch that caught the man square in the jaw. The stranger crashed into the banister, making the wood creak dangerously. Then he toppled forward onto Ethan, who shoved the lurker back so that he sprawled on the stairs.
“Mister Kaille, please!” the man croaked.
Ethan leaped forward, grabbing the stranger by his hair and pressing the edge of his knife against the man’s neck.
“Who are you?” Ethan demanded. Before the man could answer, Ethan nicked his throat with the knife, drawing a trickle of blood.
“ Lux ex cruore evocatus! ” Light, conjured from blood!
A brilliant golden light burst forth above them, as if Ethan had conjured a small sun.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” Ethan muttered, heedless of what he was saying, and to whom.
Staring up at him, his face pale and his eyes wide, a bruise darkening on his jaw, was Mr. Pell.
“You shouldn’t curse in front of a minister,” the man said in a shaky voice.
Ethan actually laughed. “No, I don’t suppose I should. What are you doing here, Mister Pell?”
“I came to speak with you. I didn’t mean to startle you so.” He hesitated. Then, “May I get up?”
“Yes, of course.” Ethan released him and sheathed his knife before helping the minister to his feet. “I’m sorry, but-”
“Mercy! What happened to your face?”
Ethan smiled ruefully. “As I was about to say, I’ve already had visitors today. I thought you might be one of them, and that you had in mind to finish me off.”
“Who did this to you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ethan said, with a small shake of his head.
He stepped past Pell, unlocked his door, and motioned the minister inside. Leaving the door open for the moment, so that the light he had conjured flooded his room along with the cool night air, he lit a pair of candles and gestured for the minister to have a seat. He closed the door and faced the man, frowning at the swelling of Pell’s jaw.
“I can heal that if you like.”
“By conjuring, you mean.” The minister shook his head. “I would rather you didn’t.” After a moment he added, “Thank you, though.”
“Of course. May I offer you something to eat or drink? I don’t have much, but I believe I at least owe you a bit of wine.”
Pell grinned at that, then winced. He raised a hand to his jaw. “No, thank you. Anyway, it’s my own fault. I should know better than to surprise a man in your line of work.”
“Maybe. What do you want with me that couldn’t wait until morning?”
The minister looked away, gently touching his bruise again, and then dabbing at the cut on his neck and checking his fingers for blood. There was none.
“I needed to speak with you about Jennifer Berson,” he said.
Ethan eyed him with interest. “What about her?”
“Well, not about her exactly. But about what happened to her.”
The thieftaker lowered himself onto his bed, eyeing the minister closely. “Do you know something about her murder?”
Pell sat staring at the floor, absently touching the cut skin on his throat. Several times he opened his mouth as if intending to speak, only to close it again, frowning each time.
“Mister Pell?”
“I don’t know who killed her,” Pell said at last. “Obviously if I did, I would tell you. I… I’d like to see this person stopped.”
“Then what?”
Pell’s eyes, pale blue and shining with candlelight, met Ethan’s. “I lied to you today. When I said that I had never seen someone who had been murdered. That… that wasn’t true. I should have told you earlier, but I wasn’t…” He shook his head. “There was another child who died. It was some time ago now, on Pope’s Day of last year. And I thought at the time that he couldn’t have died the way people said he did. I asked you about your conjurings because as I told you already, I have speller blood in me, too. I’ve forsworn witchery for the Lord, but if ever I see another child killed this way…” He shook his head and swallowed. “I need to know how to do what you did today. I need to know how to determine whether spells have been used to kill.”
Ethan stared at the man, not sure where to begin. He had so many questions he wanted to ask, not least among them, whether the minister had mentioned any of this to Troutbeck or Caner, or, for that matter, to Ethan’s sister.
“How do you even know about this?” Ethan finally asked. “Was he taken down to the crypts as well?”
“Hardly,” the man said, a note of bitterness in his voice. “He died near the chapel and was carried there by the men who found him. Mister Troutbeck tasked me with sending them elsewhere. The boy’s family-Brown was the surname-they weren’t members of our congregation. I said a prayer over the lad, and then sent them to South Meeting House.”
Ethan wasn’t sure what to say.
“Mister Caner wouldn’t have approved,” Pell said. “But he wasn’t there that night.”
“Can you tell me more about the boy?” Ethan asked after a short silence. “How old was he?”
“Very young. Five or so, I think.”
“Was he from a wealthy family?”
Pell shook his head. “No. A very poor family, in fact. I didn’t say anything earlier because he had so little in common with Jennifer Berson that I thought I was looking for similarities where none existed. But-”
Ethan raised a hand, cutting him off. It was coming to him now. He remembered hearing of this boy. “You say this was Pope’s Day?”
The minister nodded.
“I assume there was the usual nonsense?”
“Naturally,” Pell said.
Every year on Pope’s Day-November 5-gangs of toughs from the North and South Ends paraded through the streets to mark the anniversary of Old Guy Fawkes’s Papist plot to blow up Parliament. These gangs met each year near the center of the city and fought pitched battles in the streets, bloodying themselves and anyone who got in their way.
Many of those who took to the streets on Pope’s Day would have also been mixed in with the rabble responsible for the previous night’s devilry. In fact…
“Who was leading the South Enders that day?” Ethan asked.
“Well, that’s just it,” the minister said. “They were led by Ebenezer Mackintosh. He and the North End man were arrested for the boy’s death. But both were let go. It went to trial sometime later, but they were never convicted.”
“Mackintosh,” Ethan repeated. The same scoundrel who had led the rioters on their rampage through Boston the night before.
“Was anything stolen from the boy?” Ethan asked.
“Aside from his life, you mean.” Pell shook his head. “I doubt he or his family had any property worth stealing.”
“But you say he died like Jennifer Berson? There were no marks on him?”
“No, it wasn’t that. He bore terrible marks. But he was said to have died from being run over by a cart. That’s not what killed him.”
Ethan frowned. “Mister Pell-”
“My father was a surgeon, Mister Kaille. I didn’t train as one myself, but I learned plenty from him. This boy was dead before the cart struck him.”
“How can you know that?”
Pell took a breath. “His head was crushed. That was the injury that was said to have killed him. But he had another wound: a break in his arm.” The minister pointed to the upper portion of his own arm. “Here. The jagged end of the bone pierced the skin from within.”
Ethan had been in battle, and had seen such wounds before. He nodded for the man to go on.
“I examined the wound when he was brought to us,” Pell said. “It was terrible. The boy’s skin had been ripped, as if he was mauled by a feral dog, and I could see that the blood vessels in his arm had been torn. Now, I saw my father do surgeries. I know what happens when a vessel in one of the limbs is broken that way. There should have been blood everywhere. Forgive me for being crude, but it would have gushed from that wound as long as his heart continued to labor. The boy should have bled his life away before his other injuries killed him. But there was hardly any blood on his clothing, and when I asked the men who brought him to us, they said that there was little more on the street. The poor child had to have been dead before the bone shattered.”
Ethan pondered this for several moments. He couldn’t deny that every fracture of this sort he had seen bled profusely. “Have you mentioned this other incident to anyone else?” he finally asked.
“You don’t believe me.”
“I didn’t say that. I’m merely asking if you’ve spoken of the boy’s death in the past day or two.”
“No. I didn’t make the connection until I watched you examine the Berson girl. That’s when I started thinking about the boy, and how strange his death had been.”
“Why didn’t you say something while we were in the crypt?”
Pell shrugged, his brow creasing. Suddenly, he looked terribly young. “I wasn’t sure my memory of the boy’s death was reliable, and… and I feared you would think me foolish for mentioning it. But tonight, as I was readying myself for bed and I was supposed to be praying, I couldn’t get the two of them out of my head. That’s when I decided to find you.”
“Where do you live, Mister Pell?”
“Mister Caner has been kind enough to let me a room in his home. For a most reasonable fee,” he added.
“Did anyone see you leave his house?”
That brought a smile to the minister’s face. “No. Back in my youth, before I was sent to study for the ministry, I was something of a rascal. I became quite adept at slipping from my home and back in again without my parents’ knowledge.” His eyes danced. “Until, of course, I got caught and wound up reading for Orders.”
Ethan decided in that moment that he liked Pell. “And is it this same penchant for mischief that makes you want to learn a spell you’re forbidden to use, a spell that could get you banished from the Church, and possibly even burned as a witch?”
The minister blushed and grew pale at the same time, so that the only points of color on his face were bright red spots high on each cheek. “I’m no fool, Mister Kaille. I wouldn’t get myself banished or burned or hanged. And I’ve been thinking that I’ve spent too long denying this part of my ancestry.”
“I can appreciate that. But I’m not willing to risk your life by teaching you spells. And if by some chance my sister were to learn that I had so much as mentioned such things to you, she would have my head.” Ethan paused, looking at the minister. “Then again, if you hope to return to the Chapel without anyone knowing that you left, you had best let me heal that bruise on your jaw.”
Pell probed it gingerly with his fingers, frowning again. “I could say that I fell.”
“Yes, you could,” Ethan said, keeping his expression neutral.
“You don’t think that would fool anyone.”
Ethan couldn’t hide his amusement any longer. “No, I don’t.”
Pell’s frown deepened, and for several moments he sat, seeming to wrestle with his conscience. “All right then,” Pell finally said. “Go ahead.”
Ethan reached for his knife, cut his forearm, and gently dabbed a bit of his blood on the minister’s jaw. “ Remedium ex cruore evocatum. ” Healing, conjured from blood.
Ethan felt that familiar pulse of power, and Pell shuddered as if from a sudden chill. Reg blinked into view at Ethan’s side. His sudden appearance drew a quick intake of breath from the minister.
“What is that?” Pell asked, recoiling.
“I’m not sure there’s time to explain right now. He’s basically a ghost.”
Reg scowled.
“All right. He’s a guide who helps me draw on the power I need for conjurings. Better?” he asked the ghost.
The glowing old man nodded.
“Does he appear every time you conjure?”
“Aye,” Ethan said. “Without him the spell wouldn’t work.”
Pell watched the ghost warily. “I don’t think he likes me.”
“I’d be surprised if he did,” Ethan told him. “He doesn’t even like me.”
The minister raised a hand to his jaw again. Already the swelling was going down.
“The air around me, it… it buzzed, when you cast the spell. Does it always feel like that?”
“It does to you, because the blood of a conjurer flows in your veins. Others who have no history of spellmaking in their families wouldn’t feel a thing. Except for the healing, that is.”
The minister touched the bruise again, more boldly this time. The discoloration had faded. By the time Pell was back at Caner’s house, there would be no sign that Ethan had hit him.
“Why don’t you heal your own wounds?” Pell asked. “Surely you could do for yourself what you’ve done for me.”
“I could,” Ethan said. “Other than me, no one saw your bruise. But after I was beaten, I was found by the cooper whose shop is below. He lets this room to me. He’s a decent man and a friend, but he doesn’t know I’m a conjurer. I’m not sure how he would feel about me living here if he did.”
“Of course,” Pell said. “I should have known.”
Ethan shrugged. “You don’t live the life of a speller. There’s no reason you should have to think as I do.” After a moment, he looked up and found the minister watching him. “Go back home, Mister Pell, before you’re missed.”
Pell stood. “All right.” He stepped to the door. “You’ll let me know what you find out about these killings?”
“Of course. Thank you for telling me all of this. And my apologies for assaulting you.”
Pell smiled and pulled the door open. “It wasn’t too bad. To be honest this night’s been more of an adventure than I’ve had in some time. I rather enjoyed it.”
He stepped out of the room and quietly pulled the door shut behind him. Ethan could hear the man descending the stairs, but only just. It seemed Pell remembered much from his mischief-making days.
It had grown late and Ethan’s appetite had long since vanished in a haze of fatigue and pain. He locked his door, and then as an afterthought, propped a chair against it, jamming the back of the chair firmly against the base of the doorknob: a little extra protection in case Sephira and her men tried to pay him another visit.
He undressed and fell into bed, and he was asleep within moments of closing his eyes.
Immediately upon awaking, Ethan knew that he had slept far longer than he intended. The daylight streaming into his room through the one window was far too bright, and he could hear Henry in the shop below hammering away at the stays of some new barrel.
He sat up quickly-too quickly. The pain in his head, his neck, his sides and back actually ripped a gasp from his lips. He sat still for a long time, allowing the agony to drain away while he cursed Sephira Pryce with a vehemence that would have shocked Mr. Pell. When at last he could move again, he did so with great care.
Once he was dressed and had managed to pull on his boots, Ethan left the room for a nearby grocer, intending to buy some food, tea, and molasses for his long-neglected larder-on credit, of course, since Sephira and her men had taken all of his coin. As if sensing his purpose, Pitch and Shelly met him at the bottom of the steps and fell in alongside him as he walked.
“You two are shameless,” he said. Pitch looked up at him, tail wagging, clearly pleased with himself.
After purchasing some food-he had to endure stares from the grocer and his wife, as well as their children-and returning with it to his room, Ethan had some tea and buttered bread for his breakfast. Then he set out again for the waterfront. Perhaps the boys working the warehouses knew something about the Dernes, and the Bersons as well. Eventually he would wind up back in the Dowsing Rod; whatever he couldn’t learn on the wharves he could find out there. Boston had its share of newspapers, but half of what their publishers printed they learned in Boston’s taverns.
Halfway to the Dowser, Ethan spotted Diver. His friend walked with his hands deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunched, his eyes scanning the street. Ethan came up beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder.
Diver jumped as if he had seen a snake and reached for his blade. Ethan took a step back, holding up his hands for his friend to see.
“Ethan!” he said. “Don’t do that, mate! You scared me half…” He stopped, gaping at Ethan’s face. “Damn! What happened to you?”
“Had a visit from Sephira and her men.”
Diver’s eyes went wide. “When?”
“Yesterday.” He dropped his voice. “I just took on a new job-Abner Berson-and Sephira doesn’t like me taking away her rich clients.”
“I thought you weren’t working for a while.”
“So did I,” Ethan said. “But this job is different.”
“I would think it is,” Diver said pointedly, “with Berson paying.”
“Speaking of jobs, why aren’t you at the wharf?”
The younger man’s expression soured. “Why d’you think?” he said. “I showed up this morning and no one was working. Mister Woodman was there himself turning boys away. ‘We don’t want any rabble working here today,’ he said. ‘And not for a while to come, either.’” Diver shook his head, his expression dark. “He wasn’t the only one, either. Merchants seem to think that every grub in Boston was with that mob. So I left and decided to go to the Dowser. But there’s talk of some of these merchants hiring toughs to walk the streets. ‘Keep the rabble at bay.’ That’s what they’re sayin’ anyway. Thought you were one of them, for a moment.”
“I figured it must be something like that,” Ethan said. “But you might want to think twice about reaching for your blade every time someone puts a hand on you.”
“It’s this deal with the French,” Diver said, his voice falling to a whisper as he glanced around to see that no one could hear. “Has me on edge, you know?”
“I figured that, too.” Ethan put his hand on the man’s shoulder again, and they started walking toward the tavern. “Come on. We’ll get a bite to eat.”
“You buying?” Diver asked.
“No, you are. Sephira took all my money.”
Diver frowned. “Hope you’re not too hungry.”
“Starved,” Ethan said with a grin.
The Dowser was as crowded as Ethan had ever seen it so early in the day. Nearly everyone turned as Ethan and Diver stepped inside. A few people stared hard at Ethan’s bruised face, but the rest quickly looked away again. The place fairly buzzed with conversation, though there was little of the boisterous laughter Ethan was used to hearing within these walls. On the other hand, the tavern smelled of good food and ale, as it always did. Some of the Dowser’s patrons stood at the bar eating oysters and drinking ale. Others sat at tables, eating creamed fish stew-chowder, as it had come to be known in Boston in recent years.
“Y’all right, Ethan?” Kelf said, running the words together, as Ethan and Diver crossed to the bar.
“Aye, thank you, Kelf. Where’s Kannice?”
“’N back. I’ll get her.”
“She seen you since…?” Diver gestured at Ethan’s face.
Ethan shook his head. “No.” But he was thinking more about the cross words they had exchanged before he left the previous morning. He should have known better.
She emerged from the kitchen wearing an icy expression, but as soon as she saw him it melted away. “God have mercy!” she said, her brow furrowing. “What happened?”
“I’m fine,” Ethan said.
“Yes, I can see that.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “You’ve never looked better. Tell me what happened.”
“I will, later,” he said, softening the words with a smile. “First, though, have you heard anything about merchants shutting down their wharves?”
She frowned and shook her head. “No. Not that it would surprise me, but I’ve heard nothing.”
“It might just be a few in the South End,” Ethan said to Diver. “Friends of Hallowell or Story, maybe.”
“We’ll be lucky if that’s all that comes of last night’s nonsense,” Kannice said, casting an accusing glare at Diver. “Wait until news of this reaches the king. And Grenville. Then there’ll be trouble.”
To his credit, Diver ignored her. “What about the wharves?” he asked. “How long do you think they’ll be sending us away?”
“Not long,” Ethan said. “The merchants will want to make it clear that they don’t like being at the mercy of street gangs and mobs. But they have ships to unload and goods to sell. That’s what they care about. I’d wager that you’ll be working the wharves again in a day or two.”
“I hope you’re right,” his friend said with so much relief that Ethan knew he was thinking about the rum and wine. Never in his life had Diver complained about a day off from work.
Kannice ran a hand through her hair, shaking her head and looking grim. “Frankly, if this is the worst of it-a bit of inconvenience for Diver and his friends-we should count ourselves lucky and keep our mouths shut.”
Ethan was inclined to agree, but before he could say so, Diver responded.
“It’s Grenville and his lot who should count themselves lucky,” he said. “Everything they do is meant to help them that are rich and leave the rest of us scuffling for a shilling and a meal. If that’s what they have in mind for us, we’d be just as well off on our own.”
Kannice whirled on him. “I won’t have seditious talk in this bar, Devren Jervis! Shouting in the lanes is one thing; treason is quite another! If you’re going to carry on about things you know nothing about, you had best be leaving!”
Diver took a step back, blinking. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Kannice. I was just speaking as a-”
“As a what? A fool? I knew that already!”
“As a man who’s got business in the streets,” Diver said, a wounded expression on his face.
Kannice drew herself up. “Well-”
“I need him to stay, Kannice,” Ethan broke in quietly. “He’s promised to buy me a bit of supper.”
She impaled Ethan with her glare. He knew what she was thinking: She would gladly have fed Ethan for free if it meant banishing Diver from her tavern. But after a moment, she relented.
“Fine then,” she said. She stared hard at Diver. “No more of that talk.”
“I promise,” Diver said.
She waved a hand toward their usual table at the back of the tavern and started toward the kitchen. “Sit down, both of you. I’ll bring some stew.”
Ethan and Diver seated themselves at the table. A moment later, Kannice brought them two bowls of chowder. She set the bowls in front of them and sat beside Ethan.
“Now,” she said, “about your face.”
Ethan took a spoonful of stew. It was as delicious as he remembered. Rich, slightly sweet, with just a hint of dill.
“Sephira Pryce,” he said quietly, after swallowing. “She wanted to impress upon me that I wasn’t to grow accustomed to working for men of Abner Berson’s means.”
“How is it that she’s still allowed to walk the streets of this city? Maybe if Sheriff Greenleaf had an ounce of courage he could find a way to keep the peace without relying on her kind.”
“I’m her kind,” Ethan said. “If Greenleaf had an ounce of courage, I might be out of a job.”
“You’d find another, and a better one at that.” She eyed his bruises again and her frown returned. “You’re lucky she didn’t kill you.”
“She doesn’t want me dead,” Ethan said between mouthfuls. “She as much as said so. She needs me to take jobs she can’t handle.”
“Ones that involve conjuring, you mean.”
“Aye. But it bothers her that this time being a conjurer got me a job on Beacon Street. She considers that her domain, and she wanted me to know it. She made her point and then she left.”
She took his hand. “She belongs in gaol rather than out on the streets.”
“I won’t argue.”
He took another spoonful of soup, and as he did the door to the tavern opened. Several men stepped inside, led by an imposing man with a large hook nose and hard pale eyes. He wore a white wig and a black hat, which he removed upon entering the tavern. Even from his table at the other side of the room, Ethan recognized him immediately; he and Kannice had been speaking of him mere seconds before.
“What now?” she muttered. Her gaze flicked in Diver’s direction.
Ethan, though, had a feeling that Sheriff Stephen Greenleaf hadn’t come looking for Diver. He recognized two of the men with Greenleaf as members of the night watch; he thought it likely that the third man was with the watch as well. The sheriff would have brought them along only if he expected trouble. And since he knew that Ethan was a convicted mutineer, Greenleaf would have wanted men at his back when he came to speak with him.
Ethan laid his spoon on the table and watched as Kannice stood and walked across the tavern to the doorway where the men were standing. She looked like a waif next to them, but that wasn’t likely to bother her.
“What can I do for you boys?” she asked in a cheery voice, stopping in front of the sheriff. “Are you hungry?”
Greenleaf hardly spared her a glance. “We’re looking for Ethan Kaille,” he said. “We know he’s here.”
Even in the dingy light of the tavern, Ethan saw the color drain from Kannice’s face. To her credit, she didn’t immediately glance his way, but neither did she manage to say anything.
“What do you need, Sheriff?” Ethan said, standing.
Greenleaf smiled thinly and stepped past Kannice. His men followed. “Good day, Mister Kaille,” he said, his voice echoing.
The sheriff wasn’t a bad sort. He didn’t like Ethan, and Ethan felt the same way about him. But the man had a nearly impossible job. As sheriff of Suffolk County he was expected to keep the peace throughout Boston and the surrounding countryside. But he had no soldiers, no guards, no militia. Even the men of the watch standing behind him answered to city authorities. He would have had to borrow them for this excursion.
Greenleaf stopped a few feet from the table and nodded in Ethan’s direction.
“He has a knife on his belt,” he said calmly to the men of the watch. “Take it from him.”
One of the men came up behind Ethan, a pistol in hand, while another stepped in front of him, also holding a gun, this one at waist level, so that its barrel pointed at Ethan’s gut. Ethan held up his hands, making it clear that he had no intention of resisting. The man behind him took his knife.
“Is that all you have?” Greenleaf asked.
“Yes, sir.”
The man in front of Ethan lowered his weapon. The one behind Ethan shoved him toward the door hard enough that Ethan stumbled and nearly fell to the floor. Instantly Diver was on his feet, his own blade in hand. Just as quickly, Greenleaf’s men rounded on him, all with their pistols held ready.
“Diver, no!” Ethan said quickly, even as Kannice also hissed a warning.
Seeing that he was outmanned, Diver tossed his knife onto the table and raised his hands as Ethan had done. One of the men knocked the blade out of Diver’s reach. When Diver started to lower his hands, the man hit him hard in the gut with the butt of his weapon. Diver doubled over, and the man drove his face into the table. Blood spurted from Diver’s nose and he dropped to the floor, hands clutched to his face.
“No!” Ethan cried, taking a step toward Diver. Another man blocked his way, his gun raised.
“Enough,” the sheriff said loudly.
Ethan stopped, raising his hands again in surrender. “There’s no need to involve him in this.”
Greenleaf glared down at Diver, a frown on his broad face. Kannice had rushed to Diver’s side with a cloth to stanch the bleeding.
“The pup involved himself,” the sheriff said.
“He’s young, and a fool. He wasn’t thinking. I’m the one you came for, and you’ve got me. Let’s leave it at that.”
Greenleaf eyed Diver for another moment before finally dismissing him with a shake of his head. “Fine,” he said to Ethan. “Come along, then. No more trouble.”
The man behind Ethan pushed him again, though with less force than before. Ethan glanced briefly at Kannice, who looked as frightened as he had ever seen her. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, but her expression didn’t change.
“Take care of him,” Ethan said. “I’ll come back as soon as they let me go.”
She nodded.
The man at his back pushed him again, not that it was necessary. Ethan reached the door and stepped out into the street.
“This way,” the sheriff said without looking back at him. And they began to march him toward Boston’s prison.