He’d settled on joining me in the end. Secretly, I was glad of it. The idea of speaking to my grandfather again was nerve-wracking. I hadn’t known what to say at his funeral. Kessian didn’t struggle for words like I did.
The graveyard where they’d laid my grandfather to rest was a modest plot next to the church I’d attended as a child. It was in the farthest row, under a horse-chestnut tree, which shed a confetti of conkers over the ground.
“We’ll prepare everything,” Emery said. “But first, a word of warning. Spirits of the deceased aren’t always coherent, nor are their memories complete. Murder investigations don’t accept the testimony of ghosts for a reason. Too often, their recollections prove faulty. His spirit might offer you leads or clues, but it will be up to you to recover any true evidence.”
“You told me this already in your letter,” I said.
Emery smiled. “Most people need things repeated, but I’ll get on with it.”
He opened a pouch and went to place something from it on the headstone but paused. With one finger, he stroked a line over the stone, pausing to rub some indentation or flaw. I stepped closer but couldn’t see anything.
“Someone’s placed a seal over his grave,” Emery said darkly.
“A seal?”
“To prevent you from doing exactly what we’ve set out to. The seal traps spirits, preventing their summoning.”
Frustrated, I said, “Can you figure out who placed it?”
“If we had a drop of blood, strand of hair, or sentimental object from every witch we might suspect, sure. Otherwise, no. We could try to break it, but …” His finger worried the spot on the stone, though I could see nothing there. “It will take something powerful to break an enchantment like this.”
My heart sank. “I never had a formal education in magic. I’m capable of small spells, charms, nothing grandiose. If you can’t break this, I certainly can’t.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Ambrose said. “The magic on the mug you sold would be no small challenge even for great witches.”
Emery agreed. “None of us would be able to do this, except we happen to have an artifact that can.”
Ambrose slouched the canvas rucksack off his shoulder, undid its leather straps, and opened it.
It appeared empty, but as he reached in, his arm delved deeper than should have been physically possible, then emerged holding the haft of some great weapon. Opening the mouth of the rucksack wide, he retrieved a war axe, elaborately engraved and glimmering with an enchantment like firelight along its edge.
“You’ve got stuff like that just lying around?” Kessian said, putting voice to my thoughts exactly.
“The story behind it’s a long one,” Ambrose said.
“And rather grisly. A bit of an overshare for first meetings,” Emery agreed.
“But perhaps we’ll tell each other tales over drinks one day when all this is over.” Ambrose grinned at Kessian and I. “It could be a—what do you call these things again?”
“A double date,” Emery supplied.
I colored. Kessian, wiggling his eyebrows at me, said, “We’d be delighted.”
I was pretty sure he was only teasing me, but the way the rain had plastered some of his hair to his cheeks like sweat had done on the night we met, I foolishly hoped he meant it.
The axe looked weighty, but Ambrose swung it in a circle with a deft movement of the wrist that made it appear light as a fairy wand. Raising it above his head, he brought it down as if the tombstone were a stump he could split in half.
Steel rang against stone but didn’t sunder it. Something else shattered, though. It rang like a wind chime. The axe’s enchanted light flared, and when my eyes adjusted, I saw what looked like shattered glass over the gravestone and in the grass.
“There!” Emery said as though Ambrose hadn’t just performed an impossibly miraculous spell. “Now we can begin.”
On top of the grave, he placed a candle, enchanted to stay lit in the rain, and a parcel of leaves tied together with string. With an incantation and a tithe of igneous rock, he lit this last on fire as well. It smelled strongly of herbs, rosemary and sage among them. As it burnt, Emery clenched a hand, as if trying to dig his fingers into the grave soil and wrench my grandfather’s spirit up.
My heart thumped like a rabbit kicking the ground to warn its warren. I’d called Emery here with a purpose in mind, but it had all been abstract until now.
Icy mist and light formed in the air, my breath clouding in front of me. A tremor went through Emery, and Ambrose silently put a hand to his shoulder and squeezed.
It was a quiet show of comfort he performed unasked, and my heart gave an unexpected twist.
