VIRGO

32

LEAGUE BASEBALL GAMES WERE PLAYED in a number of different locations. Mainly because it was hard to convince the city to grant permits on a regular basis. Which meant in order to avoid having games disrupted, the games were held over in Camden, mostly in a small park with trees tall enough to hide all the action.

Hetty had seen many baseball games over the years. Some were played between battles during the war, as soldiers channeled energy into quick games. There were also the semiprofessional teams that played in Fairmount Park. But the most interesting games were within the small league that Octavius Catto and his buddies created. It was doing surprisingly well and had even drawn players and interest from New York City, D.C., and Chicago.

Because Benjy didn’t play, Hetty had little interest in watching baseball. But going to the games was less about the sport and more about gathering in a high-spirited crowd.

Out above the field, players stood on broomsticks waiting for a chance to catch a baseball as it flew past. One person was high enough to nearly block out the sun, a daring but rather risky move. The broomsticks didn’t have the best enchantments on them. Casting spells on wood was a hair too close to wands, as a broomstick needed only one end to be broken off before it became a staff. So there were strict regulations on broomsticks that kept the magic on them at the barest amounts. It wasn’t unusual for games to be paused when players fell out of the sky. And while this should have been a reason to have different rules for the game, it was just one more thing that made it all very exciting.

“The Independents were never contenders after they lost Watkins,” Darlene said as they took their seats in the stands. “Although they did have a few good games last season. But the Pythons are better overall.”

“Probably because a few of the Magnolia Muses are on the team,” Penelope remarked.

Which was why the Magnolia meeting would take place after the game ended. A quite unfortunate thing in Hetty’s opinion, since it meant she had to suffer through the game first.

“I hope this doesn’t go for too long,” Hetty grumbled. The ferry to Camden had been delayed, and part of her hoped it meant missing the game entirely. But alas, the game was nowhere near being over by the time they arrived.

“It shouldn’t.” Penelope pointed to the floating scoreboard. Held up by various spells, the chalkboards displayed the points earned already by the teams. “Try to have fun, Hetty. We don’t get to do that often enough.”

A player picked up a bat and waited for the pitcher to toss the ball. It struck on the first try with a resounding crack. The ball arched upward into the sky. The player on the ground threw the bat away, jumped on a waiting broomstick, and flew up to the floating marker that was first base.

Unluckily for him, a member of the opposing team caught the ball. He swooped down, waving the ball at his opponent.

Boos filled the air as the player flew back to the ground. Darlene’s voice was the loudest among them.

“So that’s the team we’re rooting for?” Hetty asked as the player went to bat once more.

Darlene shot her a glare. “Yes, we are cheering on the Pythons. And don’t start rooting for the other team. That’s what Benjy does!”

Darlene turned back as the ball was pitched again, and Hetty was free to ignore the game once more.

“It’s not true that we don’t spend time together,” Hetty said to Penelope, who thankfully wasn’t watching the game that closely. “You’re in my garden all the time.”

“Not really. Just a few hours here and there,” Penelope said. “I don’t count the time I spend helping with your cases and funerals.”

“As if you aren’t busy yourself! The pair of you going on doing things without me. Leaving me out of everything.”

“Left out?” Penelope exclaimed. “When? I tell you everything!”

“Is this about going to see the medium?” Darlene asked.

Hetty was surprised to see they had her attention until Hetty saw the Independents were up to bat. “I honestly thought you wouldn’t want to come,” Darlene continued.

“It’s not just that. Lately I just feel I’ve been missing out on a lot.” Hetty squirmed, feeling a heat that was not from the blazing sun overhead. There was confusion in her friends’ faces as well. Confusion that was making her think she had gotten quite a few things wrong. “Secrets you kept from me.”

“What secrets? Do you mean about planning to move?” Darlene asked. “That’s hardly news, and was decided rather recently. As if we could keep secrets from you for long.” Something happened in the sky just then. In a flash, Darlene was on her feet and hollering so loudly, it was hard to tell if what happened was good or bad.

“What Darlene is trying to say is this,” Penelope said. “You’re being silly.”

“Thank you for such wise counsel,” Hetty replied, but she sat back and found herself enjoying the game a bit more after that.

She was actually just beginning to follow the course of action in the game, when she noticed Horace Duval.

He stood at the bottom of the stands, at the far edge, near the scoreboard. If Horace looked up he might see nothing but the sun and miss Hetty entirely.

Or maybe not.

Hetty stood up. “I’m going to walk around. I’ll be back when this is over.”

Darlene nodded, clearly not hearing a word that was said, but Penelope got up and followed Hetty.

“Just watch the game,” Hetty said when Penelope caught up to her at the bottom of the stands. “I’ll be right back.”

“You’re doing it again,” Penelope said.

“Doing what?”

“This.” Penelope waved a hand around Hetty. “Not saying a word about trouble until it’s too late.”

“This isn’t trouble. This is me trying to talk to a suspect. The only real suspect we have left.”

“A suspect is here?” Penelope looked about the stands.

“Yes, standing by the goal sign. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

“How did he know we’d be here?”

Hetty spun around at Penelope’s thoughtful but worried tone. “What do you mean?” Hetty asked.

“That man you said is a suspect. I saw him this morning. He knocked on my door looking for Darlene. Luckily, George wasn’t home. He took Lorene for a visit with his parents. That’s the real reason I was at the art school. To tell Darlene about it, but I didn’t get a chance.”

Hetty absorbed this information rather calmly, even as alarms sounded in her ears. “What did the man say?”

“Just that he was looking for her. He asked questions, too, like about how long Darlene had been painting and when did we become neighbors. Seemingly harmless questions, but he asked them with shifting eyes. I’m pretty sure you would have hexed him before he finished speaking.”

“You don’t think that’s concerning enough to mention it earlier?”

“Well, he doesn’t look like a murderer. An art thief, maybe.”

“He still showed up looking for Darlene. That makes him dangerous, and I think—”

A loud pop shattered the air. People all around her jumped up to yell into the sky and grabbed at others around them.

Hetty darted forward, one hand creeping up toward her choker, ready to face whatever danger that was coming.

But only when she saw Penelope smiling did Hetty realize she assumed wrong.

“The Pythons won!” Penelope cheered. “Darlene is going to be so happy!”

That was an understatement. Up in the stands, the usually composed and demure Darlene was jumping around with her arms around total strangers, celebrating the win.

“Ah, I hoped they would win too.” The librarian from Still-Bowers was in front of them, holding a basket with little bags of roasted peanuts. “Here, take these, and don’t worry about paying me, I’m trying to get rid of them.”

The librarian handed Hetty three packets and then continued on. Although the basket was still more than half full, she didn’t stop to hand over peanuts to anyone else.

“Have you met Nora before?” Penelope asked.

“The librarian?” Hetty asked. “She works at Still-Bowers. She’s the one that told us to go to Fool’s Moon.”

“Ah, that’s why she knew to give this to you.” Penelope picked up a packet, and instead of pulling out a peanut, held a train ticket instead.

“The meeting is on a train?” Hetty bemoaned. “Why couldn’t we have just met at the station? Is this all just a ploy to get people to watch baseball?”

Penelope blinked, her surprise rather genuine. “You know, you might be right!”

Darlene, of course, was not at all upset about this. “It’s perfectly reasonable,” she declared when she caught up with them and they began making their way toward the train station. “It gets everyone in one place without notice. It also means that there’s less worry about their meeting places being found.”

“I could have gotten the train tickets instead,” Hetty grumbled.

“But it would have increased our chances of being discovered.” The bartender from Fool’s Moon stepped up to join their group, giving them a little nod in greeting.

“Is that a problem?” Darlene asked.

“A great one,” he said rather solemnly. “A few times fire has even struck places we were known to have met.”

He walked with them to the train station. He was also a fan of the Pythons, so he and Darlene chatted a bit as they all went to the train car marked on their tickets. They each handed their tickets to the conductor. The man nodded and opened a door for them.

“I have a question for you,” Hetty said, drawing the bartender aside before she took a seat. “Did you work with Valentine Duval? Co— I mean Lou told me there would be someone here that might have.”

“That person is me,” he said easily. “We worked together on heading off the legal challenges if these magic bans ever come to fruition. I’m a bit of a lawyer on the side.”

“A bit?”

His smile was bitter. “I know the stuff, just can’t legally practice.”

Hetty nodded. “Anything else?”

“A few different things. Valentine was traveling. When he wasn’t doing that, he was teaching or working on solving that cipher.”

“And what were you doing?”

“Recruiting members,” he said. “Or to be frank, determining what prospective members were suitable. There was a concern going around about possible spies.”

“That’s what happens when you’re a secretive lot,” Hetty said. “Complicated meeting arrangements, special tasks to gain entry, passwords, and the like.”

He laughed. “I suppose so.”

The bartender took a seat next to a friend of his. Penelope had found a seat near the back and saved a spot next to her. Hetty looked for Darlene, and found her friend happily chatting away about the baseball game with an older couple.

The Pythons’ coach clapped his hands to get everyone’s at­tention.

“Shall we get started? What old business has yet to be discussed?”

Hetty listened closely at first, expecting to hear about fires, or even how the proposed magic bans were going to be a major issue in October’s elections. But the conversation that began was about cauldron sizes.

Surely, Cora hadn’t given Hetty these tickets for this? Cora never had explicitly said anything important was going to be talked about. She just wanted to invite Hetty into the group. This was what being part of an organization like this involved, she supposed. Dealing with both the fun and boring.

Hetty’s gaze drifted to the train window. The train was still sitting in the station. The delay was due to some luggage being loaded, and a man arguing with the conductor.

The man turned ever so slightly.

It was Nathan Payne.

Hetty got up. Penelope turned in her direction. Hetty just shook her head as she slipped out the back of the train car.

Hurrying out the vestibule, Hetty jumped back onto the platform.

The luggage was gone and so was Payne.

There was no train on the other side. And no one else on the platform, just a few pigeons. Hetty looked up at them, pondering for a wild moment if they could be some help.

“Hetty!”

Penelope stood in the open door of the train as it slowly started to move.

Hetty picked up her skirts and ran, jumping through the open door before the train cleared the platform completely.

“Who did you see out there?” Penelope asked. “Was it that man we saw before?”

“Someone else,” Hetty said. “Why aren’t you at the meeting?”

Penelope crossed her arms over her chest. “Because you aren’t.”

That was an answer Hetty couldn’t refute.

“Then let’s get back to it, shall we?”

Hetty lifted the handle for the door back to the compartment, but snatched her hand back.

It was as cold as ice.

“What’s wrong?” Penelope asked.

“Everything,” Hetty grunted. “Step back.”

As Penelope did, Hetty tapped the band at her neck. Obediently the Herdsman appeared in a flash of light.

The star-speckled woman lifted her staff and swung it over the door.

Two star sigils marked the door, but it was the thumps and muffled cries beyond that alarmed Hetty more.

Flinging her magic at the door, Hetty broke through the spells and pushed her way back into the compartment.

A haze of dust hung in the air, and figures that were once upright and forward-facing were now slumped over. Some were even lying on the floor. The bats and brooms the players had brought with them had fallen to the floor.

Hetty stepped over all of them, headed for Darlene.

Darlene was standing up, as she was too short to see whatever had happened otherwise. She was slumped forward, her outstretched hand reaching to grab something.

“They’re only sleeping.” Penelope had bent over a young man in an Independents uniform. She had her fingers pressed to his wrist, even as she peered at his seat companion. “It’s a spell.” Penelope looked up at Hetty, her eyes widening. “Look out!”

Light flashed to her right as Hetty’s protective spells countered the magic lobbed at her.

Through her view of Aries lowering its horns to face her attacker, Hetty saw Nathan Payne standing in the aisle.

Hetty glowered at him, and he snarled back, before summoning the Hydra star sigil.

Arrow star sigils flitted from Hetty’s fingers almost before she was even aware of it. The first glittery arrow flew through all the heads of the mythical beast. The second one dove for its center and disrupted the spell. The third went straight for Payne.

It hit. But not flesh. The spell bounced harmlessly off magical shielding.

Hetty ducked as the magic rebounded and fell against the seats, bouncing painfully against a sleeping person.

Slightly dazed, Hetty sat up just in time to see Payne darting for her once again.

Hetty slapped her choker. A spell exploded between them, pushing him away. The force of the magic also knocked Hetty back, pushing the breath out of her lungs. She hissed as she moved to stand up, only to see Payne drawing a knife.

“I had orders to wait, but let’s do this now,” he said. “One less problem for the future.”

Payne raised his arm only to have his hand snapped back by a gust of wind. He dropped the knife with a yell.

Behind Hetty, Penelope banged the back end of the wind pistol, frustration crumpling her face.

Payne started to attack once again, but then ducked to the far side of the train car.

Something whizzed past Hetty’s head. As she expected to hear another shot fired from Penelope’s elemental pistol, it took her too long to realize what it really was: a gunshot.

A new person had stepped into the train compartment. She swiftly strode forward through the aisle and gently shoved Penelope out of the way into a nearby seat.

One look at the angular face and Hetty recognized the bookshop thief who’d aimed a pistol at her the day before.

The woman grimly unloaded her gun at Payne, firing round after round.

Payne danced like his feet were on fire, ducking and dodging with surprising agility. His attempt to throw back the magic was less successful. His spell fell apart until finally he blasted raw magic into the compartment.

In the haze of burnished orange, Payne turned tail and ran.

Hetty hurried after him, jumping over the rolling broomsticks as she made her way out.

The door to the next compartment was still shut, but the door to the outside was wide open.

Hetty leaned out, grasping the door handle as she did.

The train was at full speed. They’d be passing over the river soon. Right now they were speeding along mostly empty expanse, but there was nowhere safe for anyone to jump off at this height and speed.

Then she heard a thump overhead going in the direction of the cargo car.

Payne was on the roof!

“He’s getting away!” Hetty cried.

“Not on my watch.” The stranger pointed her gun to the ceiling and fired it. But it only clicked. “Stars shove it,” the woman growled. “Empty!”

The car rocked a bit, and one of the broomsticks rolled to ­Hetty’s feet.

Without considering it twice, Hetty grabbed it.

Hetty ran out the door, flung the broom forward, and jumped on.

The jolt into the air nearly knocked her off, but Hetty quickly regained her balance. She had only been on a broom once before, but she had jumped across tree branches before and run across moving trains. She could manage to stay on a broomstick.

Shifting her weight, she tapped her foot on the front of the broom, urging it forward. She flew over the train, looking for a tiny figure running across the top.

Though Payne had a big head start, it didn’t matter. With Hetty on the broomstick, she would catch up to him soon enough.

But not to take him by surprise.

Payne must have seen her shadow. As soon as she moved close enough, he sent a burst of magic right at her.

Hetty slid back onto the bristle brush to dodge out of the way as much as possible.

The broom dipped backwards at the shift of weight. Hetty’s arms windmilled as she fought to keep her balance. A searing panic gripped her, and for once a spell to get out of this spot of trouble didn’t come to her.

But a hand clamped on her shoulder, keeping her steady.

The stranger stood beside her on her own broomstick, the wind whipping at her hair. In her free hand was Penelope’s wind pistol.

“Got you,” the stranger said. Then she leaned forward and expertly fired the wind pistol.

It struck dead center in Payne’s back.

If the pistol had had a full charge, it might have done more than send him staggering back. It might have knocked him fully over. Instead, the pistol could only produce small gusts. Which was how, under his own power, Payne jumped into the Delaware River as the train roared across the bridge.

“Coward,” the stranger muttered as they watched tiny ripples on the river’s surface as Payne swam toward the nearest shore.

The stranger let go of Hetty.

Hetty gingerly slid her foot along the broom, leveling it so she stood firmly on it once again.

The woman didn’t pay her much mind, tapping at the elemental pistol. “Now, this is something truly special.” She turned her hand so the barrel was pointed in Hetty’s direction. It was coyly done. Just enough to be a threat, but not enough to be overtly so.

“What else can this do?” the woman asked.

“I didn’t make it, so I don’t know.” Hetty crossed her arms over her chest. “Why did you help me?”

The woman gave a small shrug, acting as if they weren’t having this conversation standing atop broomsticks. “My employer sent me to make sure you didn’t get hurt or worse.”

“And that employer is?” Hetty asked.

“Bernice Tanner.”

Hetty was too weary to be surprised. She just moved right to annoyance. “You’re Bernice Tanner’s new assistant?”

“Correct. I’m Temperance Murray. Recent arrival to this lovely city. I take dictation, answer letters, and tend to everything that greatly concerns Miss Tanner. That encompasses a wide variety of things, as you can tell.”

“I can,” Hetty admitted. “Where did you acquire such a set of skills?”

“I worked for the post office out west.”

Temperance tossed Hetty the empty pistol. Hetty caught it by the handle.

Temperance shifted her stance on the broom and darted off, heading down to the other end of the train to see what Payne thought so important to bring here from Camden.

Not caring enough to follow, Hetty tapped her foot on the broom. She flew back to the train, and got close enough to jump back inside.

“Who was that?” Penelope asked, still gazing up at the sky.

Hetty scowled at the dark speck that was becoming smaller and smaller. “She said her name was Temperance Murray. She’s Bernice’s new assistant.”

“Isn’t she wonderful?” Penelope had clasped her hands to her chest. “She knew exactly how to fire that pistol without me telling her. And how she rescued you! She’s absolutely wonderful!”

“Wonderful is a stretch,” Hetty grumbled.

“She saved your life!” Penelope insisted. “We must thank her!”

“You’ll get your chance,” Hetty said. “She’ll probably be at the ball tonight.”

As Penelope squealed about this, Hetty shifted the elemental pistol in her hand. Doing so, she found a wedge of paper stuck behind the trigger.

It was folded several times over, and once Hetty got it open, she saw a crescent moon on the corner.

Underneath was a short note:

 

Miss Bernice,