CAPRICORN
CAPRICORN
WHEN HETTY WALKED INTO the house on Juniper Street, the sun had been down for an hour, so it was only slightly surprising to find no lights on.
Benjy only turned on lights in the room he was currently in. When he needed to go into another room, he just conjured an orb of light and had it bob over his shoulder.
Drawing a star sigil to summon her own light, Hetty was pulling off her shoes when she saw the scrap of paper left on the side table by the door.
Boxing tonight. Might end up losing the match if you aren’t there.
With a grin, Hetty blew out the light and headed back out into the night.
After a few high-profile boxing matches that brought a little too much attention, the organizers had shifted to a new venue, a saloon off of Seventh Street. To Hetty’s eye, very little had changed. Same stage, same patrons tossing down bad liquor, and same management who asked too many questions and made things more than difficult than they needed to be.
“You can’t come in.” The doorman extended his arm to block the way. He didn’t touch or push her back. But there was a gentle threat in the words as he spoke. “You have to wait—”
“To be personally escorted in.” Quentin Mills stepped out of the side door, beaming, as if he had been waiting to see Hetty all night.
“This is Mrs. Ross,” he said using the fake name that Hetty went under at these matches. “Bender Ross’s wife,” he added, which got the boy’s notice.
The doorman swallowed, staring at Hetty.
She smiled as she slipped into the persona she crafted for Lottie Ross. A much gentler woman whose teasing never went deeper than the surface and only had eyes for her husband. A softer version of herself anchored around a single truth.
“Nice to meet you.” Hetty directed a syrupy smile at the doorman. “I hope we’ll see more of each other!”
Quentin escorted her in, and didn’t do it quickly. He led her through the crowd, ensuring that she was seen.
“I didn’t think you were coming tonight,” he said in a low tone. Quentin was perhaps the only one who worked here that knew their real names, and he made sure that didn’t change, since he knew how important their privacy was to them. He owned the venue, paying for it with the money he made by well-placed bets on Benjy’s matches. Quentin also was the one that taught Benjy how to box properly. Although Hetty didn’t quite trust him, she didn’t fully dislike him, either.
“I had plans of my own. Didn’t think anyone would miss me.”
“Miss you?” Quentin exclaimed. “The mere turn of your head just changed seven bets! Watch around us for ripples. People know who you are and what it means.”
“My husband wins all his matches.”
“But the matches are a bit more exciting whenever you are in the room.”
“Why, Mr. Mills!” Hetty clutched a hand to her chest with an exaggerated gasp. “Are you accusing me of cheating?”
“All I can say is that some matches hit all the marks of a good show, and the others are a spectacle. Tonight will be the latter.”
Quentin left her in the middle of the room, but he hadn’t left her alone. Across from her was a table occupied with familiar faces, and at least one set of eyes that had seen her the moment she had stepped into the room.
“I thought you were boxing,” Hetty said to her husband as a chair was found for her.
“I’m the last match. There’s a floor show beforehand—when it starts I’ll leave to get ready.”
“Until then,” Oliver said, “we make it known that he’s here and help raise the bets. Isn’t that right, Thomas?”
Thomas didn’t say anything right away. He had his hat pulled over the right side of his face to hide his scars. But even that didn’t fully hide how his attention had drifted across the room.
Oliver reached over and placed a hand on Thomas’s arm. The simple touch brought Thomas back to their little group.
Thomas looked around until his eyes stopped on Hetty. “Why, the missus is here!” he declared with a playful grin. “What’s the name you use here again? Cassandra? Elizabeth?”
“Either of those names would be better than Lottie.” Benjy shuddered.
Hetty bumped him lightly with her elbow. “It’s too late to change it now.”
“I don’t see why you bothered at all with fake names.” Oliver drew a star sigil in the air to summon a flame to light his pipe. “Wouldn’t it help your popularity around town if they know who you really are?”
“Would you come to a funeral home of a well-known boxer?” Benjy asked.
“I would. Makes a great deal of sense.”
“Not to me.”
Oliver waved the smoking pipe around the room. “You could make a career out of this.”
Benjy shook his head. “Things are only fun when I know I can walk away.”
The lights dimmed a bit and noise shifted as attention went to the boxing setup in the room.
“That is my cue,” Benjy said. To Hetty he asked, “No antics tonight?”
It wasn’t as much of a question as it was a confirmation.
Hetty patted his arm. “No, just beat the Wildcat.”
He leaned over to kiss her then.
While they kissed for show at his matches, it was like the plays they put on with their friends. Exaggerated and made to play up to the crowd’s expectations.
This kiss was nothing like that.
This was just for her. This kiss was for her to know that despite teasing and pretense, he wanted her here.
When Benjy pulled away, he paused for just a moment longer. As she peered into a face she knew even better than her own, she knew that this was the reason she came to the matches.
“Was that necessary?” Oliver remarked when Benjy finally left. His face was wrinkled as if he were drinking a glass of lemonade that was more sour than sweet. “That won’t change the bets that much.”
“Not everything is about money,” Hetty said rather absently, watching the crowd until Benjy was out of sight. “Neither does everything have to be about what you want.”
Oliver huffed, but he knew better than to step on the trap she’d laid for him.
“Want to get closer to watch?” Thomas asked. “Now would be a good time to find a place.”
Hetty looked to Oliver, but he had already jumped to his feet.
“I’m going to add some money into the fray. You being here might even convince the reluctant ones.”
“You’re not going to watch?” Thomas asked.
“Why?” Oliver absently flicked Thomas’s hat as he passed, smirking. “The real game is the bets.”
Thomas pushed the hat back into place, but Oliver had hurried off before he could retaliate.
“You shouldn’t put up with such things,” Hetty teased.
Thomas shrugged. “I don’t mind seeing him in a good mood.”
Hetty looked back at Oliver, crouched over as he spoke to a group some tables away.
“That’s a good mood?”
“He’s enjoying himself,” Thomas said, rising from his seat. “We should move closer.”
That suggestion by itself did not cause Hetty much concern.
They always moved closer at the start of Benjy’s matches. But there was an insistence in how Thomas repeated himself that made it more than a bit noteworthy.
Then it was how he moved through the crowd.
Thomas usually walked with her, trailing at her side like her guard. This night, however, he guided her. Guided her through the crowd in a rather deliberate manner.
They ended up not as close to the ring as they could have been. They were still near some tables, where a trio of white men sat with drinks, keeping to themselves and ignoring the match setup. That too was quite normal. The men were common laborers fresh from work, by the look of their stained and rough clothes. There weren’t many white men who came here for the matches. But the few that did were hardly trouble. They ate, they drank, and they placed bets. Any rudeness or fighting was settled outside or in the ring, with proxy fights.
But there was something odd tonight about this rare sighting.
Thomas kept tugging down his hat. Enough for Hetty to finally ask:
“You didn’t come here for the match, did you?”
Thomas stopped tugging, but his attention didn’t fully return to her. “I’m here because I didn’t tell you everything about the fiddle I got.”
“I figured. Give me the short story—we can fill out the details later.”
“It’s not much. Just that items I had been shipping had gone missing. And they’re magical items. Potions and herbs, and items charmed with spells.”
The noise around her grew louder, overshadowing the rest of Thomas’s words. In the ring, the last fighters made an exit, but instead of a musician or some other performer, a man hawking pocket watches climbed into the ring.
“The fiddle,” Thomas continued, “was enchanted by me. I was trying to get your attention without making a fuss.”
“You succeeded so well, Oliver was quite on his way to getting upset. Why not just tell us the truth?”
“It’s complicated.”
Hetty sighed, unsurprised by this answer. “What do you need help with?”
“With this.”
Thomas nodded to the three white men. A young boy had made his way to that table. He said something to them. Then all three stood up and followed the boy out of the room.
“I know him,” Thomas whispered. “I’ve seen that boy around when I sent out packages. Not all the time. But often.”
“Then let’s go see why he’s here.”
Hetty and Thomas weaved their way through the crowd and headed toward the door, her curiosity and his desperation making the distance vanish quickly.
When they reached the door, the announcement for the final match of the evening was made and cheers were already pouring out, even before the boxers’ names were called.
Quentin Mills had not exaggerated the impact Benjy would make by his appearance tonight. She could hear the crowd, the roar of approval.
His popularity had shifted the tides of bets on more than one occasion. While Benjy won often, even the few matches he did lose were always rousing until the end. His good looks didn’t hurt, either. With grace and quiet strength, every move Benjy made caught and held attention, transforming what should have been a brutal and coarse sport into something a bit more elevated.
She almost didn’t leave after Benjy climbed into the ring.
Like his opponent he was stripped to the waist, but that was their only similarity. Benjy was half a head taller than the Wildcat, broader in the shoulder, with a more impressive form. He stood still with his arms crossed over his chest, while the Wildcat postured for the crowd. While the distance made it hard to tell, Hetty knew he was smirking at the Wildcat. Wildcat James won matches, but out of luck, not skill—and by exploiting weaknesses of his opponent. Tricks he clearly forgot didn’t work on Benjy.
The announcer called out their names to the awaiting crowd, and a gong sang in the air.
Benjy slammed his left fist into his right palm and violet light swirled around his hand. His color for this match, and any match he fought. Despite Hetty’s wishes otherwise, boxing was not quite a duel of magic. But the colors that swirled around the boxers’ fists did more than help make it easy to follow the flow of events. The spells protected the fighters both from their opponent and their own exertions.
Before the first blow could strike, however, Thomas hissed Hetty’s name into her ear.
Hetty tore her eyes from the match and followed Thomas into the corridor.
The door shut away the noise of the boxing match and warmth of the room, leaving only silence before them.
The white men had gotten far ahead. But they were still near enough that Hetty could hear the voices ahead of them.
Thomas moved forward, but Hetty caught his arm. “Careful,” she whispered, brushing her free hand at the band at her neck. Her magic fell around them as she unraveled a spell to hide them from sight. “This goes out where there is no place to hide, except on a nearby roof. Stay here. I’ll go ahead.”
“No. This is my business. Besides”—Thomas gave her a lopsided grin—“he’ll kill me if something happens to you.”
With magic covering them, they approached the end of the hallway to the door that led out into a narrow alleyway.
The space, small to begin with, shrank even more with the presence of a cart at the end and the several men waiting around it.
The young boy they saw earlier sat in the cart. Not only were the three white men there, but they were outnumbered by five others working in and around the cart, picking up and moving crates. Even more interesting: the white men didn’t appear to be the ones in charge.
Hetty tapped Thomas’s arm and pointed to a nearby roof.
He nodded, understanding, and moved with her to the wall. Thomas bent down, cupping his hands, clearly meaning to help Hetty onto the roof. Hetty just shook her head and turned a hand over, allowing her magic to gently fly her onto the rooftop.
Thomas scrambled up with far less grace, hitting the edge hard enough to startle the men below.
Everyone froze, except for Hetty. She slapped a hand across Thomas’s mouth, and refocused her spell of invisibility.
“What was that?” a voice called.
“Nothing, probably a rat.”
“That sounded like no rat I’ve ever heard!”
Hetty watched as the man hurried to check, a lantern held up high to see anything or anyone lurking in the corners.
Hetty lowered her hand, letting go of Thomas.
Sheepishly, Thomas knelt next to her at the roof’s edge as the action resumed below them.
One of the crates was open and displaying its wares for the small group. One of the objects that emerged from its depths was a small jewelry box. The young boy presented it to the white man with a beard.
“Is it empty?” the bearded man asked.
“No, there are vials and amulets inside,” the boy replied.
“Show them, don’t just tell them about it.” This new voice entered the air from a man still on the cart. The tone of authority stilled hands and got all eyes turned toward him.
He jumped off the wagon and snatched the jewelry box from the boy. “These are the amulets and potions we got. No need to work any magic. Any of you can use them without trouble.”
The man said something else.
He could have been sharing the secrets of Celestial magic to these white men and it wouldn’t have mattered.
Nothing mattered once Hetty recognized the man who vowed to give her a long and painful death.
He wasn’t the first person to threaten to kill her or worse. But she had dragged a knife across his face and that was the least of his reasons for wanting her dead.
He still had the same lethal slender frame, but the puckered scar was worse than she remembered. A thin ripple of pale skin cutting diagonally through brown skin from chin to forehead. The face of one man, and one alone.
Nathan Payne.
A man who had once traveled across state lines during a war just on the rumor that Hetty and Benjy were in the area. A man who delivered runaways to the bounty hunters he worked for. A man that Hetty should have killed years ago when she had the chance.
Her hands were not completely clean of blood. But the spots that were there came from situations where there was no better choice.
Shooting Nathan Payne the last time she saw him would not have been the best choice. A gunshot blast in that moment would have drawn attention and put others in great peril.
But killing Payne then would have meant not seeing him now.
A hand pressed down hard on her shoulder, pushing her flush against the rooftop.
Panic slowed her reactions, so much that the only thing Hetty could do was place a hand on one of her hairpins. At the touch of the bird balanced on a tree branch, her sensation of the world flooded back to her. This was the hairpin Benjy had made especially for her, and while it didn’t have any particular magical qualities, the love it was made with was the strongest charm in her possession.
As she began to breathe easily again, she saw Thomas’s frightened face.
Dragging her free hand against the stone, she cast a spell using Canis Minor, the simplest star sigil she could think of. She replaced the invisibility charm over them, hoping that the telltale glow wouldn’t be noticeable this low on the roof.
They waited there, not moving, scarcely breathing, until they were sure the conversation below them didn’t pause.
It kept going, as Nathan Payne showed off all the vials and amulets he had stolen, proclaiming the abilities of each, and offering prices. Goods changed hands, and what wasn’t sold was put back on the cart. Nathan Payne and his young associate jumped onto it to leave. The men, both white and Black, left, and in moments the narrow alley was empty once more.
Thomas sat up. “Is that who I think it was?”
“That was no one.”
“Your face says otherwise.”
Thomas’s words caught Hetty without a ready excuse.
“Your spells unraveled at the sight of him,” Thomas continued. “That tells me everything I need to know.”
“What do you know?” Hetty faced him, anger thrumming through her, and she remembered he was the reason she was out here in the first place. Because Thomas wouldn’t give up on his silly business, she had to see a ghost of her past that she had not wanted to see ever again.
“That man couldn’t have noticed you. The distance was great and he was busy hawking his wares.” Thomas’s words were gentle, as if she were a scared little bird. “He wouldn’t expect to see you at all—”
“And if he did?”
“Haven’t you dealt with him before?”
Quite easily, in fact.
Several times, and the first had been in an effort to stop—
Hetty’s thoughts crashed together. Her first encounter with Nathan Payne would not have happened if they had not been bringing Sarah Jacobs’s children to safety.
An event that was even stronger in Hetty’s mind because Valentine Duval asked about that adventure earlier that day.
Hetty didn’t believe in coincidences, but she did know when she found a puzzle piece that would slot in perfectly into the section she had toiled over.
With purpose and sudden clarity, Hetty climbed off the roof.
Thomas scrambled to keep up with her, but she left him behind with swift strides.
The match was over by the time Hetty stepped inside.
All it took was a glance. Her eye caught Benjy’s across the room and he went from toying with the Wildcat to striking.
He hit three times.
First to break the hold, second to stun, and third to ensure that the Wildcat would wake up with a splitting headache.
The thump echoed in the room, and while people around her expressed little surprise at the outcome, there was excitement in their faces as they went to collect bets.
Benjy never failed to put on a good show.
Despite the concerns pulsing through her, Hetty felt the corners of her mouth lift as Benjy waved to the crowd. Then he blew what remained of the violet magic around his hands. It drifted in the air as it sought her out. The light swirled around her before fading against her skin.
By the time it did, Benjy had bounded out of the ring to meet her. He held out his hand, ignoring the voices calling for his attention.
The moment Hetty placed her hand in his, he whisked her away to the back room in the saloon.
It was a closet of a room and stank of cigar smoke, but it had a door that could lock.
Hetty sat down on a bench and picked up Benjy’s neatly folded clothes. Tucked away in a pocket was a small jar of healing salve. She uncapped it, easily falling into this routine.
“You missed the match.” Benjy sat next to her. He didn’t quite pout, but there was disappointment lurking underneath the sheen of sweat glistening on his skin. “One moment you were there, the next you were gone.”
“I saw the most important bits.” Hetty took his hands and slowly began to rub the salve into his skin, taking special care around his knuckles. He did so many things with his hands, it was hard to say what would be the greatest loss if he ruined them. “I would have watched the whole thing if Thomas hadn’t dragged me to see if these white men were buying stolen magic or not.”
A muscle in her husband’s cheek twitched. “I knew there was something bothering him. What happened?”
“A man was selling a few things. Nathan Payne.”
Benjy’s hand jerked under her hands, and she realized she was rubbing too hard. Releasing him, Hetty dropped her hands into her lap.
“Nathan Payne is—” she began, but Benjy spoke first:
“You saw him too.” Benjy spoke softly, with equal parts worry and relief filling his features. “I guess I was wrong. I suppose ghosts do exist.”