Half a Soul Read online

  Half a Soul

  Olivia Atwater

  Copyright © 2020 by Olivia Atwater

  https://oliviaatwater.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and stories are the product of the authors' imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual persons (living or dead), organizations, and events is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  The Lord Sorcier

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  The Atwater Scandal Sheets

  About the Author

  Also by Olivia Atwater

  The Lord Sorcier

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  Details can be found at the end of Half a Soul.

  Prologue

  Theodora Eloisa Charity Ettings was a very long name for a very small girl. This, her aunt liked to say, was probably why she was such a handful—by the time one had fully shouted the words “Theodora Eloisa Charity Ettings, you get back here this instant!”, said ten-year-old girl was almost always long gone.

  Today, Theodora Eloisa Charity Ettings—who generally preferred the name Dora—was busily escaping her adult captors, with the goal of making her way to the wild woods behind Lockheed Manor. These woods were full of fantastic trees to climb and fast-flowing muddy creeks with which to dirty her skirt hem: all of which sounded much more interesting than sitting down to learn embroidery with her cousin Vanessa.

  Her aunt’s shouts faded behind her as she darted through the tree line, giggling to herself. Strands of her curly, reddish-gold hair caught among the branches, tugging their way free from her neatly-coiffed bun. Dora tripped lightly over her pristine white skirts, catching herself just in time to avoid a fall—but the toe of her slipper ground the fabric into the dirt, staining both shoe and dress. Later, her aunt would be furious and her punishment severe... but for now, she was free, and she had every intention of taking advantage while she could.

  There was a particularly good tree for climbing just across the creek, near the bluebird’s nest she’d found last time. Dora hadn’t gotten very far up the tree before getting stuck, but she’d ruminated on the problem for more than two weeks now, and she was sure she would be able to climb much higher this time, if she set her mind to it.

  Just as she had settled onto the banks of the creek to pull off her slippers, however, an elegant male voice spoke from behind her.

  “Oh, little girl,” it sighed. “How like your mother you look.”

  Dora turned her head curiously, wiggling her bare toes in the cold water before her. The man behind her had appeared quite out of nowhere—and surely, there had to be magic involved, because his long white coat was unstained by his surroundings, and his eyes were the fairest shade of pale blue that she had ever seen before. Being an imaginative little girl, Dora was not surprised to note that his ears were very gently pointed at the tips, but she was very surprised to see that he was wearing at least four jackets of different cut and colour, all layered carelessly atop one another.

  “I don’t look a thing like my mother, Goodman Elf,” Dora informed him matter-of-factly—as though tall, handsome elves addressed her every day of her life. “Auntie Frances says that Mother’s hair was lighter than mine, and that she had brown eyes instead of green.”

  The elfin man gave her a kind smile. “You humans always miss the most important details,” he said. “It’s not your fault, of course. But your mother’s soul and yours are of the same bright thread. I spotted the resemblance in an instant.”

  Dora pursed her lips consideringly. “Oh,” she said. “I suppose that makes sense. Well—were you one of Mother’s friends, Goodman Elf?”

  “Alas,” he told her, “I was not. Once, she may have called me such, but she later changed her mind in a manner most abrupt.” His unnatural blue eyes fixed upon Dora, and she felt a strange shiver go through her. “You have also been very impolite, firstborn child of Georgina Ettings. I am no Goodman Elf. Indeed, you should address me as Your Lordship or Lord Hollowvale, for I am the marquess of that realm. You can tell that I am important, for I am wearing many expensive jackets.”

  Dora narrowed her eyes at him. At first, it had been quite a delight to meet a real-life faerie, but she was now beginning to suspect that she would be much happier crossing the creek and climbing her tree. “I had no way of knowing your title,” she sniffed. “And I’ve never heard of Hollowvale, anyway. If it’s a real place, then it’s far outside His Majesty’s domain, and therefore of no consequence here.”

  Those pale blue eyes blazed with ice. The water at her feet grew even more chilly than before, and she pulled her toes up out of the creek in a hurry.

  “Do you not know what happens to impolite young children who wander in the woods, firstborn child of Georgina Ettings?” Lord Hollowvale asked Dora, in a quiet, dangerous voice.

  Dora backed her way slowly towards the creek. “You said you weren’t my mother’s friend,” she told him warily. “I have no cause to be polite to strange men who sneak up on me, Lord Hollowvale.”

  The elf’s pale hand flashed forward like a serpent, grasping her by the neck. Dora let out a strangled cry, reaching up to claw at his hand with her fingernails—but he was much stronger than he appeared, and there was a cold, inhuman fury to his grip.

  “Georgina Ettings promised me her firstborn child,” Lord Hollowvale told her in his chilly voice. “And I shall take my due. I expect that you shall be much more polite once I have taken your soul, little girl.”

  Dora tore at his hand, thrashing and writhing in fear. But as he spoke, a strange coldness ran through her body, wiping away the sharpest edges of her terror. Her protests slowed, and her mind began to wander strangely. An elf had snatched her from the creek, it was true, but the danger that he posed seemed less pressing and more dreamlike than before. Surely, this problem would pass, and she would soon continue on her way to the tree she was after.

  Lord Hollowvale let out a sudden cry of pain, however, and he dropped her to the ground.

  Behind him, Dora’s golden-haired cousin Vanessa stumbled back, with a pair of bloody iron scissors in her hand and a horrified expression on her pretty features. Oh dear, Dora thought to herself distantly. But Vanessa is so sweet and obedient. How could she stab a marquess with her embroidery scissors?

  “Dora!” Vanessa gasped fearfully. She stumbled across the mud towards her cousin, helping her up from the ground. “Please Dora, let’s run, we must!”

  Lord Hollowvale staggered to his feet, clutching at the back of his leg. Vanessa had given him a terrible gash along the back of his calf, such that he had to limp towards them. Deep crimson blood stained his fine white coat, and his face twisted with terrible anger. “This girl’s soul is mine by right!” he hissed. “You will give her to me this instant!”

  Vanessa turned upon him, holding her bloody scissors before her with a stricken
expression. “I do not want to hurt you,” she said. “But you shall not touch my cousin, not for any reason.”

  Lord Hollowvale jerked back from the scissors. Fear briefly clouded his face as he glanced down at them—a strange circumstance, since the scissors were only a little bigger than Vanessa’s little fist, and their eyes were decorated with cheerful little roses. Vanessa drew Dora slowly around the faerie and back towards the manor, keeping her scissors squarely between herself and the marquess.

  “As you wish, niece of Georgina Ettings,” the elf spat finally. “I have full half of my payment. May you make good use of the other!”

  And then—even as they watched, with their eyes fixed directly upon his form—he disappeared into thin air.

  “Oh, Dora,” Vanessa sobbed, as soon as the elf had gone. “Are you all right? Has that awful elf done something to you? I was so afraid. I only meant to scold you back to lessons, but he was right there, and I had my scissors in my apron—”

  “Why are you so upset?” Dora asked her curiously. She knitted her brow at her cousin. “Why, it’s over and done with now. You can come and climb my tree with me, if you like.”

  Vanessa looked at her, bewildered. “Are you not upset?” she asked fearfully. “He was very terrible, Dora, and all of that blood...”

  Dora smiled pleasantly at her cousin, though she felt as she did that something important was missing from behind the expression. Something that had been there, only minutes ago. “I suppose I should be upset,” she said. “A normal person would be, wouldn’t they? But perhaps I will be upset later, after I have thought on it.”

  Vanessa insisted that they return to the manor immediately. Dora went with her, though she still had a fondness for the tree across the creek. As Vanessa wept relating the story to Auntie Frances, it slowly began to dawn on Dora that she was not acting as she normally ought to act. All of her emotions had dulled to a distant sort of fancy—as though she were observing herself in a dream.

  Auntie Frances gave them both the most horrified look, as Vanessa recounted the elf’s words. “Quiet!” she begged Vanessa. “Quiet, both of you. You mustn’t say a word of this to anyone else, do you understand? Do not even speak of it to your father, Vanessa!”

  Vanessa gave her a teary, wide-eyed look. “Why ever not?” she asked. “That elf has done something to Dora, I know he has! We must find someone who can fix her!”

  Auntie Frances snatched at her daughter’s arm, dragging her forward. She got down on one knee and lowered her voice fearfully. “Dora is faerie-cursed,” she said. “Look at her eyes! One of them has lost its colour! Perhaps the entire rest of this family is cursed with her, if it’s true what her foolish mother did. If anyone were to find out, we would be driven off the land!”

  Dora’s aunt made them both swear not to breathe a word to anyone else. Dora found this perfectly agreeable. In fact, she felt no distress about the situation at all, except for a faint bit of worry, easily ignored. It was rather like a fly, buzzing distantly about in the corner—she knew it was there when she bothered to pay attention to it, but in the greater scheme of things, it really didn’t signify at all.

  Vanessa promised only with the greatest reluctance. When they went to bed that night, she crawled beneath the covers with Dora and held her tightly.

  They slept with the iron pair of scissors just beneath the pillows.

  Chapter 1

  Sir Albus Balfour was nattering on about his family’s horses again.

  Now, to be clear, Dora liked horses. She didn’t mind the occasional discussion on the subject of equine family trees. But Sir Albus had the most singular way of draining all normal sustenance from a conversation with his monotonous voice and his insistence on drawing out the first syllable in the word purebred. By Dora’s admittedly-distracted count, in fact, Sir Albus had used the word purebred nearly a hundred times since she and Vanessa had first arrived at Lady Walcote’s dratted garden party.

  Poor Vanessa. She had finally come out into society at eighteen years old—and already, she found herself surrounded by suitors of the worst sort. Her luscious golden hair, her fair, unfreckled complexion, and her utterly sweet demeanour had so far attracted every scoundrel, gambler, and toothless old man within the county. Surely, Dora’s lovely cousin would be equally attractive to far better suitors... but Dora greatly suspected that such men were out in London, if they were to be found anywhere at all.

  At nineteen—very nearly pushing twenty!—Dora was on the verge of being considered a spinster, though she had supposedly entered society alongside her cousin. In reality, Dora knew that Vanessa had only put off her own debut for so long in order to keep her company. No one in the family was under any illusions as to Dora’s attractiveness to potential suitors, with her one strange eye and her bizarre demeanour.

  “Have you ever wondered what might happen if we bred a horse with a dolphin, Sir Albus?” Dora interrupted distantly.

  “I—what?” The older fellow blinked, caught off his stride by the unexpected question. His salt-and-pepper moustache twitched, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened, perplexed. “No, I cannot say that I have, Miss Ettings. The two simply do not mix.” He seemed at a loss that he even had to explain the second part. He turned his attention instantly back towards Vanessa. “Now, as I was saying, the mare was purebred, but she wasn’t to be of any use unless we could find an equally impressive stud—”

  Vanessa winced imperceptibly at the repetition of the word purebred. Aha. So she had noticed the awful pattern.

  Dora interrupted again.

  “—but do you think such a union would produce a dolphin’s head and a horse’s end, or do you think it would be the other way around?” she asked Sir Albus, in a bemused tone.

  Sir Albus shot her a venomous look. “Now see here,” he began.

  “Oh, what a fun thought!” Vanessa said, with desperate cheer. “You do always come up with the most wonderful games, Dora!” She looped her arm through Dora’s, squeezing at her elbow a bit more firmly than was necessary, then turned her eyes back towards Sir Albus. “Might we inquire as to your expert opinion, sir?” Vanessa asked. “Which would it be, do you think?”

  Sir Albus flailed at this, flustered out of his rhythm. He had only one script, Dora observed idly, and absolutely no imagination with which to deviate from it. “I... I could not possibly answer such an absurd question!” he managed. “The very idea! It’s impossible!”

  “Oh, but I’m sure that the Lord Sorcier would know,” Dora observed to Vanessa. Her thoughts meandered slowly away from the subject, and on to other matters. “I hear the new court magician is quite talented. He defeated Napoleon’s Lord Sorcier at Waterloo, you know. He does at least three impossible things before breakfast, the way I hear it told. Certainly, he could tell us which end would be which.”

  Vanessa blinked at that for some reason, as though Dora had revealed a great secret to her instead of a bit of idle gossip. “Well,” Vanessa said slowly, “the Lord Sorcier is almost certainly in London, far away from here. And I wonder if he would lower himself to answering such a question, even if it were the sort of impossible thing he could accomplish.” Vanessa cleared her throat and turned her eyes to the rest of the garden party. “But perhaps there are some here with a less impossible grasp of magic who might offer their expert opinion instead?”

  Sir Albus’ moustache was all but vibrating now, as he failed to suppress his outrage at the conversation’s turn away from him and his prized horses. “Young lady!” he sputtered towards Dora, “That is quite enough! If you wish to discuss flights of fancy, then please do so somewhere far afield from us. We are having a serious, adult conversation!”

  The man’s vehemence was such that a drop of spittle hit Dora along the cheek. She blinked at him slowly. He was red-faced and shaking with upset, leaning towards her in a vaguely threatening manner. Dimly, she knew she ought to be afraid of him—any other lady might have cringed back from such a violent outpouri
ng of passion. But whatever impulse normally made ladies wither and faint in the face of frightening things had been lost on its way to her conscious mind for years on end now.

  “Sir!” Vanessa managed, in a shocked, trembling voice. “You must not address my cousin in such a way. Such behaviour is absolutely beyond the pale!”

  Dora glanced towards her cousin, considering the way that her lip trembled and her hands clutched together. Quietly, she tried to mirror the gestures. Her aunt had begged her to act normal at this party, after all.

  For a moment, as Dora turned her trembling lip back towards Sir Albus, a chastised look crossed his eyes. “I... I do apologise,” he said stiffly. But Dora noticed that he addressed the apology to Vanessa, and not to her.

  “Apologize for what?” Dora murmured absently. “For impacting your chances with my cousin, or for acting the bore?”

  Sir Albus’ eyes widened in shocked fury.

  Oh, Dora thought with a sigh. That was not the sort of thing that normal, frightened women say, I suppose.

  “Your apology is accepted!” Vanessa blurted out quickly. She pushed to her feet as she spoke, dragging Dora firmly away by the arm. “But I... I’m afraid I must go and regain my composure, sir. We shall have to discuss this further at another time.”

  Vanessa charged for the house with as much ladylike delicacy as she could muster while hauling her older cousin behind her.