Death by Silver Read Free

it at thirteen, through dint of effort he’d thought painful at the time.
    The metaphysical word for “light” was only two letters, the letter that itself meant “light” and the one that meant “end,” tacked on as shorthand to make single-letter words possible to draw on a square. Right to left across the bottom row of the square, then, a short horizontal line that acquired its particular meaning through concentration on the numbers that began and ended it. He sketched the line, his pulse quickening as he completed it; there was always that slight exciting element of danger, a chance that he was dealing with one of the rare enchantments that would react disastrously with the standard tests.
    Instead there was no reaction at all. The most common curses were laid down using some version of the word for “bring” in connection with some specified form of ill-luck. Adding “light” should have made at least a momentary flicker of light play across the surface of the platter. The next most common ones used “remove,” or “darken;” he carried lucifer matches in his case, but there was a convenient sunbeam slanting across the table, and he tilted the tray into the sun while sketching “light” once more.
    The light thrown off by the tray didn’t falter. The next of the standard tests switched tactics, testing for a limiting factor. A malediction was most usually limited to a particular set of objects, to things residing under a particular roof, or by family blood. “Silver,” in this case, which wasn’t particularly useful, or “house,” or “blood.”
    He glanced at Nevett, who could at least be a source of useful information if he insisted on hovering. “Did your wife bring any silver into the house when you married? Anything not bought as a wedding present, but perhaps part of a dowry, or a gift to her as a child?”
    “I expect so,” Nevett said. “I didn’t pay much attention.”
    Ned doubted that – the collection of silver in front of him hardly looked like one assembled by a man who didn’t know or cared what he owned – but there was no sense in arguing about it. “No reason to, I’m sure,” he said easily. “And what was her maiden name?”
    “Her people are Winchesters,” Nevett said. He frowned, looking genuinely troubled for the first time. “What are you implying?”
    “If there is a curse on the silver, it’s possible it came through a piece that was in Mrs Nevett’s family. It probably wouldn’t be anything she was aware of, perhaps not even something that was a problem while the silver was in its original home. Some things take badly to being moved.”
    “But it’s not that she’s done something to the silver herself.”
    “Certainly not,” Ned said. The last thing he needed was for Nevett to decide that he was insulting his wife.
    Nevett made a non-committal noise, but seemed mollified, and Ned returned to looking through the pieces for something with a lid. Thankfully, not many of the pieces seemed to have been enchanted at their manufacture, which would have confused the issue considerably. He found a salt cellar with a lid, set it deliberately ajar, and then sketched the fish-hook sigil for “close” without adding a specifier. If the enchantment had been build around “in this house” or “under this roof,” the combination would have formed close all under this roof , which tended to show its effects even through a variety of cluttering prior sigils.
    The silver lid didn’t twitch. He added the sigil for “roof” himself, and watched the lid snap shut, feeling the light flutter of effort deep in his vitals, not strong enough to make him catch his breath, but definitely a perceptible expenditure of energy. That was all his own doing, not prompted by any residual energy in the salt cellar.
    The blood of the family might have been specified instead. The easiest test for that would have required piercing Nevett’s thumb, and Ned didn’t feel he’d