“Not like apprentice mistresses and masters,” Vitus agreed. “Huh. And he completed his apprenticeship, but Incantation is different than some. More subjective.”
“Illusion, there’s a whole series of practical exercises you have to demonstrate, as well as some pieces you designed yourself. And you told me about yours, how you had to explain your projects and answer questions and have them examined. Alchemy’s much the same, I know that.” Thessaly shook her head. “Anyway. That’s one of the things I started thinking about this week. Why do the Fortiers want me to marry their son so badly? Some of that is practical; there’s not another woman of the right age, not already married or promised, who’s got demonstrated strength of magic and good breeding. They have money, they don’t need an infusion from a dowry. I suppose Cyrus’s sister will get more attention now, but Healing’s a long apprenticeship, and I don’t think her parents are bothering to play any of that game.”
“How many people are there who might look for you to marry them? Sigbert, now, but how many others?” Vitus honestly would have to do a lot of research to begin to figure it out, and not the kind he was any good at.
“Mmm. Four, five, maybe? No, Edward Helms got betrothed last month. I saw the notice. Four, that are roughly the right age and station. And when you add in Aunt Metaia’s money, I’m suddenly a much more attractive prospect. Even if I can’t transfer it to a husband, it could pass down to children.” She grimaced. “There are reasons Lady Maylis would ask about me for Sigbert. But I don’t know if she has other reasons.” She nudged his arm, changing the subject a tad. “The nuts?”
“How do you divine with them?”
“There’s one with horse chestnuts, where you put them side by side - if you’re a courting couple - and watch how they pop, if they move together or apart. If one hisses, there’s steamin between the two, and perhaps not the good way.” Thessaly ducked her chin. “I brought a couple up, if you want to try that. The others, we put them in a pan, and see the patterns when they pop and shatter apart. Those are hazelnuts, filberts. I don’t know which you call them?”
Vitus considered. “I’m curious about both. You have a pan, then? You seem to have packed thoroughly for tonight.”
“Let me get up, and I’ll get things out.” She kissed him on the nose before managing to wriggle out of the cloak. Once she was standing, Vitus took the chance to stretch and stand up himself. “You could put another log or two on the fire, if you want?” By the time he’d done that, she was holding a cast iron pan, and she had two spiky chestnuts in her hand. “Here, let me put this over the fire and let it heat up. And then we put those… there, that looks steady, on the metal.”
He noticed now that there was a large metal pan all under the fire. “You brought that up?”
“Other people did,” Thessaly said. “Our footman and stable man, they got it most of the way with a pony cart. But yes. It helps keep the land safer. And the wandering goats and ponies, after.” She set the cast iron pan so it balanced, then held out one of the chestnuts to him. “We put them down at the same time and see what happens. Maybe half an inch apart?”
Vitus followed her movements, matching them, both of them setting the nuts at the same time. Then Thessaly considered and said, by way of framing the other question. “Tell to us, oh nuts of divination, what we should know about what the Fortiers seek.” She stepped back. “It will take a bit. Ten minutes, maybe a bit longer, for the filberts. Longer for the chestnuts.”
That meant there was plenty of time for him to slip his arm around her. She didn’t seem to want to sit down again. “Can I ask, then, what you want from the future? If you could choose anything?”
She let out a huff of breath. “I don’t know some of it. I want to have time, space? Both. To figure out what Aunt Metaia was working on, and then to figure out how to do something that matters. Cousin Owain pointed that out. Just using my magic to make things pretty was fine, but there are other things I could do. He offered to let me take on some of what Aunt Metaia was doing, illusions for Silence-kept places, things that need to be hidden. There’s someone who could train me on the Council. And...” She glanced up at him. “I like how I feel with you. I don’t hate Sigbert, but I don’t trust he’ll stay kind, and I certainly don’t much want to deal with his parents. Dagobert and Laudine are much more, I don’t know, willing to say things that involve important information.”
Vitus snorted at that. “Not the highest bar, from what you’ve said. I’m glad you like being with me.” He couldn’t quite bring himself to ask whether that meant going against her parents, with all the layered expectations. “And living here?”
“I want that. Seeing people when I want to see them, but maybe not the whole Great Families social mess. If I could just see them only when I wanted to, it’d be much better. And maybe I wouldn’t want most of the time. Even if I were inclined to Cyrus, it’d involve a lot of social events.”
“Is it that you don’t like them, or that Childeric ruined them for you, or something else?” Vitus had different experiences of them, since he had to see them as business, as much as anything else, and that changed the landscape.
“Both. I like them when I can talk to interesting people. And I do like a beautiful gown, now and again. But all the fussing about it, about having the perfect gown for this moment of fashion, of people judging my choices? That, I’m not so fond of.” She waved a hand. “We were going to be talking about the wedding gown a fortnight ago, and obviously no one’s said anything about that. But it had to be the height of fashion andnot too out of step.” Then she looked at him. “What do you want?”
“You.” It came out of him before he could stop himself. “If that’s possible. And then to make talismans. Ones that help people, that make a thing better. I’d not mind doing more work for people with power and influence, but I don’t think I’d want to be them.” He looked off down the valley, to where he knew the house was. “Your inheritance— I’d like knowing we weren’t relying on my income, especially getting started. But I like the idea of you having your own. Building your own things. You choosing to include me. If you did, that’s a powerful sort of magic.”
“You’re not like most people I know, Vitus.” She stood on her toes to kiss his cheek again, then leaned against him. They stood in silence for what must have been quite a while, because suddenly, the filberts started to pop. They scattered across the pan, a few pieces flinging themselves out and into the fire. When they’d settled, Thessaly leaned down and blinked. “Does that look like a lightning bolt to you? And then— that’s all charred there. How did it get charred?”
It was hard to tell on a cast iron pan, but Vitus could see the change in the texture. “So, if we take that seriously, that’s them seeking something that’s like lightning. Which we already knew about, a fair bit. And something that’s burning? Dangerous? Destructive?”
“I don’t like the sounds of that. And it’s not very helpful about what either of us do about it.”
Thessaly grimaced. He could see her in the firelight. “That wasn’t in the question, really. And divination is a complicated art at the best of times.” Before she could go on, they heard the chestnuts popping loudly enough it startled something away from the fire, down the hill. It might have been a hare, but itsounded larger, like a goat or a pony. Vitus hoped for something like that, and not something more dangerous.
When they both got a look, the two chestnuts had rolled together, the heat keeping them dancing slightly on the stone, never quite settling. Thessaly nudged him with her shoulder. “I like that. The way they are. The way we can be?”
“Me as well.” Vitus considered. “We’ve got a fair bit of the night to keep. Let’s pull out the food, have some of it, and settle down. I’d like to hear some stories about your aunt, if you’re willing. And I can tell you more about my grandmother.”
Vitus had a lot to think about, and perhaps it was time to step sideways, backwards, to something a bit easier. Honest grief, rather than future mystery, that was a way to put it. Tomorrow would come in due course.
11
NOVEMBER 7TH IN DEVON
Thessaly was decidedly out of sorts by the time a note came from Cyrus Smythe-Clive on the fourth, inviting her to tea on the seventh. She still had utterly failed to find Aunt Metaia’s personal notes, the secret ones, and it was driving her up a wall and a tree and also a mountain. Rather literally, in the last case, she’d ended up going off on two long hikes with Emeline, just to work out some of the strain. And they’d duelled every day, which was at least both enjoyable and an enjoyable challenge, though Emeline was complaining it was getting too cold for her bones outside.
Going out meant wearing black, but it was Cyrus, and that felt wrong. And besides, she’d already made that point to him. After some consideration, she asked Collins to pull out a dark purple gown of Aunt Metaia’s, suitable for lesser mourning, and not nearly so dire. People did, in fact, sometimes wear purple just because they liked it, and this was also a dark enough shade not to echo the Council purple too closely.
Once she was dressed, with her hair properly put up, Thessaly made her way through the portal. The Smythe-Clive portal stood directly in front of a large country house, what looked like two wings and the main building. A footman waswaiting. “Mistress Lytton-Powell?” She inclined her head, and the man bowed. “If you’d come this way, please. Master and Mistress Smythe-Clive are in the library.” The dual name took Thessaly by surprise, and she had to think for a moment before realising it must mean Andie Smythe-Clive was about. The footman led the way to the house, held the front door for her, and then escorted her back to the library on the other side of the house.
