“Yet another magician mysteriously called away on urgent business,” murmured Annabel. “First Luton, now Westgate. Shall we expect you to disappear on us too, Cassandra? –Oh, wait. I’d actually forgotten for a moment.” She smiled lushly. “You aren’treallya magician yourself anymore, are you?”
It was becoming easier and easier not to rise to her bait. Keeping my expression blank, I looked past her to my students, who had paused in their work to observe the barbed byplay. “Has anyone finished yet?”
They all hastily bent back over their slates, on which they were each sketching out in chalk their own proposed steps for a new spell to summon light.
Calmly and steadily, I crossed the room and gave the bell-pull a light tug. When my housemaid appeared in the doorway a minute later, I mouthed the wordsMiss Birchto her while keeping my back carefully turned to our inspectors.
Ciara was a clever girl. She nodded and slipped away without asking any questions...and twenty minutes later, as the last of my students streamed out of the room to return to their own quarters before supper, Miss Birch stepped inside with her gaze uncharacteristically downcast and her hands clasped, looking as meek and unnoticeable as a stick in the woods.Perfect.
Annabel’s gaze slipped straight past her. “Will we be seeing you at supper, Cassandra?” Lingering behind her co-inspectors in the doorway, she raised her eyebrows with faux-concern. “Or will you be too busy to share a meal with your students...again?”
“Oh, I’ll be there,” I said firmly, and gave her a look that added:I know exactly what you’re up to.
It was an impressively ominous expression that I’d learned from my mother in my own rebellious youth—which made it even more unfortunate that my empty stomach chose to rumble a loud and undignified accompaniment at that very moment.
“Poor Cassandra.” Annabel smirked. “So close to true power in so many ways...and yet, you never canquitepull it off, can you?”
Shaking her head, she sailed out of the room. I very nearly slammed the door behind her.
“Always a disappointment...”That had been her favorite phrase to sigh in my ear when I was a girl and no one else could hear us. Apparently, I hadn’t yet outgrown the rage-filled reaction that that message inevitably inspired.
Iwould notdisappoint everyone who relied upon me now, so I forced myself to shut the door with tooth-gritted care—and only then allowed myself to turn to my housekeeper. “So?” I said. “Have those vines come any closer?”
“Not yet.” With the departure of the Boudiccate’s inspectors, Miss Birch had unclasped her hands and resumed her usual sturdy pose, straight-backed and hard-elbowed, her hazel gaze piercing. “They’re still busy tangling themselves around the cottage, so I set Brigid and some of her girls from the stable to build a good-sized fence around it. That should keep anyone from getting too close, for now.”
“The higher the better,” I said. “It should slow down the vines, too, if they change direction.” I worried at my lower lip, envisioning those long, sharp thorns planting themselves firmly into slim wooden fencing as strong vines looped across it...or even tore it down. “Is there any chance that you could stop them from growing at all from now on? Or that you could change their direction and send them back into the woods?”
“Not without lifting protection from our house. I wrapped all my strength tight around Thornfell last night—that’s why they had to settle for the cottage instead.”
“I see.” I sighed. “Well, there’s no question which building is more vital to defend.” As I was planning to dismiss Luton withgreatpleasure the moment he strolled back onto school grounds, there was no need to house him appropriately any longer. “The only question now is: how can we defeat whichever fey sent them after us?”
“Myself, I’d look to the human in this house who set that nasty, sneaking bargain to begin with.” Miss Birch gave a derisive sniff. “However fine a lady she may be, she’s only a visitor. Once we’re rid of her, we should do well enough. None of the creatures in these woods ever caused any trouble for Harwoods untilshecame.”
“Mmm...” A few weeks ago, I would have assented to that sentiment without a doubt. But all those vivid nightmares that I had experienced since moving into Thornfell—all those dreams of being smothered and pierced by vicious thorns from vines that had proven to be only too real, wielded by one of those wild fey in our woods...
What if all the official reasons for Thornfell’s old abandonment were no more than face-saving excuses? So many gentlemen among my ancestors had bucked tradition by choosing to move back to Harwood House after their widowhoods, giving up, one after another, all of their claims to an honorable dower house in which they could be master. What if those choiceshadn’tarisen solely from family affection after all?
It would all suddenly make so much more sense...if, in fact, I wasn’t the first Harwood to have had those suffocating nightmares forced upon me.
No such stories had been passed down in family lore—but then, as Lionel Westgate had pointed out, I was descended from a long line of men and women who’d all prided themselves on their personal strength. How many of my ancestors would have admitted to their brisk, powerful daughters—or, worse yet, to their magician sons-in-law—that they had been chased from their rightful home by bad dreams?
“Miss Harwood?” Miss Birch prompted.
But I was too furious to speak.
I loved Thornfell with all of my heart. Every weathered red brick and uneven golden stone in its eccentrically rambling exterior; every patch of green-and-bronze wallpaper and every brass lamp; every single inch of it, inside and out, was my home, the dream that I had built when my first dreams were shattered, the future I’d claimed for myself, for my students, and for Wrexham, too...should the Boudiccate ever allow him enough rest to enjoy it.
I wouldn’t be driven away from it byanyone, no matter how powerful or ancient they might be. It didn’t even matter, anymore, which of my human visitors had extended the blood-cast invitation that broke our old bargain with the fey and allowed those vines to finally manifest outside the woods. After so many endless nights spent tangled and tortured in my sleep, I knew one thing with certainty: whoever controlled them had been waiting a long time for this opportunity.
They were going to regret it.
“Keep up Thornfell’s defenses,” I said, “and have one of Brigid’s girls keep an eye on that fencing—and on the woods beyond, as well. I want to know the moment that Professor Luton finally returns.”
“Oh,him.” She rolled her eyes. “Shall I have him sent to you when he finally comes creeping out of there?”
“Yes, please.” I strode for the door. “And do let me know if you discover any clues about that ring from the altar.” An identification sourced through fey magic might not be considered legal evidence in court, but I would dearly love to throw it in Annabel’s sneering face anyway. “In the meantime, I have research to do before supper.”
Until now, I’d focused on the human aspect of our attack. When it came to magical menaces, though, there was only one place to go. Thank goodness my family never let go of old books!
