Amongst all of the dusty and outmoded volumes left piled in Thornfell’s library to clear space in Harwood House’s own library, I’d found all twelve of the leather-bound journals that had been hand-written by my most eccentric ancestor. Romulus Aeneas Harwood—born well over a century ago, in the days when the aristocracy of Angland had been fashionably fixated upon the Roman empire—was not one of those famous gentleman magicians whose portraits hung in the long gallery of Harwood House to impress awestruck visitors. My many-times-great-uncle had instead been discreetly forgotten by Anglish history outside the annals of our family...and our own family had never known quite what to do with him.
He had, of course, attended the Great Library, like every other male Harwood in our records until my own brother finally rebelled and broke that long tradition. However, rather than marrying a suitable politician, moving into her elegant house and building a magical career to the dizzying heights expected of any Harwood, he had inexplicably chosen to retire from public life at the age of twenty-two. Then he had—with quiet but utterly unbending determination—made Harwood House his home for the rest of his short life.
While his younger brother and older sisters had dazzled the world with their exploits, Romulus had spent nearly two decades, until his death from influenza at eight-and-thirty, sleeping in his childhood bedroom, taking daily walks around the estate, and filling volume after volume of his private journals with densely scribbled observations...that never left his room until his death finally revealed their existence to his baffled relatives.
As far as I knew, no one had ever read through all those volumes of detailed observations on every aspect of our estate. When I myself had come across them whilst sorting through Thornfell’s old library, I’d flicked through the first page or so, shrugged, and placed them all into one of the wooden crates that held all the spare books that wouldn’t aid my students’ magical education. Like every Harwood before me, I’d seen those journals as necessary to preserve for the sake of family history...but hardly relevant to our current needs.
Now, though, I wished I’d kept them closer to hand. Ever since the grounds of our estate had first been drawn, the Harwoods and the fey within our woods had operated in an agreed-upon relationship of mutual respect and separation. We stayed out of the woods during bluebell season; they left us alone outside the woods. Beyond ceremonial offerings of milk and wine at the appropriate times of year—and, of course, my mother’s annual Spring Equinox ball, which their ambassadress had always attended with a magnificent entourage—there had never been any compelling reason for us to investigate them further.
But if ever anyone in my family had had the timeandopportunity to study the mysterious creatures in our woods, it would have had to be my most enigmatic and least famous ancestor.
It took fifteen minutes of digging through the piled crates in Thornfell’s vast, stuffy attic before I found the one I needed. Dust motes floated through the air, lit only by the glow of my lantern, as I pulled out the stack of journals. There were twelve in all; none of them were slim, to say the least. I sighed as I gathered them all up in my arms.
This was yet another time when it would have been helpful to have a second committed professor on staff...but as it was, this would certainly be another sleepless night.
Exhaustion cascaded through me at the prospect. Even balancing all of these volumes in my arms on my way back down that ladder, whilst juggling both the lantern and my own long skirts, suddenly felt too much to contemplate. Expelling a weary sigh, I sagged back onto the dusty attic floor and pulled a random journal from the middle of the stack, holding it close to the lantern’s golden glow to make out the cramped, old-fashioned scrawl inside.
Just for one or two minutes, I would let myself rest and see if I could find anything useful at random, before I went down to resume social jousting with our inspectors...then began a more thorough page-by-page search in the darkest hours of the night.
...are budding againe, theyre leaves salamander green and spreading in a pattern moste splendid and various...
The dusty, stuffy air settled around me like a thick, heavy blanket wrapping me in warm darkness. Yawning, I flipped to the next page to try again.
...sister’s unending complaints, as she desired me to meet a certain Lady Montague “who mighte yette consider you even now if she only saw the magic you are capable of, Romulus.” As if any other lady could compare to the bewitchments of my owne true beloved!
But I could hardly say as much to Octavia, so I was gladde to escape once again into the gardens, surrendering my breakfast meats to avoid any more tedious lectures on the subject of marriage...
His own true beloved? I blinked, sleepily absorbing that ancestral revelation. If Romulus really had been in love at that point in his life, his choice must have been shocking indeed to keep his sisters from leaping at the chance to hand him over to any bride who would willingly take him. An unmarried gentleman by the age of thirty was an embarrassment at best and a burden at worst—and those rules had been even stricter a century ago, like all of our other old ingrained prejudices. Who could have been so unsuitable a match that he couldn’t even risk revealing her identity to his desperate relations by then? A stablegirl? An already-married woman?
Perhaps, if she had lived close by, that might explain...
Oh, never mind. My tired brain wandered only too easily down roads of distraction, but this wasn’t the information I’d come searching for. Any gossipy side-paths down family history would have to wait for another night, when I could happily hand these journals over to my historian brother and enjoy a night of cozy speculation over glasses of sparkling elven wine. Perhaps Wrexham would even be able to join us, by then.
In the meantime...
I flipped through another dozen or so pages of detailed garden updates, heaved a final sigh, and closed the volume. The candle in my lantern was starting to gutter. My gown desperately needed a change before supper, and I had no idea how much time I had left to prepare. My hair was undoubtedly covered in dust. If I wanted to maintain any semblance of control over the meal, despite Annabel and Lady Cosgrave’s finest conversational machinations...
The trapdoor popped open unexpectedly behind me, and I jolted hard at the sound, dropping the journal that I’d held to the dusty floor. As I scrambled around, a familiar, tousled brown head appeared through the opening. Jonathan pulled himself up into the attic a moment later, dressed in evening finery.
“What are you doing here?” Sighing, I gathered up our ancestor’s journals once more. “Am I late for supper? Or—”
“Supper started half an hour ago,” said my brother, “and apparently, Miss Fennell was hunting for you all over the house beforehand, but we have a more urgent problem at the moment.” For once, there was no easy smile of reassurance on his face; a sigh of his own sent his broad shoulders sagging. “Amy sent me to find you as quickly as possible,” he said. “Annabel Renwick is missing.”
12
Ididn’t juggle everything after all. I grabbed the lantern, shoved the journals at Jonathan, and then lunged down the ladder with no care at all for the hem of my gown.
Annabel Renwick is missing.
“It makes no sense!” I snarled as I started for the staircase.
Shewas the one who had summoned that fey in the first place; I was certain of it. Who else would have had the sheer malice to wish it—orspent enough time on this estate to learn the local lore and think to make such a bargain in the first place? She was the only one who’d lived with us, filling Harwood House with her shadowy poison. She was the only one who hated me personally enough to risk her political standing, her social reputation, and even her freedom by summoning a fey to attack my school and ruin everything for me.
“Why would it attackher? That could break the entire bargain!”
“What bargain?” Jonathan demanded, long legs catching up with me. “What are you talking about?”
My older brother generally gave off an impression of easygoing charm no matter what the circumstances, but lines of tension marked his face now as he cradled our ancestor’s journals in his arms. Exhaustion showed, too, in the dark shadows that spread beneath his blue eyes—marks of the sleep I knew he’d lost since his daughter’s birth. The last thing he needed was to be drawn into yet another of my crises now...but I couldn’t send him away now.
