Istill remembered my mother’s first lesson to me, which she’d repeated again and again in her nursery visits: “You’re a Harwood, Cassandra. Never forget that! Work hard, hold fast, never let anyone see your fear—and you will astonish the world with your accomplishments.”
In that, if in no other area of my life, I had listened to her. Over the decades, I had thrown myself at every seemingly impossible challenge with passionate determination and my head held high before all onlookers. Even after last year’s spectacular, life-shattering failure, I had somehow convinced myself that I could build new dreams from the ashes of my old ones, andthis time, if only I worked hard enough and held fast to my vision,it would all work...
And this was the moment to which that path had led me. At that realization, every difficult, distracting emotion drained away, leaving me finally, perfectly at peace.
I knew exactly what I had to do.
My voice, when it emerged, sounded pleasingly cool and steady. “Would you all please excuse me?”There. No one could object to that request, surely.
From the reactions of everyone around me, I might as well have shouted the most violent profanities.
“Cassandra?” Amy’s grip on my arm tightened as her voice rose with unhidden alarm. “What are you doing?”
Lady Cosgrave’s brows drew into an ominous frown. “I beg your pardon? Cassandra—”
“Did you not hear what I just said?” Luton demanded. “Your own husband—”
“Thank you,” I murmured. “All of you. I heard what you said. Now I need a moment, please.” As gently as I could, I tugged forward, and my relatives’ hands fell reluctantly away.
“Cassandra...” Jonathan began.
“Thank you,” I repeated sweetly, and started for the door.
My students were all clustered around it, wide-eyed and looking terribly worried. I smiled reassuringly as I gestured for them to clear my path.
“Miss Harwood—!”
“Miss Harwood—?”
“Miss Harwood,” Miss Banks began, “can I—”
“I’d prefer to be alone now,” I told them all, “but don’t worry. Everything will be fine.” I glided through the doorway with perfect ease, ignoring the swarm of panicked whispers that erupted behind me.
Really, I wasn’t raging or bellowing impassioned threats. I couldn’t imagine why everyone was reacting so dramatically.
Giving a pleasant smile to the maid I passed, I walked at a perfectly steady pace through the house to the study where I had locked up my most dangerous books of magic, the ones I’d never dare allow any impressionable student to find. These spells weren’t only dangerous to their intended victims; they could easily kill the mage who wielded them if any mistakes were made along the way.
Luckily, in this case that risk was irrelevant. Casting any spell in the world would kill me anyway.
I was in the midst of unlocking the cabinet where they were kept when the door burst open behind me.
“Cassandra!” It was Jonathan, panting as if he had run all the way. He shoved one hand through his thick hair as he looked me frantically up and down. “You’re still here.”
“Of course I am.” Sighing, I waved my free hand at him in dismissal. “Everything’sfine. You needn’t worry. I simply need to be alone, so—”
“Did you find her?” Amy skidded into the room after her husband, her silk slippers skating across the wooden floor. She caught hold of his arm for balance as our gazes crossed. “Thank goodness.” Her shoulders sagged. Then her brown eyes narrowed as she looked past me to the cabinet with its multiple locks, half of them hanging open. “What exactly are you planning, Cassandra?”
I loved my sister-in-law, so I forced myself not to roll my eyes at the inanity of her question. “I’m going to get my husband back, of course. But as I was just telling Jonathan, I don’t require any assistance, so—”
“Of course you do,” Amy snapped. “There isn’t a single qualified magician in this house. How do you expect to fight a wild fey without magic?”
“Idon’t,” I said patiently, “but I won’t have to...because you’re wrong.” Turning my back to the cabinet, I crossed my arms and met her gaze head-on. “Thereisa qualified magician here who knows exactly what to do.”
“No,” Amy breathed. For once, all of her careful, articulate arguments seemed to have deserted her. “No, no,no!”
“Don’t be an idiot, Cassandra!” My older brother had paled at my words, but it only made his eyes look more vividly blue as he glared at me. “You know what every single physician said. If you cast any spell, no matter how minor—”
“If I don’t,” I said flatly, “thenWrexhamwill die.” I’d already witnessed it in my dream, hadn’t I? I knew exactly how it would happen. Those vicious thorns stabbing into him again and again as the twisting green vines pinned him into place...
