Frowning, I let my hand fall to my side, unclasped. Beside Lady Cosgrave, Miss Fennell’s strong face was set in inscrutable lines...and her hazel gaze was fixed as firmly uponmyface as if her own fiancée—whom she hadn’t seen in weeks—wasn’t standing a scant five paces away from me.
Something was very, very wrong—and I knew it even before the third woman stepped out from Mr. Westgate’s shadow.
“Well, well, well. Cassandra Harwood, how you’ve grown. Or should I say CassandraWrexhamnow?”
“It’s Cassandra Harwood.” My voice sounded odd to my own ears, my numb lips moving on no more than instinct...that, and my old refusal to ever let this woman see how deeply her words always stabbed into my bones.
I had been a woman grown for many years. But the sound of that too-familiar voice flung me directly back into the lowest point of my adolescence, before Amy had taken on the role of my mother’s assistant and slipped seamlessly into our family forever...
After Jonathan had walked quietly into our family’s private drawing room one day to find our mother’s then-assistant tormenting me in that soft, silky voice that Annabel Renwick had always used whenever she cornered me on her own, without anyone else close enough to overhear us.
It had been as obvious to Annabel as it had been to me that I was unsuited to being my mother’s heir. I had never disagreed with her onthat. But the particular zeal with which she, at nineteen years of age, had chosen to maliciously attack a twelve-year-old girl for that simple accident of birth—for months on end!—was enough to stun me in retrospect.
I’d been far too proud to ever tell my mother about that stream of sly, vicious commentary—a lurking threat that came to cling like poisonous vines around my days, a constantly watching menace in my own home. Likewise, I’d refused to sensibly go into hiding in my bedroom, no matter how unsafe every other room in our house had become. Thus, it had taken months before any adult could step in and help me escape from her.
“Still,” Annabel said now, a smile playing on her generous lips, “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at the chaos you’ve caused for our entire nation. You alwayswerethe worst student of politics I ever met.”
“Luckily,” said Amy, “she was one of the best students of magic ever to attend the Great Library.” Sweeping to my side, she took my arm in hers and looked expectantly at the Boudiccate’s chief officer of Magic. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Westgate?”
My tight chest eased just enough to let me finally release my breath. Amy had chosen her target and her question well, as always—for as much as Lionel Westgate might disapprove of me and my endeavor, he would never deign to lie in public.
“Yes.” He gave a tight nod.
A ripple of pleasure passed through the audience of my students’ mothers, and recalled me to the moment. Too many eyes were watching for me to allow myself to be paralyzed by shock—or to let my emotions rip free into long-repressed fury.
I was no awkward twelve-year-old girl anymore being forced into a shape she could never fit. I was an acknowledged expert in the field that I loved, and I was creating my own space in the world, no matter what a venomous adder like Annabel Renwick might think of it. If I hadn’t been so stupidly proud all those years ago, I would have let Jonathan tell Mother the truth about her assistant when he’d first discovered it. Instead, on my desperate insistence, he had created a fictional lesser offense that had got her safely dismissed from Mother’s service—but had allowed her to keep her entrée in the political world.
Thatwas a mistake that more than one member of our family had paid for across the years. If Amy could bring herself now to face down the woman who’d stolen her own promised seat in the Boudiccate all those years ago, I could do no less than stand tall by her side.
I closed my free hand over Amy’s where it rested on my arm, and I straightened my shoulders. “I can see that this inspection will be a...fascinating experience for all of us,” I said. “Welcome to Thornfell College of Magic. I do hope you’ll all make yourselves quite at home.”
There was no chance left at a fair inspection. Annabel had blamed me for her dismissal from my mother’s side; she had been deceptive and malicious for as long as I’d known her; and I had no doubts of what decision had already been made for Thornfell’s fate at the end of this week.
However, I did have one burning certainty to support me as I smiled fiercely at my old tormentor.
She should have accepted her good fortune, all those years ago, when I’d foolishly allowed her to escape my mother’s wrath. Miranda Harwood might have been a demanding—and sometimes impossible—mother, but she had been a lioness in defending her children against all enemies. She would have been utterly ruthless in the destruction of Annabel’s prospects if she’d known the torment I’d endured...
ButIwas my mother’s daughter, and I had a whole school full of hopeful young women to protect now.
Annabel Renwick had no idea of the battle she was in for.
4
By the end of the evening, a dull, throbbing ache emanated from my jaw, which had been clenched beyond womanly endurance for hours. But I’d won my first skirmish: I hadn’t risen to a single one of Annabel’s taunts, no matter how enticingly she’d dangled them before me. Better yet, even the harshest judge could have found no real fault in the opening lecture I’d just delivered to my new students at the end of their delicious evening meal.
Young Luton, of course, had spent most of that lecture making faces of skeptical consideration throughout even my mildest points as he sat at the back of the room, scoffing an entire bowl-full of Miss Birch’s candied almonds after delivering his own introductory remarks to our new students; but the fact that he made no audible comments of disagreement was a clear sign that he too was making an attempt at self-control.
The most qualified judge in the room sat in the chair beside Mr. Luton, listening with no expression at all on his lean, dark face—except for one brief wince when Luton spat a whole shower of almond fragments onto his lap in a choking fit near the end, just after I’d described exactly how weather wizardry would fit into our syllabus.
Unlike young Luton, Lionel Westgate was not prone to giving away his private thoughts. But he rose as I strode towards the door, following the exodus of chattering young magicians on their way to bed, and his pose was watchful enough to make me pause.
“Mr. Westgate.” I glanced beyond him to the cluster of Boudiccate inspectors, all huddled together in one corner of the room, murmuring too quietly to be overheard. “Am I being summoned to an official meeting?”
“No.” His voice grave, he gestured discreetly toward the door. “May I beg the favor of a tour around the grounds before you retire for the evening, Miss Harwood?”
My head felt light and brittle with exhaustion. I had been pushing myself through the day on nervous energy, and I was rapidly running out of that finite resource. I still had to find an opportunity to consult with Miss Banks and Miss Fennell before either of them went to bed, and I needed to carefully re-think my lesson plans for tomorrow, now that they would be given under Boudiccate inspection.
But Lionel Westgate was my husband’s supervisor and one of the most highly respected magicians in all Angland. It would be madness to turn down any opportunity to argue my case with him in private.
