“Uncle will want to hear about this. Oh, he will be simply livid when he finds that Lord Downpike has revealed himself to you! It’s not done, you see.”
“You’ve just done it. I had no idea whether you were capable of magic.”
She waves a hand dismissively. “I am barely fit to fill a teacup with the amount of power I have. No one cares about me.”
“So it’s true then, that all the gentry can do these things?”
“More or less. Some of us barely bother, we can do so little. We’re all required to learn the basics, is all. But some, like Uncle and Downpike, could move mountains. I think Uncle has, now that I am on the topic. Ernest studies as hard as he can, hoping to join their ranks among the powerful someday. However, I aspire only to join the ranks of the well-dressed and fashionably late.”
I frown, stirring my chocolate. “But if I recall my lessons correctly, wasn’t there a period in Alben history where accused witches were hunted and burned at the stake? How did you all become gentry, then?” I had thought the accusations of witchcraft and magic were entirely false, but apparently not.
“Oh, that. It was a nasty business. You know how men can . . . sow seeds where seeds ought not be sown? Well, we had just come through the Lily War, and the royal line was finally settled. The king thought magical power ought to be consolidated to loyal families, and that the security of the crown depended on keeping power with the wealthy and educated. So, those who had been born outside of the approved family lines . . .”
“Were exterminated.” I set down my cup, no longer thirsty. “That is horrible.”
“Worse things have been done in the name of crown and country. But yes. I think we can both agree it was.” She frowns and then shakes her head as though shaking away bad associations and thoughts. “Back to you! This is very exciting. We haven’t had a real shake-up in the hierarchy since Lord Ackerly showed up two years ago, all dashing and aloof and powerful. Ever since then it’s been the most dreary sort of political posturing without any action. I loathe politics. But if Downpike is misbehaving, things are bound to get interesting! Whatever did you do to catch his eye?”
The door to the parlor opens. We look up to see Finn, cane in hand and none too pleased. Mr. Carlisle is next to him. “Lord Ackerly here to see you, milady. He said it was urgent.” Carlisle bows and backs away, closing the door.
“Lord Ackerly!” Eleanor stands, dropping a slight curtsy. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“Spying again, were you?” I glare at him.
Eleanor follows my scowl to where it meets Finn’s, and then back, as though watching a game of tennis. The silence is a heavy thing, as electric as the overhead chandelier. She frowns, clearly puzzled, then looks down at the floor at my feet and bursts out with a sharp laugh. “Oh, dear spirits below, this is the best thing that I have ever been privy to. Lord Ackerly shadowed a commoner from the colonies!”
“That’s enough,” Finn snaps.
She leans in to me conspiratorially. “You must tell me your secret. There isn’t a girl out in society who hasn’t tried to catch his eye, and here you are with the greatest prize of them all.”
He is not amused. “You will kindly bite your tongue, Eleanor.”
“Or you will bite it for me?”
He taps his cane once on the tiles, and Eleanor sits as though her legs have been knocked out from beneath her.
“I may well at that,” he says.
She smiles, delight undampened. “This explains Lord Downpike’s interest in Jessamin. You know, he’s been trying to get you on his side for so long. It would be such a coup for his anti-Iverian cause. Everyone’s been too afraid of you to really support him. I am beside myself with nerves! This changes everything. Lord Ackerly is no longer untouchable in the infernal machinations and subtleties of political blackmail and extortion. How will it all play out?”
“Without your aid,” Finn says, tone dismissive. “Now.” He sits near me on the couch, takes off his hat, and leans in, carrying with him a whiff of clove and something richer, darker, something that reminds me of heady velvet nights of a year ago, when I would sneak out of my house at night and run like a wild thing through the trees with my friends. I am pulled to his eyes. They seem to be larger than before, depthless, with flecks of gold dancing in them, and I have never seen anything so beautiful.
My hand is in his before I realize it. “We’ll be going then,” he says, and I nod. Of course I will go with him. He’s pretty, so very, very pretty, and I would be a fool to say no to anything he asks of me.
I blink. No, I think. And then I manage to say it out loud. “No.”
He sits back with an angry huff, now exhausted with dark circles under his eyes. It’s as though a fog has been lifted from my brain. Magic! He tried to use magic on me! And I realize it is not the first time. “If you ever try that again,” I say, taking a sip of chocolate to wet my suddenly parched throat, “I will beat you silly with your own cane.”
“This is the best day of my life,” Eleanor says.
I cannot agree with her.
Fourteen
“I’LL SEND FOR UNCLE. HE MUST HEAR ABOUT THIS.” Eleanor paces, her hands flying at such a rate as she talks I am nearly dizzy watching them.
“You will do no such thing,” Finn says, all ice to Eleanor’s flame.
“But he’ll want to hear the details of what Lord Downpike did. He can help you! Alliances, how I adore alliances. And weddings. Which are really the same thing.”
“I don’t need help.”
“Is that so?” She leans toward him and bats her eyelashes. “Because that charm spell you were working was so strong I was ready to pack my trunk and elope with you, and yet your intended target threw it off. It seems to me that Lord Downpike is not the only issue here.”
“It is none of your concern, Eleanor. All I need from you is a promise that you will keep this information to yourself.”
“Lord Ackerly, if you asked me to deliver you the moon on a platter, I should think my odds of success slightly higher.”
“I can make it worth your while, of course. Or, if you prefer, I can simply make you.”
“Now we’re dealing in threats! I feel so important. I wish you had done this last week. Aunt Agatha was in town, and I thought I would die from boredom.”
The creak of the door gives me away. They both look up, surprised to remember that I am still in the room, and perhaps more surprised to find me leaving.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Finn says at the same time Eleanor says, “Oh, please don’t leave!”
“I do not care to be talked around. Call it a defect of my common breeding.”
Eleanor rushes to my side, taking my hands in hers. “No, no, I’m sorry. Of course. Please, sit. You’ve clearly been through so much. I insist you stay here with me.”
“You can’t keep her safe,” Finn says.
“I can! Well, no. I probably can’t. But Ernest is here. And Uncle! Yes, Jessamin and I will go to stay at Uncle’s. Lord Downpike wouldn’t dare cross him, and Uncle is ever so powerful.”
Finn slams his cane against the table. “I will not have her under the earl’s thumb, nor have her leveraged against me. Not by Downpike, and not by your family. She should be somewhere away from all of this. It’s nothing to do with her.”
“You made it to do with her, though, didn’t you?” Eleanor looks pointedly at the ground where my shadow pools at my feet. “Can I see it? Wiggle around or something. I’ve never actually seen someone shadowed before! It’s so romantic!”
“It is nothing of the sort! It’s . . .” I glance at Finn, who is avoiding my eyes. “He was just spying, and . . .” Romantic? Preposterous. But suddenly I am desperate to understand. “What does it mean? He wouldn’t explain it to me.”
“Open your mouth, Eleanor, and I will cut out your tongue and use it as fertilizer for my personal herb garden.”
“But she should know!” Eleanor whines, pulling me back to the couch across from Finn. “It’s adorable.”
From the look on Finn’s face, it’s clear that no one has ever used “adorable” in conjunction with him before. And that he is not overly fond of it.
“If you don’t explain it to me right now, I will never speak to either of you again. Which means no more gossip for you.” I point at Eleanor and then at Finn. “And no more . . .” My sharp words fall to pieces at the look he pierces me with. Perhaps he would mind it if I never spoke to him again.
This room is very hot.
“Will you leave us for a moment, Eleanor?” Finn asks.
“I would not miss this for—”
“Leave.”
Eleanor’s legs walk her out of the room. She cranes her neck around to yell, “She’ll tell me later, you know! We’re the best of friends now!” The door slams behind her. “I would have told it better than you!” she yells, her voice muffled.
Finn clasps his hands behind his back and begins pacing. “Most of what you call magic is carefully controlled. Like chemistry. I assume you have studied chemistry.”
“Yes,” I snap.
“When the right elements are combined—whether they are plants or minerals or symbols or simply words—by someone of noble blood, they produce a reaction. It’s more science than anything, and the best practitioners are the ones who have studied the most, and who have access to the most information. It’s a delicate process. In the more complex instances, a single misplaced word or line could change the entire thing.”
“Yes, fine.”
“But there are some . . . aspects . . . that we still do not understand and that are beyond our control. Much like the potential being in blood. Some generations are skipped entirely, some people are born with far greater capabilities for no apparent reason. Many believe that a good deal of what we access exists outside of us, all the time. We can find evidence of it, in things like . . .” He pauses. “Well, in things like the cards. No reading is ever the same, and the interpretations vary. It lacks the precision of the more learned methods, but there is something elemental about it, something that we cannot control or change.”
I don’t hold back an unladylike snort. “Pretty pictures on a card tell the future.”
“I know how it sounds. I was resistant to it as well, but my mother—” His voice catches, and he clears his throat. “She was gifted with the cards and taught me what she could. I have had the evidences I need.”
“Will your mother tell me my fortune as well?”
Something shifts in Finn’s eyes at my snide tone, and he looks farther away. “She’s dead. My father, too.”
Badly done, Jessamin. I cringe. “I’m sorry. But you have still said nothing of shadows.”
His jaw twitches, whether with annoyance or amusement I do not know him well enough to say. “Your professors must be constantly exhausted.”
I smile. “I do try.”
His tone shifts from a pedantic, scholarly drone to a rushed tumble of words, as though by saying them faster, I will understand them less. “Shadows go in front of you, leading into your future, and trail behind you, leaving a part of you in the past. They are clearest when we are in the light, and disappear when we lose ourselves in darkness. When a shadow elects to jump to another person, it is an indication that they are your present and your future, that in light you will find them, in darkness you will lose them. It is highly unusual and very important and, might I add, extremely dangerous for the owner of the shadow.
“I have always been able to use mine as an extension of myself, in a form like Lord Downpike’s familiars, but much more stable because it’s actually a part of me. Thus separated, both myself and my shadow are vulnerable to attack. The fact that I have lost it represents Lord Downpike’s greatest opportunity to manipulate and blackmail me, and surely you understand now why it is best for you to be secreted away.”
I frown, trying to process the rush of information. “You mean . . . it would be safer for you if I went away.”
“For both of us, naturally. We are connected.”
I throw my hands in the air, beyond exasperated. “We’ve already discussed this! Take it back! I don’t want it!”
“I cannot! I would not even if I could!”
“Why not, you daft boy? I never asked you to grace me with your precious shadow or to give up your future and past and whatever other nonsense that accompanies it!”
“If you had asked, I wouldn’t have given it to you! I couldn’t have! It is precisely because you are so maddening that I had no other—”
Eleanor’s voice sounds unnaturally loud from the entryway. We both freeze. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this surprise visit, Lord Downpike?”
Fifteen
A PIT OF TERROR OPENS IN MY STOMACH. “ELEANOR betrayed us,” I whisper. I cannot face Lord Downpike again, not now, not with the memory of my pain so fresh.
“She’s warning us,” Finn hisses, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward a large armoire tucked into the corner. He opens it and we climb in. He has to stoop, and only by tucking myself into him, my back against his chest, can we both be hidden with the door shut.
My breath is fast and ragged. The walls are closing in on us. The flimsy wood that conceals us is not enough, not enough to block Lord Downpike’s piercing black eyes. He will see through and then—
“Shh,” Finn breathes, his lips next to my ear. He puts both arms around me and pulls me in closer. “I will kill him before he touches you again.”