Thornbound

by Stephanie Burgis

  Thick golden hair fluttered with romantic abandon around Gregory Luton’s handsome, petulant face. Clad head to toe in peacock blue and green, the self-described greatest weather wizard in Angland was heaving a heavy valise in his hand, only too clearly preparing to throw it at my most valued—and most dangerous—servant.

  “Mr. Luton!” I barked, pointing one minatory finger.

  A year ago, I would have cast a spell to freeze him. But my politician mother had never required magic in order to work her will upon the world—and I withered him now with exactly the same glare that the famous Miranda Harwood had used to cow far more powerful mages than him. “Drop. the. valise. Now!” I ordered.

  Rolling his blue eyes, Luton gave a heavy sigh and dropped the valise to the wooden floor with a thud. From the sound of its impact, he must have packed at least a dozen books along with his questionable finery. I had no idea why he’d brought it with him for this uninvited social call, but I couldn’t summon up the energy to care.

  I had far more urgent matters to attend to. Without a second look at my unwanted visitor, I turned to my new housekeeper, whom I’d only managed to attract in the first place with an astonishingly high wage and intensely sincere compliments. “Miss Birch.” I gulped hard as I took in the pursed fury on her wizened face, and the way her long, bony fingers rapped against her thin, crossed arms. “Miss Birch, I do hope—that is to say, I regret any—”

  “Insults!” she snapped. “In my own house!”

  Surely she wouldn’t call it her house if she was planning to abandon it in disgust? I flung a frantic look at my sister-in-law, who had arrived at a more sedate pace behind me.

  “My dear Miss Birch.” Amy crossed the foyer in a few graceful steps, beaming. “How good of you to help Cassandra greet our new arrivals today. You’ve worked miracles here in the last week! Thornfell has never looked so welcoming before.”

  “Hmmph.” Miss Birch glowered, her hazel eyes half-slitted and gleaming like a cat’s. Wild magic skittered through the air, sending goosebumps shivering across my skin. Even the self-absorbed Luton jerked his head up in surprise.

  “What was that?” he asked sharply.

  I stepped quickly between him and Miss Birch. “Amy was just reminiscing yesterday,” I said, “about those scones you gave us last week. She said she’d never tasted anything like them. Didn’t you, Amy?”

  Amy didn’t even blink at the non-sequitur. “Of course! I would never wish to steal your baking secrets, Miss Birch, but would it be possible to steal just one more of your delicious treats for myself at some point today?”

  Miss Birch’s scowl softened, as scowls so often did around my sister-in-law. “Well,” she said, “for someone who truly appreciates my work, I suppose I might be able to find one spare from the collection I just took out from the oven. But if I’m expected to fetch and carry for some—”

  “Absolutely not!” I said firmly, and rose to my tiptoes to block whatever Luton’s own expression might be. “Mr. Luton has clearly lost his way. You won’t be required to help him with anything else here ever again.”

  “Hmmph,” repeated Miss Birch, and stalked out of the room with Amy hurrying after her.

  Phew. I let out my breath and sank back down onto the soles of my slippered feet as the sounds of Amy’s soothing small-talk floated through the air like the calming scent of lavender. One crisis averted.

  The crisis who still lounged carelessly in my own front hall, though, let out a disbelieving laugh that made my spine clench. “And I’d thought my aunt’s servants were useless! I know we’re trapped out in the back of beyond, but—”

  Seething, I swung around. “I would not,” I said, “make the mistake of disrespecting—or underestimating—Miss Birch.”

  “You want me to bow down to a housekeeper?” He snorted. “You may be trying to turn the whole world topsy-turvy right now, but all the same—”

  “Miss Birch,” I said, “is a highly valued member of my staff.”

  I ended my explanation there, raising my eyebrows in challenge. I had no intention of sharing other people’s confidences, even less interest in sharing my private reasoning with young Luton—and I would never allow him or anyone else to treat a member of my staff badly.

  But it had been basic human kindness to issue him a particular warning when it came to Miss Birch—because of course, I hadn’t hired her only for her remarkable housekeeping abilities.

  “Ha!” said Luton. “I’m a member of your staff, too, don’t forget, and I would have imagined I’d rate rather higher than—”

  “What?” My jaw dropped. “You’re a—what?”

  “And everyone claims women are the more practical sex...” He heaved a weary sigh. “Don’t you even recall requesting that I be hired?”

  “I did no such thing!” I’d hired every member of Thornfell’s staff myself, and they were already on-site, too, all except...

  Oh, no. I shut my eyes against the horror of the most obvious explanation.

  My new professor of weather wizardry hadn’t yet arrived—and weather wizardry was the one area of magical specialty that I couldn’t teach my students myself, in a pinch. It was taught in an entirely separate curriculum at the Great Library, and I’d never cared to look into it on my own. Unfortunately, as I’d found to my dismay over the last few months, even the most eccentric and impoverished weather wizards in all of Angland had refused every blandishment I’d offered to recruit them, because the Great Library had issued a blanket mandate: no graduate was to ever take up any position at my school, on pain of having their names struck forever from the legendary register of alumni.

  That was why I was covering every other aspect of magical training at the school myself—and why Wrexham had taken up the added task of hunting out an available weather wizard during all of his missions across the nation in the past five weeks. In his last, scrawled note, which had appeared on my mantelpiece only two days earlier, he had assured me that he’d finally secured a clever, well-qualified weather wizard willing to anger the Great Library by taking up an appointment at my school. He had neglected to mention that wizard’s name in his note, and I’d been far too relieved to care about that small detail.

  Now I knew why my darling husband had been so uncharacteristically ‘forgetful.’

  “Mrs. Wrexham,” said Luton, “I don’t know if you’re aware, but you are making the most unnerving noise in your throat right now. I find it deeply irritating.”

  “I was just...anticipating my next conversation with my husband.” As I flicked my eyes open, I bared my teeth in the semblance of a smile. “He and I have a great deal to discuss, it seems. And for future reference, I am still Miss Harwood.”

  Had I been a politician, as my parents had intended, Wrexham would have automatically taken my surname upon our marriage; but I’d passed the mantle of my mother’s political inheritance on to Amy with deep relief, and she’d taken the title of ‘Mrs. Harwood’ upon her own marriage instead.

  In another kind of marriage, with a magician as the husband and an ordinary, nonpolitical sort of woman as the wife, I would indeed have become Mrs. Wrexham, as Luton had so annoyingly presumed.

  But Wrexham and I were a new kind of match—the first known marriage in Anglish history between two magicians of different genders. So, in the end, we’d followed the practice of those couples who shared a gender rather than a profession, and we’d each retained our own surnames after all.

  It might have seemed a radical decision to anyone else, but Mr. Luton looked ready to perish from the tedium of being forced to consider anyone else’s circumstances for a single moment. “I am carrying a letter for you,” he sighed, “but I’d much rather have a cup of tea or claret before we have to suffer through all of that nonsense about salaries and exactly how you’ll manage all of my requirements. What on earth possessed you to build a school so far from civilization?”

  “Argh!” In a last-ditch moment of hope, I strode forward and yanked the fr
ont door open to peer outside, just in case...but the hired carriage that had brought him had already disappeared down the long curve of the drive that led first to Harwood House, my family’s ancient home, and from thence onward to the wide world beyond.

  There was to be no easy disposal of my newest member of staff after all...and worst of all, I had to admit that Wrexham had been right: if I meant to prove to the Boudiccate that I was offering my students a comprehensive education, one that could stand proudly in comparison to the Great Library’s syllabus, then even hiring Luton was better than hiring no weather wizard at all.

  It was a bitter pill to swallow...and the thought of Miss Birch’s expression, when I had to inform her that he would be staying after all, was even more intimidating.

  I let the front door fall shut with a thud. “For once, Mr. Luton, I agree with you.” I sighed. “I could do with a great deal more tea before you utter another word.”

  3

  A quarter of an hour later, I was resting limply in a wingback chair in the staff parlor with my latest cup of tea propped between my hands as young Luton’s extraordinary demands and absurdly over-inflated expectations washed across me in an endless cascade.

  When the bell at the door suddenly broke through his monologue, I leaped to my feet so quickly that a tidal wave of tea splashed from my porcelain cup into its saucer.

  Salvation!

  If the Boudiccate’s haughtiest inspectors, in their worst possible moods, could only stalk in right now to save me from my newest staff member, I would overwhelm them with the sincerity of my welcome.

  “Alas!” I placed the sloshing, over-full saucer onto a side table and briskly wiped my hands. “I must attend to our new arrivals, but I’m certain you can find your own way to your staff cottage, Mr. Luton. It’s past the stables and the gardens, just before the woodland begins behind Thornfell, and—”

  “I beg your pardon.” He snorted, not bothering to lower his own cup of tea as he sprawled back in his chair. “If you’ll recall, Miss Harwood, you still haven’t even heard all of my terms or—”

  “Mister Luton.” Crossing my arms, I gave him my best glower. “This little chat has been an...enlightening introduction to your tenure here at Thornfell, but you know as well as I that you are in desperate need of this position. Therefore, you are in no position to make a single one of these demands upon me.”

  His jaw dropped open, but I held up one hand to halt any outraged—and outrageous—protests. “I was at the same Winter Solstice house party as your aunt, you may recall. I overheard her informing all of the ladies there exactly how impossible you’ve found it to secure any paying work since graduation, no matter how many times she’s called in favors from her oldest friends. Despite all of her influence and your own undeniable gifts, the reputation you left behind at the Great Library has left you entirely unhireable.”

  A wave of red swept upwards from young Luton’s collar. “I was the finest weather mage to study at the Great Library in decades! If you could see the marks that I achieved—”

  “Those were academic achievements,” I said flatly. “As we both know by now, the realities of life outside the Library are rather different.” A wave of reluctant fellow-feeling swept through me as his jaw tightened and his gaze fell away from mine. “You know,” I continued in a softer tone, “I couldn’t persuade anyone to hire me for mage-work, either, despite all of my own achievements at the Great Library. Of course, in my case, it was for a different reason, but—”

  “Well, clearly.” He gave a snort of amusement, the color fading from his fair skin. “Who would wish to hire a woman to cast their magic?”

  Clenching my jaw, I took a deep, sustaining breath. “Regardless. You’ve been granted your chance at long last, Mr. Luton, to prove that you can shine outside the Great Library after all. If I were you, I wouldn’t waste it...and I certainly wouldn’t make any more foolish comments like that last one if you ever hope to prove yourself a useful teacher to our students. They deserve your respect, and you will give it to them.

  “Oh, and...” I was halfway through the doorway when I remembered my final obligation and turned back. “There are several lovely pathways to explore the woods just past your cottage, but you shouldn’t venture down any of them for at least another month or so.” At his baffled frown, I added: “It’s bluebell season, you see.”

  “Pfft.” He hunched one shoulder, scowling down into his teacup. “What piffle.”

  “Piffle?” I raised my eyebrows. “I don’t know where you spent your childhood, but I can tell you from experience that the fey take a keen interest in these parts at this time of year—and my family agreed a long time ago to leave their woods in peace in bluebell season. If we don’t bother them, they won’t bother us—so take care not to venture inside the woods yet, if you please, and make certain you don’t let any of our students wander in that direction, either.”

  There. I’d done my duty. With a sigh of relief, I shut the door on his petulant scowl and hurried down the corridor to greet my next arrivals.

  The great bell rang again and again as the next few hours compressed into a happy blur of activity. A growing collection of young women strode through Thornfell’s refurbished doors, slapping their gloves against their sides and glowing with excitement and nervous energy, whilst their commanding mothers swept in after them to ask final, probing questions and inspect all of their bedrooms for any last-minute threats.

  Amy and I plied the mothers with Miss Birch’s finest scones as the daughters settled into their living quarters. I answered every challenging technical question, while Amy supplied all of the soothing charm. Even my infant niece—once my brother had delivered her for her regular afternoon feed—supplied a perfectly charming distraction for all of us. Energetic young voices echoed up and down the corridors for the first time in Thornfell’s history.

  One day, I hoped, I would standardize the entrance age for Thornfell College of Magic as the Great Library had done centuries ago. This initial class of students ranged from seventeen to nearly twenty-three years of age, a disparity I’d worried over more than once. Still, I’d been in no position to be exacting when so few hardheaded Anglish mothers would allow their precious heirs such a scandalous education in the first place—and I could hardly punish any talented young woman for the year of her birth. I knew too well what it was to hunger for magic and be denied it.

  It was an ache under my own skin every day.

  One of the latest arrivals was one of the oldest—and the only one of my students with whom I was already acquainted. “Miss Banks!” Smiling, I rose from the round table where I’d sat with Amy and three stern, icy matriarchs who were helplessly thawing as they gathered around my niece. Leaving them in Amy’s capable hands—with Jonathan hovering nearby, ready to leap into the breach should baby Miranda set up any sudden storms—I hurried across the parlor to clasp Miss Banks’s small white hands. “Was your journey tolerable?”

  Beaming, Miss Banks nodded, her fair ringlets rippling around her face. “I spent most of it reading. I’ve read every book you sent me. I read the Larchmont twice in a row! And then I studied it again on the journey here. I feel so close to understanding the formulas. If I could only—”

  “We’ll practice them here,” I promised. “Of course, you’ll have to wait for the rest of your classmates to catch up with you, but we should reach those spells by October at the latest.”

  Her face fell, and I laughed, giving her hands a sympathetic squeeze. “Who knows? Perhaps we’ll find time to study them individually beforehand. Then you could help me tutor the others later on.”

  “I’d like that.” There was a glint of determination in her forget-me-not blue eyes, matching the willpower I’d learned to respect in our acquaintance thus far.

  Miss Banks might be soft-spoken, small, and deceptively pliable-looking, but she was the secret fiancée of one of the Boudiccate’s greatest political hopes for this next generation. Together, those two young
women had hatched a radical plan long before I’d met them, a plan that would launch both of them into the public eye within the next decade—and Miss Banks, I noted, was the only one of my students to have traveled across the country entirely on her own, without exhibiting any concern about the matter.

  She would need every bit of that hidden steel to carry her through the controversies to come. I gave her an approving nod in return as I stepped back.

  “Now,” I said, turning to the room at large, “I believe everyone has arrived, so—”

  Before I could finish my sentence, a whirlwind exploded in the center of the room. The air blurred before me. Wind whipped in a tightly controlled circle around the gradually solidifying outlines of four people...and my jaw dropped at the outrageous extravagance of the gesture.

  Our Boudiccate inspectors were making their arrival into a statement—with a stunningly wasteful misuse of magical power. There was no sensible reason they couldn’t have simply arrived by carriage; no reason at all except to make a declaration of dominance in my new school’s parlor. The task of transporting another person required a phenomenal output of magic. To transport more than one was nearly unheard-of—and to do it with such astonishing accuracy was positively miraculous.

  Whatever officer of magic had been required to take on this absurd task would be depleted for days, if not weeks, afterward—and among all the clever officers of magic for the Boudiccate, I only knew a few gentlemen with the power and skill to judge a pinpoint landing across the country with more than one passenger in their wake.

  Only a few...

  My heartbeat thrummed in my throat and wrists as I started forward, my mouth dry and my skin alight. It had been so many weeks, so many endless nights—

  The air cleared, and I rocked to a halt.

  It wasn’t Wrexham. I should have known better than to hope, even for an instant, that it could be.