Lady Cosgrave slanted one reluctant glance at my captor and grimaced. “Oh, very well,” she said, straightening her shoulders and smoothing down her dress unnecessarily. “You all know what I did, and why I did it. But if you imagine, any of you, that you’ll ever get away with revealing my secrets to the world yourselves—”
“Honoria.” Amy sighed. “You are standing in a circle of women who have all moved away from the expectations we were born with...including our hostess.” She nodded politely to my captor. “Do you truly imagine that any of us would cast aspersions on you for whom you loved? After everything that you’ve heard tonight?” She gestured to the circle of women who held the spell, and then to me and to Wrexham beyond. “Do you think we can’t all understand doing whatever it takes to keep them safe?”
A deep sigh lowered Lady Cosgrave’s shoulders. “Of course not,” she said quietly. Sorrow etched deep lines on her cheeks, making her look suddenly ten years older, as she looked directly at Amy for the first time since our arrival. “I do know better, Amy. You would never resort to blackmail.”
“No,” said Amy, “and I don’t need to. Do I?”
Lady Cosgrave didn’t answer—but her cousin, frowning, edged closer as if in preemptive defense.
“Honoria Cosgrave,” said Amy, “you are the most principled politician I know. So,” she finished gently, “you already know what you need to do. Don’t you?”
Lady Cosgrave’s fingers flexed into fists by her side. She didn’t speak. Miss Fennell frowned harder.
“I know you,” said Amy, “so I know exactly what you would say of any other politician who conspired toward the fey abduction and disappearance of another member of the Boudiccate, no matter what her justification might be. Could such a woman ever be safely left in charge of the nation, once she’d broken our oldest laws and escaped punishment?
“Moreover...” She gestured once more to my students. “Tell me, Honoria: what would she owe to the young women—and their partners—whom she’d recklessly endangered for that illegal purpose, no matter how justified her reasons may have been?”
She looked at my captor, and at the steady trickle of blood that dripped from my captured arm onto the bluebells. “I think we’ve all seen tonight what truly happens when we cling to outdated social rules to the detriment of our own dreams.”
Standing behind her older cousin, Miss Fennell bit her lip, looking agonized...but then she nodded in agreement, even as she took Lady Cosgrave’s arm in a supportive grip.
Lady Cosgrave, who had helped to rule the nation from the time I was a little girl, closed her eyes for one long moment as we stood exposed in the magic-bright woods.
Then she opened them. “I suppose,” she said quietly, “my consolation will be knowing that another woman of principle will be ready to take my place.” Her lips curved into a small, wry smile. “You may never accept my friendship again, Amy Harwood. But you’ll have my parting vote, nonetheless. So will this school.”
“My vote as well,” Miss Fennell said huskily. “Which makes it a majority, regardless of Westgate’s choice. We cannot choose safety over hope anymore.”
For her, it should have been a moment of unalloyed victory. But her face twisted with grief as she looked at her defeated cousin and mentor, and when she looked across to Miss Banks linking arms with Miss Stewart—the two young women leaning into each other as they shared their magical strength—a flash of raw fear crossed her strong features.
With her mentor’s sudden loss of power, her own path to the Boudiccate was suddenly in question. Perhaps it was natural that she would doubt everything else, too, at such a moment.
I had faith in her future, for I knew the quiet strength of her fiancée’s will. But it would be up to the two of them to sort out their romance once this inspection was safely over...and even as I thought that, I heard a sound that was only too familiar: Gregory Luton’s voice, raised in mid-lecture.
“...In my opinion, if the fey and the weather wizards worked more closely together—ah. Are we here already?”
“Finally,” said my brother drily, and stepped into the circle of light, pushing a wheelbarrow laden with more than mere books.
Every volume of Romulus Harwood’s journal lay piled there—and a wooden chest I’d never seen sat there, as well.
“The journals were sent to Thornfell’s library,” Jonathan told me, “but this chest was stored in Harwood House’s attic, full of everything else that Romulus left behind. We’ve been storing it all these decades as a family record...but it seems to me that someone else deserves it more.
“Madam.” He gave my captor a deep, respectful bow. “I believe that all of these belong to you.”
Slowly, painfully, the fey woman’s fingers unclenched from my arm. As fresh air stung the open wounds, I bit down hard on my tongue...and forced myself to wait.
“Show me,” she said, her voice rough. In the undergrowth around us, green vines slithered and snapped in a restless, undulating motion.
Jonathan scooped up the journal he’d laid at the very top of the pile, and flipped open to a page he’d marked.
“Met with my beloved, spinning dreams together. I brought her the ivy I’d cultivated in a potte all winter, and—”
A sob ripped out of her throat as she lunged forward, snatching for the book with her hands as her vines lunged from the grass and bluebells to wrap themselves around the wheelbarrow full of memories. Thorns poked out from every angle like barbed warnings to anyone who’d dare try to steal them from her.
Her long fingernails were red with my blood. Her green and orange eyes were inhuman.
But the tears that glimmered in them, as she turned over the next page in the journal with careful, spindly fingers, were as familiar to me as my own soul.
“It’s him,” she said softly. “You brought him to me. You brought him back.”
“He never stopped loving you,” Jonathan replied just as quietly. “You’ll see that in his journals. Harwoods never abandon their partners.”
The fey woman didn’t answer for a long moment. Finally, she looked up from the faded pages to meet his gaze. “You have his eyes,” she told him. “They were always kind eyes. They were gentle—and they were the first, of any kind, to truly see me.”
Taking a step backward, she pressed the journal to her chest, her sharp-thorned vines dragging the wheelbarrow along with her into the bluebells. “You gave me these,” she said. “I’ll give you something in return. You’ll never be in danger from me or any other fey in these woods again unless you try to steal these back from me.”
Amy stepped up beside her husband, tucking her hand into the curve of his arm. “We apologize,” she said, “for the hurt that you endured. But we are happy to give you everything we have of his now—and we hope that we may all move forward.” Pointedly, she glanced past the other woman at me. “If you would?”
“We gave you yours,” I said hoarsely. “Now I need mine.”
If he was still breathing.
If I wasn’t too late.
If I hadn’t wasted—
No. I hadn’t wasted the hours of this day. Without today’s lessons, we would never be here now, lit by the glow of my students’ combined magic. Amy had been right: I could never have succeeded on my own. I could have killed my enemy and myself, both at once, with one final, brutal spell—but I couldn’t have saved anyone at all.
That took all of us, working together and yanking aside the old prejudices that had blinded all of us and kept us apart.
The fey woman looked at me with eyes that had seen deep into my dreams. “You won’t see me again,” she said, “but I’ll see you, Cassandra Harwood. I’ll watch Thornfell and keep it safe as long as you protect my woods. And I won’t keep your own love from you any longer.”
With a click of her long, branch-like fingers, the thickly-layered vines began to writhe around the tree behind her. The ends rushed back towards her as I rushed towards the tree...
A
nd she was gone, vanishing into the bluebell-covered ground, by the time I reached it.
Just enough of the vines had unraveled to show familiar, silky black hair at the top. My fingers bit into my palms as I forced my hands to my sides. I didn’t dare touch those writhing vines as they pulled themselves free, in case the thorns bit even harder into his flesh—but as more and more layers of vines whipped away, I sucked in a breath at what was revealed before me:
A high, light brown forehead, smooth and unmarred by wounds.
Closed eyelids that no thorn had touched.
Wrexham’s beloved, angular face was stubbled and still as stone—but not hurt. Not a single thorn had scratched it.
Yet his face was so still, inhumanly still...ohhh. Magically still!
Of course.
She hadn’t been the one who’d trapped him after all. Once he’d realized that he couldn’t win their battle, he’d trapped himself in a protective shield she couldn’t break...a shield that only the right person would be able to open.
He’d kept himself safe for me, as I’d asked.
Slowly, unbelieving, my lips curved into a smile that burst with joy.
It was no wonder Westgate had wanted him as the next Chief of the Boudiccate’s magical officers. My husband was the best, cleverest, and most imaginative practicing magician in all Angland...and just as soon as that final vine pulled itself free—once I’d kissed him and berated him and ravished him soundly and ordered him to never take such a risk for me ever again!—I was going to demand that he teach me that brilliant new spell he’d designed that had protected him even from a malevolent fey’s fury.
No one else could have thought it up except for him. Of that, I was already certain.
His eyes opened as I laid one careful hand against his cheek.
Wrexham blinked, twice, wariness replaced by startlement as he took in the whole scene with his dark, intelligent gaze. Then his mouth curved as I shook my head at him, tears of relief standing in my eyes.
“Of all the ridiculous, amazing, terrible, wonderful gentlemen I have ever known—”
“Had a good second day at work, have you, Harwood?” he inquired wryly.
Vines unknotted themselves from around his body and slithered past mine into the sea of bluebells. My students gathered around us in a semicircle of linked arms, beaming as they held the blazing spell of light, while my brother and sister-in-law stood behind them, patiently tolerating Luton’s lecture on how we might have done every bit of tonight’s venture differently if only we had listened to him from the beginning.
Sharp thorns brushed against my legs and sides as they swept past, but our whole community stood guard around us, and that community would only grow from now on.
“Did I have a good day?” I repeated incredulously.
Cupping both hands around my husband’s lean cheeks, I leaned in to answer him with a kiss lit by shining magic.
17
The vines had retreated from Luton’s cottage by the time we finally emerged from the woods, but soft moonlight shone through the massive holes in the fencing to reveal all the wreckage left behind.
Luton looked at his cottage’s broken door and groaned dramatically.
I said briskly, “Never mind. Given the circumstances, I’m sure no one will question your virtue if you choose to stay in Thornfell with the rest of us tonight. We’ll find you a room well away from any ladies, with a door that locks firmly from the inside.”
“Or you could sleep at Harwood House,” Jonathan added, “if you’re concerned about your reputation.”
“No.” Luton drew himself up, giving his cottage one last, wistful look before turning to Thornfell with squared shoulders. “I shan’t desert my post. Besides, Mr. Wrexham will be sleeping in Thornfell tonight. With a married gentleman in residence, my reputation should be safe enough.”
“Will I finally be sleeping there tonight?” Wrexham leaned to murmur the words into my ear, his warm breath tingling against my skin. “Or will my wife insist on sending me away yet again?”
“Don’t be absurd.” I narrowed my eyes up at him and tightened my possessive grip around his arm. “If you think I’m letting you out of my sight again before I know you’re entirely recovered—”
“I wasn’t the one who was injured,” he pointed out. “I spent the day sleeping in perfect comfort as I waited for my wife to save me. Whereas...” As his gaze dropped to the wounds on my bare arm, his tone darkened. “I should think, if either of us was allowed to be concerned with the other’s health just now—”
“We’ll sort it all out later,” I promised as we crossed the grass together toward the dark, familiar mass of Thornfell. Exhilaration bubbled through me as the front door opened. Miss Birch stood solidly planted in the doorway, and warm light streamed out to welcome us home. “We will have time tonight.” For once, it could be my top priority.
First, though, there was organization to be done. It took an inordinate amount of time to re-gather my giddy, victorious students around the dining table to eat their long-awaited supper—not to mention having my own arms and ankles cleaned and bandaged and finding a guest bedroom that could meet Mr. Luton’s own exacting standards.
I would have liked to roll my eyes and announce that he could sleep on the floor if he didn’t care for any of the options...but I vividly remembered that moment, this afternoon, when I’d been so dreadfully certain of his death under my care. He’d spent that very same time arguing in the woods for Wrexham’s life...so I could put up with his requirements a little longer now.
When an appropriate compromise had been painfully hammered out at last and the last of the stragglers had been collected, my students and my professor of weather wizardry all finally settled in around the long table, laughing, talking, debating, eating cold chicken and drinking Miss Birch’s special hot, mulled cider, with spices that floated gorgeously through the air.
I let out a long breath of relief—and turned to where Amy waited for me, smiling, by the door.
Lady Cosgrave had chosen to take her own supper in her room that night, as had Miss Fennell, for understandable reasons. Not only was she grieving for her cousin, but her own political situation had just become infinitely more precarious. The secret of her betrothal would have to be kept a little longer, even here within the walls of Thornfell.
Jonathan, who never liked to be away from baby Miranda for long, had already gone home to confirm that all was well, while Wrexham had scooped up a plate of cold chicken and left for our room immediately after overseeing the careful bandaging of my wounds.
So Amy and I were left entirely alone as we walked, arm-in-arm, through the maze of dimly lit green-and-gold rooms that we had decorated, clocks ticking as we passed them on our way to the front door.
“Finally,” I said, as I squeezed her arm close. “Finally! I knew you would be a member of the Boudiccate one day, no matter how many years it took.”
“Of course you did.” My sister-in-law gave me a sidelong grin, her usual serene façade breaking into an expression of dazzling mischief. “Don’t Harwoods always get what we fight for...together?”
“Always.” The truth of it surged up inside me. I had to swallow hard before I could speak again. “We will always fight together, no matter what. I promise you, Amy—I won’t shut you out of any of my battles again. Not ever.”
She let out a small sigh, squeezing my arm in warm return. “But I won’t be here to help you after all! When I step into the Boudiccate and take on all of those duties, with so much travel around the country—”
“You’ll still be a vital part of this school, no matter where you are,” I told her. “You can be our official patroness, if you like, with an intimidating portrait hanging in our front hall to glower at any interlopers from now on. Can you even imagine us having a member of the Boudiccate as Thornfell’s own patroness?”
“Well,” said Amy lightly, “I suppose, if you promise not to use that truly dreadful portrait of me in
red just to tease me...”
I didn’t miss the tell-tale glitter of a tear in her eye as she looked quickly away from me, trying to hide it. “Yes,” she finished softly, “I would like that, actually.”
I leaned my head into her shoulder, slipping one arm around her soft waist. “Don’t you know I’ll be writing to you every day, asking for your opinion on everything I do? As always?”
“Oh, I know it,” she said firmly, “because if you don’t...!” Smiling ruefully, she swiped one strong brown hand across her eyes and gathered me in for a tight hug as we reached the foyer. “I’m proud of you, too,” she whispered into my hair. “Now go be happy for a night. You’ve been working long enough for it!”
I waved her off as she disappeared down the long, familiar path to Harwood House and my first home. Then I turned.
I’d barely slept in ten days. I hadn’t eaten a single bite of supper.
And there was only one place in the world that I wanted to be right now.
I gathered up my skirts and ran like a giddy girl, leaping up the public staircase two steps at a time. I skidded to a halt outside my bedroom door—
Just as Wrexham yanked it open from the inside, his black hair mussed and his face alight with happiness. “I thought I heard you coming,” he told me—and scooped me up into his arms.
I wrapped my arms and legs around him and let the door fall shut to the sound of our mingled laughter.
As we tumbled together onto the big bed, I reached out to trace his smooth, lemon-scented cheeks wonderingly. “You’ve shaved!”
“Of course I did.” He stroked my face, mirroring my action. “Isn’t it our wedding night? At last?”
“At last.” Melting, I leaned in for a kiss...then caught myself and pulled back just before our lips touched. “Wait!”
A groan of pure anguish ripped from his mouth. “What? Why?”
“Shh.” I propped myself up on one elbow to look down at him. I had important things to say before I could allow myself to be distracted. “There are some people,” I told him carefully, “who think that I can be a tad...dictatorial from time to time when I’m making decisions for your sake. And...some people have pointed out that I don’t always take the time to ask you what you actually want before I do it.”
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