Thornbound: Volume II of The Harwood Spellbook

by Stephanie Burgis

  With the Boudiccate’s inspectors lurking ominously nearby, and no notion of what was waiting for me, it would be madness to refuse his magical assistance. More importantly—marital issues notwithstanding—if I had only a few hours to spend with my husband, I wouldn’t give up a single minute of his company.

  Wrexham stayed a careful half a pace behind me as I followed Miss Banks down the corridor and broad public staircase. Still, the heat of his presence made the skin on my arms prickle, and I could feel his watchful gaze sweeping the space around us with professional intensity. It wasn’t how I’d planned to introduce him to the renovations that I’d made to our new home—but it was an undeniable relief to have his silent support at my back.

  Miss Banks led us at a swift pace through the maze of rooms on the ground floor to a room I hadn’t yet shown any of my students. I’d planned to gather them all there tomorrow morning, after breakfast...but the library door stood open already, and the voice I heard through it made my jaw clench.

  “My goodness, Caroline, I never imagined you’d develop any interest in magic yourself!” Annabel Renwick’s light, edged laugh held every bit of lurking menace that I remembered from countless private encounters in my past—and Miss Banks paled at the sound, coming to a sudden halt with her hand already stretched out toward the door.

  “She can’t—she mustn’t see us!” she whispered. “If she finds any proof of me and Caroline—!”

  Annabel wasn’t the expected crisis, then. She must have simply come snooping through the house with—as usual—the most horrific timing possible.

  Never mind. I wasn’t about to let her frighten any of my girls. Giving Miss Banks a firm nod, I swept toward the door—and whispered in her ear as I passed, “Fix your buttons before you come in!”

  Miss Banks dropped her hands to her bodice with a gasp, and I stalked through the door with Wrexham at my heels.

  Miss Fennell stood by the fireplace, which lay cold at this time of night, with no visitors expected. Her own gown was perfectly done up, her strong shoulders squared and her expression composed, and she held her hands loosely behind her back—a natural pose for reporting to her superior.

  When I cast a quick glance about the room, I saw nothing to alarm me—no faults exposed to Annabel’s rapacious view—but when I looked back, I finally caught the hint of redness lurking on Miss Fennell’s cheeks.

  Her gaze fixed on me with unmistakable relief. “Miss Harwood.”

  “Miss Fennell.” I nodded graciously. “And dear Annabel.” It was the first time I’d ever addressed her by her first name, and I enjoyed the flaring of her nostrils in offense as I granted her a brief, dismissive nod. “Have you come looking for late-night reading? I could recommend a few introductory texts, if you’re curious.”

  “Hardly.” Annabel gave a disdainful sniff. “Some of us are successful enough in our own sphere that we needn’t go rooting around gentlemen’s leavings to make ourselves interesting. Isn’t that right, Caroline?”

  Miss Fennell blinked rapidly, her jaw flexing, and did not respond.

  “But then...” Annabel’s gaze rested pointedly on my unbound hair as her lips curved into a knowing smirk. “Perhaps I should be asking what your purpose is tonight, Miss Harwood. Is your own school library really the most appropriate place for evening assignations?” Her gaze moved smoothly past me to Wrexham. “I wonder—would Lionel Westgate be pleased to discover where his wayward protégé is tonight, when he’s meant to be working halfway across the country?”

  “Oh, come off it, Annabel.” Rolling my eyes, I strode across the room to plant myself on a comfortable bronze-colored wingchair with the weight and presence of a throne. “You can hardly blackmail me over spending a private evening with my own husband. And Lionel Westgate is far too wise for your games. You may invite him to join us right now, if you’d like. Wrexham? Are you escaping any of your work by being here?”

  “Not noticeably.” Wrexham rested one hand lightly on my shoulder as he stepped into place beside my chair. “More’s the pity,” he added, and I had to restrain an unexpected snort of laughter.

  “We were planning,” I said, buoyed by that laughter, “to look through the texts here together and choose the best to pass on to an advanced student for her private study. If only we hadn’t found the library so cluttered with politicians...” I sighed pointedly, then raised my voice, looking toward the open doorway. “It’s all right, Miss Banks! You may safely enter now. I’m sure our friends from the Boudiccate won’t stay too much longer...that is, if they really do find magic so tedious as they’ve always claimed.”

  Miss Banks hurried obediently into the room, her downturned face pink but her buttons perfectly lined up. There was nothing that could be done about her disordered hair, but as she took her place in the chair beside mine, even the most suspicious eye couldn’t have drawn any connection between her and Miss Fennell, whose indifferent gaze passed over her without pause.

  “The Boudiccate,” said Annabel, “has no need for any lessons. But certainly...” She smiled pityingly at my student as she stepped away from the mantelpiece, dusting off her hands. “You must take advantage of these unheard-of opportunities whilst you have them. Within a handful of days—one never knows, does one?—they may be gone for good, and all memory of this hopeless little school along with them.

  “Caroline?” She tilted her dark head at Miss Fennell. “Do walk me back to my room, if you please. I believe we have need of a private conversation.”

  “Certainly,” said Miss Fennell woodenly, and gave my side of the room a curtsy. “Miss Harwood...Mr. Wrexham...Miss Banks.”

  At our polite murmurs of response, both politicians left the room.

  The door closed behind their elegant figures.

  “Phew.” I slumped against the wide, padded back of my chair, and Wrexham gave my shoulder a comforting squeeze. “Thank goodness that’s over!”

  “But it’s not,” Miss Banks said. “She’ll be going on at Caroline all the way back to their rooms. She’s a nightmare! And she has Lady Cosgrave entirely under her thumb, which gives her free rein to make Caroline’s life a misery.”

  “Oh, really?” My eyebrows shot upwards. “I never knew Lady Cosgrave to bend to anyone—and I never thought she cared for any of Annabel Renwick’s opinions.”

  “She has to, now, whether she likes it or not. Didn’t you notice how she treated your sister-in-law, who was her dearest friend for so long? Caroline thinks she must be acting on Mrs. Renwick’s orders by cutting that particular connection.” Miss Banks’s face tightened. “I don’t know what Mrs. Renwick is holding over Lady Cosgrave, but she’s been sniffing after Caroline’s own secrets for months now and harassing her at every chance she gets. If she works out our plans and tells the others before I’ve safely graduated with a degree in magic to make myself a suitable match...”

  She shook her head, her face flushed with distress. “Lady Cosgrave would force Caroline to choose between me and her career in politics, I know it! She never minded Caroline preferring women—Caroline suspects she might secretly prefer them herself—but she’s always said that a woman has to give up any dreams of romance to claim a place in the Boudiccate. So she gave up her own romances before she was married, and as far as she knows now, Caroline is planning to find herself a suitable magician husband soon as well. She must continue to believe that until we’re in a strong enough position to stand against her and the others who feel the same way.”

  Wrexham’s fingers worked at the knotted muscles in my shoulder even as he frowned at Miss Banks. “Surely, though, when it comes to her own niece—”

  “She wouldn’t even vote for Mrs. Harwood to join the Boudiccate, though they were such close friends at the time. She cast the deciding vote in that decision. And she even likes Mrs. Harwood’s husband! But she says a marriage based on Boudicca’s, matching politics to magic, is the price every member of the Boudiccate must pay for the sake of the nation as a whole. And now, jus
t when I’ve finally found a way to gain magical credentials for myself...”

  She gestured despairingly at the heavy green velvet curtains that covered the windows on the far side of the room. “Look at what we discovered!”

  I twisted in my chair to follow her gaze, frowning. The lovely, braided silver sashes that I’d chosen so carefully hung limply at each side of the curtained windows, not hooked into place as my servants would have left them.

  “Clever of Miss Fennell,” Wrexham murmured. “She must have closed the curtains as soon as she heard Mrs. Renwick’s approach.”

  “Actually...” Miss Banks gave a small cough. “Those curtains were closed when we arrived. It wasn’t until we went to hide behind them ourselves that we discovered—well...” She gestured, sighing helplessly. “You’ll have to see it for yourself.”

  Exchanging a wary look with my husband, I rose from my chair.

  Together, we approached the windows. I could sense Wrexham readying his spells in preparation. A year ago, I would have been doing the same, just as I’d done a hundred times before...but I set my jaw and pushed that useless, too-familiar frustration aside.

  “One...two...three!”

  We jerked the curtains together, one on each side. They swooshed open between us in a rush...

  And I sucked in a sharp breath as a makeshift altar was revealed upon the windowsill of my own school library.

  An acorn, a foxglove, a heart-shaped leaf, a sparkling silver ring, and worst of all, three unmistakable drops of red human blood, none of them yet dry...oh, and there: a sprawling green spot smudged beside them.

  The most dangerous sort of fey contract had been signed—and whatever the details of that agreement might be, it could only spell disaster for all of us.

  6

  The first several pulls of the housekeeping bell garnered no response, but the privacy of Miss Birch’s room was inviolable. I forced myself to wait, pacing back and forth across the thick green carpet, until she finally appeared at the door wearing a faded dressing gown and a scowl.

  “Well? My working hours are—ahh!” Her thin face tightened and her eyes flared, like a falcon who’d just caught sight of prey. Without another word or glance at any of us, she stalked to the windowsill where the illicit altar lay, untouched and waiting for her professional inspection.

  Wrexham had been sitting in the bronze wingchair, poring through a thick book on fey lore, but he used one finger to mark his place and turned his watchful attention to my housekeeper as she glowered down at the offerings laid there.

  She was a higher authority on the fey than any book stored in a library, for her combined heritage was an open secret in the neighborhood, one never discussed with outsiders. It was why she could command an eye-watering salary from anyone clever enough to value safety and comfort over the outmoded old prejudices that had ruled Anglish society for so long.

  “In my house!” she snapped. “Of all the outrageous—!”

  “So, you didn’t feel it happen?” I asked.

  It was a tactless question; I realized that too late as she swung toward me, her hazel eyes taking on an inhuman glitter. “D’you think I would have allowed a sneaking stranger in here on purpose, Miss Harwood?”

  “No! No,” I said hastily, “of course you wouldn’t. I only wondered...” I cast desperately for an excuse. If only Amy were here!

  My gaze landed on my husband, who rose to the occasion. “Now we know, then,” Wrexham said calmly to Miss Birch, “that at least one of our bargainers must have used magic to hide this transaction from you.”

  “Not human magic,” said Miss Birch. “I’d taste that in the air if they’d used it. But whoever they summoned with this nasty bit of work...” She gestured toward the altar, thin lips twisting as if she’d bitten into something sour. “They have power enough, oh, yes, they do.”

  “Can you taste their magic?” I stepped closer, tensing. “Enough to identify what they are?”

  “Ha.” She hunched a dismissive shoulder. “You think a creature that powerful can’t hide their true nature? All I taste in here...” She sniffed the air, then rolled her eyes at my oldest student. “Apart from the obvious fol-de-rol, that is...”

  Miss Banks flushed and lifted one hand to her buttons, as if checking they were once again safely closed.

  “There’s only one other taste still lingering,” said Miss Birch. “Malice. Whoever was summoned, they came for the joy of wreaking havoc, and that’s exactly what they were summoned to do. Someone isn’t a friend of this school of yours, Miss Harwood.”

  “‘Someone?’” Groaning, I threw myself down onto a stool by the fireplace and dug my fingers hard through my unbound hair. “Try everyone, Miss Birch. Apart from my students and staff...”

  “Can you even be sure of them?” Wrexham asked quietly. “If one of your students or your servants was planted here as a spy—or believes they’re doing some good for the nation by sabotaging this venture before it can upset the status quo...”

  I was shaking my head before he finished speaking. “If you’d spoken to those girls, you would know their sincerity! They’ve all fought to teach themselves magic over the years, working in secret and in spite of every prohibition. They are ecstatic at the thought of finally learning more! I know what that joy sounds like, Wrexham. I believe them.”

  “And my staff,” said Miss Birch, “haven’t left their own quarters since lights-out over an hour ago. You can be quite sure of that, I assure you, sir!”

  “Those drops of blood can’t be more than an hour old,” said Wrexham, “so I’ll accept that they couldn’t have been left by any staff members, if they’ve all been in their quarters this whole time. But Harwood...”

  He sighed as he looked across at me. “I know you see yourself in these girls. But don’t forget: every girl in Angland for centuries has been raised to aspire to the Boudiccate, not to the Great Library—no matter what her own natural abilities might be. So, if anyone in the Boudiccate wished to insert a trusted spy within your ranks—”

  “I don’t believe it.” Miss Banks sat stiffly upright, her fair brows knotted and all signs of her earlier embarrassment gone. “We all gathered together in our common room tonight after Miss Harwood’s talk. There was no one amongst us who wasn’t desperate to be here—and for this school to succeed. I could swear to it!”

  “When you met Miss Fennell for your rendezvous,” said Wrexham, “did you come here directly from that meeting?”

  She nodded. “I told the others that I wanted a walk on my own before bed.”

  “Then the two of you must have arrived just after the summoning had finished, because that blood was still wet when you brought us here. Were you the first to leave that gathering of students tonight?”

  “I think...oh.” Her shoulders slumped. “No,” she said. “Two other girls left before me—Miss Stewart and Miss Hammersley. But I’m certain neither of them would have done this. They’re too happy to be here—and too eager for our proper classes to start. Miss Hammersley hasn’t even managed to hunt down any decent spellbooks back home, and Miss Stewart is frantic to start her real work at weather-wizardry. She couldn’t stop talking about how fortunate we are to have Mr. Luton here!”

  “Mm,” I said, and hoped that my neutral syllable covered Miss Birch’s derisive sniff. “So, seven of my nine students have alibis already. I’m sure we’ll rule out the other two soon enough.”

  “It would be interesting,” Wrexham said, closing the book in his lap and setting it aside on a low table, “to find out exactly how much research either of those two students had done on fey lore before they came here. You might try to find that out when you question them tomorrow, Harwood.”

  Question them? I rolled my shoulders irritably. “They’re hardly criminals,” I said. “They’re my students. Of course I’ll talk with them, but you know as well as I that neither of them is the most likely suspect. For that, we are looking at the people who came here specifically with the pu
rpose of shutting down my school. What could possibly serve them better than to summon a fey to cause mischief now, in the midst of our inspection?”

  “It wasn’t Caroline!” Miss Banks shot upright, her cheeks flushing. “Please don’t even think to suggest such a thing! She was every bit as shocked as I was to find that awful altar. And actually”—she brightened, giving me a triumphant look—“she was the one who said I should run and get you as quickly as possible, even though it meant giving up all of our private time together. And she needs this school to succeed for her sake, too!”

  Oh, young love. With an effort, I withheld a weary eye-roll. “I was not,” I said, “referring to your fiancée, Miss Banks. I was thinking, instead, of the woman who is doing her best to blackmail your fiancée as we speak. Annabel Renwick has no conscience whatsoever, and she’s every bit as malicious as any fey, so—oh.” I cringed, turning back to my housekeeper. “I do beg your pardon—”

  “That kind of creature,” said Miss Birch, pointing at the windowsill, “is malicious, and there’s no doubting it. But if you have any opinions you’d care to share now on peaceful, law-abiding fey, who hold to the old agreements and want nothing more than—”

  “I don’t!” I said fervently. “I truly do not. My tongue ran away with me, but that is no excuse. I was unforgivably rude, and I sincerely apologize. I’ll owe you even more apologies later, when we have time, if you’d like—”

  “No, thank you,” said my housekeeper drily. “The one’s enough, if you mean it—and if you don’t say it again.”

  “I won’t. I promise you.” I swallowed down bitter regret.

  What I’d said so thoughtlessly a moment ago was just the sort of line I’d heard tossed around in neighborhood social gatherings a hundred times as I’d grown up, surrounded by humans, with the fey known only through warning stories from our woods. Their official ambassadress had been an annual, exotic visitor at Mother’s Spring Equinox ball, but she’d been far too distant, glittering and intimidating to quash any local fears.