The steward bowed and retreated from the parlor, leaving Rafferdy alone. He looked around the room and despite its familiarity, this time it offered him no comfortable refuge. There would be no fleeing now. He had left Asterlane and was back in the city, but he would never again escape from Lord Rafferdy’s house so long as he lived, for he was Lord Rafferdy now.
He crossed the parlor to his writing desk. The warm light of a long afternoon spilled through the window, falling upon its empty surface. Not so very long ago, upon returning from a visit to Asterlane, he would have found the desk heaped with letters of greeting and a multitude of notes asking for his presence at various dinners and parties. However, the only thing that covered the desk now was a thin layer of dust.
Not that this deficit of correspondence surprised him. One could turn down only so many invitations before they ceased to come at all. Everyone wishes to secure the attendance of a guest who is known to attend only the most fashionable parties. Unless, of course, that person never attends their parties, in which case the other is wholly unneeded. Discerning persons, Rafferdy had learned, are only wanted when they offer themselves to anybody.
Despite the lack of invitations, he felt no regret. He no longer had dinners or fetes to divert him. These days it was often the case that he had another sort of gathering to attend when evening fell. And while the people he met there frequently sent him messages, these missives did not come by the usual routes of post or messenger.
His man returned with the brandy, which Rafferdy accepted gratefully. He sat in a chair and took a long sip, then another. It was only when he set down the empty glass that he realized he was sitting in the very chair where he had last seen his father alive. Had he unconsciously chosen it for that very reason? While it was the grandest chair in the room, and the most lordly with its arms carved like lion claws, it was far from the most comfortable.
No, it was only a result of chance and weariness that he had sat here. For if he had thought of its previous occupant, he would surely have chosen somewhere else to sit. Only now that he was here, he did not rise. Instead, he laid his hands on the chair’s carven arms. They were warm to the touch, as if the seat had been recently occupied. But it was only from the sun streaming through the window, of course.
“Why did you do it?” Rafferdy muttered aloud. “You had to know what the strain would do to you. Why did you come all the way to the city?”
Surely it could not have been just to tell Rafferdy the things he had. Such matters could have waited for his son to travel to Asterlane in answer to a summons. Yet Lord Rafferdy had chosen to make the journey despite the dire effect that hours spent jostling in a carriage would have upon his body.
Rafferdy had pleaded with his father to remain in the city, fearing he could not withstand the journey home. He would write to Asterlane, he said, and bid his mother to travel to Invarel to be with them. Lord Rafferdy would not hear of it. Lady Rafferdy loathed travel. Besides, he had done what he had come to the city to do, he said, and so he left.
Only a few minutes after his father’s departure, a knock came at the door of the house. Rafferdy had rushed to it himself rather than waiting for his man to get it, thinking that his father had reconsidered and had ordered his driver to return to Warwent Square. However, when he threw open the door he saw not his father on the other side, but rather a messenger. The boy had a letter for him. It was, he saw as he looked at it, from Lady Quent.
Rafferdy gave the boy a penny, then went to his parlor to open the letter. Lady Quent had begun her note with an apology, and an explanation of how Rafferdy might have come to think she had intended to break their engagement the prior lumenal. However, as he read her words, he realized that it was he who should be making the apology. What had made him think that Lady Quent would ever neglect a promise? It was entirely against her character. He had allowed his most foolish and selfish fears to be encouraged by the youngest Miss Lockwell’s silly words. Rafferdy nearly set down the letter right then to compose a reply, expressing his own remorse.
Only then he had turned the page over, and at last he understood the real reason his father had come to the city. With fascination he had read her account of her conversation with Lord Rafferdy, and her description of the object he had given her. That his father had gone to Lady Quent to return something that had once belonged to Mr. Lockwell was a fact that would have greatly puzzled him only an hour before. After his own conversation with his father, Rafferdy could not be astonished.
She closed the note with an expression of hope that he would forgive her, and that they could make another attempt at a meeting soon. Rafferdy had at once written her a reply, stating that no apology was necessary, for he was the one at fault, and that he would be willing to call upon her again at any time of her choosing.
Only they had never gotten another chance to meet for tea. Less than a quarter month later, the letter Rafferdy both dreaded and expected arrived. His father had fallen into a fever upon his return to Asterlane. He had soon slipped into unconsciousness. Then, in the depths of a long night, he had passed silently beyond the bounds of this world.
At once, Rafferdy had departed the city for Asterlane. Whatever shock or grief he might have suffered, it was set aside upon his arrival to attend to all of the necessary business, and to comfort his mother.
Lady Rafferdy had faded a bit with each passing year, growing ever thinner and more brittle, like a flower kept between the pages of a book. Now it was as if the last tinges of color had been leached from her. She said little, and wept not at all that Rafferdy witnessed; instead she sat silently in the parlor, looking out the window at the lands around Asterlane.
Rafferdy spent as much time as he could with her, though he was also much occupied with his father’s agents. There were numerous papers to review, and he had to set out his intentions for all of his father’s holdings and incomes. However, none of it was truly difficult. The lawyers advised him where and what to sign, and his father had left his affairs in excellent order. In the end, becoming a lord required very little bother on his part.
The funeral was no more difficult. He had only to choose his coat and to support his mother on his arm as they walked into the parish church. After that, his only task was to stand outside the church and suffer the condolences of countless people he did not know. Most were local gentlemen and ladies and clergy. There were some baronets and lords from the nearby counties, and a few magnates from the city. There were also several men whom Rafferdy knew to be inquirers who had worked under his father.
Given the presence of these men, he should not have been surprised to see her that day. All the same, he was. He nodded as he clasped the hand of a portly vicar, not hearing a word the fellow said. Then he turned to greet the next person in line—
—and could neither speak nor move. Even dressed all in black, she was lovely, her gold hair tucked beneath a brimmed hat, her green eyes bright with sympathy and concern. So fate had found a way for them to meet after all, if not for tea.
It was she who broke the spell of silence upon him.
“Lord Rafferdy, I am so sorry for the loss of your father. I cannot imagine what a terrible burden it must be for you and your mother to bear.”
To hear the words Lord Rafferdy from her lips jarred him to his senses. It was exceedingly strange. But then, had her own name not similarly changed of late?
“I know that you have no need to imagine it, Lady Quent,” he said, clasping her small hand in his. Had she not been recently deprived of a parent herself? “Yet any burden is easier to bear with you here. And you as well, Sir Quent.”
Her husband stood beside her, and Rafferdy was hardly less glad to see his grim, craggy face than her lovely one. It was comforting to have these solid, familiar beings before him. They spoke for a little while—not of anything of importance. Lady Quent commented that she had never been to this part of the country before, and Sir Quent asked Rafferdy’s advice about places they might drive for the best pr
ospects for viewing the landscape.
This pleasant exchange lasted but a few minutes, for there were other people who had a need to shake his hand, no matter what his needs might be. As far as he could tell, funerals were intended neither for the departed nor the bereaved; rather, their purpose was to be tedious and dreary ordeals, and thus give everyone else a reason not to feel guilty that nothing was wrong in their own lives. Rafferdy thanked Sir and Lady Quent for their presence, and he expressed his desire to speak to them more later.
At this Lady Quent met his eyes, and he thought he understood the meaning of the look. If only they could have some time alone to discuss the things Lord Rafferdy had told her. In turn, he could describe his own peculiar conversation with his father. Only then she and her husband moved on, and Rafferdy found himself being consoled by more esquires and aldermen he could not recall ever having met.
While he hoped to invite the Quents to Asterlane to dine while they were in the country, that night his mother required him, for now that the funeral was done her silence had at last broken, and she had wept long and bitterly. In truth, he was relieved, and spent the night sitting with her. The next lumenal was occupied with further business regarding his father’s holdings. It was not until the next day that he managed to dispatch a note to the inn where the Quents were staying, only to learn when a note came back that they had just departed for the city, as Sir Quent was required at the Citadel.
Those next lumenals passed quickly as Rafferdy finished setting his father’s estate in order. His mother’s demeanor improved, and she began to take up her usual pastimes of arranging flowers from the garden and inviting other ladies to the house for tea. Though she remained somewhat wan, she assured him that he need not fear for her.
“I knew when I became Lady Rafferdy that I would have him only for a time,” she told him one day toward the end of his visit. They walked together in the garden amid brilliant blooms. “Indeed, I got to keep him for longer than I had hoped, and for that I am grateful.”
At this he had given her a startled look. Perhaps his mother had known more than he had given her credit for. Had she been aware of the curse that had afflicted all those who entered that dark cave in Am-Anaru? However, she could not know of the letter he had gotten from Lady Quent, and so he said nothing about it.
After that, Rafferdy no longer had such a grave fear to leave his mother. Which was good. Assembly had been in recess most of the time he was away, but it would be convening at the start of the month for another session. That he would look forward to attending Assembly again was impossible. Yet now that there was no chance of him giving up his seat, he was more resigned to sitting in it. Once a fate cannot possibly be avoided, however horrible it may be, it loses something of its powers of dread.
Besides, it was a fact that there were some people at Assembly he was looking forward to encountering. Thus, as the month drew to a close, he made his farewells to his mother and commenced the journey back to Invarel and everything he knew.
Only now that he was here, he wasn’t certain he really knew anything at all. Or rather, it was as if nothing he had known was truly what he thought it was. Not the city. Not society or the government.
Not even his father.
THINGS ARE NOT as men have long believed,” Lord Rafferdy had said, crumpled in the great lion-clawed chair in Rafferdy’s front parlor. Surely almost any other seat in the room would have been more comfortable for him. However, he was yet a lord and, whether it was by instinct or habit, he had chosen the most commanding chair.
“The balance has been altered, perhaps forever,” he went on, his voice thin and quavering. He seemed to speak not to Rafferdy, but to some person standing behind his son. “The occlusion draws nearer far more rapidly than we ever allowed ourselves to think.”
Rafferdy had no idea what to make of these words—or of his father’s unexpected appearance in the city. That Lord Rafferdy’s health had continued to worsen was apparent as soon as the driver helped him out of the carriage. Rafferdy had hurried to him, supporting his father’s weight as they went inside, only there was little to bear. The black suit Lord Rafferdy wore seemed to house not a man, but a few bundles of straw. Not long ago he had been hale, even portly; what remained now was no more than a withered scarecrow.
“A darkness is coming,” the elder man said. He trembled, as if cold, though sunlight bathed the chair where he sat. “A great darkness …”
Rafferdy shook his head, trying to understand these ramblings. “Do you mean all this business with the planets and the monstrously long umbral that some people say is coming? But that can hardly be a concern. I am sure it is a lot of blather meant to agitate people and sell more broadsheets.”
“I would that were true,” Lord Rafferdy said. “However, it is more than that.”
His eyes were overly bright, and it seemed there was a fear in them. Rafferdy wondered if he should call for the doctor. He worried that his father’s illness was making him morbid.
“Well,” he said, trying to keep his voice light, “I suppose I will simply have my man buy more candles.”
“Will you? If you believe that all it will take to endure this darkness is a few more candles, then you are mistaken.”
This response shocked Rafferdy. His father spoke as if he knew something about it.
“Good God, do you mean it’s true, then?” he exclaimed. “But how long is it to last?”
Lord Rafferdy let out a rattling sigh. “Perhaps twice the length of a greatnight. Or three times or four. Or perhaps …”
“Perhaps what?”
His father looked out the window at the golden afternoon. “Perhaps it will never end.”
Rafferdy could only gape. If the world was frosted with snow after a greatnight that lasted thirty hours, what would happen if there was an umbral several times that length?
“That’s impossible,” he said.
“Impossible? You mean like new planets appearing in the sky?”
Rafferdy did not reply. These could only be the delusions of a fevered brain. His father continued to tremble, and the glassy orbs of his eyes darted this way and that, as if he saw things in the room that were not there. That his father was not in full possession of his faculties, Rafferdy was sure. All the same, this talk of an endless greatnight had stirred a creeping sort of dread in his chest. He went to the credenza and poured a cup of wine.
“It was because I knew what was coming that I did it, you know.”
Rafferdy turned around. “That you did what?”
“That I did what I could to keep you apart from Lady Quent when she was yet Miss Lockwell.” His hands twitched upon the arms of the chair, clasping at the carved wood. “Always I did everything I could to make certain the two of you were never introduced to each other. Fate—or someone acting on its behalf—had other intentions. Yet even after my efforts proved vain, and you were made known to each other, I did what I had to in order to ensure your acquaintance did not advance in what might have been its natural direction. At least in that I had some success. Nor do I regret having done this. Yet you must not ever think I was gladdened by it.”
Rafferdy gripped the glass in his hand, unable to drink from it or set it down. He was struck dumb, and a pain stabbed at his chest. Were these words also the phantasms of an ill mind? Only it seemed that there was a horrible truth to them, and Rafferdy could only listen, paralyzed, as his father spoke in a rasping voice, describing how he had met Gaustien Lockwell years ago in the West Country, at Heathcrest Hall.
Lord Rafferdy and Lord Marsdel had long been friends of Earl Rylend, and Mr. Lockwell was a friend of Mr. Bennick, who tutored the earl’s son, Lord Wilden, in the subject of magick. Mr. Lockwell had come with Mr. Bennick to Heathcrest with some regularity, and Lord Rafferdy had met him on several occasions.
“You knew Lockwell?” Rafferdy at last managed to say.
His father’s eyes seemed to clear a bit, and his voice grew louder, as if recalling these m
emories had steadied him somehow. “Yes, I always enjoyed my encounters with him. He was a powerfully intelligent man. Yet in him this did not lead to an inflated self-regard. Rather, his intellect was tempered, and thus made stronger, by a modest nature and a strong sense of principle. I admired him very much.”
At last Rafferdy managed to take a gulp of the wine; it only induced an uncomfortable churning within him. He put the glass down. “But if you admired him, then why did you discourage me from knowing her?”
“For every reason I told you at the time. Appearances must be maintained—now more so than ever. I fear that a time of great suspicion and incrimination comes. I hope that I am in error, that we as a nation are better than that. However, if we are not, then soon everyone will look for any reason to accuse another.”
A throbbing had begun to form in Rafferdy’s head. “I don’t follow you. Accuse them of what?”
“It does not matter. To be different will in itself be a crime. When people fear an enemy they cannot see, then anyone can be that enemy. So it is vital that you do not set yourself apart from your class and your peers. Yet there is more to it than that. There is another reason I never wished you to meet Miss Lockwell. You see, while I never had any interest in it myself—much to Marsdel’s everlasting disappointment in me—I know what runs in our lineage. And I had no wish for you to fall in with magicians.”
Rafferdy slipped his right hand in his coat pocket. Only what was the point? No doubt his father had seen his House ring before this. He forced himself to withdraw his hand. There was a glint of blue as sunlight caught the gem on the ring. However, last night it was not the influence of sunlight that had caused the blue gem to glow. Rather, it had been in answer to the score of other House rings, worn by the other young men in the secret meeting room beneath the Sword and Leaf tavern.
“I don’t understand,” Rafferdy said. “You said yourself that you admired Mr. Lockwell, and you clearly knew him to be a magician. So why did you not wish for me to associate with magicians?”
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