Lisbeth playfully slapped him on the arm. “Nice to know what you look for in a woman!”
It was too shadowy to see his expression, but he pulled his girlfriend from her seat and onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her, cooing sweet nothings. Even if I did not know my cousin well, I would be able to tell he was utterly infatuated with her—and, I hoped, she with him.
My uncle was still staring at me pointedly, a small smile playing on his lips. I pretended not to see it until I was saved by Lisbeth.
“I heard she looked a lot like her grandmother, even when she was a child.”
My uncle craned his neck to look in her direction, then turned back and put his glass back down. “Oh yes. I had quite the shock when she came through the doors. A spitting image of the late duchess.”
“She barely ate at dinner though, poor thing.” My aunt sighed. “And I shouldn’t think her mother is vegan, so she must not eat very well at home. Does she eat much at school?” she asked, directing the question at me.
“I don’t think so.” When I thought about it, I didn’t think I had ever even seen her eat; she only seemed to drink coffee.
“Perhaps you should keep even more of an eye on her,” my aunt tentatively suggested, soft enough so that Alfie and, more crucially, Lisbeth, wouldn’t hear. “After everything you have told us . . .” She trailed off, and she did not need to finish.
I nodded, but still thought that Autumn had coped better than I had ever dared hope. She was talking, laughing even; a vast improvement on the weeks before. But I did wish she would let me in, in some small way—ideally, into her mind. It was extremely rude to push against the barriers around another’s consciousness, but with that thought, I couldn’t stop my own mind from wandering upstairs in search of her. I found her quickly, as always, her scent seeming to leave a trail of burdens wherever she went. I was met with concrete and mortar.
“Fallon . . . Fallon? Dear me, Ll’iriad’s children do tend to space out.”
I snapped my gaze up from where it had been resting on the fire to find my uncle grinning.
“Now where on earth did you wander off to?”
I pretended to have no idea what he was talking about and adjusted my expression accordingly. He hummed in amusement and disbelief, and I was sure he would have made another comment if my aunt hadn’t been glaring at him.
“I think I’ll go and do some work,” I announced, standing up. It was getting too hot sitting beside the fire, but the shadows full of candy hearts and sickly sweet flirting didn’t seem too appealing, either. My aunt’s glare darkened, but she nevertheless wished me a good night, and so did the other three, though I’d had plenty of sleep the previous few nights and had no intention of getting any more.
Working my way back along the left wing, I was dimly aware of how swift my pace was, and how eager the echo sounded in the entrance hall as I bounded up the stairs. I did have intentions to work; just not on my own.
I justified my steps toward the end of the house opposite to where my bedroom was located by thinking about how English literature was my worst subject . . . I needed the help.
The servants had chosen not to light the lamps fixed to the walls, the moon bright enough to light the whole hallway from a single window. With every passing door, my footfalls became lighter, urged along by the feeling, yet again, that I was infringing upon Autumn’s territory; if I stopped, I would be caught.
I hardly dared pause to knock when I reached her room, and even as my knuckles hit the wood I rocked on my heels to maintain some movement. When no answer came, I knocked again, softly calling her name. There was still no answer several knocks later, and I took that as an invitation to go in.
Inside, it was empty; neither the chandelier nor lamps were on, and again, the only light came from the moon. The curtains were still tethered, and her bag had been left on the sofa where I had placed it. It was open, though, and some of her clothes were spilling over the edge. Automatically, I walked over and reached out to stop them from ending up on the floor. Just as mechanically, I snapped my hand back, realizing they were her panties.
I pushed deep down thoughts I would not permit myself to have about her, doubting they would stay in their chained box very long. Giving the sofa a wide berth, I wondered how she could seem to have no idea of her potential power over men. Maybe it’s her age. She’s only fifteen, I reminded myself.
But another, more uneasy explanation hovered in a part of my mind I didn’t like to venture into. Maybe it’s the depression. Acknowledging that meant acknowledging the fact that she might not accept, or even recognize, feelings beyond those created by the parasite that fed on her misery.
And acknowledging that meant I would have to be utterly selfless.
From the closed bedroom door, I assumed she was asleep and tried to muffle my steps as much as possible as I made my way to the writing desk, where her A-level poetry anthology lay among several other books—including the one on misogyny Sylaeia had given her and another on American poetry. Her pencil stuck out from between its closed pages, and I went to open it; the creased spine decided otherwise and the pages flipped closed, slow enough for me to see that almost every poem was annotated up to where her pencil had been placed. The book, however, did not completely close, instead stopping on one of the first pages, where there was a handwritten dedication.
To my dearest granddaughter, on her fourteenth birthday.
The page was well worn and there were patches where the wafer-thin paper had been stained darker. Embarrassed, I quickly turned back to where her pencil was. The poem was by James Whitcomb Riley. “Dead Leaves.” There wasn’t a single blank spot around the text; her writing was sprawled across every available inch of space, most of her ideas incredibly insightful, others just wild. As I read them, it seemed as though the meaning was printed between each line . . . it just came so easily to her. It was something I envied. I had practically been brought up a politician, rational and practical. Literature was something I struggled with. But if she could combine her imagination—her focused creativity—with politics, then, well . . .
You’re getting ahead of yourself, I chided. Way ahead.
I turned my attention to the actual poem, rather than her annotations. But by the third line of the section titled Dawn, I was frowning, spine contorting in a painful shudder.
So, Autumn, in thy strangeness, thou art here
To read dark fortunes for us from the book of fate . . .
My eyes dragged themselves along the arrow she had drawn to the very top of the page, where she had written connotations no human would draw from those lines.
I slammed the book shut.
My breathing was heavy, and it was only as the echo died that I realized I had broken out in a sweat. I pushed my bangs off my forehead, running a hand down my face.
Suddenly, a whimper reached my ears and my head snapped in the direction of the bedroom. Another followed a few seconds later. Without any more thought I was at the door, which was slightly ajar. I gently pushed it open just far enough to squeeze through when I sucked my stomach in.
I took a few slow paces inside. She had not drawn the curtains in this room, either, and several of the windows were open, the drapes billowing in her direction. It was freezing, and I was still burning from the fire and the book.
I faltered when the moonlight suddenly emerged from behind the darkening clouds. It cut a strip right through the center of her bed, lighting up everything beneath the tester. Curled up like a fetus, the covers kicked back around her ankles, she lay in even less clothing than she had been wearing the day I had dropped off her homework. There was no robe this time, and I could see the goose bumps running up her leg as far as the crease where her thigh met her torso, and where they reappeared from her tank top amid the valley of her breasts. They disappeared again where her hair was swept around onto one shoulder.
How can you not know what you do, little duchess?
I couldn’t move. I didn’t
dare move. If she found me here . . . if I jolted out of this trance and realized what I was doing, neither she nor I would be able to forgive.
But I couldn’t leave her so cold. I didn’t touch the windows—she would know somebody had been in—but crept forward, cringing every time the boards depressed. When I got to the right side of her bed, I lifted the first two layers of sheets right up, using a little magic so they wouldn’t drag across her skin, and replaced them on top of her. She didn’t stir.
I didn’t hang around, heading back to the door as quickly and quietly as possible. When I got there, I briefly turned back. She wriggled and buried her head deeper in her pillow, her lips parting and upturning; it was so slight I thought I was just being hopeful. But her expression was one of utter peace, calmer than I had ever seen it, and that hope cemented itself.
I’ll just have to be content to make you smile for now, Autumn Rose.
I left the door as I had found it and headed back through the reception room. Stepping out into the hallway, I found it totally dark—the moon had gone in again.
“Conthlorno! Stalker!” a voice said, and my feet left the ground as my cousin jumped up from the shadows right in front of me.
“What are you doing, you freaking shifter rip-off?! Are you trying to make me blast you from here to B.C.?”
Alfie folded his arms across his chest and squared his shoulders. “I think I would actually be a very good shifter. And anyway, the question is what were you doing in the duchess’s room at . . .” He trailed off and twisted his wrist to look at an imaginary watch, “. . . eleven o’clock at night?”
I squared my own shoulders and drew myself up to my full height, until we were glaring at each other from the exact same level. “I wanted help with my homework. But she was asleep.”
He raised an eyebrow.
To make a point, I cursed at him in English instead of the Sagean we were using (I had certainly learned a few inventive ones from speaking only English at school) and reluctantly allowed the barriers around my mind down. Pulling up the very recent memory, I let him sift through. He paused at the book, and slid as quickly as possible through what had happened in the bedroom. He hummed deep in his chest, drawing the book back up.
“See?” I said eventually.
He seemed satisfied and let his arms fall from his chest, wagging a finger at me instead in a convincing impression of his mother. Within the confines of my consciousness, he forcibly made my mind linger on a frozen image of me slipping into her bedroom. “Tsk, tsk, Fallon: that is not what princes of Athenea do.”
“Shut up,” I groaned, punching his arm and walking away from him. I could feel my eyes plummeting to pink and was powerless to stop it, the embarrassment was so strong. But what he said was true. We weren’t prudes—a lot of the men in my family definitely weren’t—but there were unspoken rules to conform to, especially when it came to girls like her.
Alfie caught up to me and placed a hand on my shoulder as we walked. “Hey, don’t worry, we’ve all been through it,” he reassured in my mind as a way to answer my thoughts. “At least it’s only me on your trail here, and not the paparazzi.”
For her sake more than my own, I was very grateful for that. But something much more overarching bothered me. “Alfie, do you think I’m doing the right thing? In light of everything?”
He removed his hand from my shoulder as we both sped down the steps to the gallery overlooking the entrance hall. “I’d love to be a seer and be able to give you an answer to that. But I’m not and I can’t. However, if I was to give my own opinion, then yes, I’d say you are.”
I stopped beside the railings and he spun so he faced me, resting one elbow on the wood and lowering himself.
“That means a lot,” I murmured. My voice echoed, bouncing off the high ceiling.
He exhaled sharply through pursed lips and grinned, clapping me over the head with his free arm. “I know, kiddo.”
With those words I felt him withdraw abruptly from my mind. As he did, Lisbeth’s consciousness brushed against mine as she searched for her boyfriend. He frowned, and then the grin returned.
“What do you say to a round of Mario Kart? Al and Fal against the mighty Lisbeth?”
I shook my head. “You two are addicted to that game.”
“I don’t deny it. But come on. She’ll beat me otherwise.”
I shrugged, starting to move away toward the other hallway. “I don’t know . . .”
I barely made it a few feet before he had flitted in front of me, clicking his fingers so a few sparks fizzled into life at the spot right between my eyes. I flinched. He really is asking for a free flight home to Vancouver.
“Fallon Athenea, even the second in line to the throne on his first diplomatic mission is allowed to let his hair down every once in a while! Now come on. No excuses.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Autumn
By Sunday evening, Mr. Sylaeia’s words to me several weeks before—“It will not be as bad as you think”—seemed to strike a chord. It wasn’t so bad. I slept well, had no dreams, and was kept well occupied, between helping Prince Fallon with his English literature homework, listening to the near-constant banter between the two cousins, and admiring Lady Elizabeth’s court dresses, which had overflowed into her boyfriend’s home. At times, the sense that even the air conspired against me to drag me down into fatigue and sluggishness would lift, as fast as the moor fogs, and I would feel able enough to hold a conversation or think beyond surviving a single day; consider my future, even. It was the best I had felt since my summer in London.
Without a doubt, the highlight was the riding. The estate had an amazing setup: fourteen horses, of which four were for the family, one for Lisbeth, and the rest for any guests or the staff to use whenever they wished. They even had four Dartmoor ponies Prince Lorent had rescued from the slaughter after poor sales at an auction. On Saturday, we had ventured out to the tors on the bridle paths, and on Sunday morning we stayed nearer to their home, where the streams and trees made for a more picturesque experience, and allowed the ponies to wander along behind us. It made me realize how much I missed St. Sapphire’s and all the things I had been able to do there.
“So what are you going to do after Kable then?” Prince Fallon asked as we ambled along the upstairs hallway, having just finished yet more homework. We had hoped to go out again, but torrential rain, starting in the early evening, had scuppered our plans. “I presume you won’t stay and do A-levels there.”
“No, I won’t. Though I’ll need to carry on studying, because I want to go to the Athenean University. I wish St. Sapphire’s had a senior section, but I suppose I’ll choose one of the other London schools, or Geneva.”
“What about the Athenean seniors?”
“I doubt I will get the grades.”
“Of course you will!”
I glanced at him sideways through my eyelashes. “You flatter me. But Kable won’t give me a good recommendation. My attendance is too poor.”
He sighed in defeat. There was no counterargument to that. “Well then. London I can understand, but Geneva?”
“I have a friend there. Joan Llo’arrauna. Do you know her?”
He frowned and cocked his head first to the left and then to the right. “If she doesn’t have a title then I won’t have met her. And only the one friend?”
I shrugged halfheartedly. “My grandmother made me practice my magic a lot. I never really had much time for friends . . . never really appreciated them very much.”
“Ah, that must be why, then.”
I paused at the bottom of the staircase. “What do you mean?”
He swung in an arc around the banister and came to a rest at the other side of it, so that it passed between us. He leaned against it, lowering his gaze to my (much shorter) level. “You’re always saying you feel you have no friends—I snuck a look at the essay you did for Sylaeia—but you have some very good friends at Kable who really care about you.” He waved
his hand to stop me from interrupting. “I hope that one day you realize how important and powerful their friendship might be.”
Just as I went to retort that my depression didn’t have to be based on rational feelings, Prince Alfie came skidding into the entrance hall from the direction of the conservatory, soaked through from the rain and dripping onto the floor.
“You two have to come and see this!”
He didn’t give us a chance to reply, disappearing down the left-hand hallway before I could even glance at the other prince. Fallon’s face reflected what I was thinking: whatever warranted moving that fast was worth seeing. We flitted after him, leaving the echo of wet shoes screeching on tiles behind.
We came to a halt on the veranda, where Prince Alfie and Lady Elizabeth rested against the railings beneath the torrent of water that was overflowing from the gutters and down onto the flower beds below, crushing the delicate autumn-flowering snowdrops planted there. Joining them, I wondered what the fuss was about—it had been raining heavily for hours.
Then it became apparent. The sky abruptly changed color to an electric blue—like the color of the eyes of the Athenea—and multiple forks of lighting were thrust down toward the ground, only to be caught by the dome shield, which revealed itself just as it had done when the prince had thrown a pebble at its perimeter. There was the same shattered-glass appearance, and the same eerie crackling, similar to the hum of power lines, but this time, it came with a low drone, like the wail of the siren that could be heard right across Brixham when the lifeboat was launched. It sent a chill right up my spine, which didn’t pass until the lightning had scuttled its way across the entire area of the shield, searching for weak spots, able to ground only when it had entirely engulfed the air above us and headed downward instead—it was too raw a form of energy to simply penetrate the shield, like the rain and the wind, so it acted like a solid object, or magic.
“I’ve never seen lightning like that,” Lady Elizabeth seemed to mutter, though, in truth, I could see her mouth straining to make herself heard—the rain was that loud.
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