Thornbound

by Stephanie Burgis

  “Oh, I’ll be there,” I said firmly, and gave her a look that added: I know exactly what you’re up to.

  It was an impressively ominous expression that I’d learned from my mother in my own rebellious youth—which made it even more unfortunate that my empty stomach chose to rumble a loud and undignified accompaniment at that very moment.

  “Poor Cassandra.” Annabel smirked. “So close to true power in so many ways...and yet, you never can quite pull it off, can you?”

  Shaking her head, she sailed out of the room. I very nearly slammed the door behind her.

  “Always a disappointment...” That had been her favorite phrase to sigh in my ear when I was a girl and no one else could hear us. Apparently, I hadn’t yet outgrown the rage-filled reaction that that message inevitably inspired.

  I would not disappoint everyone who relied upon me now, so I forced myself to shut the door with tooth-gritted care—and only then allowed myself to turn to my housekeeper. “So?” I said. “Have those vines come any closer?”

  “Not yet.” With the departure of the Boudiccate’s inspectors, Miss Birch had unclasped her hands and resumed her usual sturdy pose, straight-backed and hard-elbowed, her hazel gaze piercing. “They’re still busy tangling themselves around the cottage, so I set Brigid and some of her girls from the stable to build a good-sized fence around it. That should keep anyone from getting too close, for now.”

  “The higher the better,” I said. “It should slow down the vines, too, if they change direction.” I worried at my lower lip, envisioning those long, sharp thorns planting themselves firmly into slim wooden fencing as strong vines looped across it...or even tore it down. “Is there any chance that you could stop them from growing at all from now on? Or that you could change their direction and send them back into the woods?”

  “Not without lifting protection from our house. I wrapped all my strength tight around Thornfell last night—that’s why they had to settle for the cottage instead.”

  “I see.” I sighed. “Well, there’s no question which building is more vital to defend.” As I was planning to dismiss Luton with great pleasure the moment he strolled back onto school grounds, there was no need to house him appropriately any longer. “The only question now is: how can we defeat whichever fey sent them after us?”

  “Myself, I’d look to the human in this house who set that nasty, sneaking bargain to begin with.” Miss Birch gave a derisive sniff. “However fine a lady she may be, she’s only a visitor. Once we’re rid of her, we should do well enough. None of the creatures in these woods ever caused any trouble for Harwoods until she came.”

  “Mmm...” A few weeks ago, I would have assented to that sentiment without a doubt. But all those vivid nightmares that I had experienced since moving into Thornfell—all those dreams of being smothered and pierced by vicious thorns from vines that had proven to be only too real, wielded by one of those wild fey in our woods...

  What if all the official reasons for Thornfell’s old abandonment were no more than face-saving excuses? So many gentlemen among my ancestors had bucked tradition by choosing to move back to Harwood House after their widowhoods, giving up, one after another, all of their claims to an honorable dower house in which they could be master. What if those choices hadn’t arisen solely from family affection after all?

  It would all suddenly make so much more sense...if, in fact, I wasn’t the first Harwood to have had those suffocating nightmares forced upon me.

  No such stories had been passed down in family lore—but then, as Lionel Westgate had pointed out, I was descended from a long line of men and women who’d all prided themselves on their personal strength. How many of my ancestors would have admitted to their brisk, powerful daughters—or, worse yet, to their magician sons-in-law—that they had been chased from their rightful home by bad dreams?

  “Miss Harwood?” Miss Birch prompted.

  But I was too furious to speak.

  I loved Thornfell with all of my heart. Every weathered red brick and uneven golden stone in its eccentrically rambling exterior; every patch of green-and-bronze wallpaper and every brass lamp; every single inch of it, inside and out, was my home, the dream that I had built when my first dreams were shattered, the future I’d claimed for myself, for my students, and for Wrexham, too...should the Boudiccate ever allow him enough rest to enjoy it.

  I wouldn’t be driven away from it by anyone, no matter how powerful or ancient they might be. It didn’t even matter, anymore, which of my human visitors had extended the blood-cast invitation that broke our old bargain with the fey and allowed those vines to finally manifest outside the woods. After so many endless nights spent tangled and tortured in my sleep, I knew one thing with certainty: whoever controlled them had been waiting a long time for this opportunity.

  They were going to regret it.

  “Keep up Thornfell’s defenses,” I said, “and have one of Brigid’s girls keep an eye on that fencing—and on the woods beyond, as well. I want to know the moment that Professor Luton finally returns.”

  “Oh, him.” She rolled her eyes. “Shall I have him sent to you when he finally comes creeping out of there?”

  “Yes, please.” I strode for the door. “And do let me know if you discover any clues about that ring from the altar.” An identification sourced through fey magic might not be considered legal evidence in court, but I would dearly love to throw it in Annabel’s sneering face anyway. “In the meantime, I have research to do before supper.”

  Until now, I’d focused on the human aspect of our attack. When it came to magical menaces, though, there was only one place to go. Thank goodness my family never let go of old books!

  Amongst all of the dusty and outmoded volumes left piled in Thornfell’s library to clear space in Harwood House’s own library, I’d found all twelve of the leather-bound journals that had been hand-written by my most eccentric ancestor. Romulus Aeneas Harwood—born well over a century ago, in the days when the aristocracy of Angland had been fashionably fixated upon the Roman empire—was not one of those famous gentleman magicians whose portraits hung in the long gallery of Harwood House to impress awestruck visitors. My many-times-great-uncle had instead been discreetly forgotten by Anglish history outside the annals of our family...and our own family had never known quite what to do with him.

  He had, of course, attended the Great Library, like every other male Harwood in our records until my own brother finally rebelled and broke that long tradition. However, rather than marrying a suitable politician, moving into her elegant house and building a magical career to the dizzying heights expected of any Harwood, he had inexplicably chosen to retire from public life at the age of twenty-two. Then he had—with quiet but utterly unbending determination—made Harwood House his home for the rest of his short life.

  While his younger brother and older sisters had dazzled the world with their exploits, Romulus had spent nearly two decades, until his death from influenza at eight-and-thirty, sleeping in his childhood bedroom, taking daily walks around the estate, and filling volume after volume of his private journals with densely scribbled observations...that never left his room until his death finally revealed their existence to his baffled relatives.

  As far as I knew, no one had ever read through all those volumes of detailed observations on every aspect of our estate. When I myself had come across them whilst sorting through Thornfell’s old library, I’d flicked through the first page or so, shrugged, and placed them all into one of the wooden crates that held all the spare books that wouldn’t aid my students’ magical education. Like every Harwood before me, I’d seen those journals as necessary to preserve for the sake of family history...but hardly relevant to our current needs.

  Now, though, I wished I’d kept them closer to hand. Ever since the grounds of our estate had first been drawn, the Harwoods and the fey within our woods had operated in an agreed-upon relationship of mutual respect and separation. We stayed out of the woods during bluebell
season; they left us alone outside the woods. Beyond ceremonial offerings of milk and wine at the appropriate times of year—and, of course, my mother’s annual Spring Equinox ball, which their ambassadress had always attended with a magnificent entourage—there had never been any compelling reason for us to investigate them further.

  But if ever anyone in my family had had the time and opportunity to study the mysterious creatures in our woods, it would have had to be my most enigmatic and least famous ancestor.

  It took fifteen minutes of digging through the piled crates in Thornfell’s vast, stuffy attic before I found the one I needed. Dust motes floated through the air, lit only by the glow of my lantern, as I pulled out the stack of journals. There were twelve in all; none of them were slim, to say the least. I sighed as I gathered them all up in my arms.

  This was yet another time when it would have been helpful to have a second committed professor on staff...but as it was, this would certainly be another sleepless night.

  Exhaustion cascaded through me at the prospect. Even balancing all of these volumes in my arms on my way back down that ladder, whilst juggling both the lantern and my own long skirts, suddenly felt too much to contemplate. Expelling a weary sigh, I sagged back onto the dusty attic floor and pulled a random journal from the middle of the stack, holding it close to the lantern’s golden glow to make out the cramped, old-fashioned scrawl inside.

  Just for one or two minutes, I would let myself rest and see if I could find anything useful at random, before I went down to resume social jousting with our inspectors...then began a more thorough page-by-page search in the darkest hours of the night.

  ...are budding againe, theyre leaves salamander green and spreading in a pattern moste splendid and various...

  The dusty, stuffy air settled around me like a thick, heavy blanket wrapping me in warm darkness. Yawning, I flipped to the next page to try again.

  ...sister’s unending complaints, as she desired me to meet a certain Lady Montague “who mighte yette consider you even now if she only saw the magic you are capable of, Romulus.” As if any other lady could compare to the bewitchments of my owne true beloved!

  But I could hardly say as much to Octavia, so I was gladde to escape once again into the gardens, surrendering my breakfast meats to avoid any more tedious lectures on the subject of marriage...

  His own true beloved? I blinked, sleepily absorbing that ancestral revelation. If Romulus really had been in love at that point in his life, his choice must have been shocking indeed to keep his sisters from leaping at the chance to hand him over to any bride who would willingly take him. An unmarried gentleman by the age of thirty was an embarrassment at best and a burden at worst—and those rules had been even stricter a century ago, like all of our other old ingrained prejudices. Who could have been so unsuitable a match that he couldn’t even risk revealing her identity to his desperate relations by then? A stablegirl? An already-married woman?

  Perhaps, if she had lived close by, that might explain...

  Oh, never mind. My tired brain wandered only too easily down roads of distraction, but this wasn’t the information I’d come searching for. Any gossipy side-paths down family history would have to wait for another night, when I could happily hand these journals over to my historian brother and enjoy a night of cozy speculation over glasses of sparkling elven wine. Perhaps Wrexham would even be able to join us, by then.

  In the meantime...

  I flipped through another dozen or so pages of detailed garden updates, heaved a final sigh, and closed the volume. The candle in my lantern was starting to gutter. My gown desperately needed a change before supper, and I had no idea how much time I had left to prepare. My hair was undoubtedly covered in dust. If I wanted to maintain any semblance of control over the meal, despite Annabel and Lady Cosgrave’s finest conversational machinations...

  The trapdoor popped open unexpectedly behind me, and I jolted hard at the sound, dropping the journal that I’d held to the dusty floor. As I scrambled around, a familiar, tousled brown head appeared through the opening. Jonathan pulled himself up into the attic a moment later, dressed in evening finery.

  “What are you doing here?” Sighing, I gathered up our ancestor’s journals once more. “Am I late for supper? Or—”

  “Supper started half an hour ago,” said my brother, “and apparently, Miss Fennell was hunting for you all over the house beforehand, but we have a more urgent problem at the moment.” For once, there was no easy smile of reassurance on his face; a sigh of his own sent his broad shoulders sagging. “Amy sent me to find you as quickly as possible,” he said. “Annabel Renwick is missing.”

  12

  I didn’t juggle everything after all. I grabbed the lantern, shoved the journals at Jonathan, and then lunged down the ladder with no care at all for the hem of my gown.

  Annabel Renwick is missing.

  “It makes no sense!” I snarled as I started for the staircase.

  She was the one who had summoned that fey in the first place; I was certain of it. Who else would have had the sheer malice to wish it—or spent enough time on this estate to learn the local lore and think to make such a bargain in the first place? She was the only one who’d lived with us, filling Harwood House with her shadowy poison. She was the only one who hated me personally enough to risk her political standing, her social reputation, and even her freedom by summoning a fey to attack my school and ruin everything for me.

  “Why would it attack her? That could break the entire bargain!”

  “What bargain?” Jonathan demanded, long legs catching up with me. “What are you talking about?”

  My older brother generally gave off an impression of easygoing charm no matter what the circumstances, but lines of tension marked his face now as he cradled our ancestor’s journals in his arms. Exhaustion showed, too, in the dark shadows that spread beneath his blue eyes—marks of the sleep I knew he’d lost since his daughter’s birth. The last thing he needed was to be drawn into yet another of my crises now...but I couldn’t send him away now.

  At any moment, I would face the wrath of Annabel’s fellow inspectors. I had to arm myself with as much information as possible beforehand.

  “Who discovered she was missing?” I asked, ignoring his question.

  “She never came to supper. Of course, neither did you,” Jonathan added with a wry glance, “but in your case, we all knew you must have got wrapped up in one of your projects, as usual, and not even noticed the passing of time.”

  “Hmmph.” That...might not be entirely inaccurate, but it still made me sound too much like young Luton for my liking. I started down the stairs, moving quickly. “And then?”

  “Well, no one would ever imagine that of our dear Annabel,” said Jonathan with heavy irony, “as the only books she’d ever find that absorbing would be other people’s private papers. Speaking of which, aren’t these old Romulus’s journals? He was meant to move into Thornfell himself, you know, if he hadn’t caught that influenza that killed him only days beforehand.”

  “That is hardly—” I began.

  But my brother had always been too easily distracted by history. “I thought I was the only one who’d ever bother to read these. What were you looking for, exactly? Clues to his mysterious, forbidden romance? Because I can tell you, I’ve read every single volume from cover to cover, and he never slipped up once when it came to keeping her secret. Up through the very last page, it’s all meticulous observations about the plants and enigmatic sighing about how they could never truly be together.”

  “Never mind all of that!” I swung around the first curve in the wide staircase, the lantern dangling from my hand. “What happened to Annabel?”

  “Ah. Well, Amy went to look for her when Lady Cosgrave started fussing.”

  Of course. Amy would have planned to manage that battle in private whilst delegating Jonathan to charm and distract the rest of the company. As a partnership, they’d often worked wonders in that fash
ion. In fact, if only the Boudiccate weren’t too hidebound to admit it, my brother would have made an excellent husband for any politician. He didn’t need any spell-cast magic to support Amy perfectly in all of her aims.

  “When she came back, she told everyone else that Annabel was lying down with a sick headache and wished us to eat without her...but she whispered to me to come and find you without delay.” Jonathan’s voice was grim. “Apparently, Annabel wasn’t anywhere to be found, but her bedroom was an utter shambles. Amy said it looked as if the woods had come inside.”

  Damnation! Blowing out the lantern, I lifted my skirts and broke into a run, dread pounding an inexorable beat in my ears.

  No, no, please, no—

  I flung open the door to Annabel’s room.

  The windows had been wrenched wide open. One hung half-detached, swinging in the evening breeze. Marks and dents had been punched into their wooden frame and into the wall below.

  The bedcovers were tangled into a knotted mess. Perhaps Annabel had been lying down with a headache before supper after all. It was difficult to imagine her truly at rest—impossible to even conceive of her being vulnerable—but horribly familiar green leaves lay scattered across her bed, marked with unmistakable spots of blood.

  The sight knocked every certainty out of my chest and left it hollow. I stood gaping, my fingers numb against the door handle.

  How could this have happened?

  Air hissed through Jonathan’s teeth and ruffled the top of my head. “What the devil—?”

  “We need Miss Birch. Now.” I lurched inside to tug hard on the bell pull. “But don’t let anyone else inside. I mean it!” As footsteps sounded on the staircase nearby, I pushed my brother’s big body back and shut the door firmly between us. His sigh sounded through the wood, but a moment later, he addressed whoever was coming up the stairs in a perfectly cheerful whisper. “Just standing guard for Mrs. Renwick’s nap! If you wouldn’t mind keeping your voices down as you pass...”