Royals of Villain Academy 7: Grim Witchery

by Eva Chase

  Either she’d be home, in which case maybe I’d be able to catch her in the middle of one of the schemes she’d been avoiding telling me about… or she wouldn’t be, and I’d have a little time to poke around in her rooms while she was off on her important business. One way or another, I could hope to get something useful out of this furtive visit.

  The front door to the house opened at my command too, all the locks keyed to the Bloodstone family. Eloise stepped into the front hall at the creak of the hinges. She blinked at me.

  “Miss Bloodstone—I didn’t realize you were coming by. I can let your mother know—”

  So the baron was here. I shook my head quickly to cut her off. “There’s no need to disturb her. I just needed to grab a couple things. She’s upstairs?”

  “I believe so. She asked that the staff be kept away, but I’m sure that wouldn’t apply to you.”

  Good. Then no one was likely to catch me at my spying. “I think she had some important business to take care of,” I said. “I won’t interrupt unless it looks like she’s finished.”

  I walked up the staircase gingerly, staying close to the polished banister to avoid any further creaking. The curve of the stairs took me out of view of Eloise and any other staff below. I paused in the upstairs hallway, considering the doors. My mother’s bedroom and private bath was to my left, her study at the other end of the house to my right. If she was here for business, she’d probably be in her study, right?

  I padded over with a whisper of my soft-soled shoes against the hardwood, the waxy smell of a recent polishing drifting over me. Outside the study door, I stopped and murmured a quick spell to test what magic was already cast on the room.

  It had a security spell in place—a strong one that would have taken me several minutes to untangle. I’d have risked that if my mother hadn’t been home to potentially catch me. I didn’t sense any other magic on the space, though: no silencing spell or anything like that. Despite that, no sound seeped through the door. If she was working in there, it was very quiet work.

  I waited a little while, until my skin started to creep with the worry that I’d be noticed. When the study stayed silent, I slipped back down the hall to my mother’s bedroom.

  That door had only a basic security spell on it, the kind you’d put up if you didn’t expect to need it there all that long. My cast-out magic also brushed up against a barrier that I suspected was dampening any noise that might have come from the room.

  Well, I must have found her. Now I just had to figure out what urgent business she was up to without tipping her off that I was listening in.

  I eased away from the door, a few feet farther along the wall. The silencing spell wrapped around the whole room, as far as I could tell, but it was thinner away from the door. Concentrating on the thrum of magic in my chest, I slowly wore away at the barrier with one cautious casting word after another. I didn’t need a large gap. If I worked this right, she’d never realize the spell had been compromised.

  I felt the severing of the spell like a sagging of loosened threads. With another quick word, I urged some of my magic to bring any sounds from within more audibly to my ears. Then I leaned close to the wall, my body braced in case some member of the staff came up the stairs after all—or in case my mother abruptly emerged.

  At first, like with the study, I heard nothing. Then a strange choked sound reached my ear. I frowned and leaned closer. Had that been a particularly incomprehensible casting word?

  The next noise that reached me couldn’t have been anything other than a stuttered breath. Then a hiss that sounded pained, and something that might have been a muffled sob. “Damn it, damn it, damn it,” came a muttering in my mother’s voice, broken by another wrenching sound.

  The hairs on the backs of my arms rose with an eerie chill. Was she crying? The thought was alien after the coolly controlled poise my mother had shown even when she’d just woken up in the blacksuits’ infirmary. My mind had trouble wrapping around that idea.

  What could have gone so wrong that it would bring this woman to tears?

  My gut twisted. I hesitated, wavering on my feet, and then moved back to the door. It didn’t feel right to just stand there listening to her in this state, and I couldn’t walk away. I’d helped Lillian find her and risked my freedom to help her regain hers because I cared what happened to her, even if I didn’t agree with everything she’d done since then. She was still a human being. She was still my mother.

  I knocked on the door. “Mom? Are you there?”

  No response came at first. She wouldn’t know I’d heard her. I had to assume she was composing herself—or maybe she’d pretend not to be there at all?

  The lock clicked over, and my mother opened the door. At a glance, I wouldn’t have known she’d been crying. Through some sorcery, her eyes weren’t at all red or puffy, although they did look overly bright. Her face might be pale, but then, it was usually pretty pale in general. Her hand gripped the edge of the door tightly, and her slender frame was wrapped in a thick bathrobe.

  “Persephone,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  I gestured awkwardly. “I’m sorry. I was just— I came by to grab something from the house, and Eloise mentioned you were here. I thought I’d see if I could pitch in with whatever you’re working on, since I’m here anyway.”

  “Always eager to contribute. I appreciate that. The business concerns are taken care of. You’ll have to excuse my appearance—I just got out of the bath.” She gestured to her robe with a self-deprecating laugh, but I noticed that her shoulders tensed with the movement as if bracing against discomfort. Her jaw tightened when she smiled at me. Was she in some kind of physical pain?

  She’d been imprisoned and drained of her magic for nearly two decades. I’d been surprised before that she didn’t seem to be suffering more lingering effects from that. Maybe she had, and she’d simply hidden them incredibly well.

  I didn’t think she’d appreciate me pointing out the hints I’d seen. I stuck to a more general approach. “It’s good that you’re getting some relaxing in. I don’t know how you can manage to be working so hard after everything you’ve been through. You deserve a little recovery time.”

  “That work has been put on hold for seventeen years,” she said. “Better not to leave it any longer. But there’s nothing wrong with a little indulgence here and there.” She paused and then motioned me in. “I have a new employee coming by in half an hour or so, but we can talk while I get ready. Maybe you can advise me on my wardrobe. I’m realizing I’m about seventeen years behind in fashion respects too.”

  I came in cautiously and sat in a chair by the bed. “I don’t know—from what I’ve seen, the clothes you had are pretty timeless.” My own wardrobe consisted mostly of pieces the staff had picked out for me from her old outfits, since all of my previous clothing had been left behind in California. The sheath dress and thin cardigan I was wearing right now had been hers.

  A wry smile crossed my mother’s lips. “Perhaps you ended up with the best pieces. I won’t begrudge you that.”

  She opened the wardrobe across from the foot of the bed, and her arm wobbled. It looked as if she caught herself, grasping the handle, just shy of losing her balance. I was half out of my chair when she straightened herself stiffly and quickly reached toward the rows of clothes, obviously trying to hide her lapse.

  “I have wondered about pieces like this.” She tugged out a black dress with ruffles along the cuffs of the sleeves and the bottom hem. “It seems a little… much, in the wrong way.”

  I cocked my head, forcing myself to sink back down. “I think if you were looking to get attention, it’d still work. But definitely not regular business-wear these days, from what I’ve seen.”

  “There. The advice can flow both ways in this family.” She hung the dress back up, and a tremor ran through her body again. She managed to lower herself into another chair beside the wardrobe as if she were simply bored of looking through t
he clothes, but my heart squeezed anyway.

  “If you want to take a little more time to rest, there really wasn’t anything I needed to talk to you about,” I said.

  “No, no. I’m just fine.” She drew in a breath, and I thought I made out a whisper of a casting word in it. Something to push back the pain or to otherwise steady herself? Her gaze fixed on me, shifting from fond to sharp in an instant. “One of the most important pieces of my advice you need to remember is that a baron and her scion do not show weakness.”

  I couldn’t quite manage to keep my mouth shut. “I don’t think it’s weakness to be a little tired after a terrible ordeal. You’ve been doing a lot almost from the moment you woke up back here. Maybe… maybe all those plans can happen a little more slowly, as you build up all the energy you lost.” That would give me more time to figure out what they were and whether I should be trying to counter them too, but honestly in that moment I just didn’t want to end up watching my mother collapse from agonized exhaustion.

  She looked away for a moment, and an expression crossed her face that was so forlorn my throat constricted at the sight. “Oh, wouldn’t it have been nice to have more time to really think it all through?” Then her head jerked back to face me, her hands splaying firmly on her lap. “But I’ve had plenty of time. It’s been slow enough. We’re working toward what I’ve wanted for twenty-some years. I won’t get in the way of that.”

  But I might have to. Was it possible she’d come to see that as a good thing in the end? With that stray comment, it’d almost seemed she wasn’t as happy with the direction the barons were taking our community in as I’d expected.

  Even if she had been imagining these developments way back when, that didn’t mean she necessarily liked the outcomes she was seeing as they came to life. How much was she determined to push on, and how much did she simply feel she had to maintain a certain resolve to present a strong front to the other barons?

  “Giving yourself space to breathe while you work through it wouldn’t be getting in the way,” I started, but she stood up abruptly, her expression firming even more.

  “Don’t worry,” she said in a smooth but equally firm voice. “I know what I’m capable of, Persephone. Never doubt that.”

  She browsed through the other outfits in the wardrobe and pulled out a sleek forest-green dress suit without checking for my approval. “Would you look for my emerald earrings in the jewelry box there?” she said, tipping her head toward the vanity beside me. Her tone made it more a command than a question.

  Whatever she’d been going through, it appeared she’d fought it off. I got up to retrieve the earrings, and when I found them and turned back around, she’d already shimmied into the skirt and blouse and was slipping on the jacket. She took the earrings from me with a queenly air and fit them into her lobes without hesitation.

  “Is there anything I can help with while you’re working with this new employee?” I asked, not knowing how I fit in here now. On one hand, this was my home too. On the other, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d dropped in on someone else’s domain without an invitation. I had to try to stay as involved as possible, though.

  My mother gave her head a brisk shake. “It won’t be anything new to you today. I’ll just be bringing her up to speed on baseline expectations. It’s probably good that you’re here to welcome her too, though, as I expect you’ll be seeing a fair bit of her as she assists with various aspects of our family’s business going forward.”

  I guessed it was a good thing that she was taking on more hired help to remove some of the weight from her shoulders, not that I dared make that observation out loud.

  The knocker on the front door rapped, the sound carrying up the stairs. The silencing spell didn’t keep noise out, only in. My mother swiped her hands together and moved to the door. “That should be her now. I’d imagine you need to be getting back to school soon as it is. You can say hello on your way out.”

  Her dismissal couldn’t have been clearer. It might even rankle her that I’d witnessed that rare moment of discomposure. “Of course,” I said, and we headed down together. To my relief, her steps stayed steady the whole way down.

  Eloise was just answering the front door. We reached the bottom of the stairs, and the house manager stepped back to admit… a far too familiar curvy figure, chocolate-brown curls pulled back from her heart-shaped face by a silver clip.

  Maggie Duskland gave us both a cheerful smile, her gaze coming to rest on my mother. “Baron Bloodstone. I’m so glad to be here.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rory

  The woman who let me into the Fortress of the Pentacle didn’t blink at my arrival, so I supposed Declan had given her a heads up that I was coming. I’d texted him to confirm he’d still be there—and that the other barons wouldn’t be—before I’d headed that way from the Bloodstone property. I didn’t actually need to be back at school just yet, and after what I’d seen from my mother this afternoon, I wanted answers I wasn’t sure I could find anywhere else.

  I might have only visited the Fortress once before, but my mother’s tour of the place was burned into my memory. I headed through the chilly halls to the records room.

  The rasp of turned pages met me when I nudged open the door. Declan glanced up where he was leaning against one of the shelving units with a thick volume in his hands—and so did Malcolm, who had a smaller text propped open against a shelf farther down. I didn’t think I’d ever seen the Nightwood scion in any library before, though I guessed from his class performance he must do a fair bit of studying. I’d definitely never seen the delicate reading glasses he currently had perched on the bridge of his nose.

  “I didn’t know you had company,” I said to Declan, shooting a smile at Malcolm to show I wasn’t implying it was a problem.

  The Ashgrave scion gave his friend a teasingly baleful look. “He insisted on coming along. Which is probably a good thing, since as far as I can tell he wouldn’t be able to find anything in here if he couldn’t ask me where to look.”

  “To be fair, I’ve only been here a couple times and you’ve probably spent half your life in this place,” Malcolm retorted with similar good humor. He nudged at his glasses, an unusual awkwardness coloring his typical confidence. They didn’t detract from his divinely good looks at all—if anything, they gave him a charmingly academic air. But obviously he didn’t let people see him wearing them often.

  I tipped my head toward him. “Aren’t there spells to help with sight issues?”

  “There are,” he said with more characteristic assurance. “But the ones that work on my eyes give me a headache, and the ones you put on your reading material make it hard to skim quickly. Naries do on occasion have better solutions to practical problems than magic can come up with.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “You can be sure my parents have no idea I own these.”

  “Well, I’m definitely not complaining about them.” I let my smile stretch into a grin, but my own lightened spirits only lasted briefly. I could ignore the reason I’d come here for a little chitchat, but I couldn’t make it disappear.

  I turned to Declan. “Unfortunately, I’m going to have to call on your guidance here too. If I wanted to look up records of decisions my mother was a part of in the first few years she was baron, before the joymancers took her, where would I find those?”

  He gave me a curious glance as he motioned to the shelf beside him. “The meeting records and the like are right here. The most recent ones before her imprisonment would be…” His fingers slid over the spines. “Here.” He tugged out a thick book like the one he was holding and offered it to me. “What are you looking for in there?”

  “I just…” It was hard to put the feeling that had come over me during my visit with Baron Bloodstone into words. “I talked with her at the house. She seemed a little out of sorts—I think that’s why she called off the more official meeting we were supposed to have. I got the impression that maybe she’s not quite as sure of
the changes the barons are making as she’s acted before. So I’m wondering how much her decisions have been affected by her time in captivity. Whether she pushed for different things in the past, even on a small scale. If I can remind her of those… I don’t know. It’s a long shot. I’d just like to see.”

  “That makes sense. If there’s any chance she’d be open to moderating the direction they’ve been heading, that’d help a lot. Did anything else come up while you were talking with her?”

  I grimaced. “Apparently she’s taking on Maggie Duskland as an assistant.”

  Malcolm’s forehead furrowed. “Isn’t she the one you figured out has been hassling you and trying to set you up as some kind of traitor?”

  “Yep. Lillian’s former assistant.” I sighed and sagged against the opposite shelf, clutching the book Declan had given me. “I’m not sure how exactly that came about. From their conversation before I left, it sounded like she volunteered to act as a go-between with the blacksuits and with whatever else my mother might need, and my mother thought it was a good idea since she’d know more about the business Lillian was already involved with than anyone else.”

  “But it’s probably got at least something to do with getting at you,” Declan said, frowning.

  “I’ve got to think so. She was definitely still part of the anti-Rory brigade even after I tried to hash things out with her. I guess this is a way for her to keep an eye on how I’m interacting with my mother more directly. I’m going to have to be even more careful navigating that. At least my mother doesn’t see her as a definite ally, considering what happened with Lillian. When she walked me out, she said something Maggie didn’t hear about ‘keeping friends close and enemies closer.’”

  “I’ll see if I can find out anything useful on her,” Malcolm volunteered. “You said her family name is Duskland? I don’t think I know any other Dusklands around here… There should be something, though.” He waved the book he was holding in the air. “I’m already digging up everything I can about the families I think are more on the pro-Nary side, to see if I can confirm those impressions before we stick our necks out.”