“Any further behind, she means,” muttered a low voice behind me. I didn’t recognize the speaker—but then, it hardly mattered. Whoever she was, she could only be saying what everyone else thought by that point.
If I didn’t want my new students to lose all faith in me and my curriculum, I had to focus on making our next few hours of lessons as challenging and satisfactory as possible...
But all that I could see before me as I strode up the graveled pathway toward my family’s ancestral home was that poisonously familiar hint of deep, dark green that I’d glimpsed on Mr. Luton’s cottage, just where it looked out onto the woods full of fey magic...
And I knew I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on any other problem, no matter how vital, until I found a way to inspect it for myself.
9
By the time my final morning session ended, I was ready to burst from my skin with impatience. I’d always known it would be a significant challenge to take on all the teaching at my own school apart from weather wizardry. At the Great Library, each lecturer had sole responsibility for only one or two classes per term; here, I was doing the work of at least three people, as no other magician would anger the Great Library by accepting a teaching post here.
Still, I’d never anticipated how it would feel to know there was a creeping menace encroaching on my property without being able to excuse myself and let anyone else take charge for the space of a single lesson.
It would have helped, of course, if my own solitary staff member had been available to assist me...but the more time that passed, the more that a new, piercing worry grew at the back of my mind, like thorny vines unfurling and stretching themselves luxuriantly.
Young Luton was more than stubborn enough not to answer his door when he was absorbed in a magical challenge; I’d experienced that scenario myself when I’d been forced to interrupt him in the midst of last winter’s house party. But still...
What if he hadn’t been immersed in work and stubbornly refusing to emerge for his lesson?
What if, instead, he hadn’t been able to?
“You’ll find a delicious luncheon from Miss Birch in the dining room,” I said at the end of the morning’s final lesson, “and I’ll see you all at one o’clock.”
There! Without waiting for any of the many questions sure to follow from our final exercise, I brushed off my hands and headed swiftly for the door.
“Miss Harwood?”
“Miss Harwood!”
“Aren’t you joining us for our meal, Cassandra?” asked Lady Cosgrave.
“Not today.” I forced a tight smile for the class’s sake as I threw the door open. “But I do hope you’ll all enjoy it!”
I whisked my way through the next room, walking quickly, until I was well out of sight...and then I ran.
I should never have let myself wait so long.
As I hurried through Thornfell’s small back door, I peered past the gardens toward Luton’s cottage and the vast woods beyond—and let out a heartfelt curse. Wicked green, leafy tendrils curled around both sides of the cottage now.
I couldn’t see the thorns from here. But I knew they must be there, waiting. I’d seen those vines far too many times in my dreams not to recognize them in reality.
Heedless of any potential observers, I picked up my skirts and tore through the garden pathways like the wild, irrepressible girl I’d once been.
Too late, too late... The words drummed in my ears.
I rounded the final hedge and leapt onto the graveled pathway that circled around Luton’s staff cottage, ignoring the closed front door and curtained windows that faced me. Sharp stones bit through the thin soles of my ornamental silk slippers, which had already been worn thin by my unexpected hike earlier.
I thudded to a halt just past the cottage, panting.
Those vines were everywhere!
A slithering, thorn-studded, leafy chain had stretched from the woods beyond, bypassing all of the tall trees around it to reach purposefully for the cottage, where it split into a mass of writhing green vines. They’d already wrapped themselves around the facing wall and over the glass windows, too, blocking them in entirely.
They were exactly the type of vines that had swarmed around me, smothering me in my dreams every night for the past week and a half...and before my eyes now, they rustled harder, bunching together at the edges and then suddenly shooting forward, stretching themselves even further along the sides of the house and anchoring themselves at each new step with their sharp, predatory green thorns.
A convulsive shudder wracked my body. I remembered exactly how those thorns had felt in my dreams, piercing my skin as I’d struggled in vain to break free.
Then, last night, piercing Wrexham’s throat before my eyes...
I couldn’t let my thoughts rest on that image. Not now. I had a different gentleman to save.
Tearing myself free from my paralysis, I hastened back around the cottage before it could be surrounded completely.
The front door was locked. Curse it! We were in the middle of nowhere, as Luton had pointed out only yesterday. What burglars did he imagine might threaten his precious belongings?
“Luton!” I bellowed as I banged on the door. “Answer me, damn it! Now!”
“Is there a problem, Miss Harwood?” Mr. Westgate called out behind me.
I tipped my head against the wooden door for one brief but intense moment of anguish. Then I straightened and braced my shoulders. “Yes,” I said, “there is.”
I would do nearly anything to protect my fragile new school...but I would not sacrifice anyone else to my dreams.
...Or to my nightmares, at the present moment.
I stepped back, gesturing toward the closest wall of the cottage as Westgate crossed the final pathway from the gardens. He was moving at a brisk walk—but he came to a halt, eyebrows flying upward, as the leafy vines rustled and shot once more across the stones, gaining themselves another half a foot of territory.
“A radical new form of gardening, Miss Harwood?” he asked drily.
“Ha.” I wouldn’t let myself be baited. Not now. “Would you open this door for me, please? Mr. Luton still isn’t answering, and I’d like to know for certain if he’s in there.”
“I did think that earlier story unlikely.” Westgate gave a harrumph of amusement. “The idea of any mage voluntarily inviting Gregory Luton to lord it over them yet again...” Shaking his head, he closed his eyes...and then stepped back. “Unfortunately, I’ll need another day or two before I can summon even the smallest of spells. We’ll need to do this the old-fashioned way.”
“The—?”
He lunged forward, shoulder-first, and slammed into the wooden door. It shuddered in its frame.
“Ah,” I said. “That old-fashioned way.”
It took only four hard blows to make the wood splinter—which meant that clearly, the staff cottage needed far more thorough a refurbishing than I’d realized. I would solve that problem later. For now, I reached through the ragged hole, ignoring the sharp shards of wood that scraped at my arm like claws, and I turned the inner lock myself.
“Luton!” I shouted. “We’re coming in!”
No response greeted me. All I heard, when I strained, was the sound of rustling from the ivy several feet away.
Oh, Boudicca. I had killed him! When I’d turned away earlier rather than investigating; when I’d continued to teach my classes instead of tossing everything aside to save him...
“Well, Miss Harwood?” Westgate said. “Are we entering? Or did I bruise my shoulder purely for your entertainment? I’m not as young as I once was, you know.”
I yanked my arm free and pushed the door wide open. “Of course,” I said through numb lips. “We must find him, no matter what it takes.”
...And then we’d have to inform his aunt, the Boudiccate’s inspectors, and my students that I had failed to keep anyone on this estate safe after all.
At least there wasn’t too much space to search
. I took in the ground floor—parlor, garderobe, and kitchen—in six hasty strides, while Mr. Westgate’s steady footsteps sounded on the stairs. Apart from the sheer number of books, papers, and half-drunk cups of tea that had accumulated atop the carpets during young Luton’s single day of residence, there was nothing remarkable to be seen.
“No sign of him here,” Westgate called down the stairs, “but his clothes and suitcases are still in his room.”
“And his books and notes are down here,” I called back.
It was the detail I needed to wrest my mind back into working order, despite the panic shrieking in my ears. If I thought of this not as the downfall of my school and a moment of shame that would haunt me forever, but simply as a challenging puzzle to be solved...
Think, Harwood. It was Wrexham’s voice that I imagined, steadying me as always.
What did I actually know? Luton’s clothes and books were here—so he hadn’t simply marched away from Thornfell in a huff, seething over my inadequate attention to his ‘requirements.’ That would have been bad enough, given our ongoing Boudiccate inspection. But any other possibility...
Rustling sounded outside the window, and my spine tightened, ribs squeezing reflexively inward as if I were trapped in my dreams once more, being inexorably compressed. How much time did we have before those vines stretched themselves across the door? With neither Westgate nor I capable of casting spells at the moment, I didn’t savor the idea of wrestling sharp thorns bare-handed.
That being said...
I gave a second, sharper look around the parlor where I stood. There were no footprints on the scattered papers, and none of the tea cups had been spilled—which was a genuine accomplishment, considering how many were scattered so close about the floor.
The clear window in this room faced up toward Thornfell, a perfectly comforting sight; I set my jaw and hurried back into the kitchen that faced the far more forbidding woods. Its murky light made me feel slightly ill as the rustling vines wrapped around and around the glass, like smothering serpents pressing against it...
But not one of them had managed yet to reach inside. The window was still safely shut and latched.
Footsteps sounded on the staircase behind me. Still frowning at those vine-covered windows, I asked, “Did you see any signs of a struggle upstairs?”
“None.” Westgate stepped into the kitchen with me. “And the windows are all fully closed.”
I turned around, my gaze sweeping the floor one more time. “So he hasn’t been kidnapped from this house.” I might roll my eyes at Luton’s oft-repeated estimation of his own abilities, but even the weakest graduate of the Great Library must still have left visible signs of self-defense in the wake of any such attack.
Moreover, those vines, ominous though they appeared, certainly weren’t doing anything to attack us at the moment. I didn’t see how they could, without any gaps to wriggle through...
...Except, of course, for the splintered front door that Westgate and I had left hanging wide open.
Damnation! I snatched up a sharp knife from the sideboard and strode for the door without a second thought. “We need to get out. Quickly.”
“Hmm,” said Westgate, and followed me.
Vines rustled at both sides of the doorway now, weaving back and forth at the edges like hunting dogs nosing for a scent. The unnatural sense of awareness in those movements sent dread shooting down my spine. Against my will, I rocked to a halt a full foot away as dark memories came screaming back, my breath choking in my throat.
Every night, over and over again...
It was broad daylight, and I stood on Harwood land, responsible for everyone I’d brought here. Firming my grip on the wooden handle of the knife, I forced breath through my chest and stepped directly between those questing thorns.
“Miss Harwood!” Westgate barked a warning just as vines shot toward me from both directions.
I threw myself forward, cold sweat drenching my skin...
...And landed hard on the gravel path beyond the house, my slippers skidding across the tiny stones. Clutching my knife, I spun around—and let out a half-laugh of disbelief. The attacking vines had collided behind me. Thorns spiked into each other’s green flesh as they tangled and struggled to rip themselves free.
Mr. Westgate ducked swiftly underneath the writhing green knot, one hand shielding his grizzled head, and emerged unscathed with a silver pocketknife revealed between his dark fingers. He slipped it back into his waistcoat as he joined me, turning to study the writhing mass from a safe distance.
“So,” he said. “They’re instinctive, but not intelligent.”
I frowned, following his gaze. The vines flailed violently against each other, tangling more and more with every movement.
“Oh,” I breathed, “I do see. They can’t communicate with each other.” If they could, they would have freed themselves already, working together. Instead, they continued to attack each other every bit as aggressively—and automatically—as they’d aimed themselves at me when I’d stepped between them.
“And yet, they all came here at once—quite purposefully.” Westgate’s gaze shifted to the trees that loomed beyond the cottage, the woods from which that original cord of vines had come. “Unless this sort of visitation is a regular occurrence on your family’s estate?”
I let out an impatient huff of air. “Do you think I’d have settled a staff member here if that was the case?”
“Hmm.” His tone made my back teeth grind together.
Perhaps, in his eyes, I did seem capable of even that degree of irresponsibility in service to my own selfish whims. But—for better or for worse—he was the only trained magician within reach, and I had a missing staff member to recover. I hadn’t the privilege of stalking off in offense.
“We must find Luton before anything else,” I said evenly, my fingernails biting into my palms. “Even if he’s only wandered off on his own, we can’t leave him to be attacked by those things once he returns.”
“Yes,” said Westgate, “I have quite a few questions I’d like to ask young Luton. I’d particularly like to know what, exactly, he has been doing in this cottage, to bring about this unexpected visit from the local wildlife.”
“Ah.” I winced. Of course that would be Westgate’s natural first assumption—but it was time, undeniably, to reveal what Miss Banks and Miss Fennell had discovered in the library last night, no matter what dangers that revelation might bring to my school. “I’m not certain it was Luton’s fault, actually. I—”
“Miss Harwood!” Westgate expelled a heavy sigh of exasperation as he turned away from the ivy-wrapped cottage. “I can see that you are loyal to your staff members, no matter how rash your hiring decisions may have been. That loyalty does you credit, I admit. But right now, I have only one question for you to answer: did you take any time to study Luton’s notes when you came across them in that cottage?”
He shook his head even as I opened my mouth to respond. “You did say you had spotted them in the parlor, didn’t you?”
“They were scattered underfoot,” I said impatiently. “I didn’t take the time to read them, but—”
“Then,” said Mr. Westgate, “the next step is to find our way back inside to examine them, without being trapped there afterward. Unfortunately, I can’t cast any spells myself to ease our passage, so I’ll be off now to summon one of my officers of magic rather than wasting any time on pointless debate, if you please. Keep your young ladies away from Luton’s mess while I’m gone, and I’ll see to the rest, as usual.”
“Mr. Westgate.” I forced my voice under control. “If you’ll only take a moment to listen—”
He let out a brusque half-laugh. “Like every other member of your family, you’ve always believed that your own opinions take priority in all circumstances. But I work for the nation, not for you, Miss Harwood—and as we both know, I’ve a great deal more experience with this sort of magical crisis than you. So, if you’ll excuse me�
��”
“No,” I snapped, “I will not! I am trying to tell you—”
But he was already jogging away in long, ground-eating lopes. I couldn’t possibly catch up, and if I let out the scream of fury that was boiling up my throat right now, he would take it as proof of everything he’d ever said about me.
I grabbed my hair with both hands and yanked hard to relieve my feelings, dislodging half a dozen pins in the process. The sharp pain hurt, but it also cleared my senses.
With my chignon hopelessly unraveling around my shoulders, I spun around and strode for the house, skirts swishing purposefully around my legs.
It was time to rewrite this afternoon’s lesson plans.
10
I could see increased wariness in many of my students’ eyes when they assembled once again after lunch. Whatever poison Annabel had been dripping into all of their ears during the meal had apparently had an effect.
“Ladies!” Ignoring the tension in the room, I clapped my hands briskly together. The last of my students, Miss Stewart, stepped into the parlor, followed by the Boudiccate’s beautifully-attired trio of politicians. Westgate, of course, was nowhere to be seen; he’d driven one of my sister-in-law’s gigs to the nearest estate owned by another magician, some six and a half miles from Harwood House. He wouldn’t be back for at least another hour.
I, however, had magicians right here in front of me. Westgate might not think them worth training, but I knew exactly how much potential every young woman in this room carried. All they needed was direction.
“For our next lesson,” I said, “we shall take on a practical challenge, rather than any theoretical work. Please note, though, that this will involve working together at every step. Not one of you has yet developed the strength to work this spell alone.” I swept the room with a gimlet gaze worthy of my own mother at her most severe. “This is not a moment to attempt to prove your skills by leaping ahead of the rest of the class. When it comes to magic, you must build your strength gradually, as you would any other muscle, or risk breaking it irreparably.”
Thornbound: Volume II of The Harwood Spellbook Page 9
