by Bec McMaster
"No, we won't." Sebastian took her arm. It wasn't painful, but it was very firm, and she noticed that he made sure his gloves settled over the silk of her gown. Two layers of fabric between them. "You don't want to cross my mother, and I cannot protect you from her." He let out a harsh breath. "I cannot protect you from me. I shouldn't be here. I'm sorry, Miss Sinclair. I should never have come to see what you were like."
"You can call me Cleo, you know?"
"I don't think that very wise at all." This was the voice she'd recognized earlier in the foyer. A firm, cold voice that had made its mind up and wouldn't be swayed. "Good-bye. I shall see you on the day we marry, and then rarely after that." And then he turned and walked away, his steps deliberately loud.
Cleo faced in his direction, her fists clenched. "I am going to teach you to smile, Bastian. And I am going to make you laugh and steal kisses and... and tell me your secrets. All of them! I will not let my father dictate the rest of my life. I will not let him take everything else away from me." Her hands lifted to the blindfold and swiftly untied it. Silk slithered down her face, but she shut her eyes, almost blinded by the light streaming through her thin eyelids.
That was where she paused. Her heart thundered through her veins. She couldn't hear him anymore. Only her racing heart.
Doubt flooded through her. What if this Sebastian truly didn't want her? He was a stranger, after all, and had declared his intent to maintain a marriage of minimal contact. What if she removed the blindfold and lost her Vision? Her father would not want her then: she would have no value to him, and perhaps then Sebastian's mother would not want them to marry either? His mother might desire this purely for the alliance, but she had to be greedy for the wealth of knowledge Cleo could give her.
There was no sound. She stood alone. Like always.
Cleo slowly tied her blindfold back in place.
The moment she did Vision locked hold of her, stretching her up tight onto her toes and arching her back. She had the vague sensation that she'd grabbed hold of something to stop herself from falling, but then heat seared her veins, and she was lost to the world.
Then, just as suddenly as it had come, it was gone again. Cleo found herself on her bruised knees, breathing heavily, her heart racing as fast as the horses at Epcot. Every part of her was warm and flushed, as if she could still feel the imprint of his skin on hers. She'd never been a part of a vision before, always she'd been a silent bystander, trying to interpret what she saw. But that... Cleo swallowed. That vision was very easy to interpret.
It also seemed that Mrs. Pendlebury had been right in all matters.
Well, now... Her mouth curled in a shaky smile. She still wasn't certain she could stand. "Try and run, Bastian," she whispered. "I think it quite inevitable that we meet again."
CHAPTER 11
C LEO COCKED her head and listened, before locking the door to her room. Her father was out on business, and she had overheard enough of his afternoon meetings to know that he was up to something. There had been mutterings about some form of relic, and she'd heard him pacing his study, chanting something under his breath. It wasn't in her realm of study, but she'd heard the words once, and spent the afternoon meditating until she could unearth the memory.
He was trying to perfect a ritual chant that would summon a demon.
Cleo knew the laws. She also knew her father. She had never thought him a bad man—a bitter one, perhaps, who had found himself exiled to this estate outside of London for the whole of her life—but this... this unnerved her. A demon was a dangerous creature to toy with, a supernatural creature from another plane who could be contained for information or some service, and yet often managed to trick their way out of such protective measures. Every story that she'd ever heard about demons had ended badly.
She had vowed to help Sebastian somehow, and yet now she was facing another decision that made her stomach twist itself in knots.
For years she'd wondered what could destroy an entire city in her London's Doom vision. She'd never been able to answer it before, but now... A demon, unleashed, could destroy London. It could do it in a heartbeat.
She had to stop her father, but going to him wasn't the answer. Indeed, she'd decided that even mentioning that she'd met Sebastian would not be a very good idea either. Thus, she had to take care of matters herself.
The advantage to being blind, wearing white lace, and looking like a doll was that people thought you were stupid, or helpless. Her father thought her nothing more than his puppet. He said things when she was nearby, as if he thought she wouldn't understand them and certainly couldn't act upon them. He had taught her how to harness her will, but never allowed her to learn areas outside her talent of divination. Cleo had been a very good student. She had spent many, many hours practicing her foretelling and predictions.
Taking out a set of crystals that she used to help clear her mind, she crossed her legs and sat on the floor beside her bed with her back propped against it, just in case a vision hit her. Once her mind was clear and open to probability, she started whispering names of people who might be able to help her.
She went through a whole list of names she knew, and none of them seemed to spark any potential prediction, or if it did, then it wasn't a very helpful one. Some of the images that hit her were downright bloody, so she discarded them immediately.
Finally she said the one name she'd been avoiding. "My father."
That name obliterated her in darkness and the sound of screams. She shook off the premonition with a hard swallow. Telling her father she knew anything was not going to end well.
Cleo bit her lip. Who was powerful enough to deal with Sebastian, her father, and this shadowy mother Sebastian spoke of? Who was powerful enough to deal with a demon?
The Prime.
It was a dangerous thought. The Prime had betrayed her father once. His name wasn't even allowed to be spoken of within these walls. Her father hated him, but there was a little tingle along her skin, as if she had made a right choice.
"The Prime," Cleo whispered, and let her mind open to possibility.
Vision clamped down hard on her and her body went rigid.
A man turned to his lover—the woman whose eyes Cleo was looking out of—grief etched on his face. “Is there no other way?” he whispered.
“If you see them, you'll set into motion a chain of events which will only end in disaster,” Cleo found herself saying, only it wasn't her voice.
Then she was looking at a man who stared in the mirror. She couldn't see his face, only his back and the finely tailored fit of his coat, but his reflection was far older than he was. Wings of gray gleamed at his temples in the reflection, and there were faint lines around those mercurial eyes; eyes that seemed to look right at her, as if the reflection saw her standing over his shoulder. The young man reached out and touched the mirror and it exploded, shattering his older reflection.
Vision flashed, again and again and again. She saw the same older man divided into three, and each of the pieces were pulling in different directions. Then he was standing in a room, and a shadow slipped up behind him and stabbed him in the back. Blood splashed across her sight, and when it dripped away, there were three gleaming relics sitting around a pentagram that had been carved within a circle. Over a dozen robed figures knelt around it, chanting, and the older man was tied within the circle and bound to the floor with his bloody ribs spread open in supplication.
The vision shifted, becoming something she knew far too well: her recurring nightmare. Cleo saw what she had called London's Doom, only this time she wasn't dreaming. It began with its usual sense of dread, with clouds boiling over London and people screaming as they fled. Lightning flickered within the darkness, building up to something...something that shouldn't be unleashed, something that would destroy the entire city. Cleo stood alone in the city streets, helpless to do anything as the darkness approached. Houses were smashed by wind, and bodies crushed all about her.
She w
as in the vision, like she always was, and she couldn't escape.
"No," Cleo whispered, though the word disappeared into the winds that were whipping past her as the cloud rolled inexorably toward her. She'd never seen the end of this nightmare. She didn't want to. It was always the same. Always terrifying and merciless, sucking the hope out of the world.
"Stop it, Cleo!" she told herself, unable to turn away. "Wake yourself out of it."
The edges of the vision began to grow hazy, as if her physical body were snapping out of her meditation. And then something caught her eye, something that was different.
This time, there was a tiny spark of golden light floating upward in the air, as if it were standing up against the darkness. It was so small, it should have meant nothing, yet it seemed like the darkness couldn't swallow it whole.
When she woke out of her meditation, it was with a gasp. She was no more aware of what any of it meant, but at least she wasn't screaming.
Cleo spent long minutes with her knees huddled up against her chest and sweat dripping down her face. She felt like she'd run for miles, her entire body wrung out in exhaustion.
What was she going to do? She hadn't missed the signs. This was it. Sebastian had something to do with her most vivid nightmare. So did the Prime and her father. It was finally here, and she didn't want it to be.
Just because you don't want it, doesn't mean it's not going to happen. Do something about it.
But what? I'm just a young woman trapped in my dollhouse.
Cleo curled her fingernails into her palms. She hadn't been given this vision for no reason. She alone knew it was coming; she alone could help stop it. That was the price of knowing the future.
Dragging herself to her feet, Cleo spent long minutes pacing. What was she going to do? It wasn't as if contacting the Prime would set this disaster in motion. She was vividly aware that the storm clouds were building on the horizon regardless and she was the only one who could sense it coming.
Denying it wasn't going to help.
Pacing in her room wasn't going to help.
And there had been that one golden spark standing up to the impending doom. That was a good sign, and the first time she'd ever seen some sort of answer to impending disaster. Was that spark herself? Or did it mean that if she contacted the Prime, she somehow set a new player into the game who represented the spark? She wasn't certain, but it gave her some small hope.
The Prime was her answer. Clearing away her crystals, she found her way to her bed and knelt to withdraw her letter writing set from beneath it. Most of the time, she dictated her correspondence to Mrs. Pendlebury, but it had occurred to her, at the age of thirteen, that there would come a time in her life where she might not wish to rely on others seeing what she had to write. And so, using a ruler to keep her letters straight and a small device that held it pressed flat over her sheet of paper, she had taught herself how to carefully feel out letters. One of the maids, Ellie, was literate, and for a few pounds slipped into her pocket, she had become Cleo's eyes. It wasn't perfectly legible, but Ellie had always been able to make sense of what she wrote.
Cleo thought about what she wanted to say for a long time. Then she set her pen to her paper and set about crafting a note that she would pay Ellie to give to her younger brother, who would deliver it.
CHAPTER 12
'T hou shalt not suffer a sorcerer to live...'
- GRANT MARTIN, Head of the Anti-Sorcery Vigilance Committee
THERE WAS NO sign of Morgana at the Windsor Hotel, not that Ianthe had expected it. No, she'd have moved on as soon as they took Louisa. After all, one could hardly hide a kidnapped child in a public venue without someone commenting.
Sorcerer's appetites being what they were, they stayed at the Windsor to dine for a late luncheon. She had to force herself to be practical. In the first four days after Louisa went missing, she'd barely eaten and her weight had stripped from her figure dramatically, until she'd almost fainted. A weakened sorcerer was no match for the Prime's ex-wife.
So Ianthe put away a white soup, two beefsteaks—much to the waiter's surprise—and a crème brûlée. It all tasted like ash in her mouth, but she forced it down as a means to an end. Lucien managed the soup and a mouthful of her dessert before pushing it aside.
"Not hungry?" she asked, watching him carefully.
"Not used to rich food."
The tired circles under his eyes were slowly vanishing, but the hollow slash beneath his cheekbones indicated his straitened circumstances for the past few months. At least he'd managed to eat more than previously. That had to be a good sign. "Well, why don't we go find out what Morgana might have wanted with Lord Rathbourne’s grimoire? That should be a pleasant diversion."
"You never met the man, did you?" Lucien actually smiled, though it held a touch of bitterness. "I'm not surprised to find he had some connection to Morgana. I just wish this connection didn't involve me."
"Do you have any idea what it might be?"
A fragile sense of tension ran through him, his shoulders hunched slightly, as he stepped out into the street. "No. No idea."
It bothered him more than he'd admit, she suspected. Ianthe glanced sidelong at him from beneath her lashes. "Well, let us go and find out. Lay at least one ghost to rest."
"Let's."
Perhaps it was her distraction with him, or perhaps too little sleep, stretched over too many nights, but Ianthe was halfway across the street before an ebony lacquered carriage caught her eye. The breath went out of her when she saw the gold sigil on the door, and she jerked to a sudden stop as it disbursed its occupants. A man stepped out, tall and lean and dressed in impeccable tweed, then reached up to hand down a thin young woman in pale pastel blue. Ianthe barely saw the woman. All she saw was the man—barely touched with age, curse him, his stride long, his dark wavy hair neatly pomaded, and that stern mouth still a hyphen, as if nothing about the world pleased him... and never would.
Lucien walked into her, catching her by the upper arms. "What are you doing?"
Some distant part of her mind kept working, even when her body was frozen in shock and fear. She'd heard that he'd taken a second wife. Poor woman.
"N-nothing." Ianthe turned away, blindly heading in the opposite direction. Anywhere. She didn't care. Just not here.
Lucien's footsteps hounded her. "Someone you know?"
No. Not really. Not ever, in fact. "Did you not recognize the crest on the carriage?"
His brows drew together. "Ad servium veritatum?"
"To serve the truth," she translated. "It's the crest for the Vigilance Against Sorcery Committee."
Recognition dawned in those amber eyes. "Your father."
"In the flesh. I'm sorry. It took me by surprise. I wasn't expecting to see him."
Lucien caught her hand, his eyes searching. "Ianthe—"
"It's all right. I don't think he saw me." The words spilled out, fast and hard.
"Ianthe, your heart is pounding. My heart is pounding. I feel like it's going to thump its way right out of my chest."
The bond. They stared at each other.
Lucien gently turned her toward a small park. "Come and sit down. You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Well, it's a fairly accurate summation." Only one man haunted her like this. She'd thought she'd escaped that vengeful specter, but just one glimpse of her father had sent her fleeing into memories. Ianthe felt like a young girl again. It had taken all of her courage to confront him years ago, and weeks of preparation. Afterward, her sense of elation had been vivid. She'd felt powerful for the first time in all of their encounters, but walking into him so unexpectedly revealed the truth.
Grant Martin would always hold the power between them.
Somehow.
Lucien guided her to a seat beside a small fountain. Ianthe dragged her cape jacket tighter around her. Of all the people to run into today. Here. Now. With Lucien by her side. She didn't want him to see her like this.
"We should be on our way," Ianthe said, noting the curious look he sent her. "We need to find Lord Rathbourne's grimoire and work out what Horroway meant."
A hand on her shoulder stopped her. Lucien looked stern. "I think we have time to catch our breath." Dragging off his coat, he settled it over her shoulders and knelt in front of her. The warmth of his body heat was instantly reassuring. "Tell me about your father."
"You should already know him."
"I think every sorcerer in the Order knows your father. The man is what I imagine a demon made flesh would be like."
As head of the Anti-Sorcery Committee, Sir Grant Martin had made it his duty to drive them from the city. If not for their loyalty to the Queen, and the fact that Drake had singlehandedly saved the Queen from a demon attack in his youth, her father might have made headway into seeing them cast out of the staunchly religious country. Occultism, however, was at a fever pitch. The Queen herself had once had her fortune predicted by a diviner.
"Why does your father hate you so much? Has he always held such an opinion?"
Ianthe looked away. Hate. The truth was an arrow straight to the heart; she didn't even know why it bothered her. Whenever she thought of Grant Martin, all she felt was anger and disappointment. So why did something within her desperately long for his approval still? "We all have that first time where our sorcery expresses itself for whatever reason. Mine was... it was shadow constructs. My mother had died when I was four, and my father believed that sparing the rod spoils the child. He used to lock me away in the attic for days on end, with only a tray shoved through the door for company, whenever I made some sort of transgression against his never-ending rules.
"I was lonely and afraid of the dark, but my governess used to leave me with a candle to stay the darkness. And one night, I made the shadows dance. They became my friends. The only ones I had for such a long time."
Lucien's head lowered toward hers, his hand resting on her shoulder. This gentleness of his confused her. "And he found out?"
