“Why your family?”
“We are the most powerful members of our society, Miss Howel.” He paused, as if struggling with what to say. “We have been the most blessed, and therefore, we must be the most cursed.” He stepped closer. I could feel a need for understanding coiling off him. “You must realize how seriously I take this war. From the moment my father died, the only duty I had on earth was to destroy these creatures. I neglected my other obligations, Brimthorn included. I have no time for games, or sports, or love. My whole being belongs to this cause,” he said. “Sorcerers should be bent entirely to the task of saving this land, not attending parties and taking carriage rides through the park.” His face twisted in anger. I finally understood his resentment of Magnus. “How much do you know of the rest of the country’s struggles?”
“I know very little.” I racked my brain. “The Ancients have Canterbury?”
“They have held Canterbury for three years. Three years! Manchester and Liverpool are on the verge of collapse as well. Up north, the textile works and the coal mines are attacked on a regular basis, to keep us from having fuel and goods. The workers, many of them children, are slaughtered.” There was real fury in his voice now. “Some sorcerers have gone to aid them, but most of our energy is spent keeping up the ward. We’re not fighting. We’re hiding.
“Yes, we must protect the ones most capable of doing something, but only so long as the strong prove themselves worthy of that protection. And I don’t believe the powerless should be left entirely to their own devices. One of the greatest legacies my father left was the creation of that colony for the Unclean in Brighton. It allows those unfortunate people to live with peace and dignity.
“I wanted you to understand how deeply I care,” he said. “And I wanted you to understand why I won’t address you or bow to you the way the others do. Until you are proved to be a sorcerer, beyond any doubt, I can’t address you as such. I need certainty.” His eyes seemed to gleam in the firelight. “Do you understand?”
I thought about what I’d seen of Blackwood so far. He rarely smiled or laughed. And he trained by himself every morning before even coming in to breakfast. He assisted in every one of my lessons, unlike Cellini or even Wolff and Lambe. Here he was, reading long into the night.
Yes, he took his responsibilities seriously.
Everything he had said he meant—I could see it in his eyes. Perhaps we could finally be honest.
“So you’ve no objection to a woman fighting?”
“The prophecy declares that a woman will rise to fight the Ancients, and I will give my allegiance to that woman.” The way he said it forced me to speak her name.
“Gwendolyn Agrippa. You believe that she was the prophesied one.” Blackwood blinked in surprise. “Lady Eliza told me this afternoon. Did you all think you could keep something like that a secret?”
“The Order doesn’t want complications,” Blackwood said. “When they found the Speakers’ tapestry, Gwendolyn had just become an Incumbent. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that she was chosen, and so all of Agrippa’s efforts went into training her. She was fantastic.” His eyes softened. “Nothing was a challenge, not for her. Her commendation would have been a triumph the likes none has ever seen.” His expression twisted in bitterness. “And she died of a fever three weeks before the commendation ball.”
“She wasn’t the prophesied one, though,” I said, checking his reaction. “According to Agrippa.”
He winced as though I’d struck him. “Don’t you dare say that of her.”
“You made up your mind before you ever laid eyes on me, didn’t you?” I stepped toward him. “I was an impostor. And if Gwendolyn was truly the chosen one, she’s dead, and all your hopes died with her. You would choose that certain doom over the possibility that I might be the one. Why?”
“Who are you exactly?” He nearly spit the words. “Gwendolyn was from one of our oldest and finest families; glory was her birthright. I don’t hate you for your low birth,” he said as I opened my mouth to give him the greatest hell he’d ever know. “But tradition is all that our society stands upon. You are an outsider, and you cannot change that.”
It was as if a door had slammed shut in my face. I almost dropped the book. “It’s a wonder you’ve helped me at all, hating me as you do.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“You do hate me, because you hate how I was born.” His profile in the firelight was beautiful, marred only by the cold expression he wore. It is amazing how, under any other circumstance, I would have thought him beguilingly handsome. He was beautiful in the way a Roman marble is, hard and inhuman. “Your stupidity is terrifying.”
“This is what I believe.” He narrowed his eyes. “Is that too truthful for you, Miss Howel?”
“I respect truthfulness. It’s always good to know who isn’t your friend.”
“I said I don’t hate you.” Then, with a strange air of weariness, he said, “I fear you, perhaps.”
“Why?”
He nodded toward the painting of the house I’d admired. “You said you never took trips to Sorrow-Fell when you were a child?”
“I’ve never seen the place.”
“You have now. That painting is an exact likeness.” Surprised, I turned back to the beautiful image on the wall. Blackwood continued. “You seem drawn to it, which is why the carvings on your stave perplex me.”
“What’s Porridge to do with any of this?” I said. Blackwood unsheathed his stave—he had not taken even that off—and handed it to me. A twining strand of ivy, identical to mine, was carved on his weapon.
“The Blackwood family crest is a pair of clasped hands with tendrils of ivy binding them together. In the entirety of sorcerer history, only Blackwoods have ever borne the image of ivy.” His brows knitted together. “Until you.”
I felt nauseated as I handed his stave back. “Does that mean we’re bound in some way?”
“I don’t know.” He crossed his arms. “I fear we may be.”
“Believe me,” I said with a shudder, “my feelings are exactly the same.”
—
THE BLACKWOOD HOUSE LAY AHEAD, SHROUDED in mist. The hedge-lined path guided me up toward the front. When I broke through the mist, I found the sky clear and the sun warm. The circle of black forest all around was no more frightening than a make-believe monster in a children’s story. This was home, the surest sensation I’d ever had in my life. The great house was even more beautiful than it had been in its picture. With tears of joy, I ran up the steps to be welcomed inside.
Someone grabbed my sleeve. Gwendolyn Agrippa pulled me away, shaking her head and shouting. I struggled against her, but it was no use. She was fearfully strong. No. This was where I was supposed to be. This was where I belonged.
The church bells tolled.
I stood alone in the center of a circle of standing stones. Gwendolyn had vanished. I walked about, inspecting my surroundings. The stones were twice as tall as I was. There were twelve of them, each spaced several feet apart. Odd symbols had been carved into the granite faces, symbols that I had never seen before. A strange noise made me stop and press my ear against one of the rocks. There was a buzzing coming from inside. It was almost music. Like the stone was singing.
I stood there as the Seven Ancients arrived, filling in the gaps of the circle. There was no way out for me now.
The church bells tolled.
There was Molochoron, a perfect blob of filth and disease. It leaked rancid water, bristling all over with dark, sharp hairs. Black shapes moved and darted within it, like eels trapped in jelly.
How odd to see Nemneris the Water Spider here. She lived in the sea. She was beautiful, with long, delicate legs and a slender green-and-purple body. Her eyes were three shining obsidian orbs. If only she weren’t fifty feet long and absurdly venomous…