These days Edwin was splitting his time between Sutton, where magic still came easiest and he could devote his time to creating a variety of new techniques, and his permanent rooms in the Blyth house in London. He was busier than ever. The Magical Assembly had been split on whether to recruit the destroyer of the Barrel into the senior advisor post that his brother Walter had held, but Manraj and Kitty had gone around being devastatingly sensible at people until they had enough votes. If it had been hard to argue with Kitty when she was pregnant, it was nearly impossible when she was aggressively jiggling a baby.
Violet was spending a chunk of her fortune rebuilding Spinet House into something thankfully far more normal and far less anxiety-inducing to inhabit. Which would mean she could rent it out when she followed Maud to Cambridge later in the year, even though Violet herself had no intention of studying at a college. She and Maud spent half their time in ever-more-extravagant plans to create their own sort of female Bloomsbury set: a haven for girl magicians and artists and musicians and students.
Knowing them, they would pull it off with flair.
Alan, now lying flat on the blankets with his eyes closed—he’d kept himself and Jack awake long past midnight the previous night, exploring in detail a scenario for the latest Roman pamphlet, so it was really his own fault—also continued to split his time. He wrote society pieces for Tatler and concise commentary for the political pages of the Sphere, which currently showed a lot of illustrations of the ongoing debate in the Commons about curtailing the power of the Lords, following the rejection of Lloyd George’s budget.
Jack lifted his walking stick, concentrated, and sent a small nudge of magic at Alan. He’d always felt more comfortable using a physical object to fight with, and Edwin had uncovered for him some ancient Germanic texts on the use of wooden wands. This particular stick had been a Christmas gift from Violet. Hawthorn wood. Remarkably good for magic, as it turned out.
Alan didn’t open his eyes, but twitched and flicked his hand back in Jack’s direction. The magic sank into Jack’s chest with a pleasant fizz of sensation.
“Piss off, Jack,” said Alan, a smile playing on his lips.
“You haven’t asked me for a quote,” Jack said.
“Don’t worry, I’ll invent one for you too,” said Alan. He stifled a yawn and sat up, brushing petals from his waistcoat. “You had designs on the new Lady Blyth yourself and were furious when she turned down the opportunity to become the future Countess of Cheetham.”
“Wait,” said Adelaide. “I want to hear about this fictional proposal. I may yet change my mind.”
“Married a few hours and jilted already,” said Edwin. “Robin. Fight for your honour.”
“I haven’t any,” said Robin amiably. “I let my sister run off and be ruined, remember? And I plan to be a thoroughly unfaithful husband.”
“Very well,” said Jack. “As my wedding gift to you, Robin, I will not steal your wife. In the society papers or anywhere else.”
“Much obliged,” said Robin.
“There is a real gift as well,” Jack said, because it was ridiculous to feel outdone by a snowflake. “Beehives, and two swarms of bees, for Thornley Hill. They should be delivered next week.”
“How do you deliver bees?” asked Violet with interest.
“With great care, and something to do with smoke,” said Alan. “Apparently.”
“It’s part of making bargain with the land,” said Jack. “Even for unmagical people. You talk to them. Announce things—births. Weddings.”
Robin didn’t laugh. He nodded seriously and looked at Edwin. “A bargain. Then let’s do it properly. I think I remember how it works.”
Robin climbed to his feet and went to the still-hovering snowflake, and touched it more deliberately than Maud had. His fingertip came away dotted red with blood.
And then Sir Robin Blyth, unmagical as he was, knelt down and swore the traditional blood-oath to, he said, as much of the land as would have him.
“And, er, this is my household,” he added awkwardly. “If you don’t know that already. And my sister, and—my terrible black-sheep cousin, I suppose,” with a grin for Jack. “And the people we love. There.”
Jack shared a look with Alan. They agreed silently that this was far too much sincerity to be committed in public, but also that they wouldn’t say a thing to ruin it.
“You too, Addy,” said Edwin.
“I will if you will,” she said, giving him a hand up. Edwin blinked but didn’t protest. And they, too, shed their blood and put it into the wet earth and made a promise. To tend and to mend.
And then all three of them flinched a little, as if something had struck them.
“Robin?” said Maud at once.
“I don’t know,” said Robin. He looked at Edwin, who was frowning at his bleeding finger.
“I think it took,” he said. “I think—”
“Yes, I think it did,” said Adelaide, her voice strange. “Ah. Edwin?”
A pale light was flickering on her fingers: small but there. It vanished. Then, as Adelaide narrowed her eyes, it appeared again, brighter than before.
Silence.
“Bloody hell,” said Alan.
“Indeed,” said Jack dryly. “That changes things.”
Adelaide dropped the light and put a hand to her shocked mouth. Maud lifted and stared at her own hands, her eyes also huge and considering. Edwin’s face was a crowded portrait of ten questions being asked at once. He opened his mouth but didn’t say anything. No doubt the questions were fighting for preeminence.
Before any of them could win, Robin put his hands on either side of Edwin’s neck.
“Edwin,” he said, in his most baronet tones. “Today, I want to enjoy some uncomplicated time out here with my family, and then go back to the house and be a good host. You can plan the complete reinvention of British magic—again—tomorrow.”
After a short age, Edwin nodded.
“The country wedding of Sir Robert Blyth and Miss Adelaide Morrissey was a quiet, intimate affair,” said Alan. He moved closer to Jack and plucked Jack’s stick from his grasp. “No immortal fae in attendance, no healthy screaming from the bride’s infant niece when asked if anyone had grounds to object, and no earth-shattering revelations about magic whatsoever.”
“Your tongue for fiction is as smooth as ever, Cesare.”
Alan’s gaze caught on his and darkened, but he didn’t pick up the easy bait. Instead, he continued running his hand consideringly up and down Jack’s stick, caressing the golden-brown gloss of the wood in a tight, encircling grip.
Heat pooled lazily in Jack’s belly. Alan didn’t look away.
“I’ll thank you to stop that filthy behaviour at once, Mr. Ross,” said Violet, flopping down next to him. She used a shocked and quavery voice. “There are unmarried ladies present.”
Alan went slightly red and fumbled the stick.
Jack laughed. He leaned back until his own hand was off the blanket, fingers buried in the wet grass. This wasn’t his land. And yet all of this land was his, in a way, as it was every magician’s. He relaxed into the faint, far-off throb of magic flowing, renewing itself as it went: paths lying full like floods, indeed, and no longer weak but there for the taking, as they all taught themselves how.