“So,” Jack said, “does Richard Prest know he won’t be elected Chief Minister after all?”
The ghost thickened into something almost gratified, then vanished. “The position isn’t important. Whatever’s coming—a war within ourselves, a new level of threat from the unmagical, or an evil we can’t yet imagine—we can protect ourselves, and win. We only need a champion.”
“Christ,” said Jack. “That’s it? That’s how you see yourself. Magic’s champion.”
George faced him fully. Annoyance was visible only in the tautness of the movement; his clean, regular features were unmoved. “Stop being so naive, Hawthorn. What else is the point of the contract being carried by the family bloodlines, if not for this? Generations of magicians all patiently choosing the best partners, becoming more powerful. So that when a threat comes, someone is strong enough to stand up and face it.”
A string thrummed within Jack, as if he were one of Spinet’s doors and George had sung the right melody to pluck at some cruel and essential beliefs that Jack hadn’t bothered to pull out and examine for a very long time. He’d left them buried along with the rest of his past.
He forced himself to hear the thrum. He was seeing his elegant, ruthless cousin in a new and unnerving light. George didn’t see himself as a machinator and opportunist; that would be bad enough. No, he thought this was fate. Something he deserved. That string snagged savagely, and Jack couldn’t keep himself from speaking.
“You and John couldn’t stand that I was stronger than you, and Elsie stronger than all of us. No wonder you—”
Even with Jack speaking to someone who knew its secret, the bind wouldn’t allow him any further. Jack’s fingers went to his mouth and his breath paused at the pain.
“So it is still there,” said George. “I had wondered. If anyone could lift it, it’s the Courcey boy.” A mirthless smile. “But loopholes or no, a secret-bind sticks. I only wish to God it hadn’t been necessary.”
“Fuck yourself,” growled Jack.
“Truly,” said George. “My father was eager for me to marry her, you know.”
That was like having saltwater poured across the brand of his tongue. Jack’s muscles all clamoured at once for something to fight.
“Our child would surely be the culmination of our lines,” George said with the lilt of quotation. “But I knew that would be too long to wait. And I was right. Now, now”—he glanced at Jack’s fisted hand—“if you do kill me, nothing will change. It’ll only be someone else who steps in to take the reins. Walter Courcey, I expect.” A small, fastidious face. “He’s strong enough. A pity about that nastiness in his temperament.”
He was right about that. He was right about a lot of things, except for the ways in which he was desperately wrong. Blood was what mortals cared about, Dufay had said. The fae cared that you made sacrifice for the power you bargained for. And that you took responsibility for the places where you dwelled.
A different fear crept over Jack. The contract, as Edwin had pointed out, was between two parties; it had elements of fae and mortals both. What would happen when George and Walter called on blood alone, and took, and took? What did they intend to sacrifice? They could hardly expect to kill anyone in the presence of hundreds of magicians and get away with it, no matter how many speeches George made about drastic measures.
“What you intend to do with the contract, it won’t work. Not the way you want it to,” Jack said. A desperate last attempt to make George see reason. “It didn’t work—” Water came to his eyes as the bind, again, filled his mouth with fire.
George was sharp enough to guess. A new note entered his voice: black anger leaking out.
“It didn’t work because we made the mistake of letting you take an active part in the spell. My father,” said George, “was a strong and skilled magician. He would not have lost control of his magic in that way. It was you and your sister who corrupted it—probably out of spite, or because that blasted girl had never been taught to keep herself properly contained—and left him weak and ill, such that—”
George cut himself off. In the next instant the blackness was gone again, tucked away deep below his polished surface. So much for not blaming Jack for his father’s death: it was manifestly obvious that George did. Or at least that Jack was the only person left whom George could punish for it.
“We’re finished here,” said Jack harshly. If forced to listen for one more minute to George insulting Elsie and rewriting past events to suit himself, he would resort to violence. “Collect your dog and leave my land.”
He began to walk down the slope. After a few steps, George caught up to him, stick swinging easily in his hand.
“Are you quite sure you haven’t heard from Courcey and Miss Debenham and the others?”
Fuck all of this. “I have not.”
“Strange. I thought Miss Debenham might at least have sent you word about the fire.”
That put a falter in Jack’s step. His leg was fine. His guts squeezed out a slow drip of dread. George could be lying. George would say anything.
“What fire?”
“After all, you lived there for a while too. So much wood,” said George, with a sigh almost of pleasure. “Ingenious, I’m sure, but really—an accident waiting to happen.”
24
It was a tense and largely silent wait inside the library. Edwin had spent a lot of his magic on warding the door, and Violet was keeping hers in reserve in case Morris or Bastoke blasted through it anyway and had to be fought off. So they didn’t cast a muffling spell, and all stayed away from the window and kept quiet. Adelaide and Edwin read; Robin sketched them while they were reading; Violet allowed Maud to trounce her in a slow and nervy game of chess.
Alan tried to write some more of his article but gave up after ten minutes of staring at a half-finished sentence. Jack had been sure that George wouldn’t do anything to him, here on Cheetham Hall’s land.
Alan had no such trust. Alan would put absolutely nothing past George Bastoke and Joe Morris. Alan was furious with Jack for locking them all away and deciding that he would go out to deal with George alone, and he was furious with how far this Jack was from the uncaring Lord Hawthorn Alan had met on the Lyric—and he was furious with himself for the ball of dread that sat like a snugly knotted necktie in the hollow of his throat. There was more he wanted from Jack Alston yet. So, so much more. It would be unacceptable for Jack to do something as arrogant and stupid as go off and be hurt or captured or killed.
The knock, when it came, was not on the door. It was an impatient triple-thump of a fist on the wall a yard from the door frame, and everyone’s head rose rabbitlike at the sound of it.