? ? ?
When she got home, Sydney stood under the shower until the steam turned lukewarm. She wanted all of Shadows, every scrap of it, washed from her. It wouldn’t be, just as her own shadow would never be whole, but now, today—as the remnants of her spells still ached in her hands—scouring its traces in hot water could be enough.
She turned off the water, stepped onto the bathroom’s heated floor, and wrapped herself in towels.
Then she noticed the scrawl on the mirror, the same version of her handwriting that scrolled across the mirrors of House Prospero.
Grace Valentine is here.
She didn’t know who that was.
In distress.
And that wasn’t creepy at all. “Here as in at my apartment, or here as in House Prospero?”
The House.
Apologies.
Please come. Now.
“Can you let her in before I get there?” Reaching for fresh clothes.
Yes.
? ? ?
Sydney opened the door to an unrecognizable version of House Prospero.
Gone was the pristine white, the sterile elegance. This was a House that looked like the inside of a forest—dark wood and stained glass, rich green. Trees growing from walls. Everything dark, quiet as a secret, and warm.
“You did this? Why?” she asked.
A quiet chime and words on a mirror.
Lonely. Please stay.
She could understand loneliness. “Okay. Thank you—it’s beautiful, really. We’ll talk about things. I’ll . . . I’ll try to get here more often. Maybe stay once or twice. But right now I need to see Grace.” Whoever that was.
Bathroom. Upstairs. First door.
Sydney hurried past light fixtures that looked like vined roses and up a staircase draped with a worn runner in a pattern like a knot garden. She reached the bathroom. Stopped in the doorway and stared. She hadn’t recognized the name because they’d never been introduced, but she knew the woman. Three years ago she had been brought to Shadows as a sacrifice. It was the only time Sydney had ever seen an adult brought in that way. It had seemed strange, out of place, but she had learned far before then not to ask questions. She’d never seen her again, and assumed that, like most sacrifices, she hadn’t survived.
“Sydney?” Grace was soaking wet and trembling. Spattered with mud and filth, and she smelled like lake water. Two of the nails on her left hand were torn and bleeding. “Thank God.”
“Not that I’m not happy to see you, and believe me, I’m glad you’re out of that fucking place, but why are you here? Sorry, that can wait. Why don’t you go ahead and have a bath—get cleaned up.” She turned on the taps and pointed to a cupboard. “I think there’s probably first aid stuff in there—the House seems to think of everything, and that’s where I’d put it. Do you want something to eat or drink? Soup. I’ll have the House make soup. Do you like minestrone?”
“Sure.”
“Minestrone and wine, please. Maybe some bread, too.”
She could feel the House acknowledge the task, pleased at what it had been given to do.
“Is Miranda here?” Grace asked. Water pooled in her footsteps, then disappeared as the House cleaned it.
“She’s not. But I can ask her to come, if you need her.” Sydney set out towels from a linen closet and grabbed a pair of pajamas as well. The House really did have everything. “There—those should fit.”
“No, it’s not that. I just—I don’t want Grey to find me. Or Miles Merlin, for that matter.”
“Grey—” Sydney began. The scars on Grace’s hands and arms. The file Madison couldn’t talk about. The utterly broken relationship between Miranda and Grey. “So, we have a lot of catching up to do. And part of that catching up is that I think keeping you safe from Grey is probably my job now. But, if you can, maybe you could explain things to me.”
Grace stepped into the bath. “Three years ago Grey Prospero attacked me. He wanted my magic—he was going to cut it out, take my bones.”
“So the scars aren’t from Shadows?” Sydney asked, showing her own, the patterns almost an exact match.
“No, they are. I fought back. Got away. Went to Miranda, who let me hide here, until the disinheritance. She tried to help me, as much as she could, anyway. But Miles—” Her voice broke.
Sydney waited. She had turned herself away from the tub. It was easier sometimes, to tell an ugly thing when you didn’t have to see the face of your audience.
The water shifted, and Grace began again. “As the head of the Unseen World, Miles signed off on the disinheritance. And he told Miranda he’d take me somewhere safe. He took me to Shadows. To pay a debt, he said. The magic, the binding, it’s fast. I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t fight back.”
“None of us can. It’s absolute. You did the only thing you could do, Grace. You survived.”
A sob, then. Sydney reached back, offered a hand. Grace held it while she wept.
Her voice was still edged with tears when she started speaking again. “Thank you. So when I got out today, I cast a spell. To find you. To say thank you. And because, because now I don’t know where to go.”
“You can stay here, if you want. It’s the safest place I can think of—the House can’t let Grey in because of the disinheritance, and I can make sure it keeps Miles out, too,” Sydney said. “You’d be doing me a favor, actually, as the House is a bit lonely, and I’m still not quite used to it. I think it’ll be glad of the company. So I’ll bring some things over for you, and we can go from there. But that’s something we can talk about tomorrow, after you’ve gotten some rest.” Sydney got up.
“Did you always mean to break it?” Grace asked. “Shadows?”
“I mean to bury it,” Sydney said. “And to salt the earth behind me.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sydney shoved her gloved hands in her pockets, bounced lightly on her toes while waiting for the challenge to begin. “Outside. In January. Who does that?”
Laurent looked at her. “Sydney. Please tell me that you actually read the challenge.”
“I got . . . distracted. Besides, it’s not like I was going to refuse it.” She had read it, the day he’d sent it. However, a fairly significant number of things had happened in the interim. She’d had a lot on her mind.
“You are literally the only person I know who would stand here facing potential death and shrug and say that you were distracted by other things.”
Sydney shrugged. “We all have our talents.”
Laurent shook his head. “Well, the who in this case is Eliot Vincent. Candidate House. A year ahead of us in school, and probably another one of Merlin’s allies. He’s really good at physical magic, so my guess is you’re out here so he can use the snow and cold as weapons.”
“See? I didn’t even need to read it—you’ve told me everything I need to know. And I hate the cold.” But she pulled off her gloves and handed them to Laurent.