I said, “You are going to help me assist Miss Banks and the other women like us, aren’t you? Even if it isn’t what the Boudiccate desires?”
Amy’s chest rose and fell with her sigh. “I will always support you,” she said, “and I would never refuse you my advice. But I’m afraid that in this particular case, you’re the only one who has a real chance of convincing the people who matter. If you are truly willing to come forward and talk openly about what happened to you—which will mean swallowing your pride, Cassandra, and answering the most intrusive and insulting questions again and again, for the public to pore over at their leisure—until everyone finally truly believes that your accident had nothing to do with your sex...”
“Of course,” I repeated quietly as the truth of it sank through me.
Firing off a series of letters, no matter how passionate, could never be enough to win my case. No, I would need to answer endless, prying questions afterwards from the newspapers, the politicians and the Great Library alike...and that process had no hope of being completed within the next six days.
But I couldn’t leave my sister-in-law to sort that out for me any more than I could give up the opportunity to meet my first niece in person. I had to solve the elf-lord’s challenge, no matter what it took...
...Which left only one option, no matter how unpalatable it might be.
I would have to seek out Wrexham myself and ask for his help.
Suddenly, I wished that I had poured that cup of tea.
10
Of course, now that I actually wanted to talk to my ex-fiancé, the impossible man was nowhere to be found. I’d already looked in four different parlors and the glasshouse by the time I finally gave in, sucked in a deep breath, and pushed open the door to Lord Cosgrave’s library of magic.
It was a surprisingly small and cozy room with a crackling fire and a large bay window, and four months ago, it would have looked blissfully enticing.
Now, I had to force myself to step through the doorway, bottling down every unhelpful emotion and keeping my eyes focused on my goal.
Wrexham wasn’t there, but my brother was, sitting bent over a small yew wood table with Miss Fennell. Their two velvet-upholstered wing chairs were closely drawn together, and a long piece of parchment sat on the table before them.
“...So you see, this symbol—that line that looks so accidental, following along from the end of the word? As if the writer only forgot to lift her quill in time? That is the symbol for ‘beware,’” Jonathan explained. He was clearly absorbed in his lecture and just as clearly hadn’t noticed my arrival, even as I walked steadily towards him across the carpet. “Of course the ambassadress knew the elves would read her correspondence and diaries, so she had to code her warnings.”
Miss Fennell nodded vigorously, her eyebrows furrowed with concentration. “So what she actually meant, when she let her pen trail after his name...”
“Was that he was virulently anti-human and shouldn’t be trusted.” Jonathan nodded. “Elves may be famously prohibited from telling direct lies, but that’s never stopped them from conveying the most blatant falsehoods through a bit of careful phrasing. And one doesn’t become an elf lord without learning that skill!
“That was one of the reasons it took so many months to negotiate our final treaty. Our diplomats, you see, had to hammer down the exact details without either offending the elves with any perceived insult—and some elf-lords, like this one, were so furious at the cease-fire that they were more than ready to take offense—or finding ourselves committed to wildly different agreements than we’d thought we were accepting.”
A prickle of discomfort ran down my skin at those words. Different agreements than we’d thought we were accepting...
I’d stepped into my own agreement so easily, I hadn’t even felt the noose slipping around my neck.
Miss Fennell grinned widely. “I say, this is rather fun, isn’t it? I’d better sharpen my wits before I play this game!”
The word tore itself from my throat: “Don’t!”
It was far too brusque an interjection, and it fell into their conversation with the weight of a rock crashing through a window. They both blinked up at me, wide-eyed.
“Cassandra?” Jonathan glanced around at the rows of glass-encased bookshelves, as if reminding himself of where we were. “What are you doing here?”
It was a reasonable question, I had to admit. I hadn’t entered our family’s library of magic for nearly four months now, and I’d refused to keep any of my old magic books in my room anymore. I didn’t even like walking past the library in our house anymore, and Jonathan had caught me more than once taking ridiculously elaborate routes to avoid it.
The fact that he’d never so much as raised an eyebrow in response was a sign of how thoroughly my older brother understood me.
I wasn’t about to discuss the matter with him now, though, especially not in front of an outsider. Instead I looked straight at Miss Fennell. “Miss Banks will not be happy if you’re tricked and trapped in the elven court. Moreover, she urgently requires your help right here if she’s to have any hope of succeeding in her own goals—for both your sakes—with the odds stacked so heavily against her. If you truly care for her, you won’t abandon her now!”
Miss Fennell’s brown eyes narrowed, and I braced myself for a return blast in her foghorn voice. When a woman planned to rule the world, she didn’t often take well to direction.
After a long moment, though, she shrugged. “Hmm,” she said. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
Well. I blinked.
Her fiancée wasn’t the only one full of surprises.
Jonathan was frowning at me, though, his attention well and truly stolen from the parchment in front of him. “What’s happening now?”
I sighed. “I’m looking for Wrexham,” I told him. “But I beg you will not make anything of that! Just let me know if you’ve seen him anywhere, will you?”
“Aha.” Jonathan’s frown eased. One corner of his mouth twitched.
I pointed threateningly at him. “Not one stray word, Jonathan!”
“I saw Wrexham,” said Miss Fennell calmly. “Not half an hour ago, he set out with one of the other magicians to inspect the knot garden for Lady Cosgrave. How long does it take to check the spellwork in one of those?”
“I...don’t know,” I said slowly. Garden spells had never been my specialty—nor Wrexham’s, for that matter. Why on earth had he been assigned that particular duty? “Thank you, though.” I turned toward the door, trying my best not to take in any of my surroundings as I moved.
It was no use. The glass on the bookcases glinted tauntingly around me in the light from the bay window. I knew what the books inside would feel like. I knew the treasures that they held.
They didn’t belong to me, nor I to them anymore. But that didn’t stop the longing that tightened around my chest like a vise as I finally let my gaze fall across them.
I had to clench my hands into fists to stop myself from following their magnetic pull and opening one of those glass doors as I passed.