After the door closed, Aria rubbed her hands quickly with all the nervous energy inside. This was something new! By leaving the castle at night to enter Sutton town and other areas, she’d already discovered the sleeping Cast did not follow her like a storm cloud, dropping anyone within its radius. It remained over the castle, even if she was not present.
But that was not quite accurate. The Cast captured peopleofthe castle, no matter where they were. Jenny, the guards, the driver—they all slept, even hours from the palace.
But the newly hired footman could be woken.
Aria jogged down the stairs of the slumbering inn. She stepped out onto a deserted street, looking up at a canopy of stars. Even in the middle of the night, the autumn air barely held a chill, and it wrapped her in a calming cool.
Until a deeper chill emerged from within.
If the sleeping Cast was not a storm cloud hovering above Aria but rather an individual thing, did that mean Widow Morton had somehow cursed each member of the castle staff individually?How?
Spinning, Aria raced back up the stairs and into her room, the door banging against the wall with a loud thud that did nothing to wake Jenny. She snatched her journal and reread Baron’s notes.
He had very little to say about Stone Casters—presumably because he himself was Fluid—but his few sentences stood out.
Aria’s initial note had read,Stone Casters control stone. Straightforward.
Baron had clarified,Stone Casters can affect bothsurroundings and people as readily as Fluid Casters can. However, the influence of Stone Casters on others manifests in physical restraint or limitation, such as holding someone in place or putting them to sleep.
Widow Morton’s curse grew more tangled the more Aria learned of magic. Did the sleeping effect mean the widow was secretly a Stone Caster? Why claim to be a different Caster type?
Aria remembered how Widow Morton had displayed her powers with tea, changing the temperature, vanishing the liquid. A Fluid Caster, then. What of the rest? Was it possible to bebothStone and Fluid Caster?
She could not hope to unravel this on her own.
She looked down at Baron’s neat, orderly writing. She’d asked for help, and he’d given it. She’d even tasted his magic and not regretted it.
To overcome one Caster, it seemed clear she needed another.
But despite the determination surging in her chest, the chill returned. She thought of another moment when she’d written to a Caster. She remembered a peace agreement in her hands turning to liquid and dripping right off the page.
No matter how noble one might seem, a Caster couldn’t be trusted. Aria couldn’t afford to repeat the same mistake. Not when she was still paying the cost from the first time.
She closed her journal once more.
The morning after her return home, Aria’s father summoned her to the throne room. With nothing but lessons to occupy her for the day, Aria wore trousers and a vest, enjoying the freedom of a day without formal attire. She had enough dragging her toward sleep without the added weight of trailing skirts.
“You wished to see me, Father?” Aria stopped at the bottom of the dais.
Barely glancing away from conversation with his advisers, her father gestured for her to take the seat next to him. She climbed the stairs as slowly as possible, tryingnotto appear like a ninety-year-old woman ready to rest after a single step.
Luckily, the three men quickly finished their conversation about exports, and by the time Aria settled in her throne, Philip and Emmett had taken their leave.
Her father angled to face her, expressionless.
In the silence, Aria’s heart beat faster as she considered every mistake she’d made that morning and the day previous. And the day before that.
Did he know of her visit to Baron? If he asked why she sought out a Caster, what could she say?
“So.” Her father raised an eyebrow at last. “Crampton’s son. Of all the options.”
Aria released her breath in a rush. Of course—she’d not had a chance to speak to her father since making her courtship with Lord Kendall official.
“I distinctly remember pointing him out to you at the falconry event this spring, and you said the boy had the bearing of a plucked rooster.”
If only that impression had stayed with Aria as a warning. Alas. The mere thought of choosing someone else was too exhausting, so she would make do with Lord Kendall. Besides, how large a flaw were chicken wings, really?
“There are more considerations to be made thanlooks,” Aria said, settling more comfortably into her throne.
