CHAPTER ONE
The hum was wrong.
Elizabeth Bennet pressed her nose against the cold panes of her father’s library window and frowned. Out on the lawn, the great oak at the edge of their property stood like a skeleton against the grey Hertfordshire sky. It was not the sight alone that troubled her, but the sound — or rather, thefeelingof it.
The tree's magical resonance, once a vibrant song, now emitted a discordant, mournful hum. It was the sound of a beloved voice fading into a dying rattle.
“It is decidedly worse today, Papa,” she murmured, not turning as her father’s scuffing footsteps entered the room. “The magic is failing.”
Mr Bennet, a man whose own magical talents had largely receded with age, disuse, and a distinct lack of ambition, peered over her shoulder. His magical aptitude now mostly manifested as an uncanny ability to locate misplaced spectacles and predict and escape with unnerving accuracy before his wife embarked on an impassioned tirade regarding their five daughters’ precarious marital prospects. Though, in truth, this latter talentrequired no magic at all, merely a passing understanding of Mrs Bennet’s foremost focus.
“What do you speak of, Lizzy?” he asked, amused, “The inevitable consequence of Mrs Hill forgetting to replace the salts at the scullery door again? You know how the damp encourages the mould.”
“It is more than that, Papa, you know that. The air tastes stale, like the slow rot of old wood.”
Her father eyed her. “What an inconvenient talent you possess, Lizzy. A gift I am glad to have been spared. Now, unless the rot you speak of is actively devouring my Virgil, I should be very glad to return to it.”
Elizabeth sighed. It was not a taste she spoke of, not precisely. It was a feeling in her bones. She possessed what her grandfather had once called an ‘unruly resonance,’ a magical sensitivity that vibrated in sympathy with the natural world. It was a constant source of discomfort for her, and of consternation for her mother, who was certain such a thing would never attract a wealthy husband.
While Jane, her beloved elder sister, seemed to carry a soothing presence, a warmth that could calm a colicky babe with a touch or encourage a wilting rose to lift its head, Elizabeth’s magic was like a skittish, high-spirited colt — powerful and prone to bolting at unexpected stimuli. When she was vexed, small objects like coins sometimes trembled; when she was deeply moved, the air around her might crackle with unseen energy, or a sudden breeze might rustle the curtains in a closed room.
Or tear them off entirely.
Mr Bennet’s gaze went to the lifeless branches of the oak visible through the window. The usual levity in his eyes faded as he absorbed the sight. “The Blight is no longer a distant rumour from the northern shires, is it, Lizzy? No longer mere tales toldby travelling pedlars to frighten children. It is lapping at our own doorstep.”
The Blight. It had started as hushed whispers from remote hamlets in the wilder parts of the country, chilling tales of crops failing not from recognisable drought or earthly pestilence, but from a creeping, insidious magical decay that leached life and energy from the soil.
Then came more disturbing reports: ancient stones, the very anchors of England’s magical stability, losing their inner luminescence. Magical ley lines dimming like dying embers. Protective wards on great estates, wards that had stood for centuries, crumbling without warning, leaving their inhabitants vulnerable and afraid. Wild magic, the untamed currents that flowed through the land, becoming erratic, unpredictable, and dangerously volatile.
The Arcane Office, a ponderous, labyrinthine institution more concerned with regulating the misuse of magic to avoid the Window Tax than with an expedient address to true dangers, had been predictably slow to react. Now, a gnawing dread was beginning to seep through the carefully constructed veneer of polite society.
Elizabeth’s thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a sudden series of thuds and a yelp of frustration from the direction of the kitchen, followed immediately by Mrs Bennet’s voice, raised in strident complaint.
“Oh, dear me,” Mr Bennet said, with a distinct lack of urgency, though he did lay aside his book. “Sounds like your mother and Cook are exercising their particular talents for squabble yet again.”
A smile touched Elizabeth's lips as a fond exasperation swept over her.
“Do be a good daughter and kindly restore some tranquility in the kitchen. That, at the least, is a situation we can dosomething about. And,” he said, chuckling, “perhaps it is a more immediate peril than the Blight.”
Discerning that her father’s capacity for serious reflection had been sufficiently taxed for the nonce, Elizabeth made her way to the kitchen.
The air in the Longbourn kitchen, usually rich with the comforting smells of baking bread or simmering stews, was instead fraught with tension. Mrs Bennet, her cap slightly askew, stood with one hand on her hip, the other gesturing emphatically towards the roast of beef.
“The wine, Cook, the wine! Have you forgotten it entirely? The recipe says wine, and if we do not use it, the roast will be utterly plain!”
Cook, a woman whose ample form seemed as solid and unyielding as the iron pot, mirrored her mistress’s stance. Her face, usually ruddy from the heat of the ovens, was now flushed for reasons that had nothing to do with the hearth. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but the master has always been partial to my roast as I make it. Says the broth lets a good cut of beef taste of itself.”
“Mr Bennet! Oh, never mind Mr Bennet! He would be content to eat boiled mutton seven days a week!” exclaimed Mrs Bennet, “I should never be able to hold my head up ever again if this is served at my table — ”
“Mama,” Elizabeth said, her voice just loud enough to draw her mother’s attention, “a moment, if I may? I cannot seem to decide between the yellow and the white muslin for the assembly.”
The roast of beef, and indeed Cook herself, vanished entirely from Mrs Bennet’s mind. Her expression shifted in an instant from indignation to strategic consideration. “White or yellow muslin!” she said, “Oh how this entire household tries mypatience! Surely you must wear the green silk for tonight; you girls must look your absolute best!”
Elizabeth held back a retort with the practiced ease of years of living alongside her mother’s famed nerves. These anxieties, while very real to Mrs Bennet, rarely aligned with any real crisis. Her concerns were for settlements, for status, for the perceived slights of neighbours, not for the fading wards or the dying land. “Why is that, Mama?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Elizabeth saw Cook’s attention snap from her mistress to the stove. Her mother’s complaints, it seemed, had claimed their first culinary victim of the day. The potatoes were beginning to burn.
“I have it on the very best authority that Netherfield Park is let at last. And to a single man of large fortune! A Mr Bingley. And I am told by those whoknow,” and here Mrs Bennet lowered her voice conspiratorially, “that he possessesfive thousanda year.”
