Mr Bennet attempted a reassuring smile in her direction, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes, which were shadowed with a worry she had rarely seen in him. “Well, Lizzy,” he said, his voice a little too bright, a little too forced, “it seems you are destined for greater things than attending country assemblies after all. Though I confess I had always hoped for something a trifle less ominous in its presentation.”
“Papa,” Elizabeth asked, her voice hushed, trying to keep the tremor from it, “what do you truly think this is about?”
He sighed, the weariness in his expression deepening, aging him before her eyes. “I fear I do not know. The Arcane Office does not concern itself with minor local disturbances. It must be for something significant.”
“Then why I am here, Papa? My magic is untrained. A liability, as a certain gentleman recently pronounced it.”
“Perhaps,” Mr Bennet mused, his gaze lost in the blurring landscape rushing past the window, “it is precisely that intuitive quality they seek. Or perhaps they require someone with anatural resonance, someone who can feel the decay of the land more acutely than those whose talents are more rigidly trained by standard doctrine.” He paused, then turned to look at her, a strange, almost fearful light dawning in his eyes. “Or perhaps — no, it could not be. It is just fanciful tale.” He reached out and briefly squeezed her hand. “Pray it is not the latter, Lizzy. Some ancient magics, are best left sleeping in the dust of ages.”
“To what fanciful tale do you refer?”
“I should not say…it is an exceedingly unlikely event…” Mr Bennet trailed off uncertainly.
After what felt like an eternity of anxious travel, but was likely no more than an hour, the coach finally slowed. They had not travelled towards London, as Elizabeth had expected, but deeper and deeper into the countryside.
The coach passed through an almost invisible gateway, marked only by two stones that pulsed with a deep light. She felt the intricate, powerful wards of this hidden place wash over them, a complex layering of protections so potent that they made her head ache.
The coach stopped before a forbidding stone manor nestled within a grove of yews. It was not an Arcane Office building, at least not one Elizabeth recognised from any illustration or description. This place felt older, imbued with a magic that was deeply rooted in the earth itself. The stones of its walls seemed to hum with centuries of brooding energy. Smoke, thick and grey, curled from several chimneys.
They were escorted, still in silence, by two more grey-clad mages into a large hall. The door closed behind them not with a click, but a heavy, finalthudthat felt like a sentence being passed. The hall itself was a cavern of shadow and silence, all the energy in the room seeming to be drawn towards the far end, to a long oak table where three men sat like judges in the firelight. The only sound was the soft click of her shoes on the floor, asound that seemed vulnerably human in this place of ancient power.
As they approached the table, her gaze was drawn first to the man in the centre, presiding, a man whose face was etched with unquestionable authority. To his right sat an elderly man with a trimmed white beard. His entire being seemed to crackle with a restless, scholarly energy.
To his left, looking completely out of place in his fashionable, perfectly tailored gentleman’s attire, was Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley.
Elizabeth stopped dead in her tracks.Mr Darcy!What in heaven’s name washedoing here?
He looked as shocked, and as displeased, to see her as she was to see him.
The man in the centre gestured with a ring-adorned hand towards two empty, hard-backed chairs opposite them. “Mr Bennet. Miss Bennet. Please, be seated. I am Lord Magister Theron. This is Arch-Chancellor Pembroke of the Academy,” he indicated to the elderly man to his right, “and I believe you are already acquainted with Mr Darcy of Pemberley.”
His voice was melodious, pleasant, even, yet held an undeniable undercurrent of command. It was a voice accustomed to instant, unquestioning obedience.
Mr Bennet inclined his head, his expression neutral, though Elizabeth could feel the spike in his paternal anxiety beside her. She curtsied and then sat, her own senses reeling, as her mind struggled to process the confusing reality of their situation.
Lord Magister Theron wasted no time on social niceties. “We have summoned you here because England is in the gravest peril it has faced in over a thousand years,” he began, “The phenomenon you know colloquially as the Blight is accelerating in its devastation at an alarming rate. It is not merely weakening our protective wards and draining our agriculturalenchantments. It is unravelling the very fabric of Britain. The great ley lines, the arteries of our land’s power, are becoming twisted and poisoned. If this insidious decay is not stopped, and stopped soon, England’s magic will die.”
“For months, the Arcane Office’s finest mages and scholars have fought with every ounce of their knowledge and power to push it back. We have poured immense resources into attempting to cleanse the corrupted magical nodes, however, all our concerted efforts have proven tragically insufficient. The Blight adapts, it learns, it consumes, and it continues to spread like a consuming shadow.”
If the Office’s considerable resources had proven insufficient, then what purpose could she and her father possibly serve here? She chanced a glance at Mr Darcy, whose stony expression revealed nothing of his thoughts. It occurred to her with a ripple of dry amusement that they were likely pondering the same question: the presence of the Bennets. She, from a place of genuine confusion; he, from a place of deep scepticism.
The Lord Magister paused, his gaze resting first on Elizabeth, then on Mr Darcy. “I will speak directly. The ancient texts speak of a specific counter-measure against the Blight. It is one we would like to invoke today.”
Every trace of customary indifference vanished from Mr Bennet’s face. “The Convergence of Opposites, leading to the Concordance,” he said, his voice barely a whisper, “When the Shadow falls and hope recedes, two souls unlike, yet bound by needs.”
Arch-Chancellor Pembroke smiled. “A scholar still, Thomas! Indeed, the Concordance, as it is named, speaks of two souls, their inherent magical signatures clashing, yet deeply resonant at an arcane level. Only their union and binding can triumph over the encroaching darkness of the Blight.”
The Lord Magister held up a hand, cutting off any further scholarly exposition from his colleague. He would not allow the hard reality of their situation to be softened by poetic language.
“Marriage,” he clarified, his intonation absolute. “Our scholars believe the texts do not speak of a symbolic union of spirits, Mr Bennet. They speak of a wedding. A binding legal and magical contract, to be executed with all due haste.”
Marriage?
To Mr Darcy?
The notion was so preposterous that for a moment, the air before Elizabeth seemed to thin, the imposing figures before her blurring at the edges. This was not real. It was a fever dream, a farce conjured by some malevolent, ill-humoured spirit.
“If I have the pleasure of understanding you, my lord,” she said, with only the slightest shake to her voice, “It seems a strange and fragile thing, a simple exchange of vows, to set against such a powerful darkness.”
