The Guild took me on the precise day of my eighth birthday, at dawn. I looked for my mother as a maid led me down the stairs—I had heard her voice in the hall—but she did not come. She did not say goodbye. The last I saw of her was her hollow-eyed face in an upper window, little more than a flash before the carriage door closed.
The red-tweed Inquisitor, this time a man, offered me a small smile.
“No tears, there’s a good girl,” he said, leaning forward to pat my knee paternally. “Partings are hard, I know. But your sisters are so excited to see you again, little Miss Rushforth. Chin up. There now.”
I waited until I was alone in my cabin aboard the steamship to cry. I cried as my mother had, as she had taught me to. And I swore that I would never be like her. I would never let the Guild take my children. I would never turn away and not say goodbye.
Because there would be no goodbyes.
A NOTEUPON: STARLITMAGES
Starlit Entwined, whose trademark threads awaken beneath the light of the stars, exert governance over time itself. Thankfully rare, Adepts possess the ability to slow or pause time in their own vicinity. In Affinates, this ability manifests in admirable and civilized qualities such as punctuality. But in Adepts, it enables these mages to move unseen, to pass beneath the very noses of their victims. Thus it is, naturally and most commonly, utilized by the criminally minded.
The Vigilant Lady Traveller may be glad of one thing, however—the Starlit mage cannot turn back time.
FROMTHEVIGILANTLADYTRAVELLER:
A GENTLEWOMAN’SGUIDE TO THEWORLD
Present Day
Ciciley House, the teahouse where I was to meet Pretoria later that day, was attached to the Harrow Grand Museum of Ancient History. It was on an island on the west river and graced by Old Harren architecture, her grand triple domes of green copper presiding over the lower roofs of the finest businesses and galleries and bursts of burgundy trees.
Leaves blew across my path as I ascended the stairs of the museum. Pretoria was not due to arrive for an hour, so I stalked lavish halls of statues and paintings, stared into the blank eyes of mummies, and stood in the shadow of the great Illiope Façade—stolen brick-by-brick from a contested island in the South Sea.
I had seen it all a hundred times before, and not simply because the museum was free to the public, and I had little coin to spare for other diversions.
The place drew me. Artifacts, ruins, the weight of history—it always had affected me. A trait of my kind, they said. The vast layers of memory that lingered on dry wood and painted stone, carefully restored jewelry and rusted weapons, drew an Eventide Entwined like a warm fire on a cool night.
Most items were out of my reach, contained behind glass, and their history so long and layered I could see little without the aid of genuine twilight. But I trailed my fingertips acrossthe Illiope Façade when none of the guards were looking, collecting whispers. Impressions. Thefeelof a world beyond Harrow, beyond my own.
The façade ended at theWeapons of Antiquityhall. Beneath a ceiling thick with moldings of mythical creatures at amorous play, I stared at the sword with which the last Entwined Queen, Alessandra, had been beheaded twenty years ago by General Baffin. I had no desire to touch that particular item, nor glean its memories.
The sight soured my already somber mood, so I wandered into theAncient Westwing. There I perused displays of Ummani art as tied to my childhood as my father’s laugh or my mother’s scolding, and my uneasy soul settled somewhat. As much as we had travelled in my youth, following my ambassador mother’s lead, Ummi was where our home had been, and its comfort all the more valuable for the rare occasions we were there.
It was here, as I sat under the reconstructed ceiling of an Ummani gazebo, all intricately carved and painted wood and memories of a bright, airy coastline, that Pretoria appeared.
“Hello, Tillie.”
My head shot up. She sat beside me, as settled and calm as if she had been there for the last half hour—which, in Pretoria’s case, she possibly had.
As a Starlight Adept, she had evidently detached herself from the flow of time in the broader world, arriving hidden in plain sight and settling in while I stewed, unaware.
It was my own failure. A childhood full of unpleasant surprises and spoiled secrets should have taught me to expect such things.
Now I hissed between my teeth, fighting between rage and an irrational, melancholic gladness at seeing her. “You hag! Where is the box?”
Pretoria arched her finely plucked black brows at me. “Pardon me?”
“The artifact you stole from Mr. Stoke’s safe,” I snapped, ignoring a host of observations and memories as I looked at her face. She had scarcely aged, her fine brown skin—a giftfrom her father, my mother’s second husband—as smooth and unblemished as it had always been. “And the money.”
Pretoria shifted her hips so her honey-hazel eyes could search my face. “You are inordinately angry with me, and for no reason! I have no clue what you are on about.”
“Did you rob Mr. Stoke?”
She recoiled, so taken aback that I almost regretted the accusation. “Rob Mr. Stoke? No! He’s been like a father to you. I would never hurt you so.”
Indignation and suspicion tinged my anger. “How would you know? You have been—well, the last postcard was from Lorva. Who were you and your henchmen—”
