Buckingham Palace was much bigger than she’d imagined.Much more imposing.And a young girl ruled over it all.Did she ever trip going up the stairs, still getting used to her woman’s body?Maybe she had to make herself stop thinking of fashion plates during parliamentarian discourse.Or maybe, like Sybil, she could never stop scribbling designs in notebooks and thinking about her first kiss.
Temple threaded one arm through Diana’s arm, and the other through Sybil’s and led them to the queen’s apartments with a guarded escort.Everywhere grand—marble and gold, heaven-high ceilings, and gigantic chandeliers, everything polished to a blinding shine.She could see her reflection everywhere, it seemed—a hundred narrow Sybils, hiding behind shuttered eyes.
She shook her head.“Where are we going?”she whispered to Temple.They were being led straight through the palace and out the back.
“The conservatory,” he said.
She saw it as soon as they stepped outside—huge stone columns and glinting glass.“It’s beautiful.”
“Designed by John Nash.”Temple slowed his pace, giving her more time to observe.“He’s an alchemist, though he won’t say so.”
Diana chuckled.“Another secret?”
He kissed her cheek.
Secrets.Sybil had her own collection of them.
Inside, the conservatory was lined with palms, and though the day outside was overcast, inside, it seemed as if the sun had made the glass walls and ceilings its home.
The conservatory at Foggy Hill had been similar.But then, the light had seemed to come from Apollo himself.And as they pushed past a particularly thick clump of palms, Sybil found the source of light here, too.Not the sun.
A young woman sitting at a small tea table, her hands folded in her lap.Her dark hair was braided on the sides and looped low, and her face was rosy and round.She was shorter than Sybil had imagined.Even sitting, Sybil could tell.Perhaps one short woman instantly recognized another.
Temple introduced them, and Sybil tried to stand tall under the queen’s scrutiny.
“Sit,” the queen commanded, but when Temple tried to join them, she shooed him away.“I’ve already spoken with you today.Ladies only for the moment.”
Temple bowed and left, and the teapot in the center of the table levitated upward, tilted, poured steaming tea into three cups.
“Well done, Your Majesty,” Diana said.“It is quite difficult to make an invisibility glamour hold like that during movement.”
The queen grinned.“I’m getting better.And I find my talent is stronger here in the conservatory.I think your ancestor’s notes are correct.”
“What notes?”Sybil asked.“What do they say?”
“Notebooks my cousin gave me.They say that transcendents are stronger in sunlight, that light is the source of their power.”
“But of course it’s not the source,” the queen said.“It is only like a… a… What did you call it, Fordham?”
“An oven to a loaf of bread.The light helps the talent to rise.Transcendent talent chooses those who are worthy, of course.”But she looked away, tugged on her ear bobble, as if she didn’t quite believe what she was saying.
It seemed to appease the queen, though, who nodded and sipped her tea.
Sybil stored the conversation away to return to later.Out of the queen’s earshot.
“Other than Lady Fordham,” Sybil said, choosing a topic more likely to please her audience, “I have never seen another woman with the talent to cast glamours.I knew you did, but seeing it… I’m terribly inspired, Your Majesty.”
The queen beamed.
“May I ask, Your Majesty,” Sybil ventured, “why you’ve brought me here?”It had been her summons that had sent Temple running off toward Yorkshire, that had ended Sybil and Apollo’s stolen interlude at Foggy Hill House.
“Your brother tells me you were abducted by the master of the alchemist guild, Mr.Stone.And he tells me you were abducted for the express purpose of recreating a device stolen from an alchemist grave.”
“That is correct, Your Majesty.”Sybil wrapped her hands around her cup, though its warmth was oppressive beneath the heated glass ceiling.
“Your brother also tells me you are an inventor of sorts.This teapot is of your design?”Queen Victoria flicked a hand toward the pot, which had settled back onto the middle of the table.
Sybil picked it up, inspected the metal bottom.“It is!But how did you get it?The only one in existence was made by my father.It was at Nickleby House the last I saw it.”
