What was she going to do? She hadn't missed the signs. This was it. Sebastian had something to do with her most vivid nightmare. So did the Prime and her father. It was finally here, and she didn't want it to be.
Just because you don't want it, doesn't mean it's not going to happen. Do something about it.
But what? I'm just a young woman trapped in my dollhouse.
Cleo curled her fingernails into her palms. She hadn't been given this vision for no reason. She alone knew it was coming; she alone could help stop it. That was the price of knowing the future.
Dragging herself to her feet, Cleo spent long minutes pacing. What was she going to do? It wasn't as if contacting the Prime would set this disaster in motion. She was vividly aware that the storm clouds were building on the horizon regardless and she was the only one who could sense it coming.
Denying it wasn't going to help.
Pacing in her room wasn't going to help.
And there had been that one golden spark standing up to the impending doom. That was a good sign, and the first time she'd ever seen some sort of answer to impending disaster. Was that spark herself? Or did it mean that if she contacted the Prime, she somehow set a new player into the game who represented the spark? She wasn't certain, but it gave her some small hope.
The Prime was her answer. Clearing away her crystals, she found her way to her bed and knelt to withdraw her letter writing set from beneath it. Most of the time, she dictated her correspondence to Mrs. Pendlebury, but it had occurred to her, at the age of thirteen, that there would come a time in her life where she might not wish to rely on others seeing what she had to write. And so, using a ruler to keep her letters straight and a small device that held it pressed flat over her sheet of paper, she had taught herself how to carefully feel out letters. One of the maids, Ellie, was literate, and for a few pounds slipped into her pocket, she had become Cleo's eyes. It wasn't perfectly legible, but Ellie had always been able to make sense of what she wrote.
Cleo thought about what she wanted to say for a long time. Then she set her pen to her paper and set about crafting a note that she would pay Ellie to give to her younger brother, who would deliver it.
Chapter Thirteen
'Thou shalt not suffer a sorcerer to live...'
* * *
- Grant Martin, Head of the Anti-Sorcery Vigilance Committee
* * *
There was no sign of Morgana at the Windsor Hotel, not that Ianthe had expected it. No, she'd have moved on as soon as they took Louisa. After all, one could hardly hide a kidnapped child in a public venue without someone commenting.
Sorcerer's appetites being what they were, they stayed at the Windsor to dine for a late luncheon. She had to force herself to be practical. In the first four days after Louisa went missing, she'd barely eaten and her weight had stripped from her figure dramatically, until she'd almost fainted. A weakened sorcerer was no match for the Prime's ex-wife.
So Ianthe put away a white soup, two beefsteaks—much to the waiter's surprise—and a crème brûlée. It all tasted like ash in her mouth, but she forced it down as a means to an end. Lucien managed the soup and a mouthful of her dessert before pushing it aside.
"Not hungry?" she asked, watching him carefully.
"Not used to rich food."
The tired circles under his eyes were slowly vanishing, but the hollow slash beneath his cheekbones indicated his straitened circumstances for the past few months. At least he'd managed to eat more than previously. That had to be a good sign. "Well, why don't we go find out what Morgana might have wanted with Lord Rathbourne’s grimoire? That should be a pleasant diversion."
"You never met the man, did you?" Lucien actually smiled, though it held a touch of bitterness. "I'm not surprised to find he had some connection to Morgana. I just wish this connection didn't involve me."
"Do you have any idea what it might be?"
A fragile sense of tension ran through him, his shoulders hunched slightly, as he stepped out into the street. "No. No idea."
It bothered him more than he'd admit, she suspected. Ianthe glanced sidelong at him from beneath her lashes. "Well, let us go and find out. Lay at least one ghost to rest."
"Let's."
Perhaps it was her distraction with him, or perhaps too little sleep, stretched over too many nights, but Ianthe was halfway across the street before an ebony lacquered carriage caught her eye. The breath went out of her when she saw the gold sigil on the door, and she jerked to a sudden stop as it disbursed its occupants. A man stepped out, tall and lean and dressed in impeccable tweed, then reached up to hand down a thin young woman in pale pastel blue. Ianthe barely saw the woman. All she saw was the man—barely touched with age, curse him, his stride long, his dark wavy hair neatly pomaded, and that stern mouth still a hyphen, as if nothing about the world pleased him... and never would.
Lucien walked into her, catching her by the upper arms. "What are you doing?"
Some distant part of her mind kept working, even when her body was frozen in shock and fear. She'd heard that he'd taken a second wife. Poor woman.
"N-nothing." Ianthe turned away, blindly heading in the opposite direction. Anywhere. She didn't care. Just not here.
