Lucien's footsteps hounded her. "Someone you know?"
No. Not really. Not ever, in fact. "Did you not recognize the crest on the carriage?"
His brows drew together. "Ad servium veritatum?"
"To serve the truth," she translated. "It's the crest for the Vigilance Against Sorcery Committee."
Recognition dawned in those amber eyes. "Your father."
"In the flesh. I'm sorry. It took me by surprise. I wasn't expecting to see him."
Lucien caught her hand, his eyes searching. "Ianthe—"
"It's all right. I don't think he saw me." The words spilled out, fast and hard.
"Ianthe, your heart is pounding. My heart is pounding. I feel like it's going to thump its way right out of my chest."
The bond. They stared at each other.
Lucien gently turned her toward a small park. "Come and sit down. You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Well, it's a fairly accurate summation." Only one man haunted her like this. She'd thought she'd escaped that vengeful specter, but just one glimpse of her father had sent her fleeing into memories. Ianthe felt like a young girl again. It had taken all of her courage to confront him years ago, and weeks of preparation. Afterward, her sense of elation had been vivid. She'd felt powerful for the first time in all of their encounters, but walking into him so unexpectedly revealed the truth.
Grant Martin would always hold the power between them.
Somehow.
Lucien guided her to a seat beside a small fountain. Ianthe dragged her cape jacket tighter around her. Of all the people to run into today. Here. Now. With Lucien by her side. She didn't want him to see her like this.
"We should be on our way," Ianthe said, noting the curious look he sent her. "We need to find Lord Rathbourne's grimoire and work out what Horroway meant."
A hand on her shoulder stopped her. Lucien looked stern. "I think we have time to catch our breath." Dragging off his coat, he settled it over her shoulders and knelt in front of her. The warmth of his body heat was instantly reassuring. "Tell me about your father."
"You should already know him."
"I think every sorcerer in the Order knows your father. The man is what I imagine a demon made flesh would be like."
As head of the Anti-Sorcery Committee, Sir Grant Martin had made it his duty to drive them from the city. If not for their loyalty to the Queen, and the fact that Drake had singlehandedly saved the Queen from a demon attack in his youth, her father might have made headway into seeing them cast out of the staunchly religious country. Occultism, however, was at a fever pitch. The Queen herself had once had her fortune predicted by a diviner.
"Why does your father hate you so much? Has he always held such an opinion?"
Ianthe looked away. Hate. The truth was an arrow straight to the heart; she didn't even know why it bothered her. Whenever she thought of Grant Martin, all she felt was anger and disappointment. So why did something within her desperately long for his approval still? "We all have that first time where our sorcery expresses itself for whatever reason. Mine was... it was shadow constructs. My mother had died when I was four, and my father believed that sparing the rod spoils the child. He used to lock me away in the attic for days on end, with only a tray shoved through the door for company, whenever I made some sort of transgression against his never-ending rules.
"I was lonely and afraid of the dark, but my governess used to leave me with a candle to stay the darkness. And one night, I made the shadows dance. They became my friends. The only ones I had for such a long time."
Lucien's head lowered toward hers, his hand resting on her shoulder. This gentleness of his confused her. "And he found out?"
"I was running in the gardens one day when I was twelve. I tripped and ruined my pretty skirts, right in front of one of his guests. Father was furious, and he started to drag me toward the attic. I couldn't bear it anymore; I just... I just couldn't go back to that attic. Not alone. And so I lashed out. My shadows became constructs with weight and form. They caught his arms and pushed him away from me." Ianthe picked at the hem of her skirt, seeing it all over again. "You should have seen his face. I thought he was going to kill me. The next day, he packed me off to my aunt's in the country and set about destroying every sorcerer in the country."
In the distance, a clock tower chimed four o'clock in the afternoon. Ianthe looked at it. The day was wasted, and they were only just making headway. A burst of thought came upon her: Louisa was out there somewhere, all alone, without a single shadow to comfort her. Ianthe sobered. "Come. We've much to do and little daylight left in which to do it."
She pushed herself to her feet, offering his coat back to him, but Lucien didn't move to accept it. He stared down at it, as though he'd never seen it before.
"What are you thinking?" she asked, tilting her head toward him. "You have this look about your face..."
"I was thinking that I thought my childhood was terrible."
It struck her right to the heart. He had no idea. Not truly. But she pushed aside the memories as maudlin. She was well free of Grant Martin. Well free of those memories. "Don't you pity me. I rarely think of him," she admitted, laying his coat over his arm and heading for their own carriage, parked behind the Cotswold Mews. "He cannot hurt me anymore. I made certain of that."
