Too late. Too slow. Too weak. There was nothing he could have done in that moment, not the way he was, and frustration seared through his veins.
A year ago, he could have protected her. A year ago, his own power could have matched Morgana's, and he might have been able to defeat her. But he was not that man. And as much as he tried to pretend to himself that he would regain his strength, he didn't have the time.
If you hadn't been so arrogant, you could have seen her Healer yesterday. He could have helped you heal yourself. You might have been able to do something, anything, if you had your power.
Lifting her close against his chest, Lucien breathed in Ianthe's light perfume, reassuring himself that she was whole. He could feel her consciousness beginning to come to the surface through their bond. She would be all right, hopefully. No. He would make certain she was.
There's a reason most sorcerers choose not to bond, my lad. An old friend had once told him that.
What a bloody mess.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Cleo had thought marriage would change things.
She was wrong.
A horribly unforgivable state for someone with the ability to see glimpses of the future, but there it was.
The ceremony in itself was quite nice, though brief, and had more of the air of a transaction than a joining of two people forever. Indeed, Cleo thought her new husband might even be a stranger, someone she'd never met before, for the coldness of his voice and the amount of attention Sebastian gave her. She tried to take his arm in the nave, for she was well outside of her usual boundaries in the church, but Sebastian passed her off to her father without breaking his stride and said he'd join her later that afternoon.
He was off to see if his new boots had arrived.
Her trunks were removed to the house he leased with his mother, and without further ado, Cleo was handed up into the hackney that would take her there.
Alone.
She hadn't left Tremayne Manor since her father had first put the blindfold on her.
When Cleo arrived, the housekeeper, Mrs. Gibbons, gave her a brief tour of the house, then escorted her to her room. "Dinner will be sent up in an hour or two, ma'am."
"Do you think I could take a turn in the garden?" Cleo asked.
There was a slight hesitation. "I think it wise if you rest this afternoon and stay in your room. I'll send a maid up to help you with your gown."
The door closed, and Cleo turned, frustration lancing through her. Curious about her new circumstances, she explored the room, a task that took her all of five minutes. Only the door on the far side of her chambers refused to budge when she tried it: locked, apparently.
"Where the master stays," Mrs. Gibbons had said earlier and coughed discreetly.
It took Cleo all of a minute to pick the lock with a hairpin.
Sebastian's chambers were cooler than her own, but there was nothing personal in the room, beyond piles of books, stacked haphazardly, to tell her about the kind of man she was married to. Cleo touched the old leather-bound spines, but she couldn't even see what type of books he read.
Not a single thing owned any hint of personality. Doubt was an unfamiliar emotion. She'd met Sebastian but once, after all... Who was her husband? The man who dwelt in silences and tried not to smile as he escorted her out of the carnage of heavy duck artillery? Or was he the cold man who hadn't hesitated in making a casual threat to her father that morning, as if he was discussing the weather.
Afternoon slowly slid into evening. Cleo dined in her chambers, listening as people came and went. Something was happening. Though her premonition had been willfully silent today—nerves, she suspected, tore her concentration—a sense of heaviness and tension stained the very house. Cleo cracked open the window, only to hear Sebastian reprimand his mother, somewhere below her window.
"I don't care what you do," Morgana snapped. "Just keep her bloody quiet until we get to the cemetery." A horse neighed, and wheels crunched over gravel. "This cannot go wrong, Sebastian. We must retrieve the relic from Miss Martin at all costs. She had best not think to cheat me, or I swear that girl will bear the brunt of it."
"It's all right," Sebastian murmured, and he sounded like her Sebastian again. "You'll get to see your mother again very shortly. I promise. Then you'll be safe. You just have to remain silent for a little longer. Can you do that?"
"I'll try," a little girl whispered.
"That's the spirit, Lou."
The sniffling of tears stopped and the din of voices cut off dramatically as the carriage door was closed. It wheeled away as the chill of evening fell, and Cleo was forced to shut the windows.
Well, now. What on earth was going on?
