A breath of relief went through the room. Throckmorton leaned across the table to take the full carafe of wine that was set in front of Sergeant Sheffield. Grimshaw stepped toward the swan display, carving knife at the ready. Amelia looked away, all her horrified anticipation of that procedure rushing up again. Suddenly, a flash of silver light sparked at the edge of her vision. Then another. The air seemed to throb with a soundless force that reverberated along her every nerve.
Jumping up so fast her chair crashed to the floor, she gestured urgently to the diners. “Everyone out! At once!”
Astonishment stunned the company. But no British person was capable of defying a command made in such a stern, teacherly voice by a woman wearing a knitted gray cardigan, and so mumbling in fright (Vanity and Sir Nigel), annoyance (Lady Ruperta), and frustration at not being able to finish the soup (Throckmorton), they promptly quit their seats and made for the exit. As he lumbered through the doorway, Throckmorton sneered at Amelia. “Only here an hour and already making quite the fuss, Tarrant.”
She ignored him, beckoning to Sergeant Sheffield so the man would move faster than a steady march. Within less than a minute, the room was cleared, even Caleb obeying her without question. Amelia paused in the doorway, watching the books begin to stir on their shelves as the candlelight, trembling, flushed blue with magic.
“Come on, you,” Caleb said from behind her. Grasping her arm, he pulled her over the threshold and slammed the door shut.
BOOM.
Chapter Nine
Beggars and kings alike bow to the power of magic.
I, on the Past, Cornelius Ottersock
“Well, this isunexpected,” Amelia said as she and Caleb stood in the dining room five minutes later. From out in the hallway, where they had insisted the others remain, Lady Ruperta called through the closed door, “Is everything all right?”
Amelia and Caleb exchanged a taut glance. Amelia tilted her head toward the door…Caleb shook his…She frowned…He gave a much-put-upon sigh and trudged across the room and opened the door a crack.
“Everything’s just fine,” he lied. “But best you stay out for a little longer. Maybe go have some brandy while you wait?”
Amelia heard only a murmur of replies, shot through with one sharpNigel!Then Caleb closed the door and turned back to the room.
“What the hell are we going to do about this?” he asked bemusedly.
“I don’t know,” Amelia admitted.
They stared in troubled silence at the scene. Everything seemed exactly as it had been before the percussive disturbance.The dinner was undisturbed on the table, the books neatly lined up on their shelves. The clock continued to tick backward, no trace of blue-tinted enchantment about it now. Amelia felt frazzlement encroach upon her nerves yet again, for there was only one thing worse than magic exploding during your first evening on assignment: itnotexploding, when you made everyone run out of the room because you thought that it would.
“I could have sworn there was a sonic detonation,” she said, “but perhaps I misheard.”
“You didn’t,” Caleb told her. “And you know what it was.”
She looked at him with some surprise, for only rarely had she heard that tone of voice from him: light, friendly, but with an unyielding quality that explained why his students were always successful despite his apparently lackadaisical approach to teaching them. “No, I don’t know,” she said. “The clock—”
“Is not responsible. Tell me, Meely, what you were thinking just before things went boom.”
“Sonic detonation,” she corrected him.
“Whatever.”
Amelia frowned, trying to remember what her thoughts had been. “I admit, I was annoyed about Sir Nigel not taking my professional word, but that was hardly enough— Wait. The butler was about to carve the swans, and I couldn’t stand the thought of watching them being—” She shuddered, unable to finish that sentence.
Thwack.
They turned to see a book lying on the floor.
Thwack.Another flung itself from its shelf to join the first.
Caleb turned back to Amelia, brows raised. Apparently she was supposed to divine some meaning from this expression.
“It isnotmy fault,” she retorted, for indeed she’d always been able to read Caleb’s face.
He contrived to lift his brows even higher.
“Well, really,” Amelia huffed. “There’s no need to be rude. Are you suggesting I have some kind of telekinetic power, as if I were a Saxon brooch or—or—?” Feeling her temper grow hot, she stopped, taking a deep, calming breath. How well this worked can be evidenced by the way half the candles in the room suddenly flickered and went out. Shadows wavered across Caleb’s face like atold you so.
