Poppy agreed with a nod. “The truth is she’s the only mother I’ve ever really known. Occasionally, I’ll have flashes of memory from before my mother died, but I was so young, and those memories are so few and fleeting. Nothing of any substance, just a feeling. The same feeling—” She seemed to stare deep into Alec’s soul. “Well, the same feeling as I found in that crystal box.”
Alec wasn’t certain if he’d ever felt his mother’s love. It was a lowering thought to be sure, but not the first time he’d thought it. When he was younger, he often wondered what it must feel like to be Rhys, the heir, the favored son. For a Promethean witch, Mother was cold to most, cold to Alec for certain unless she was in a fury and then the fires of Hell were nothing in comparison to her ire. He thought briefly about the note Rhys had given Daniel, the still unread note that he’d tucked away in his pocket the other night. Perhaps—
“Is it possible for you to teach me?” Poppy’s voice broke into Alec’s thoughts.
He turned his full attention on her. “I beg your pardon?”
“I shouldn’t have asked.” She looked as though she wished she could take back her words as she glanced away from him. “I apologize. I just don’t know anyone else to ask. But I—”
Alec forced the thoughts of his own mother from his mind with a shake of his head. “You want me to teach you magic?”
It wasn’t an outlandish thought. In her place, Alec would probably ask the same thing.
“I don’t mean to impose, I—”
“Poppy,” he said softly and his heart stilled when she turned to face him once more. “It’s not an imposition. It’s just been some time since I had the ability to use magic. Most of what I remember came naturally to me, Promethean in nature—as you said, part of my soul. How to conjure a ball of fire, how to will an entire chandelier aflame with a snap of my fingers. I’m not a Seer, I wasnevera Seer.”
The disappointment he saw in her eyes pricked at his heart. There had to be something he could do.
“Did your aunt leave behind anything? Letters, writings…A grimoire?”
“A grimoire?” she echoed, her brow crinkling a bit.
“A spell book,” he clarified. “Each family has their own, a place where knowledge is stored and passed down from one generation to the next.”
At that, Poppy’s eyes brightened a bit. “There was a book.” Then she shook her head. “But we couldn’t open it. It didn’t appear to be locked, but it wouldn’t open either, and—”
Alec grinned, perhaps the first real smile he’d felt in some time. “Well, I can help you open it. That Idoknow how to do.”
“Then let’s hope Laurel knows where it is.”
CHAPTER5
It seemedlike a lifetime since Poppy had been in The Chase’s attic. Once upon a time, she and Laurel had played hide-and-go-seek in the place for hours on end. Now, it was dustier than she remembered and the cobwebs in the upper rafters made her skin crawl just slightly. These days, it would be the last place in the world she’d want to spend her time. But there she was with Laurel, just like when they were children, rummaging around the lost treasures of bygone eras in search of Great-Aunt Alora’s old traveling chest.
“You’re certain that book is in the chest?” she asked, hitting her skirts with her hands to keep the dust from settling.
“Unless someone removed it,” Laurel said as she dropped to her knees and poked her head under a cloth draped over something. Clearly finding nothing, she returned to her feet then speared Poppy with an annoyed expression. “Can’t you just do that thing and make a vision appear in your mind? It would make finding the trunk so much easier.”
Poppy scowled in response. “Can’t you just touch something in the room to see if we’re close?”
“It doesn’t work that way,” her sister replied tartly. “I have to touch an item with my hands to see something about it. If I was touching the chest, I wouldn’t have a need to find it.”
“At least you have some sort of ability to see what you want. I have no control about if orwhensomething will appear to me.”
“Sounds like I got the superior power,” Laurel replied with a flip of her light brown hair. Then she turned her attention to the far corner. “It should be easy to find. No one would have moved all this other stuff out of the way to bury the trunk behind it. So, it should be one on the outer edges, don’t you think?”
A terrible thought occurred to Poppy. “What if they tossed it out instead of putting it up here?”
“No, no. With my own eyes I saw Dawson and…that other footman…” Her sister shook her head.
“Phelps,” Poppy told her. “He’s only been heretwoyears, Laurel.”
But her sister shrugged with nonchalance. “And in that time, he and I have had exactly zero conversations, Poppy. I would hardly remember the man’s name.”
“Yes, heaven forbid.”
“Exactly,” Laurel agreed. “Anyway, I saw the two of them bring Aunt Alora’s trunk up here. So, ithasto be here.”
