“Perhaps, I’ll just ask him in the morning.”
* * *
For the secondnight in a row, Poppy sat up with a start in the middle of the night. Some clatter had woken her. A jarring sound of some sort. Hadn’t it? Or had she imagined it? All was peaceful and quiet in her dark chambers.
And then...
A thunk sounded against her window. It came again. THUNK!
Honestly, not again! Poppy pushed her counterpane away and slid from her bed. When she threw open her drapes she found Stormy, once again, balanced on a tree branch outside her window, bumping against the glass with his head.
“For pity’s sake.” Poppy opened the window and snatched the little grey ball of fluff up into her arms. “Stormy, what has gotten into you?”
But the cat scrambled from her arms and then raced to her doorway.
He meowed and scratched, insistently, at the door.
“And now you want out?” She crossed the floor to open the door for the little menace. “Make up your mind, will you?”
Stormy crossed the threshold and then turned back to look at her, his intelligent eyes keen as ever . He sat and meowed once more. Goodness! Was he trying to wake the entire house?
“You want me to follow you?” Poppy asked.
The cat meowed his answer and then started down the corridor.
“Oh, very well.” There’d be no peace until she did what he wanted. So Poppy grabbed a wrap and then followed after the little grey cat.
Down the stairs, around a corner and then, by the garden door...
“Alec?” she breathed out. Was he headed outside at this hour?
Startled, he turned around, his eyes wide as he took her in. “Why are you up at this hour?”
“Appeasing my cat for some reason.” She crossed the floor and smiled at him. “Are you going somewhere?”
“Thought the night air might clear my thoughts.” He gestured to the nearby parlor. “But that can wait. Did the grimoire answer all your questions?”
Poppy shrugged as she stepped over the threshold and then settled on the settee. “It answered many and now we have others.”
“Others?” He crossed the floor at a slower pace than she had. Of course, Stormy made it more difficult as he tried to rub his head against Alec’s cane as he walked.
She shooed the cat away. “For instance, how quickly can we learn Welsh?”
“Ah.” He laughed softly as he took the spot beside her. “That will come in time, I suppose.”
She did hope he was right in that regard. “I still feel so far behind.” Poppy heaved a sigh. “And I’m still so confused about why our magic was taken from us in the first place.”
He winced slightly and Poppy’s heart twisted.
“I apologize. I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject. I—”
“I should be long over it.” Alec shook his head. “Though sometimes the loss feels as fresh as the day my magic was taken from me.”
The pain in his voice make Poppy’s belly ache in commiseration. “I didn’t mean to impose.”
He heaved a sigh and looked off in the distance as though the past was playing about in his mind. “My mother is a complicated woman. Beautiful. Powerful.” A mirthless laugh escaped him. “But always cruel and controlling.”
“I’m sorry,” Poppy muttered, meaning her words. After all, she had been fortunate in that regard. Though she’d lost her own mother, Caroline had always been nurturing and devoted, treating Poppy and Laurel as though they were her own children. Being raised by a cruel mother seemed like the worst sort of nightmare.
