“I can’t help noticing that nobody else seems particularly surprised by this,” said Jack dangerously.
Adelaide laughed. “Robin ran it past Edwin and Maud first.”
“And I told Violet,” said Maud, in obviously tones.
“It was a precaution,” said Robin. “When the attacks on Spinet House became more frequent, and Addy made it clear she wouldn’t keep her nose out of things—ow, thank you—” His apparently affianced bride had pinched his leg. “Edwin had been thinking about how magical estates define families and households, and whether a blood-oath might do the same. An engagement is an oath too.”
“And last month my parents told me outright that if I didn’t produce a husband soon, they were going to choose one for me.” Adelaide slid a fond look at Robin. “So I marched right into the office at Whitehall the next day and said we should do it.”
Jack now had fifteen new questions, but they could wait. Adelaide was protected from Walter in the same way that Maud was. That answered his initial one.
“Fine. Next question. Edwin.”
Edwin looked uncomfortable. “You know I’ve had theories about using the ley lines to solve the problem of distance. If a magical estate can enhance an individual’s power locally, then a ley line might be able to carry that enhancement. Yes?”
Jack remembered an extremely dull lecture on this subject being delivered over breakfast, and cursed himself for not paying better attention at the time. “You drew on Sutton Cottage? From London?”
“The trick was forcing magic to flow from London to Sutton first,” said Edwin. “A catalyst, to open the channel. I managed a one-handed cradle to escape the priez-vous, then used the map charm to find Flora Sutton. Her hair was still in the Lockroom, and she’s buried on the Sutton estate. The Lockroom’s map charm is enormously powerful. I simply … tried to piggyback onto it and see if Sutton would notice that I was horribly angry and needed help. That’s the best way I can explain it.”
“Hell,” said Jack, equal parts appalled and impressed. “And it worked.”
“Far better than I expected,” said Edwin. “I think I got tangled up in half of the Barrel’s own magic as well.”
“You nearly killed yourself,” said Robin.
Edwin shot him an unhappy look. Robin returned it.
“All right, what is this?” Jack said. “You two have been picking at the lid on this fight like a damn scabbed knee for weeks, and it’s clearly important.”
“Robin—”
“I keep seeing him die,” said Robin.
Maud made a small noise of distress, and Adelaide went still.
“The first vision I had was nearly a year ago, at Penhallick House. And they’ve been happening ever since. It’s always different, never one event set in stone. The visions like that are possibilities. But they kept happening. It started to feel like I was summoning them simply by dreading them so much.”
“That’s why you wanted the visions stopped,” said Maud. She went and sat at Robin’s feet and touched his hand where the rowan-wood ring was.
“That and the headaches,” said Robin. “All right, now we’re all aware of that cheerful little fact, does anyone else have anything to share with the class?”
“Edwin,” said Violet. She tapped her wrist.
Edwin was looking even more drawn, and had taken possessive hold of Robin’s other hand. He released it now and split a glance between Alan and Jack.
“Coopers have been banging on the door here since yesterday. Violet and I spent the entire night reinforcing the wards—or rather, she did. I was well and truly drained. And this morning an envelope addressed to me came through the mail slot, and no, I shouldn’t have opened it, but I was exhausted, and all I could think was that we’re waiting for the Grimm of Gloucester to write back.” His voice was flat. He tugged back his cuff a couple of inches to show a purple bracelet of runes like those that had accompanied Violet’s summons to the Library. “Apparently, the fact that there is no longer a Barrel hasn’t stopped Bastoke and the Assembly from issuing something that’s both a legal summons and a direct order for my arrest. It hasn’t … done anything to me. Yet.”
“We’re all now officially dangerous radicals engaged in a plot to dismantle British magical society,” said Violet. “Not even I’ve managed to destroy my reputation that thoroughly before. Well done, Edwin.”
“Sod off,” said Edwin tiredly. “Forgive me if I need some time to adjust to our entire community believing us to be violent criminals who destroyed…” He trailed off. “The Office should make a report about it, Addy. The Prime Minister will need a cover story for why an anonymous building in Farringdon is now a pile of rubble.”
“Secret military chemical experiments,” said Adelaide. She smiled slightly at Alan. “Or it was gunpowder after all. An anarchist plot.”
“You can’t go to the Home Office, Edwin,” said Robin firmly. “Nowhere you usually go. You’re staying here.”
“We can still get in and out through the Bayswater tunnel,” said Maud. “That’s something.”
“And we still have disguises.” Violet made a face. “We know Bastoke can negate them, but at least he has to suspect someone in the first place.”
“Good,” said Adelaide. “Make me a new one, please. I’m going to the Home Office, and then I’m going to Gloucester.”
A ringing silence followed that. Adelaide clasped her hands elegantly in her lap. She looked, even more than usual, as if she were on the verge of correcting someone’s table manners. “You were right, Edwin. Now more than ever, if there’s someone out there who knows about the Last Contract and how it might be used, and how we might prevent it, then we need to know what he—or she—can tell us. I’ll check one last time for any mail. And then I’ll go and find the Grimm myself and write down everything they know. Or stuff them into my luggage, if I must.”
More silence. Jack was no longer surprised that Adelaide Morrissey had proposed marriage to a baronet. She should probably be running the Home Office.
Alan had been quiet during this discussion, as if he still expected to be thrown out of Violet’s top-floor windows if he reminded them of his presence. Now he cleared his throat.
“I don’t mean to piss on a good plan, but—are we still at the stage of preventing? Now Bastoke has all three pieces of the contract, how do you know he isn’t using it as we speak?”
“He could be.” Edwin, with something to explain, looked marginally brighter. “But I think it’s unlikely. One of my problems has been how you could possibly use it to steal from a smaller number of magicians, and … I don’t think it’s possible. It’s a definite contract, and it’s the bloodlines of the Three Families who are defined. And from what you said, Hawthorn, one assumes we’d feel it—Violet and I—if our magic was being drawn on.” He nodded at Jack. “I think you’re right to suspect the equinox gala. Ley lines notwithstanding, distance may still be an issue in how difficult this is. If there’s any sort of ritual involved, it’d be sensible to do it when there are as many magicians as possible in close proximity. Hell, I’m almost tempted to let Bastoke and Walter try to use the contract,” he added bitterly. “Let them suck up as much magic as they want, if it feels anything like what I did with Sutton. They can tear themselves apart with it.”