Violet said that in her version of the story the contract was made with three sisters of one household who then went on to found the Three Families. In the version Edwin knew, each family was from a different corner of the Isles and returned there with their magic after the fae left.
Dufay herself was supremely uninterested in nailing down a single truth. She did say that the families were the ones who insisted on making the contract on behalf of their bloodlines. Fae, who seldom bothered to reproduce, considered contractual inheritance far more important. Blood was what the humans brought to the bargain.
That, said Adelaide dryly, rang unfortunately true. The history of men was the history of them trying to acquire and hold property and power for their sons, and obsessing over a pure line of inheritance.
It made Jack think in a new way about the fuss and discomfort that Walter and the Assemblymen had shown over Edwin and Violet’s inheritance of Sutton and Spinet, which had been inherited by contract law and choice. And in Edwin’s case, no blood tie at all, beyond that which he made directly with the land beneath a hedge maze.
And so: the fae left. The Last Contract was hidden away in a place deemed unlikely to be disturbed, given the weight humans placed on symbol and belief. The Lady of the Allstone stayed behind, and planted an oak tree in the path of a deep-running ley line, and gave her name as both promise and reminder to the human man she wed.
And fae magic had been the heart and the root of British magic ever since.
“Which was not the intent,” said Dufay irritably. She looked around the table like a nanny who’d woken from her nap to find the children imbuing their dolls to fight one another. “Of course our magic is superior and more elegant. But having the gifts of the dawn is no excuse to lose touch entirely with what you already had. Careless. Irresponsible.”
Robin had produced and unfolded the letter that the Grimm of Gloucester had sent to his office. He ran his finger under a line, and Edwin, sitting next to him, looked sharply at Dufay.
“The gifts of the dawn and the wages of the dusk. That’s what you were talking about?”
“And you wrote the poem,” said Violet. “The song. Didn’t you? Under the name Alfred Dufay.”
Yes, it turned out. She had been various Dufays, male and female, for centuries, killing one identity in favour of the next. No wonder Maud hadn’t had any luck in the cemetery. Alfred Dufay had never died, just as he’d never truly lived.
The poem, along with the spell-game for children, had been Dufay communicating her annoyance in the way that fae knew best: putting words into the world to be repeated and kept.
“I even made it rhyme,” she said rather sulkily. “You like rhymes.”
“So you had the ability to make sense in writing at some point,” muttered Edwin. “Why become the Grimm? Why didn’t you just come and tell us—magicians, I mean—that we were losing knowledge?”
Dufay gave Edwin a look that cast clear aspersion on his intelligence. Edwin coloured.
“I prefer,” said Dufay, “to be left alone. Not to fix other people’s mistakes for them. But”—she waved at the letter—“one day a magician told me there was a place to write, if you had complaints or suggestions about the way magic was intersecting with the non-magical world. So I did it the mortal way.”
“And you had a lot of suggestions,” said Adelaide.
Dufay gave them all the displeased-nanny look again.
Jack’s mother removed her hand from his. His skin tingled coolly when she withdrew her grip. The cast of her face was troubled, but she gave Jack a firm smile.
“From what you’ve all told me,” she said, “these ladies of the Forsythia Club may have made some discoveries about this.”
“Yes,” said Edwin. “Old magic, new ways to use it. Flora Sutton was convinced that ley-line magic should never have fallen out of use, though I don’t know how far she took it. I’ve decoded nearly all her diaries now, and she never put things in terms of—or perhaps she did, but I didn’t know how to read it. Dawn, dusk. The liminal times.” He slumped, rubbing his forehead. Robin put a hand on his back.
Violet said, “I’m sure Lady Enid at least knew the song was important, given how she worked it into Spinet’s doorways and charms.”
“I wonder,” said Maud, “how much Mrs. Vaughn knows.”
That made them pause. The fourth member of the Forsythia Club was still a cipher. From Maud’s account she was equally ruthless as the men she was working with, but had little respect or liking for them.
Alan stirred as if to say something, but hesitated. He collected himself and said to Dufay, “Edwin talks about the magic of magical houses—like this one—as a different language. Which one is that? Dawn or dusk?”
Dufay’s booted feet drummed on the floor as Maud’s sometimes did when she was made to sit still for too long. “Messy. Both.”
“Of course it would be both,” said Lady Cheetham. “Houses only become like this when inhabited by magicians. Magic done in the houses and on the land must contribute as much as any magic inherent to the land itself. And when I use magic on Cheetham land and find it easier, stronger, the extra power must be coming from something outside of myself.” She shrugged. “Mingling and reciprocity. It makes perfect sense.”
“Hmph. Cheetham might be particularly mingled,” said Dufay, “because it has all of mine as well.”
“Your…？” said Lady Cheetham.
“Magic.” Another drumming of feet. Dufay made a flicking motion with her fingers, like the very start of a cradle. “I thought some of it might return to me, being back here, but apparently not. No reciprocity there.”
“You’re not a magician?” said Maud. It was nearly a blurt, and Maud winced as soon as it was out. “I mean … you can’t do magic? But you’re fae.”
“I am the fourth gift of the dawn,” said Dufay. She tucked a greasy strand of hair behind her ear. “Myself through the oak. A symbol. The oak put my magic into the land, adding it to what was inherent, and putting it out of my reach. A gesture of goodwill.”
“No magic, for all those years,” murmured Lady Cheetham. Her hand twitched towards Jack’s, but she didn’t touch him again. Jack might have flinched if she had, with the raw familiarity twisting in him now. Dufay had magic, and lost it here, at the top of that hill.
How much more painful, though, to lose magic when magic was what you were? What was left then to define yourself by? Marriage, to someone who had what you’d lost? Children? Guardianship of a land abandoned by every other one of your kind?
No amount of money could have spurred Jack to ask Was it enough?
“Contract is contract,” said Dufay. Her voice harshened. Now the throatiness had a birdlike quality to it. “There had to be a sacrifice. It was mine. And now it may have been for nothing, because not only have mortals left yourselves with only that gift, some of you had the stupid idea of taking it all for yourselves.”
“We’re the ones trying to stop it!” said Violet.
“Yes, so this one said.” Dufay nodded at Adelaide. “Your attempts seem less than useless. Perhaps you can now explain why these thieves of the contract have not simply been brought up in front of the council and executed?”