Alan tried to write some more of his article but gave up after ten minutes of staring at a half-finished sentence. Jack had been sure that George wouldn’t do anything to him, here on Cheetham Hall’s land.
Alan had no such trust. Alan would put absolutely nothing past George Bastoke and Joe Morris. Alan was furious with Jack for locking them all away and deciding that he would go out to deal with George alone, and he was furious with how far this Jack was from the uncaring Lord Hawthorn Alan had met on the Lyric—and he was furious with himself for the ball of dread that sat like a snugly knotted necktie in the hollow of his throat. There was more he wanted from Jack Alston yet. So, so much more. It would be unacceptable for Jack to do something as arrogant and stupid as go off and be hurt or captured or killed.
The knock, when it came, was not on the door. It was an impatient triple-thump of a fist on the wall a yard from the door frame, and everyone’s head rose rabbitlike at the sound of it.
“All clear,” came Jack’s voice. “They’ve left. Good work on the turn-away, Edwin, I can’t even find the bloody door.”
Edwin cradled a spell that must have dropped the turn-away, because Jack came through the door a moment later. Unharmed, by the look of him. Though his face was set in an expression that Alan had seen on his brother Emilio before he told them all, over their ma’s sobbing, that they were being turned out of their dark, cramped basement rooms and onto the street. That expression meant bad news for someone.
For Violet, it turned out.
Maud made a sound like she’d been kicked in the side at the very idea of something happening to Spinet House. Violet went first ashen and then red. But the problem, as Jack pointed out, was that they didn’t know it was true, and not even Edwin could think of a way to find out quickly. Modern technology would have been more useful than magic. Cheetham Hall was too old and the earl and countess too traditional to equip themselves with a telephone line.
They didn’t wait long. Either through luck or design, Bastoke had timed his visit beautifully. A letter from London, addressed to Violet, arrived in the daily mail delivery while they were composing an urgent telegram to find out if anything had happened.
Something had.
The letter was from Mrs. Smith, Violet’s housekeeper. Shaky dismay sang through the words.
It had happened the previous night. By the time the first of the domestic staff had awoken and sounded the alarm, the fire was already too fierce, and going in too many places, for it to be easily extinguished by either the staff or—when they arrived—the fire brigade.
Nobody had sustained more than minor burns or a bad cough from the smoke. Near miraculous, Alan thought. But—they were magicians.
Mrs. Smith had taken the liberty of drawing on the household fund to find lodging for those servants who didn’t have family nearby. However, she wrote, Miss Debenham was urgently expected at the lawyer’s office—insurance and cleanup and rebuilding had to be considered—and there were Scotland Yard officers asking probing questions about unhappy or careless staff, and arson—
“I will skin him,” snarled Violet, flinging the letter down. “Both of them. All of them. I’m going to set their houses on fire, with them inside, and I’m going to keep them alive by magic until they’re no more than pieces of twisted charcoal.”
Alan looked at Maud, then wondered why he’d bothered. Maud was not Robin, who could be relied upon to gently tug his partner back from flights of fancy. Maud had a look on her face like she would cheer Violet on and then make cheese toast over the embers.
“I should never have left. I have to go back.” Violet wheeled on Edwin. “If something that serious happened—it’s my house, I inherited it, you saw me make blood-oath. I should have felt it. Shouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know.” Edwin sat rigidly. “I—I thought I would feel it if anything happened to Sutton, but—”
“But your precious Sutton is warded against magicians, so nothing would!” Violet almost shouted.
“And Spinet wasn’t warded?” Edwin returned. His rigidity flicked all at once to restlessness. He stood and began to pace. “They managed to burn down a magical house that would have been directly warded against both fire and unfriendly entry. That takes several magicians, and both determination and creativity. If they really wanted to get at Sutton—hell. Perhaps I should leave.”
“Nobody should leave,” said Jack.
It was a whip cracked across the heads of the room.
He went on, harshly, “This is what they want. They attacked Spinet because they knew it would make us flee, if we were hiding there, or draw us into the open from wherever else we might be. You especially, Violet.” A hard look at Edwin. “And you. You think Walter doesn’t know that Sutton is your weakness as well as your strength?”
“Go to hell, Jack,” snapped Edwin. “We’re not children. Stop talking at us as if we were. And it’s all very well for you to be so bloody high-handed—nobody’s burned down your house.”
“No,” drawled Jack. “They merely plan to use it to stage an obscene power-stealing ritual.”
“If Violet doesn’t go and deal with the legalities of this mess,” said Robin, “could they make another legal case to take Spinet away from her?”
“They don’t need it anymore,” said Jack. “They have the knife.”
Robin was unmoved. “People like Walter Courcey don’t do cruel things because they’re necessary.”
Violet made another incoherent sound and kicked a chair, which jolted a few inches across the floor. Then she put her hands apologetically on the back of it. Then gave an awkward hiccup of a sob, her face crumpling, and Maud went to embrace her at once.
“She left it to me,” Violet said. “She thought I deserved it.”
“You do, dearest,” said Maud. “Of course you do.”
Violet’s voice was thick and painfully young. “I—I told it I’d take care of it.”
Alan realised he hadn’t moved since the letter was read. He was leaning his arms hard on the table, and one of his hands was tingling and numb. He sat back and shook them. Violet’s guilt was like a cloak flung over his own shoulders. He’d forced Spinet House to give up its secrets and now—if he hadn’t helped set the trap at the Barrel, if they all hadn’t been forced to flee like this—
“I’ll go to London,” said Adelaide. “Tomorrow.”
Everyone looked at her.
She shrugged. “Hawthorn is right. They’re looking for an excuse to get you all out of the way before the gala. I’ve no magic; I’ll only be so much help during the night itself. Disguise me and send me back and I’ll act for you, Violet.”
Violet wiped at her face with a lacy sleeve. She looked torn. “It’ll be a bastard mess, Addy.”
“I’m very good with messes.”
Nobody argued with that.
“Addy,” said Robin, “they might want Edwin and Violet the most, but they do know you’re involved.”
“Good luck to anyone trying to barge into my parents’ house,” said Adelaide. “And my grandfather is even better at lording his way through situations than Robin and Hawthorn, and he’s spent half his life fighting with property-inheritance lawyers.” She hesitated, then added: “And it’s not only—look, Kitty’s due any day now, and I promised her I’d be there if I could.”