“There’s no harm done,” said Charlie, looking baffled. “They enjoy it.”
“You’re the first time Edwin’s brought anyone,” said Miggsy. He wasn’t baffled. He had the air of someone who knew exactly how unpleasant this was turning, and was relishing it. “He’d not shown much interest in the game before. We were starting to hope the stick up his arse was unbending.”
“All right,” said Belinda. “There’s no need to be vulgar.”
“I didn’t bring him for that,” said Edwin. He didn’t look up. “I told you. We needed the library. We needed to get the curse off.”
“Yes, obviously.” Billy hadn’t spoken until now; he’d looked honestly stunned, when the word foresight had first been uttered. “But you were hardly going to send him home remembering the whole debacle afterwards, Edwin, surely.”
Robin looked at Edwin. Edwin was looking at his plate, where the ruined muffin sat. The moment stretched.
Robin realised two things in close succession. The first was that Billy was correct: that Edwin had boarded that train in London, had invited Robin onto his family’s land, with the full intention of wiping his mind clean of it later.
The second was that Robin had been starting to grow a modest garden of hope, in the last two days. Had been starting to cling to a vision that had nothing to do with foresight: that perhaps he could do what he’d never done before, and try to fit someone into his life. He knew some men of their sort did it, but he had never fathomed the appeal. And now he’d been prepared to try. He’d been looking forward to trying.
Edwin had been looking forward to . . . what? Taking his pleasure from Robin and then letting him forget it all?
Robin tried to settle his breath. All he could smell was meat and mushrooms and bloody pepper. He’d had enough.
“Maud. Fetch your things and meet me at the front of the house. We’re leaving if I have to carry our bags to the station myself.”
“You told me you’d take responsibility for these two, Edwin,” said Belinda accusingly.
Of course. Of course he had.
“Don’t touch her,” Robin hissed. “I swear to God, I will throttle the first person to cast a single fucking spell on my sister.”
The gasp of offended shock from Trudie was a fraction too showy to be real. Robin was sick to his stomach of this place, this beautiful house full of beautiful artworks and false, selfish people.
“I suppose consent’s only needed between magicians,” he said, direct to Edwin.
Edwin flung his head up. Robin waited for the objection, but it was only in Edwin’s eyes, frozen and furious and desperate. Robin felt his anger tipping him towards saying something too personal for this table. There were some things, some hurts, that were still nobody else’s business.
“Maud,” Robin said.
Maud stood. “Yes. Yes, I’ll get my things.”
Robin threw his napkin onto his plate, where it began to soak up sauce from the kidneys, a thin, dark blooming.
Then he turned and left the room.
Edwin intended to go after Robin, he truly did. He was at the foot of the main staircase when his feet lost their nerve and delivered him to the library instead. Two days ago, cradling an inferno in bleeding hands without his string, he’d thought he might have a scrap of courage to him after all. He’d clearly been wrong. He was much better suited to hiding.
When Robin came in, dressed for travel and carrying his bags as though he refused to trust anything of his to even the servants of Edwin’s family, Edwin was curled up in one of the armchairs trying to persuade himself he wasn’t shaking. He looked up when Robin entered, and scrambled out of the chair. No matter what this was, fight or forgiveness or farewell, he wanted to be standing for it.
Edwin saw Robin want to give him distance. Then he saw the moment when Robin firmed his jaw and overcame it, and pushed his way into Edwin’s space. It was so clearly an attack that Edwin didn’t feel ashamed of stepping back.
“You were going to do that to me?” Robin demanded without preamble. “Make me forget?”
Not forgiveness, then.
“No,” said Edwin. “I mean—I was, originally, yes. But I changed my mind.”
“When? No. I don’t want to know that.” Robin took a breath. “You said lethe-mint had a time limit on how far back it would erase. What is it?”
Questions, Edwin could handle. Facts. “In its strongest potency it can only cover . . . perhaps a fortnight. It’s imprecise, at that strength. There are other factors—”