“I didn’t know that,” said Robin, with a go-on kind of air. “Edwin didn’t tell me he’d lived in America.”
“It was before I was born,” said Edwin.
“It was a wonderful time. We even had the pleasure of befriending the great Mr. Tiffany,” his mother murmured, her gaze going distant. “Even since returning to England for good, we’ve commissioned a great many works for the house from his studio.”
Robin lit up. “I thought so. The little jars at the dinner table?”
“Yes! One of my particular treasures, though of course we could hardly explain what an ornamental guidekeeper is, when we placed the order. I miss the sight of them—oh, I do wish I had the energy to join the family at dinner more often—do feel keenly that I should be present—”
“You can’t be expected to put up with Bel’s set, Mother,” said Edwin. “Don’t think anything of it. I’ll dine with you while I’m here, shall I? We can make a picnic of it.”
“No! No, darling, I can’t think of imposing such tedium on you.”
“And if I said I preferred it?”
Her eyes were Bel’s eyes, a paler blue than his own. There was nothing in them but love, and yet Edwin felt like a paper-cut the whisper of her disappointment. “Edwin, darling. You mustn’t let them tease you.”
“Blyth. Robin,” said Edwin. “I’d like a moment alone with my mother.”
Robin stood at once. “I’ll wait outside,” he said. “After all, I left my guidelight outside my room, despite Edwin’s warning me not to.” He winked at Edwin as he left.
“What a nice young man.” Edwin’s mother patted the folds of her shawl. “I’m so pleased to see you bringing a friend here, darling.”
“He’s not a friend.” Edwin sat at her feet, as he hadn’t done for months. The first touch of her hand on his hair made him want to cry, but instead he took another deep breath of her perfume. “Can I give you a secret, Mother?”
“You know how I love secrets,” she murmured.
Edwin looked into the fire and let his mother card her frail and swollen fingers through his hair, and told her the uneasy story of Robin Blyth, baronet and civil servant, new to magic and already marked by it in baffling circumstances. It felt better to have told someone. It felt right, normal, for it to just be the two of them, Edwin and his mother, holding things close against the world.
“Poor boy,” she said. “And what a bother for you! You could hardly do otherwise, of course. Best to have this dealt with. I suppose you’ll give him lethe-mint, when it’s sorted out?”
“Of course,” said Edwin.
“It may take more than the mint, if it’s been a week. I’m sure you know what’s best, my dear. And you can always ask Charles to do the spell itself.”
Edwin breathed in. Out. “Of course,” he said again.
He would happily have fallen asleep there, but he had a guest. He bid his mother good night and let himself out. Robin was inspecting the coloured panes of the closest window, darkened though it was by night. Edwin would suffer through a conversation about Tiffany glass if necessary.
But then Robin turned and Edwin saw the question hovering on the man’s lips.
Edwin said, “It’s a form of rheumatism. It gives her pain, and it saps at her strength.” Broad; inarguable. That was as much as a stranger needed to know. The fits of melancholy had been mild, by all accounts, before the rheumatism got its claws into her. Now there were weeks when she refused to change from her nightgown, or to have the curtains drawn, or to raise her voice to dictate a letter. Edwin had done the imbuement on her pens himself. They were sensitive to even a whisper.
Edwin wrote to her more often, not less, when the gaps between her letters yawned wide. It never seemed to drag her out of it more quickly. He wrote nonetheless.
They had just turned into the south corridor when Blyth halted and swayed on his feet, eyes wide. He did not clutch at his arm, or curl around it as he had in the train and as Edwin had half feared he would during dinner. Instead he simply stood, slumped against the wall and staring at nothing, the colour gone from his face just as it had done in Hawthorn’s house. He was breathing, but shallowly. Edwin felt, for a long few heartbeats of startling terror, entirely useless.
And then it was over, whatever it was. Robin blinked and was behind his own eyes again.
Edwin guided them both down the corridor and into the closest of the willow rooms, which was Robin’s. The guidelight still shone motionless outside the door as though set in a bracket.