Now, now. Can’t let standards slip just because of a little near-death experience, Edwin thought, and had to bury a burst of strangled inappropriate laughter in a cough.
It died in his throat as they entered Mrs. Sutton’s parlour. The room seemed busy with people, though there were only four of them. A girl in a maid’s uniform was sobbing; the sound grated on Edwin’s nerves. He heard a sharp inhalation from Robin, who’d preceded him into the room, and then an older woman moved aside, turning at the sound of their entry, and Edwin saw what had caused it.
Flora Sutton sat in the chair where they’d left her. She seemed to have shrunk; the velvet was vast, cradling her. Her eyes were open and as unmoving as every other part of her body. There was no blood, no marks. A violent stillness rang in Edwin’s mind.
The smile on her dead face had an edge that Edwin would almost call triumphant.
“What on Earth” came from the older woman in a sharp tone. Housekeeper, by her dress and her dignity. “Franklin, get these . . .”
She, too, trailed off as her gaze travelled over Edwin and Robin.
“They’re visiting on family business, Mrs. Greengage,” said the footman. “The mistress”—no more than a soft break in the words—“met with them.” He introduced Edwin and Robin, note-perfect on Robin’s title, habit managing to overcome whatever shock he was feeling.
“Courcey,” said the other man in the room, whom Edwin had already mentally labelled as butler. The name was question and relief all at once. Edwin supposed it would have been the outside of enough, for this household to have to deal with unmagical garden enthusiasts in the immediate aftermath of . . . whatever this was.
“Yes. Mrs. Sutton was looking into something for us.” Edwin gestured to the new pile of books on the table at the corpse’s right hand. A small vase with a sprig of red leaves had been pushed aside to make room for them. “We went to look at the maze while we waited. We were going to have tea.”
“Our maze doesn’t care for magicians,” said Mrs. Greengage. Her arm was around the sobbing maid, but she frowned at Edwin. “How’d she not warn you of that, Mr. Courcey?”
“Has—look here, has someone sent for a doctor?” Robin demanded. “The police?”
The fact was hauled once more into Edwin’s consciousness: this wasn’t Robin’s world. He didn’t know how it worked.
“No police,” Edwin said, trying to promise explanation at a later time with his frown.
“We’ve telephoned for Dr. Hayman, but he was out on a call. Left a message with his wife,” said the housekeeper. Edwin nodded. Not his mother’s favoured doctor, but Hayman had provided the occasional second opinion on her rheumatism. There weren’t many unbusheled doctors in any given county; they tended to be busy.
Edwin’s eyes drew back to the pale and smiling face of Flora Sutton. Time was not exactly of the essence. She was dead, and nothing was going to make her less so.
“I knew” came from the maid, who’d managed to stop sobbing. “I knew. I was polishing in the hall and it went quiet-like, all of a sudden.” A wet hiccup. “It was the clocks. All of them.”
“The clocks stopped,” said Edwin.
It was something he’d read about, but never thought he’d see. Generations of magicians in a house saturated it, made the blood-pledge sink into more than the soil. The clocks of Sutton Cottage were attuned to their mistress. She stopped; they stopped. Edwin managed to bite his tongue against asking the girl if she’d noticed the mirrors misting over as well.
The maid nodded. “I came running, fast as I could. And I—found her—” Dissolving into tears again, she buried her face in her apron.
Robin stepped forward, tentative, moving closer to Mrs. Sutton’s chair. The sudden loss of his body heat brought Edwin tumbling back into his own body, aware of his senses. Everything hurt.
“Sir Robert, you mentioned a man?” said Franklin.
“Someone shoved Edwin into the maze,” Robin said. “Someone who has—attacked me, before. Or is associated with those who did. I don’t know where he went. He ran. He might have . . .” Robin trailed off. Nobody contradicted or corroborated him. When the fog-faced man had come here to confront Mrs. Sutton, while they were in the maze, he’d clearly evaded the staff on both entrance and exit.
The silence in the room might as well have been a shout: Did you bring this down upon us?
Did they? Had they?