And this, the large lavish space with its silence and the soaring shelves of books—each one bearing his own hand’s symbols, his own catalogue painstakingly charmed into them—was the refreshment he needed. The usual itchy Penhallick sensation had been both stronger and less uncomfortable since he returned, like how he imagined it felt to don a pair of reading glasses and see words come into focus when one had been straining after them. He didn’t know what he’d expected. For Penhallick to be jealous, somehow? For it to have disavowed his blood? No—plenty of families had multiple properties.
He’d have to research it. Thoroughly. After all of this was over, of course.
One of the servants had delivered the pile of Flora Sutton’s books to the library. Edwin had taken her three most recent volumes of journals, and a handful of those books that seemed most likely to refer to rune-curses, foresight, or the technicalities of magic as contract law. So far he’d had no luck at all concentrating on the curse; now at least they had a clue to the larger picture.
Edwin fetched Tales of the Isles and opened it to “The Tale of the Three Families and the Last Contract,” locating the illustration. Three objects. Physical symbols of the contract between the magical families and the fae. Coin and cup and knife.
My part of it alone is hardly going to do them much good, Flora Sutton had said. Was that it? Three pieces, and all of them needed?
Which part had she hidden in the maze’s heart, then let Reggie carry away with him, to be hidden in turn?
Even if they learned that, it still wouldn’t tell them what the pieces were needed for. The terrible purpose that Mrs. Sutton was convinced the contract could be turned to, which would hurt every magician in Great Britain.
Edwin opened one journal, then closed it again. If the dead woman had been telling the truth about the scale of this, then surely it was too big for him. He was one barely powered magician with nothing but a tendency to let books replace people in his life. He didn’t know how to own an estate, or to unravel deadly mysteries, or to hold responsibility for the minds and well-being of perfectly nice unmagical people within his hands.
He scrubbed at his eyes. He touched one of the scratches on his hand.
He had to try anyway. If Edwin had turned and walked away from Robin on that first Monday, Reggie would still be dead, and Edwin wouldn’t have even the smallest scrap of a notion why. Robin would still be cursed.
And Edwin wouldn’t have spent a week being mocked and half-killed and overwhelmed and—looked at like a miracle, and kissed like an explosion.
Edwin dragged himself back to his purpose. He used the index-spell to summon Perhew’s Contractual Structures in the Common Magicks, stacked it atop one of the Sutton books, and took them both over to the window seat. Fat raindrops chased and swallowed one another down the leaded panes. Edwin removed his shoes and rubbed his feet on the embroidered cushioned seat, letting himself be distracted by colour: the dark navy of his socks against the red and amber-yellow and brighter blue that formed the pattern of stitching on the cushion. He wondered what it was that Robin saw, looking at things like that.
Edwin bit at the soft flesh of his inner cheek and opened the first book on his lap.
“Don’t be foolish,” he said quietly.
Penhallick House, around him, said nothing at all in return.
Any amount of time could have passed by the time a loud throat-clearing hauled his attention up from the well of words.
“How did I know you’d be here?” said Robin. He read the book’s title and made a face. “Rather you than me.”
“It’s not as dry as all that,” said Edwin. “Though for the first time I wish I’d read Law at Oxford. I was a Natural Sciences man.”
“And spent every spare moment teaching yourself to create new spells, I expect,” said Robin, sliding into the other corner of the window seat, close to Edwin’s tucked-up feet. “I’m no longer surprised you creak like a rusty gate when trying to make friends.” His smile was warm and conciliatory. It made up for the tease of the words themselves; Edwin wasn’t sure if it made up for the startling sense of being rendered as transparent as the window behind him.
“Is that what we are?” Edwin moved his toes, edging up against Robin’s leg. It felt daring.
Robin’s smile widened. “Belinda and Trudie are taking Maud on a tour of the house. You’d tell me, if there was a chance of my sister being turned into a pincushion or a Tiffany lamp.”
“They’ll behave,” said Edwin. “I made Bel promise.”