CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
atilda wove her way over to Sera and Luke, her fourthM pink flute in hand. She’d been shaken by what she’d seen, but she’d obviously recovered with her usual aplomb.
She nodded at the clock. “Any minute now. Good luck, ducks.
I’ll keep Howard busy.”
“What if he notices we’re missing?”
“That one’s easy,” Matilda said brightly. “I’ll just tell him your simmering passion got the better of you.”
Luke choked on his drink. “Our what?”
Beaming, Matilda gave them each a kiss on the cheek and trotted away.
“Sometimes I don’t know if I’ll murder her or Clemmie first,” Sera remarked conversationally. “Guess which way I’m leaning right now.”
Five minutes past ten. Six minutes past ten. Seven. Eight.
Then someone was rushing into the room, making a beeline for Albert, and whispering urgently in his ear.
Without a word, Albert stalked out of the room, and maybe it was Sera’s imagination, but she felt like the entire house let out a relieved breath as soon as he was gone.
It was time.
They had to be quick. Clemmie’s hijinks would hopefully keep Albert distracted for the rest of the night, but there was always the possibility, however unlikely, that he’d decide to come back to the party. Grey Manor was only five minutes away.
“You shouldn’t come with me,” Sera said to Luke. She’d tried saying it before and had been entirely ignored, but she had to try one last time. “If I’m spotted, at least you won’t be involved—”
“Let me be very clear,” Luke interrupted her. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
Against all odds, Sera grinned. “You know, I never thought the stern, sexy academic thing would work on me, but it really does.”
Luke stared at her in incredulous silence.
She bit her lip to hide her smile. “We’d better get going.”
Sera doubted much of this colossus had changed in the last hundred years, let alone in the last fifteen, so she knew (or at leasthoped she knew) which of the house’s many rooms would be empty and which would not, which hallways the servers would take between the kitchens and the party, and, most importantly, how to get to Bradford Bertram- Mogg’s private library without being seen.
Her memory served her well. Mostly. There were an awful lot of people in the hallways, which slowed them down considerably, and then there was a canoodling couple blocking one of the doorways, and then,just when they thought they were in the clear, one of the Bertram-Mogg cousins almost caught them in a darkened corridor— Luke grabbed Sera and yanked her behind the heavy drapes beside the window and neither of them dared to breathe until the girl had sauntered past.
As soon as she was gone, Sera bolted across the corridor, pulling him with her, and then they were finally safely ensconced in the empty library.
Sera locked the door for good measure, overcome by a fit of relieved giggles. “Well, that was fun.”
“It was, in every possible way, the literal opposite of fun,”
Luke said emphatically.
“Uptight prig,” she teased.
His eyes twinkled. “Quarrelsome gargoyle.”
After that little adventure, their masks felt like lead instead of velvet, and it wasfar too hot for a cloak. They left their masks on a chair and Sera worked on the knot she’d tied at her throat. Luke, meanwhile, went over to a shelf of antique curiosities. Sera shrugged off her cloak.
“This is four thousand years old,” Luke said in disbelief, glancing back at her. “It’s the only one of its kind and it’s just sitting here, in this—”
He stopped. Froze. And just looked at her.
Sera knew she ought to be thinking about the essence of sunlight right now, and she knew that there was only so long they could stay here before Howard would ask too many questions or Albert would return to the masquerade, but every one of those sensible thoughts had gone clean out of her head. She couldn’t look away.
His voice grated out an order. “Tell me to stay where I
am.”
“Do youwant to stay where you are?”
“You know I don’t.”
She bit her lower lip. “Then come here.”
He stood very still for a fraction of a moment, and then it was like a tether snapped. He crossed the space between them in two steps. One hand braced against the solid wood of the old door behind her, right beside her ear, while the other
went to her waist, pressing her into the door, his fingers burning hot through her dress. His eyes were flames of the fiercest, iciest cerulean.
She had forgotten that the hottest part of a fire burns blue.
She smiled at him. “Is this what it takes to beguile the stoic, icy historian? A corset?”
“It helps.” He smiled back. “That’s not the real answer, though. It’s you.You’re what it takes.”
Sera leaned up on her toes, slid one hand up the back of his neck, and tugged his mouth to hers.
She came alive. The kiss was hungry and furious. Their legs tangled and his thumb stroked the edge of her hip. He tasted like lemonade and white rum and the sky. Stars burst against the dark of her closed eyelids.
When he broke the kiss, Sera made a plaintive, protesting sound. Luke dropped his forehead against hers, breathing hard. She bit lightly down on his lower lip. He groaned and kissed her again.
“Just so you know,” Luke said, his voice low and rough, “I’m not fucking you against the wall of the Bibbly-Bogg library.”
She laughed. “There you go, being all sensible.”
“If you move about half an inch to the left, you’ll feel just hownot sensible I am right now.”
“Don’t tell me that,” Sera complained, consumed by regret. “This is hard enough already.”
Luke dropped his head, shoulders shaking with laughter.
“Not the best choice of words.”
Sera wasn’t exactly sure how it was possible to be blazing with intense desireand almost crying with hysterical laughter at the exact same time, yet here she was, and it was
a good minute or two before either of them was able to recover.
Smiling ruefully, she kissed him one last time and said, “I
suppose we do have a job to do.”
Luke reluctantly let her go. “We do.”
“Right.” Sera took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and faced the library. The last time she’d been here, she’d tucked herself into that corner over there to readThe Extraordinary Handbook of Magical Tales, but there was no time to look for favourite books tonight. “Where do we think that horrible man keeps the essence of sunlight?”
Considering how large the library was, and how cluttered with old treasures, priceless manuscripts, and looted antiquities that had no business being here in the first place, they found the essence of sunlight remarkably quickly. In a rear nook, behind a large, imposing desk from which Bradford Bertram-Mogg no doubt enjoyed looking down his nose at intimidated young witches waiting to be tested, was a glass cabinet filled with his stash of spellcasting ingredients.
The essence of sunlight was on the third shelf from the top, seven small, round, dusty bottles of it tucked away among enchanted mushrooms and copper coins.
Sera picked up one of the bottles, a sudden ache in her chest. There was still one more ingredient to go, but she was so much closer now… Luke pulled a small glass vial out of his pocket. It looked empty at first glance, but when you looked closer, you could see the black sand sitting at the bottom.
“You do it,” Sera said, looking down at her slightly unsteady hands. “I’m too anxious.”
She carefully uncorked the bottle and handed it to Luke, then uncorked the vial too because his hands were full. He tipped the bottle over the mouth of the vial, his hands sure
and steady, his brows knitted with concentration. Three blazing, blindingly gold droplets trickled into the vial, one after another, and then it was done.
Luke returned the bottle to the cabinet and Sera clutched the vial in one hand, feeling the reassuring warmth of the essence of sunlight radiate through the glass.
“We did it,” she said, slightly stunned.
Luke nodded, looking equally surprised. “We did it.”
She laughed. “I think now’s a good time to get ourselves out of here, don’t you?”
And that, of course, was when it all went to hell in a handbasket.
The door rattled, like someone had tried to open it and discovered it was locked. An instant later, the bolt Sera had been so careful to latch shattered and the door was flung open.
Sera spun around, instinctively clutching the vial protectively to her chest, and found herself face-to-face with Albert Grey.
“Ah, Sera.” He gave her his favourite smile, the one without any warmth in it whatsoever. “Long time no see. You look well. Ish. Bit pale. Almost like you weren’t expecting me.”
Words. Sera needed to say some. She couldn’t. She couldn’t speak.
How had he gotten back here so quickly? Whatever Clemmie had wrought at Grey Manor ought to have kept him away atleast a while longer.
Albert strolled closer, hands linked casually behind his back. “To be honest, Sera, I expected this to happen sooner or later. Ihoped you’d never find a way to get your magic back, but I knew there was always a chance you’d get your hands on the restoration spell. I knew silly things like the
rules or ourlaws wouldn’t stop you. After all, they haven’t before, have they?”
The words came back in a flash of fury. “You’re one to talk. I’m pretty sure what you did to Martin out there isn’t exactly playing by the rules.”
“Your mistake,” Albert said, ignoring that inconvenient fact, “was trusting any part of this ridiculous plan to Clementine. What did you think would happen when I returned to Grey Manor, found my priceless statue in pieces and my handcrafted walnut desk on fire, and saw afox dashing away into the woods? Did you think I wouldn’t realise straightaway that you were involved?”
Damn it, Clemmie. He wasn’t supposed to see you.
There was an angry crack of lightning across the ceiling.
Sera tried not to flinch. She would not let him make her flinch.
Albert gave her an elegant shrug. “Why, I wondered, would Sera and Clementine do something so incredibly stupid after all this time? And on tonight of all nights? So of course I came straight back here. And look what I found.”
He waved a hand and Matilda drifted through the open door, hovering a few inches off the ground. Sera’s heart plummeted. Matilda’s eyes moved, alarmed and outraged and practically spitting needles in Albert’s direction, but the rest of her was stiff and frozen, like he had bound her in invisible ropes.
“This is my fault, not hers,” Sera said at once. “She didn’t know why I brought her here.”
“Nobody doubts it’s your fault, Sera,” Albert tutted. “And there’s no need to fear for the little old lady. I’ll happily release her. You, on the other hand, have broken our laws again. Exile’s no longer an appropriate punishment for you.”
His eyes narrowed in on the vial she was clutching to her chest like it was a lifeline. “I’ll take that, thank you.”
To her horror, Sera felt the vial wobble in her hands and then slip out of her grasp, yanked by the unseen force of Albert’s magic. She squeezed her fist tighter, desperately,
but the vial was still slipping— —and then it stopped.
Albert raised an eyebrow, then regarded Luke like he had noticed him for the first time. “Really? How long do you think that will stop me?”
Luke shrugged. In her panic, Sera hadn’t even noticed that Luke had cast a spell, but there it was. A shield, shimmering faintly between her and Albert, blocking his power.
“Aren’t you one of Verity Walter’s historians?” Albert asked curiously. “Larry? Lawrence? Something like that. Not that it matters. Do you think you’ll ever work in the Guild’s libraries again after this?”
Luke didn’t answer. He’d spent thirty-four years learning that icy, implacable calm, learning how to take away the satisfaction of someone seeing him react, but Sera knew him, and she also knew what it was like to go up against Albert Grey’s magic, so she knew exactly what it was costing him to protect her. Her throat closed up.
And I’m not even pushing very hard, Albert’s voice said in her head.
She jolted. She’d forgotten he could do that. She’d forgotten it was one of the very few things he’d ever taught her, long ago, and that she’d used the spell to send Francesca silly secret messages from all the way across the castle.
I could push harder, Sera. He’s already in pain, but I could push so hard I break him. It’s up to you.
“Luke, stop,” Sera said quietly, swallowing hard. “It’s done. He’s won.”
Luke looked at her, eyes searching hers, wondering what changed in the last thirty seconds. “What did he say to you?”
“Just let it go. Please.”
“Sera…”
She shook her head. Pleaded with her eyes. He stared at her for one more moment, then, defeated, let the shield fall.
He staggered a little.
Sera faced Albert,hating him, and opened her clenched fist.
Albert twitched a lazy finger, and the essence of sunlight flew from her hand to his.
“The strand of sunset, I suppose?” He shook the vial lightly, examining the bright drops inside. “Tenuous, but I imagine it could have worked. I’m curious, though. Where did you think you were going to get a phoenix feather?”
Sera was spared the necessity of having to answer (or, rather, the necessity of revealing she didn’thave an answer) by the clatter of footsteps outside the library. The next moment, Howard burst in, anxious and out of breath, with Francesca in his wake.
“Father!” Francesca froze in the doorway, taking the scene in with something like horror.
Howard wheezed. “I thought—I thought I’d better…fetch the Chancellor.”
“Good,” Albert said genially. “You’re just in time, Francesca. Would you like to do the honours of deciding what consequences would be most appropriate for this latest of our Sera’s infractions?”
Howard’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets as he saw Sera without her mask for the first time. “Sera? Sera Swan? Oh.” He looked at Sera, and at Matilda, who was still
frozen and definitely still fuming, and finally at Luke. He cleared his throat. “I say, er, Albert, don’t you think that there may be some sort of misunderstanding? Perhaps Miss Swan could, er, go back to Lancashire and we could forget this ever happened?”
It was downright heroic, really, that Howard Hawtrey, who had every reason to side with one of his own, was even trying to stick up for her for Luke’s sake, but Sera knew it would do no good.
Sera looked at Francesca. Francesca looked back. She hadn’t yet said a word.
Finally, with only the smallest tremor in her voice, she said, “Father, let it go. Sera didn’t get what she came for. It’s over.”
Albert looked at her in disbelief. “What has gotten into you?”
“I’m the Chancellor of the Guild and I’ve decided on the appropriate consequences for this infraction,” Francesca replied, her voice a little louder. “She’s going home. It’s over.”
For a long, tense moment, Albert simply stared at her.
She refused to meet his eyes.
Slowly, Albert turned back to Sera. He was seething, but he was also Albert Grey and hehad gotten the most important thing he’d wanted after all, so he said, “Very well.
You understand, of course, that you’ll never get your hands on essence of sunlight again. I’ll make sure of it.”
Then Albert dropped the vial of sunlight to the floor and crushed it beneath his heel.
