Page 23 of The Trick of It

“Rhys,” said Hattie gently, taking his hand with her free one. “Willa knows that.”

“Willa is dead,” he snapped, coming abruptly to his feet. “This is a trick and not the good kind. And now I must go to Lewes Priory and find out who is doing this. For all of us.”

“We must go,” Seph corrected. “Whoever sent this wants both of us.”

“Yes, I haven’t forgotten,” he said impatiently, his lip curling. “Brighton’s premiere illusionist, and me, the night boy. I need … I need air.”

Seph watched helplessly as he flew to his feet and swept out of the room, leaving only that faint tinge of coconut and salt scent in his wake. She sagged a little, guilt curling up around the tiny bones of her throat.

Had she done that?

“He will be all right,” Hattie said softly, her big, amber eyes on Seph. “He has always felt things too strongly.”

“I know,” Seph replied, frowning, the two cards still between her fingers. She released a sigh and sat down, putting them on the table, atop Monica’s fabric swatch book. “Is she dead? The baroness? You had a funeral. You all came back here.”

“When you are missing for seven full years,” Hattie said evenly, “the law says you are dead. We came back because her last will decreed it. We all must stay for one full year to retain our inheritances.”

“‘Missing’?” Seph echoed.

“Missing,” Hattie agreed. “She liked to travel. But she has not written or come back. So, yes, she is missing. Presumed dead. I do not like presumptions.”

“Neither do I,” Seph told the other woman. “So after a year …?”

“Yes, we can leave again, if we wish,” Hattie said, nodding. “I do not think any of us wish it. Perhaps Monica. I thought Libba too, but I was wrong. Now that we are home, it is hard to imagine leaving again. Like our time away was merely a season that has passed now.”

“I’m surprised he won’t even consider it,” Seph said, still watching the arch that led to the halls, waiting for his shadow to return. “I thought he was an open-minded sort. Superstitious, even.”

“He said he wants to believe it,” Hattie told her, “but that he knows how easy it is to fake such things. It is funny. He is never so skeptical about fairy circles or cold spots in warm rooms or leaving thimbles of cream in the hallway. But in this, I think he is protecting himself from something that might actually cut him deeply.”

Seph hugged her arms around herself. One of those cold spots had settled upon her, just now. “Hope,” she guessed, an odd aching in her chest. “Hope is what scares him.”

“Yes, I think so,” Hattie agreed. “But he’s never said so out loud. And I am still learning to speak the silent language. It is the most difficult one.”

“Yes,” agreed Seph with a sigh, taking up her tepid cup of tea. “Yes, indeed, it is.”

Chapter Seven

Rhys sat on one of the stone benches that lined the front of the house. He leaned against its back, his head dropped on the hard marble line along the top, and watched as the sky shifted from purple to gray to a blue so dark, it might as well have been black.

And then he counted stars.

He didn’t speak the numbers aloud, but all the same, little puffs of white steam escaped his mouth as he traced them across the sky.

He didn’t know how long he sat out there.

Long enough for the cold air to brace him back to sanity, he supposed. But too long to remain on his guard.

Which was why he startled so badly when someone’s foot arrived to lightly kick at his shins.

He scrambled upward, an undignified noise tearing from his throat, to find Persephone Boswell hovering over him, looking very pleased at his foolishness.

She was holding a knit blanket. And a steaming mug. “Are you going to make room so I can sit?” she asked expectantly.

“Maybe,” he replied, rubbing a spot on his elbow he’d dinged in his startle. “What’s in the cup?”

“Chicken stock,” she said, holding it out. “I can’t have you catching sick before we even make it to Lewes. Drink it, fool.”

He took it, giving her a skeptical, little squint as she settled next to him and threw the blanket over their laps. “Where’d you get chicken stock?”