Page 2 of A Lady’s Guide to Werewolves

Sorcha had promised to keep the bakery running after Granny died, and she did not mind the work, but her magical talent came from her grandfather’s side of the family, much to Granny’s disdain. Not because she minded Sorcha’s gift of communicating with birds, but because she disdained her late husband’s family, even in death. She could not leave the castle grounds, but if they were visiting the island, she made sure that moldy bread was delivered to their door. And once, an éclair writhing with maggots. It was upsetting for everyone involved, including, no doubt, the maggots.

One did not cross the Duchess of Gloucester.

As Sorcha had no wish to live in a house with constantly rattling chandeliers and exploding crystal goblets—or maggots of any description—she also did not cross her gran.

Much.

“Thank you, Aesop.”

Her beaded reticule began to move as if something living was attempting to escape. Sorcha’s stomach dropped. “Blast,” she said, loosening the cord. “I’m already late as it is.”

A paper bird lifted out of the reticule, parchment the color of warm honey in the light of the oil lamps. It was the worst possible timing, but the spell had done its work and woken them. Another bird emerged from the nest set on the windowsill, joining the first. She had found the nest abandoned in a tree and filled it with her paper birds.

“I should come with you.” Aesop watched the birds circle her once before they darted out of the open window, waiting for her to follow. She always followed.

“It’s not safe for you.” Sorcha often wore a crown of paper birds. She would be fine. “But I’ll be right as rain.”

Probably.

Lyonesse, for all of its delusions of elegance and grandeur, was still a witch’s island. London might not know that it had belonged partly to the witches since it was built on the banks of the Thames, but Lyonesse had never forgotten its provenance.

It was built by witches, for witches.

A safe place where you did not have to hide the witch’s knot on your palm. All witches had the mark on their left palm, hidden under gloves in Polite Society even if it was invisible to those without witchery in their blood. But on Lyonesse, no one wore gloves, even if it was fashionable in Mayfair. Witch knots were sacred. They were the color of weak tea when they first appeared and grew darker with the more powerful spells a witch worked.

Here, you did not even have to hide the fact that your familiar might be a glowing, two-thousand-pound horse galloping through the ballroom. In Lyonesse you were as likely to find a unicorn in the hills as a cottage. You could hire a Pegasus to take you on a tour over the island. You might have wings or antlers or turn into a rabbit. You might have the power to grow green things like Sorcha’s friend Briar, or have a chat with a bluebird, like Sorcha herself.

But you still had to wear white dresses if you were a debutante, and curtsy and make socially acceptable chatter and never be caught without a chaperone (magical or otherwise) and all the rest of it.

But Sorcha, recently turned thirty-one, was hardly a debutante.

Not anymore.

Thank the stars.

And no one who had known her only as the granddaughter of the Duke of Gloucester could have guessed she would become a red-haired spinster who roamed the moors and baked bread for the tourists on festival days. And she loved it. She had excelled at being a debutante, but she did not miss it. It had fit her cousin Lydia exceedingly well, and seeing her enjoyment had proven to Sorcha that she wanted something else. It was exhausting pretending to be someone she was not. And if that meant she had to find herself a new family, so be it.

It had been worth it.

She had Granny and Aesop and the monstrous and beastly Black Shuck on the moors. The grotesque black dog terrified even the heartiest of witches, but Sorcha had not balked. Looking frightful was not the same as being frightful.

Although his acid saliva would burn right through her clothes and skin if she let it touch her. And so she didn’t. Problem solved.

And she had her old manor house and the storms that gathered over the green hills. Her paper birds, made of torn bits of parchment, old poetry, household accounts from a hundred years ago. They knew where to look to find secrets.

And she had her mission.

But first, the Winterwell ball.

Blast.

Nettlestone Hall perched over Hallow, a town built almost entirely out of museums and bookshops and universities dedicated to magical learning. The gray cobblestone streets wound around turrets crowned with more gargoyles than anywhere else on the whole of the earth. They were a favorite in the witching world, perched on rooftops and spelled to wake and gobble up any wayward spells that might threaten the inhabitants beneath. Small or massive, sleek or round, they watched over the witches below.

Farther below the cliff and the gathered gargoyles, Hallow’s leather-bound tomes sat on shelves, waited in windows to tempt passersby. Curiosities were displayed, signs enticed people to visit the Museum of Hexes, the Library of Magical Grimoires, the university collection of fourteenth-century spells, all clustered together on winding stone roads crossed with ornate bridges. As well as a truly terrifying Museum of Dolls.

Visiting Oxford professors felt right at home in Hallow, as it was said that the old city was based on Hallow. Curators from the London Museum of Magic also felt at home here. Ostensibly.

As she had still not seen Aidan Carnahan, Earl of Coventry, in some time, Sorcha was only guessing.