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I watched the morning light gleaming off my once-fiance’s bright hair, and my heart squeezed. Was thereanychance he could be even slightly absolved in this? I might not have ever been thrilled about the idea of marrying him, but he’d ever seemed cruel. Celestine was unshakeable, I knew that, but if there was any appeal I could make to convince him to turn onher…
I turned back to my plate. By this evening I might have enough proof to go to Dad on my own. Better to focus onthat.
“It’ll just be four days, and then I’ll be here right through the wedding,” Dad was saying. I realized I’d tuned out theconversation.
“Four days?” Irepeated.
He gave me an amused smile. I could almost hear him teasing like he’d used to when I was a lot younger than now,Off in your own world again, my littlelamb?
“On Thursday I have to go to Cairo on business. I wish the timing hadn’t worked out that way, but…” He spread hishands.
My stomach tightened. So if I didn’t come up with proof in the next two days, I’d have to wait almost another week before I could turn toDad.
I couldn’t retrieve my proof any earlier. Damon was the one who could get into Master Cortland’s house, and Damon had curtly informed me that he was busy with “actual work” until latetoday.
I gulped down the rest of my breakfast without tasting it at all. Derek got up when I did. He caught up with me as I wandered toward the doors to the backgarden.
He slung his arm around me with a proprietary confidence that set my nerves on edge. It took all my willpower to stop my back from noticeably stiffening. I might be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but that didn’t mean I wanted to get cozy, not ever again. Whatever Celestine was planning, he had to be mixed up in itsomehow.
“Off on another of your walks?” heasked.
“Some fresh air and pretty scenery always seems like a good way to start off the day,” I said. I didn’t want him to offer to join me. Or maybe I did, so I could try to pry for proof in other ways? My stomach twisted, my emotionstorn.
Derek let go of me, and what I felt then was definitely relief. “I have a few work things to catch up on,” he said. “But don’t forget this afternoon we’re supposed to decide on—what is it? The tablecloths? The name card designs?And then perhaps I can challenge you to another game ofchess.”
“Perhaps this time I’ll win,” I said, with a laugh I had to force. I breathed easier the second I put a door between us and ventured into the gardens. The moment I could feel safe dropping this charade and seeing the back of him, the happier I’dbe.
“Ugh,” Philomena said with a shudder, appearing beside me. She was carrying a dainty parasol that she was enjoying twirling more than she was actually using it to keep any sun off her head. “Good riddance tohim.”
My feet carried me on into the woods. As the trees closed around me, the rustling of the brush and the calls of the birds covering any sounds from the house behind me, my nerves settled more. I needed to be settled—settled and calm and ready for whatever came atme.
I wasn’t exactly surprised to find myself approaching the old towers hidden deep in the estate grounds. The deeper stillness around them drew me right up to their vine-draped stones. I dragged in the scents of fresh earth and newly grown leaves. The spark inside me flickered again. Just a tiny sliver of magic left. If I didn’t use it, it’d fade by the end of thehour.
Without really thinking about it, I let my body move into the forms I’d drawn with my body the last time I’d been here. A call to the one still not with us. Gabriel would have known what to do if he’d been here, wouldn’t he? He’d always beenunshakeable.
Was he even still carrying the torn page I’d given him more than a decade ago? It probably hadn’t been half as significant to him as it had been to me. It wasn’t as if I could have told him how I’d hoped it would keep me connected to him. I wasn’t even completely sure how it would worknow.
But I reached out to that snippet of story I’d given him, sending my last glint of magic into the air, to wherever he might be. As the glimmer left me, my chest went fully dark. The way it had always been until last night, other than that incredibly brief moment with Kyler. But now I felt the hollowness so much more sharply. Philomena watched me from the edge of the glade, rotating her parasol slowly and giving me myspace.
I didn’t really want to head back to the house yet. Idly, I brushed at the lichen that had covered the etchings on the stones. So many glyphs carved here. What had this symbolic gate been used for before it had beenabandoned?
The etchings I uncovered twined glyphs for connection and communication, defense and loyalty. Then my fingers stumbled over a patch of stone that had been crudely scratched. I paused, my foreheadfurrowing.
“What’s wrong?” Philasked.
I traced the bits of stronger lines I could make out where other symbols had been carved. “It looks like someone purposely gouged out some of the carvings,” I said. “Destroyedthem.”
Phil’s eyebrows shot up. “Why on earth would anyone do that? Is this heap of rock really thatimportant?”
“It’s more than a heap of rock,” I said, rolling my eyes at her. “I think it must have been used for some magical purpose… a long timeago.”
“Averylong time ago,” Phil putin.
I tugged aside the vines, ducking under branches to get at more of the stones. Farther around the first tower, I found a few more etchings that had been scratched out. Someone had gone to a lot of work to hide part of this structure’smeaning.
My gaze rose to the crumbling peaks of the towers. They stood about ten feet tall. I’d climbed higher than that in trees as akid.
Before I could second-guess the impulse, I grasped onto the lower branches of one of the trees that surrounded the tower. My muscles twinged from lack of practice as I hauled myself upward, but I managed to scramble from one branch to the next. The trunk was just narrowing to the point that I was getting a little nervous when I reached the tower’s raggedtop.
