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Any editing out might not even have been done by someone currently around. Those towers and the drawings in them had looked hundreds of years old. All it would have taken was one or two people in a position of power back when witches had started to commit the stories of the past to paper, and any aspect of that past they’d disliked could have been struck from the record. A few generations of strict enforcement of one rule or another, and no one would be thewiser.
It could be no one living even knew there was anything to hide at thispoint.
The Assembly’s archives might have even more books on the subject, older records that hadn’t been printed widely. Dad would have their catalogue of entries around somewhere… Meredith would know where itwas.
I headed to her office, even though chances were fairly slim she was there in the middle of the day. I hadn’t seen her since our brief conversation yesterday, but that wasn’t totally unusual, given how much running around the estate shedid.
I knocked and then, when there was no answer, tried the door just in case. It swung open—and I froze, my jaw goingslack.
The desk and the filing cabinets were still there. But the desk was bare, the photo of Meredith with her husband when they were young gone, her glazed clay pen holder and the usual scattering of papers too. The few pieces of art she’d picked out and hung on the walls had vanished. Even herchair, that leather beast with the wheels so she could roll it out of the way with a shove, was missing. The whole room felt too empty, toouninhabited.
What the Spark’s name had happenedhere?
I spun around and found Celestine in the hall outside her own office, watchingme.
“Did you need Meredith for something?” she asked in her cool voice. “I’m afraid I had to let her go. It’ll take a few days to arrange a new manager. In the meantime, whatever your concern was, I suppose you can take it to the appropriatestaff.”
My heart stopped. “What do you mean, you ‘let her go’?” I said, only just managing not tosputter.
Celestine’s eyes glinted icily. “She was no longer a good fit for our household. It isn’t wise to hang on to staff for purely sentimentalreasons.”
“She was just here yesterday,” I protested. “You can’t just fire her. When Dad findsout—”
That was why she’d done it now. Dad wasn’t around to argue, and he wouldn’t be back for another three days. A shiver ran down myback.
“Your father will understand perfectly when we discuss my reasoning,” my stepmother said. “He has given me equal authority over this estate, and I will make use of that when I feel I needto.”
She hadn’t even given me a chance to say good-bye. She must have timed it perfectly so that I wouldn’t see it happening—late at night or early in the morning. Sending Meredith off like a stray cat that’d gotten too familiar, not like a loyal employee who was practically a member of the family and had been forgenerations.
Heat welled up behind my eyes. I strode forward, raising my hand in a demanding gesture. “You have to know where she’s gone to. I want a way to contact her,and—”
Celestine whipped her hand through the air. A magical force slammed into my legs, forcing me to a halt. I swayed to keep mybalance.
“Do not approach me like that,” Celestine said, her voice lowering, now frigidly cold. “We won’t be speaking on this matteragain.”
My feet wouldn’t move. There was nothing I could do. I gritted my teeth as a sense of helplessness washed through me, blinking back the threatening tears. She’d made her point. I didn’t need her seeing just how upset Iwas.
My stepmother swept past me in her silk day dress and glided down the stairs without another word. With a swivel of her wrist, the force holding me released. My legs wobbled. I caught myself against the wall with a sharp inhale and swiped at one tear that creptout.
What was I going to do now? With Dad on his trip and Meredith gone, there was no one left in the house I could count on at all. And Celestine had just demonstrated how willing she was to use her magic againstme.
My gaze rose to the door to Derek’s room, down the hall. I’d been focused on looking for proof among Celestine’s things, but maybe he wouldn’t have been as careful. He didn’t have magic to help him cover histracks.
He’d gone out to meet a friend for lunch. I had time. And if he came back and found me, well, I could pretend I’d been waiting to surprise him or some love-struck story likethat.
His door opened easily. I crept inside and shut it behindme.
“Not much for neatness, is he?” Philomena said with a sniff, looking at the rumpled duvet on hisbed.
A whiff of the spicy spruce cologne Derek wore lingered in the air. My feet whispered across the floorboards as I slipped fartherinside.
Nothing stood out on the shelves or the dresser. I peeked under the bed. Tested the baseboards in case one was wobbly like the bottom of my bookcase. Opened his closet and rummaged through his clothes: slacks and khakis, sweaters and polo shirts and button-downs.
Where my shelves held books, his held vinyl records and binders with business notes and architectural sketches. I was flipping through one of those, my chest clenching around the growing possibility that I might leave this room with no more evidence than I'd come in with, when the floor in the hall outside creaked. The knobrasped.
My pulse skipped a beat. "On the bed!" Phil suggested with a breathless laugh. “Sprawl yourself out, get a come hither lookready—"
Her mouth snapped shut. "Come on," Derek's voice said on the other side of the door—and a soft feminine murmur answered, "Are yousure?"
