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“Gabriel needs to know at least some of what’s happened,” I said. He’d come. He’d proven he was here for me. The least I could do was trust him. “I can’t ask him to stay and help while keeping him in the dark. And… there’s more that I haven’t had a chance to tell the rest of you yet either.”
Seth drew his spine even straighter as if he thought he’d have to defend me right this instant. “What happened?” he said, frowning.
“Well, I guess I’d better start at the beginning.” I took a deep breath and looked at Gabriel. “I could call out to you because I’m a witch. But to properly kindle my magic, I needed a consort before I turned twenty-five…”
Chapter Two
Rose
“This Gabriel fellow seems like a charming addition to your group of suitors,” Philomena said as we ambled along the gravel shoulder of the road between the town and the Hallowell estate. She twirled her little umbrella, which only shaded part of her face from the glaring sun. But then, even in her long-sleeved dress with its multiple layers of skirts, Phil never got hot. That was one benefit to being imaginary.
Me, I was sweating in my thin sundress. But it was only partly because of the heat. Telling Gabriel pretty much every secret I had and telling the other guys that my ordeal might not be over yet hadn’t been the most relaxing experience of my life. At least Gabriel hadn’t seemed too shocked. And I’d known my consorts would stand by me. The hard part was knowing how little they could do when even I wasn’t sure how to deal with my father.
He’d be home any minute now. That was why I’d headed back. At least I had my best friend for company. Another benefit to her being an imaginary construct—the spunky heroine from my favorite book, a playfully steamy historical romance—was that she could turn up whenever and wherever I needed her.
And sometimes when I really didn’t, too. I’d gotten so in the habit of picturing her during those lonely years in Portland that nowadays Philomena seemed to come and go by her own will. So it was a good thing I usually enjoyed her company.
“I don’t know if you can call the other guys ‘suitors’ when they’ve already dedicated themselves to me,” I pointed out, kicking at a bit of gravel. It rattled across the road. “The consorting ceremony is more binding than any marriage you’ve ever agreed to.”
“Point taken,” Phil said. She nudged me with her elbow. “Are you planning on doing any consorting with this new one?”
She smirked at me, and I resisted the urge to stick out my tongue at her. I was going to be twenty-five in two months. I should probably get in the habit of acting like it.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t even know for sure I could take more than one consort at the same time until we completed the ceremony last night. I suppose… if that worked, it should be possible to add another one.”
“Mmhm?”
I shot her a firm look. “Speaking on a theoretical level. Gabriel’s only just gotten back. I’ve got to get to know him again. He hardly knowsmeanymore. And after all the history between our families now…”
Gabriel had said he didn’t blame me, and he’d sounded like he meant it, but the tragedy that had started with his father’s firing had obviously affected him a lot. He’d gone wandering all across two continents just to get away from this place. And now he was stuck crashing on Jin’s couch while he waited for me to figure out if I’d called him here for any good reason…
I should have been able to offer him better than that.
“Who knows if either of us would even want to?” I finished. “Or if the other guys would be okay with it? They’re my first priority.”
“Hmm. Yes. Four husbands is rather a lot in itself.” Phil snuck a peek at me with her eyelids lowered coyly. “Although I’m sure it makes consummating that marriage so much more fun.”
Damn, now I was blushing again. “Don’t start about that. I need to be composed right now. I don’t even know how I’m going to talk to my father.”
Philomena’s cheer faded. “Yes. That is quite the conundrum. I certainly wouldn’t have put it past your stepmother to have been lying to save her skin, you know. I’ve never seen any reason to complain about your father other than his choice in second wife.”
“Neither have I,” I said. “But hedidchoose her. And the wording in her contract did allow for him to call the shots as much as her. Why would she have included that if she was doing it behind his back?”
“To displace blame if the contract were found?” Phil suggested. “She could clearly think plenty of steps ahead of the present.”
“I know. I’ve got no idea what to think.” I rubbed my arms, suddenly chilled despite the heat. Even the sweet scent of fresh-grown grass and wildflowers drifting over the fields wasn’t enough to settle my nerves. “He’s always been there for me. Even when he made us move to the city, I could tell it was because he felt it was best for me. He felt likehe’dfailed me. I’m his only child.”
And if what my stepmother had said was true, then he’d been willing to chain my magic up so I could only use it with the permission of the consort they had chosen. So I’d be in agony if I tried to use it for myself. And the consort they’d chosen, my supposed fiancé Derek, had cheated on me with one of the girls from the cleaning staff and spoken about me with such disdain… Not that he was aware I knew about that yet. I’d only gotten ahead of their scheme by keeping my cards close.
How could Dad want such a horrible future for me?
Celestine had been able to explain away that too.He does love you, in his own way. She’d said he hadn’t wanted to be a party to the actual binding of my magic, but that he’d felt he needed to see it done because of how much power I would wield once my spark was kindled.
I looked down at my hands. The flame of my spark, still so brightly lit by my four consorts in spite of all the magic I’d expended last night confronting my stepmother, tingled through my chest. Ihaddrawn a lot of power through these hands, from this body. But why should Dad be afraid of that? It wasn’t as if I’d ever shown any inclination to hurt people.
Celestine’s words had poisoned all my thoughts about him. I needed to set her insinuations aside and make my own judgments from what I could see with my own eyes. In the meantime, no one except for my guys could know about the magic I already held. Most—or maybe all—of the witching people I knew wouldn’t even have believed I could have kindled my spark with the devotion of any unsparked man, let alone four of them.
It was a beautiful little secret for now.
