Kami bet Rob could not wait to return to Aurimere.
Once past the moat, Ash looked more and more nervous. Kami was aware there was nothing he wanted less in the world than to see his father. She put out a hand and slipped it in his. Ash’s fingers curled gratefully around hers.
“We’ll just take a detour around the back and peep in through the windows. See what we can see: see if there are sorcerers there we don’t know about yet,” Kami said. “Then we’ll go.”
Ash squeezed her hand and did not answer, but Kami took this as agreement and set off, boots sliding in the ice, away from the fire and toward the house.
Kami headed for the window that Jared had broken last time they were here. She was not expecting to see the window still broken. Beyond the jagged glass there had been an empty room.
“I wonder if Rob has bothered to cast a spell to protect his house from useless unmagical little me,” said Kami. “I bet he hasn’t.”
When Ash did not move to boost her, she got a leg up on the mossy windowsill and did it herself with a grunt of effort. Her palms got skinned as she tumbled in.
“Kami,” Ash whispered, from the other side of the window frame. “Kami, you can’t—”
“I’m just going to take a look,” Kami whispered back.
There was furniture in the room now, a desk, a chair, and a lamp. Kami picked up a pen from the desk and put it in her pocket, because she was now a kleptomaniac for great justice. The door leading to the rest of the house was slightly open, and through the small space Kami saw movement and heard voices. She turned and met Ash’s horror-struck gaze through the broken window.
Kami gestured at him to get down. Then she dived behind the desk, curling up small beneath it, her cheek against the floor. She waited, her cheek getting extremely cold against the floor, and listened.
“It’s a real shame about your children not having magic, but I know I can count on you and Alison to support me and train the others.” Rob’s voice was smug and calm.
Kami wondered why the name was familiar for an instant before she realized. Hugh and Alison Prescott, she thought. This was Holly’s father.
“Of course,” said Hugh Prescott gruffly. “That witch up on the hill drove my brother away and then blamed us for it. We only want our due.”
“You shall have it,” said Rob. “And Lillian will pay the price for her mistakes. Everybody in this town is going to get precisely what they deserve. And we know her numbers are laughable. But we want no doubt to remain in anyone’s mind. I want a sacrifice, and I want every soul in Sorry-in-the-Vale to offer up their tokens. We want to crush Lillian’s people in front of the town, and that is why the young ones need careful training. See to it.”
They might have exchanged nods or smiles. Kami heard one of them walk away, his tread heavy, and the click of someone else’s shoes on the floor.
“Can I have a word?” a woman’s voice murmured. Kami recognized this voice immediately: it was Jared’s mother, Rosalind.
Kami watched her tan leather boots cross the floor, heels clicking on the worn wood, closer and closer to the desk. Rosalind walked around the desk, and Kami froze. Rosalind’s step halted for an instant, and then she paced her way back across the room and toward Rob.
“You were talking with Claire Glass alone again,” Rosalind said, her voice sharper than Kami had ever heard it. “Why is that? It’s not like she can help us in any real way.”
“That’s right, she can’t,” Rob told her. “She’s not like us. You can’t possibly imagine she means anything to me.”
There was the soft sound of a kiss. Kami made a face: she wished that parents would just plan evil and not have discussions about their love lives.
“Claire Glass behaves the way the people of this town should all behave, that’s all,” said Rob. “You know we need them all to submit. You know why. There are so many of them—so many sorcerers even—waiting in their homes like scared animals in their dens. All of them need to choose a side. All of them need to choose our side.”
“I know.” Rosalind took a deep breath. “Tell the others . . . tell Ruth and Hugh, especially, not to go after our family. I don’t want Lillian or the boys hurt.”
“Nor do I,” Rob said. “I will make every effort to spare them. And I know you will do whatever you can to please me in return.”
“I swear,” Rosalind told him. “Now go.”
Kami watched Rosalind’s boots cross the floor after him, but Rosalind paused on the threshold. Before she went out, she said, very quietly, “You should leave.”
* * *
“I call that a very successful mission,” Kami said, safe in the library at Aurimere.
“Aunt Rosalind caught us. I think getting caught is sort of the opposite of success.”
“Except now we know she’s willing to protect us,” Kami said. “Knowing that an enemy has divided loyalties is useful information.”
Ash shrugged. Kami was leaning against one of the glass-fronted bookcases. Ash stood by the baby grand in the corner, staring down at the piano keys rather than at Kami. She wondered what it had meant to him, hearing his father and his aunt today.
His golden head lifted. She was surprised to see him wearing a tiny smile.
“Aha,” said Kami, her own smile spreading to encourage him. “So you had a little bit of fun being spies.”
“Well,” Ash said. “Not at the time. But maybe looking back on it. Do you think everyone will be impressed?” He began to play a little tune, the piano keys tinkling.
Kami tapped out a rhythm on the wooden surface of the bookcase. “How could they not be?” she asked.
Ash closed the piano lid with a flourish, crossed the floor, and held out his hand to her. Kami looked down at her tapping fingers as if they had betrayed her and realized she was standing in the exact place Jared had the night he said he wanted nothing to do with her.
“I can’t actually dance,” Kami objected, suddenly shy. “I mean, I’ve done it. But people tell me . . . that I shouldn’t.”
“What do they know?” Ash asked, his hand still out. After a moment more of hesitation, Kami put her hand in his, and Ash pulled her away from the bookcase into his arms.
Ash could dance as well as he could play the piano. He moved in gentle circles across the floor, navigating sofas and chairs with effortless grace. Kami just had to follow his lead. He’d been trained for this sort of thing, she supposed, being the young prince in the castle. Being a fairy-tale prince who could waltz any girl around a room, him all gold and the room all arched stone, the moment perfect no matter who the girl happened to be.
Ash twirled Kami and pulled her back in against his chest. When he dipped her, she had a moment of unease because she couldn’t stand up by herself and would have fallen without his arm supporting her. But she looked up into his eyes, soft and sparkling with laughter, and smiled up at him instead.
Ash bent and kissed her. The kiss went through Kami like summer sunlight.
Just then the door opened with a creak.
“Sorry,” said Jared. “Aunt Lillian was looking for Ash.”
They all stayed still for a little too long. Kami and Ash did not drop each other’s hands, and Jared was standing braced as if waiting to be hit.
“Great,” Kami said at last, the word falling like a drop of rain into a pool, absorbed into the silence. She tugged her hands out of Ash’s and took a step toward Jared; he took a step back, not looking up. “We’ve found out a lot of stuff we need to tell Lillian.”
“She’s in the drawing room,” Jared said, backing up, and they both followed him. When they got there, Jared opened the door for them.
When Kami gestured for Ash to go in ahead of her, he touched her arm. She turned to him and he gave her a worried glance, as if he thought he had done something wrong but was unsure of what it was. Kami gave Ash a quick reassuring smile, then looked back at Jared, catching a glimpse of his face as he looked down again.
“Hey,” Kami said softly. “Is everything okay?” She felt dumb asking. It wasn’t like Jared was ever subtle about it when he was upset: this was just him being quiet and not meeting her eyes, a little withdrawn. He was just feeling awkward about interrupting; he wasn’t unhappy.
That was confirmed when Jared answered, in a level voice, “Fine.”
“Okay,” Kami said uncertainly. She lifted her hand to bridge the space between them somehow, and a faint shudder ran through Jared’s body. He stepped away from her and into the drawing room, going to stand by the fireplace.
Ash was already sitting on the window seat, his mother standing beside him. He was telling her the story of what they had discovered.
Lillian was listening, a bored look on her face. She was wearing a mulberry-colored shirt that made her hair look lemon-colored in comparison, very much the self-assured lady of the manor.
“Mum, he’s training his sorcerers too. He thinks he’ll crush us.”
“He’s wrong,” Lillian said. “I’m better than he is. I always was. If he’s forgotten that, he’s going to get a surprise. And how dare you take a risk like that without consulting me first?”
“It was my idea,” Kami said.
“How terribly surprised I am,” Lillian remarked.
“And I think,” Kami said, forging ahead, “that now we know for sure where their base is, we should attack Monkshood. We’re the ones at a disadvantage when it comes to numbers: we need to catch Rob by surprise.”
“You need to stop concerning yourself with the affairs of sorcerers,” Lillian said. “From what Ash tells me, it was only my sister’s mercy that spared your lives.”
From Lillian’s tone, it was clear she considered this hint that Rosalind was not entirely committed to Rob’s course of action the only valuable intelligence Kami and Ash had gathered.
“I’m sorry if you feel I should have consulted you,” Kami said, which was a bit of a non-apology, but she doubted Lillian was going to think it over that much. “But I think it’s important—”
“I am not attacking Monkshood Abbey like a thief in the night!” Lillian snapped. “Rob betrayed me and broke my laws, and the whole town has to see him punished. I have to do this properly. Of course you do not understand. You are not a sorcerer. This is none of your business.”
Kami stared at her. She didn’t throw up her hands in exasperation, because she’d never made that kind of gesture in her life and she didn’t know how to start, but she wanted to.
“This is everyone’s business,” she said finally, and turned to leave.
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Ash said behind her, and Kami appreciated the defense without imagining that it would do much good. She kept walking, down a couple of stone steps through yet another hall, heading through the cold maze of Aurimere until she was out.
She was in the great hall when she heard the footsteps running after her and saw the shadow fall on the golden wall of windows.
“I’m all right,” Kami assured him, but when she looked round it was Jared. “Oh,” she said. “I thought you were Ash.” She bit her lip as soon as she’d said it.
Jared said curtly, “Sorry to disappoint. What do you want?”
Kami blinked up at him. He leaned against a window and she stopped and leaned against it with him.
“Well,” she said. “How do you . . . mean that?”
“You told Aunt Lillian that you wanted to attack Monkshood.”
Kami seized Jared’s arm. “Jared,” she said. “Listen to me very carefully. You are not to attack Monkshood on your own.”
He looked down at her hand on his arm, fingers clutching the leather sleeve tight. Kami released her grip.