Wizard of Most Wicked Ways (Whimbrel House #4)

Chapter 1

June 13, 1851, Blaugdone Island, Rhode Island

Age was a peculiar concept for Owein Mansel.

He’d been born in 1624, and been spiritually conscious ever since, which technically made him 227 years old. However, the majority of that time had been spent embodied in a house on an island off the coast of Rhode Island, and houses were, by definition, not living. Of those 227 years, only sixteen had been spent as a human, so one might argue sixteen as his age. However, the body he now occupied—which had previously belonged to a boy named Oliver Whittock—was physically eighteen, as of five months ago. And so, when anyone asked after Owein’s age, he usually said that: eighteen. Though, truth be told, Owein generally avoided the conversation altogether, as he preferred keeping to that very same island that bore the house he’d once controlled, along with the handful of persons he considered family, only four of whom he was actually related to (by the blood of his first human body, not his second).

It was the second of these related persons who interrupted his reading of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by climbing over the jagged rocks off the southern coast with courage only a three-year-old could muster. Mabol Fernsby was three in every sense of the word, and would be turning four two weeks before Christmas. Though, as Christmas was still six and a half months away, Mabol had the tendency of insisting she was, specifically, three and a half .

Owein glanced at the current page number before closing the book and resting it on his knee, patiently waiting for his nine-times-great-niece to pick her way over a boulder twice her size. She then, without fanfare, sat atop it, smoothed her skirt, and fluffed up her hair, unaware, or uncaring, that doing so only made it look more unkempt. Like father, like daughter. The waves of the sea rolled softly behind her, blue as her eyes.

Owein smiled. “And to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I will tell you,” she said, her voice high and sweet. “But read first.”

Owein patted his book. “This is not the best novel for children.”

She waited, unblinking.

Sighing, Owein opened the book. “‘This trait of kindness moved me sensibly. I had been accustomed, during the night, to steal a part of their store for my own consumption, but when I found that in doing this—’”

“No,” Mabol said simply, and removed herself from the boulder, beginning to pick her way over stones and clover back to the house, which was only a distant square against the late spring flora of the island. Owein had settled closer to the Babineauxs’ home, which, from this vantage point, made a slightly larger square framed by wild willows.

“That’s it?” Owein asked.

“I came,” she grunted as she jumped over a stone, “to tell you you got a letter. Mrs. Beth brought it.”

Closing the book once more, Owein stood. Only one person ever mailed him letters with any sort of regularity; although William Blightree did reach out on occasion, he usually did so through telegraph. A little whistle of glee zinged through his chest. “And you didn’t bring it to me?”

Mabol, however, was too focused on her task to respond.

Shoving the book into the back of his waistband, Owein caught up to the child in two strides and grabbed her under her arms, eliciting a shriek of delight as he swung her up and set her on his shoulders, catching her scent of butter and gingerbread. She wrapped her arms around his head like a crown, ensuring his hair would be just as mussed as hers, not that it mattered. Owein’s hair already looked strange, which was one of the reasons his age often arose in conversations with others. After his soul had been moved into this body, the roots had grown in white, and white his hair had remained. Even his eyebrows and eyelashes were white. The same thing had happened when he’d worn the skin of a terrier, though only in patches. Likely, he thought, because the terrier’s spirit had shared that body with him, albeit dormantly. Nothing like the minute he’d spent sharing Merritt’s body, where it had felt like the flesh would burst apart from their mutual holding of it. He still dreamed of that pressure, that strangeness, from time to time. Owein wondered if the happenstance had created Merritt’s first white hairs or if he was simply getting old.

A whimbrel flew off as Owein came bounding down one of the well-worn paths on the island. Off to the north, a deer peered at him, watching with lifted ears and wide eyes, unmoving, determining only after he passed that he was not a threat. Whimbrel House grew in size, the late-spring sun glinting off the blue shingles of its roof, which made its yellow walls (he’d made them yellow some forty years ago, though experiencing color as a house was different than experiencing it with actual eyes) all the brighter. The railing on the porch had been newly painted white, the cherry door freshly polished. Chickens clucked from their coop off to the side of the house, and two quick yips from his dogs, Ash and Aster, announced their enthusiastic greeting of his return. The brother and sister terrier mixes—Owein had a fondness for the breed—rushed from the porch, bounding and panting. Ash sniffed his feet while Aster jumped on him, nose nearly colliding with Mabol’s right foot.

“Down!” she called, though the command went unheeded. “Down! Down!”

“They’re all right.” Owein squeezed her chubby calves. Nearly tripping over Aster’s backside, he let out a gruff bark, and both dogs retreated to the porch, suddenly more interested in each other than in him.

Owein was not notably tall, but he pulled Mabol off his shoulders before entering the house to prevent any chance that she had grown and thus might whack her head on the doorframe. She ran inside, through the lightly but tastefully decorated reception hall, and left into the green-trimmed living room. Owein listened for a moment, cocking his head when he did. As a dog, he’d been able to move his ears separately, and that keen, directional hearing was something he still missed. Regardless, his human hearing picked up the sound of footsteps, and he followed them through the rectangular dining room with its glass-faced hutch and the smaller, modest breakfast room to the kitchen with its dark hickory cabinets, where Beth had a large bowl on her hip and a whisk in her hand, seemingly unaware of the smudge of flour on her dark cheek.

“Letter for me?” Owein asked, only then wondering if Mabol had fibbed. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d done so to get his attention, but given her distinct lack of interest in him upon entering the house, it was unlikely this time.

Beth glanced up. “Oh! Yes. I put it on your bed.”

A sudden clash of metal announced Baptiste, squatting in front of the oven. “It is still not hot enough! Why are you so cruel to me?” He smacked his hand against the exterior of the stove.

Beth set down her bowl. “Do you want me to fetch more wood?”

Sighing, Baptiste stood, towering over both of them. “No, wood will not do. I need ... what do you call it? The whoosh with the blacksmith?”

Beth smiled. “Bellows?”

“Bellows. I need bellows, then I can do a proper gratin dauphinois . This ... this will have no caramélisation .” He pulled out a hot pan of thinly cut potatoes in cream and dropped it unceremoniously on the stove. He glanced at Beth again, then leaned over to wipe off the flour smudge with his thumb. The warmth in his eyes as he did so made Owein feel like an intruder, so he silently excused himself and wound back to the stairs, taking them two at a time up to his room.

He nearly ran into two children bustling by him, one who could barely walk and one who could barely run. The latter, Hattie Fernsby, giggled loudly as she went, her bottom half completely naked. She took after Hulda more than Mabol did, with her darker hair and hazel eyes. The former, Henri, was a perfect mix of both his parents: dark eyes, dark skin, dark hair. His recent mobility made it hard for the Babineauxs to stay on top of their tasks, which often led to him falling under Merritt’s easygoing care.

Beth and Baptiste had gotten married a year and a half ago, though only Owein had been able to attend the wedding. Hulda had just given birth to Hattie, making attendance difficult, as, thanks to ridiculous marriage laws in the United States, the Babineauxs had been forced to travel to Canada for a marriage license.

“Hattie!” Merritt came out of the nursery with a diaper in his hand and a rag over his shoulder. Seemed the second Fernsby child had been mid-change when she’d decided to take off with her favorite accomplice.

Owein stuck out a hand and, with an alteration spell, pulled up the carpeting in the hallway, creating a soft wall that both children collided into. A faint stiffness emerged between his fingers; alteration spells liked to kick back by altering the body of those who cast them, and this one had warped his knuckles. He commanded the carpet back into place, increasing the stiffness in his hand, but it would go away in a moment.

Merritt, more frazzled than usual, said, “Thank you,” as he collected the half-naked toddler and carried her under his arm like a chicken.

“Hulda home yet?” Owein asked. Ellis, the third and youngest Fernsby child, would be with her, as she wasn’t yet weaned.

“I imagine not, if you haven’t seen her.” Merritt ducked into the nursery. “Miss Hattie,” he went on, “you have a very lovely behind, but we must keep it covered—”

Owein slipped by the nursery, which had once been Hulda’s bedroom, to his room, which had once belonged to Beth. It was a simple room—Owein didn’t care for ornamentation or fanciness, though he occasionally changed the color of things when he got bored. At the moment, his bedspread was navy, his small writing desk rose pink. His armoire was darkly stained cherry; Merritt had made it for him shortly after their return from England a few years back. He’d never changed the color of it, and never would.

Owein picked up the thick letter on his pillow. Turned it over. Sure enough, the wax seal on the back signified it came from England.

Sitting down, he opened the four-page letter to familiar, picturesque handwriting, tightly written but neatly spaced. He wondered if Cora, to whom he was betrothed, wrote slowly to keep her letters so uniform or if they merely flowed from her fingers that way.

Dear Owein,

I have seen the wet-plate collodion photographs! They are remarkable. So bizarre that something used as a surgical dressing can render the face of any person on canvas. I will see if I can get my hands on one and send it your way. It lacks color, and so the finished product is not as satisfying as a true portrait, and yet it feels more real than a painting. There is no margin for error or artistic interpretation; the result hinges entirely on how that person looked, felt, and posed in the moment the camera pointed at them. If one were to find a way to mix the two mediums, to create photographs in vivid, lifelike colors, I think art as a whole would die out. Which would be terribly sad, and yet I find myself incredibly interested in the possibility. Perhaps someone will sort it out in our lifetimes, and we might be able to witness the phenomenon together.

Cora went on about the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry in Hyde Park, which she had attended with her mother, then updated him on her family, who seemed mostly unchanged, though relations with her sister, Briar, and the baron had improved since Owein had last seen them. Over four years had passed since he’d seen any of them, Cora included, and he wondered how much she had changed, if at all. That is, of course she had changed; she too had grown older, no longer a thirteen-year-old girl but a young woman of seventeen. She, surely, had changed. She seemed less soft spoken, but that could have been her openness in letters to him, not to people in general. He wondered, glancing back to the top of the first page, if she would send him a photograph of herself. He had no likeness of her countenance, not even a little portrait. Portraits were expensive, but Cora’s family was incredibly wealthy. Then again, from Owein’s understanding, portraits were often sent during courtship or marriage negotiations, and their impending marriage had already been negotiated, signed, and sealed.

Owein pushed that thought aside as he continued reading. Thinking of the marriage contract, and of his very near future, made his chest too tight, like the air had grown dense around him. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Cora. He did, regardless of the mess that had occurred at Cyprus Hall in 1847. She hadn’t been too keen on being engaged to a dog, and had reacted somewhat ... violently in her attempts to avoid the betrothal. But betrothed they were, and Cora had been declared the ward of her cousin Queen Victoria herself for a few years following the incident.

Cora had started writing to him about a year after his return to Blaugdone Island, and their letters had gradually increased in frequency and length over three years’ time. He knew her well now, and he liked what he knew. Still, it felt strange, forming a friendship with someone who lived an ocean away, and until last year had been kept under very strict regulations as the queen’s ward. But, or so she said, Cora had since proven herself. She was well, though often frustrated with the pressures of nobility. Even when she didn’t outright say as much, Owein could sense it in her letters. She used less punctuation when frustrated, and her tight penmanship grew even tighter.

I will request a copy of Frankenstein and read it. I think I shall be able to do so before your next reply, so feel free to share your thoughts on the novel straightaway. I’ll let you know if your theories are correct.

He could hear her smile in those words. Did her voice still sound the same, or had it lowered a note or two? Would it be strange for him to ask?

His knuckles popped back into place.

Please take care of yourself, and send my best to the Fernsbys and Babineauxs. I really would love to see your island. With my own eyes, not in photograph or portrait. You paint such a beautiful picture with your words. It must be enchanting.

That reminded him. Letter still in hand, Owein crossed to his armoire and opened the right door, pulling open the topmost drawer to retrieve a copy of Beowulf . Opening the cover, he found the pink corydalis he’d pressed there after Cora’s last letter. He’d pressed it flat, and it was dry as paper; if he wrote an especially long letter and folded it around the buds, they might be shielded from the travel to London. He set the dried flowers on his writing desk and finished reading.

Sometimes I go into the woods and close my eyes and pretend I am anywhere other than England. France, Canada, even China! (Don’t laugh.) But more and more often, I try to imagine myself in Narragansett Bay, hearing the ocean lapping against the edges of the island, smelling clean air scented with sea and not smoke from a thousand stacks. For some reason, I can’t fathom a sky that wide and endless. I can’t imagine so much open space and freedom.

Her penmanship got a little tighter there.

So please, bask in it all for me, and send your thoughts across the Atlantic. Call it wishful thinking, but perhaps I’ll catch them in a dream and see your world through your eyes. In truth, Owein, the very idea of it makes me feel renewed.

Yours,

Cora

He smiled softly at the letter, rereading the end of it, wondering where she had written it, and if she’d done it all in one sitting. Their missives had been very cordial in the beginning. There had been a lot of remarking on the weather. Over the last year or so, however, Cora had started conversing less like an aristocrat and more like a regular person, as though all of a sudden she had realized no one else would see her words, and that he would hardly judge her for them.

Owein had never been one to guard his words. Not that he could recall, anyway. But formality was contagious. In the beginning, he’d struggled to be himself, too.

In the beginning, he’d still been sorting out just who he was.

He pulled out the chair to his desk, then grabbed his inkwell and shook it by his ear—empty. So he slipped out of his room to Merritt’s office, catching the delighted giggles of two toddlers wrestling as he went, and stole a brand-new vial from Merritt’s incredibly tidy desk. Incredibly tidy, meaning Beth had been in here recently and Merritt hadn’t had the chance to unleash his chaocracy upon the thing again, and Owein wasn’t referring to the man’s weak but present magical ability of chaos.

Finally seated, Owein started his letter. He never really knew how to address Cora; it gave him pause each and every time. She was, by all means, his fiancée, but it felt strange to call her that. He’d initially started with Lady Cora, as she’d addressed him as Mr. Mansel. There was a distinct difference, in his opinion (and Hulda’s, as she’d made it very clear in one of their numerous, painstaking etiquette lessons), between addressing a woman as dear versus dearest , the latter far more emotional and ... promising. Not that it mattered; he was already promised. And yet it felt strange to say dearest . Then again, it felt strange not to.

He wished he could see her again, in person. Perhaps in doing so, he could set his thoughts to rights. Figure out why his heart fluttered a little as he wrote, simply, her name atop the page: Cora .

His handwriting wasn’t so neat and perfect as hers, but he wrote neatly enough. He’d worked hard on making it neat. Granted, anyone who had Hulda Fernsby as a teacher would strive for neatness if only to keep her from lecturing on it. That woman had ingrained ten years of education into him in the space of three.

And she wondered why he spent so much time with Beth.

Smirking, he touched his pen to the paper, ready to start his thoughts on Mary Shelley’s work, but his eyes drifted back to the partially folded pages of Cora’s letter. He could hear her voice in those words, he swore, though she possessed no sort of communion spell or otherwise to enchant the parchment.

Ignoring the spot of ink left by his hesitant hand, Owein described Blaugdone Island again.

Today the sea is especially curious about what lives on the land; the waves crash hard on the steep southern side of the isle in an attempt to jump into the grass, only to slither back down, leaving minute bits of salt in their wake. The deer like it; they lick the stones near the coast often. I wonder how the deer got here, if someone, long ago, maybe before my time, placed them here to hunt, or if the deer wandered over just before the island separated from the continent, forever stranding them in the bay. It sounds like a sad story, but it’s not; until recently, they had the entire island to themselves, free from predators. Baptiste doesn’t hunt them anymore, either. Even he knows the place would be melancholy without fawns every spring.

There are a lot of saplings about, their leaves growing big, the oncoming summer coaxing them into deep greens, almost emerald-like. And the flowers are in bloom. The breeze passing through them smells like perfume, a mix you couldn’t find on any woman’s neck. These flowers won’t smell strongly, but it’s a little something to help you see it, Cora. And you will, someday.

He glanced at the pressed flowers. A paltry gift for an English lady. Yet he was certain she would love them.

He went into a little more detail, naturally going into the construction on the lighthouse nearby, before moving on to Frankenstein . By the time he’d finished with his thoughts on the novel, he was five pages into the letter and his hand was cramping. Leaning back, he applied pressure to his thumb to stretch the tendons there.

One of the dogs barked outside. Newcomer, the sound relayed.

Take care, Cora. May your skies be wide and blue.

Here he was, talking about the weather again. He snorted and signed his name, the O and M overly large, but he liked the look of it. He’d just finished folding the tome of a letter when he heard the barking again. Pausing, he tilted his head. He could tell, somehow, the slight difference in timbre between Aster and Ash, but this one sounded a little off, a little different, a little foreign. It made his chest flutter.

Grinning, he set the letter down and moved to the window, opening it with a shove. Down below sat a dark-colored dog that looked somewhat similar to a terrier mix, her nose pointed to his window. The dog barked once more before taking off to the east.

“It’s about time,” Owein mumbled to himself, the gentle words a contrast to his quickened pulse. He left the window ajar as he returned to his armoire and opened the bottommost drawer, grabbing a linen dress shoved in the back of it. He stuck it under his arm before opening the side of the house with an alteration spell, the siding warping and waving into a narrow slide, which he took down to the ground. After sealing the hole back up, he walked eastward with a stiff spine and awkward crick in his neck, moving toward the coast, around a copse of trees, and onward to where a natural drop of about seven feet formed. By the time he slipped down it, his body had righted itself again.

The dog waited for him, furry tail wagging in anticipation, ears perked.

“You were gone awhile.” He pulled out the dress, scrunched it up in his hands, and slipped the collar over the dog’s head. “Wasn’t sure you were coming back.”

He turned around. The breeze swept by, just as he’d described it—a floral, earthy scent no one could ever hope to bottle. It smelled like rose and columbine and mud and sea, with a thousand other notes too subtle to describe but too potent to ignore.

“I always come back, a chara .”

Owein turned, meeting the gaze of a woman transformed.