Chapter 6
Six
With the relic in hand and magic’s whisper in the air, Emmy had nearly convinced herself that she could become the weapon
Jack envisioned. One whose power punched through Oliver Stratton’s block on it. Who transformed herself and the others beyond
recognition, and conjured all the riches they needed to outdo the Society of the Charmed.
One clever enough to beat Grace Montgomery at her own game.
But no matter how many times Emmy called to her magic, it did not answer.
“The first ball is in four weeks,” Jack reminded her as she sat in the south wing the next morning, keeping Jimmy company
as he hammered wooden planks for the new walls.
Emmy shot him a hard look. His shirt was unevenly buttoned, and he carried an opened bottle of wine, though it was not even
noon. “You told me I’d have full access to your books on magic, but I couldn’t find any in the library.”
“Conjury. To blend in with the Society, you need to use the proper terms. And, small problem: the triumvirate seized my family’s books
on conjury when I was arrested, but we’ll get them back.” He leaned against an austere column. “Do I need to explain who the
triumvirate is?”
Grace had told her about the three men who spearheaded the Society, each with equal authority: the chancellor, who led the ceremonies and made executive decisions regarding its laws; the commander, who led the Society’s magical militia; and the keeper, who oversaw the Society’s lofty budget, deciding which pursuits were funded and which were not.
The chancellor was Papa’s murderer. The keeper was Mr. Windsor, Grace’s uncle, who before the ball had never met his bastard
niece. And who the commander was, Emmy hadn’t the faintest idea, but she would not give Jack the satisfaction of asking. “They’ll
just let us in?”
“There are three ways to join the Society: through birth, through the debutante ball—which is mostly used to recruit servants
and the occasional protégé, like good old Grace—and through a referral from a member who can vouch for one’s good breeding.
With a referral, we’ll be granted temporary membership.”
Emmy shivered at the thought. “Who would refer us?”
“I’ll tell you once I have my new face.” He grinned, his smile as crooked as his shirt, though his teeth were infuriatingly
straight. “You did tell me you can transform appearances.”
Her fists curled at the mention of their encounter at Grimsbane. “And if I cannot?”
“Li, you didn’t tell me your girl was a quitter.”
“She survived longer than you did in that hellhole,” Jimmy shot back, still hammering.
Studying her, Jack ran a thumb along his insufferably chiseled jaw. “You both need to learn the Society’s laws and regulations.
And ballroom dancing. And table manners.”
Jimmy wrinkled his nose. “About that. What if I’m just your contractor? That way, I can focus on renovations and not on waltzing.”
Jack frowned. “You don’t want to be an aristocrat?”
“Not if I can help it.” Jimmy shuddered. “Anyway, Caleb says there’s hardly any contractors who know about magic, and plenty
of rich folks up here who want work done. Maybe I could fill that gap.”
Surprised, Emmy blinked at him. For as long as she could remember, Papa and Jimmy had dreamed of starting their own construction company, one that could give the padrones a run for their money.
But the Society shot men like Papa without repercussions.
If Jimmy did business with them when he wasn’t even supposed to know about magic, he’d be in constant danger.
But Jack appeared to be considering it. “I could introduce you as my ‘building design specialist’—an exorbitantly expensive
one, with a charmed family in China, though you didn’t inherit conjury of your own. You’d still need a new face so Grace doesn’t
recognize you. But as my esteemed guest, you could attend parties without being expected to know our dances.”
“Sounds perfect.” Jimmy grinned, and the two of them engaged in a complicated handshake that left them laughing and Emmy feeling
entirely out of place.
“You’ll get your conjury back,” Jimmy said once Jack had disappeared through the maze of support beams. “You just need more
sleep, is all.”
Lovely; even Jimmy was saying conjury. Emmy rubbed at her tired eyes, wincing as she touched her bruise. Jack was probably hiding behind some planks, eavesdropping.
“I don’t trust him.”
Jimmy paused his hammering. “After what Grace did, I don’t blame you.”
“It’s more than that. He’s always staring.” Even now, she could practically sense him nearby.
“He’s curious. Before his arrest, I talked about you nonstop: your hobbies, your study habits, the way you and Grace were
always racing through the halls, getting into all sorts of trouble. And, no offense, Ems, but that prison did a number on
both of your, ah . . . sociability?” He flashed her a guilty grin before returning to his hammering.
Emmy fiddled with a crooked nail, trying to recall its chemical composition, to envision the bent steel straight and useful once more.
Just before the ball, she’d taught herself to turn tin to solid gold, yet now she couldn’t even straighten a scrap of steel.
“Are you sure you want to do business with these people?”
“It’s risky,” he admitted, holding out his palm for another nail, which she obliged. “At first, I only took this job because
Fontaine was my best chance of getting you out. But I like working for myself. And I really like how well he’s paying me. With what I’ve been sending home, my mother’s the envy of Guangdong Province.”
Jimmy’s smile was almost enough to coax one from Emmy. “Does that mean you’ve finally saved enough to visit her?”
His hammering stopped.
“Is she okay?” Emmy ought to have asked him about his family straightaway.
“She is, but . . . they passed a new law. Chinese people can’t come here anymore. And if we leave, we can’t return. I’m fine,”
he added as she rose, though he looked far from it.
“Just Chinese people?” Emmy hissed. “That’s absurd!”
He tried to smile, but his eyes were sad. “Nothing I can do except wait it out.”
That had always been his mantra. Work hard. Prove them wrong. But the foremen had paid him less than Papa, who they’d paid less than the Irish. Utter insanity, Papa had grumbled.
But Jimmy, clearly, did not wish to discuss the law any further. “Don’t worry about me, Ems. Worry about that magic of yours.”
Swallowing her groan, Emmy ran her thumb over the relic. The strange coin’s subtle chill wrought bitter memories of Grace.
Like her father, Grace could enchant ordinary objects with people’s gifts, like bandages that, once imbued with Papa’s magic,
healed cuts and bruises. All of Grace’s creations were ice cold, far colder than the relic. Still, whenever Emmy held it,
she had to bat away thoughts of Grace.
“What happened here anyway?” She fiddled with a burnt wood scrap. “With the fire?”
Setting down his hammer, Jimmy wiped his damp brow on his undershirt. “Why don’t you ask Fontaine? It’s his story to tell.”
Emmy would have rather swallowed a fistful of these rusted nails.
The days bled into one another, an endless cycle of failed magic. By night, Emmy barricaded her door and cuddled her knife.
By day, she wandered the cobwebbed mansion, trying to conjure her lost power where no one could witness her failure. Not that
anyone was watching. With the south wing still in disrepair, Jimmy had cajoled Caleb into helping him. She saw no signs of
Jack in any of the dark, dusty rooms she visited, though he ventured into her room once, leaving behind a faint whiff of wine
and fire smoke, along with some sort of introductory brochure about the Society of the Charmed.
The purpose of the Society of the Charmed is to ensure the survival of charmed persons, the pamphlet began, and Emmy nearly chucked the damn thing across the room.
Throughout history, ordinaries have turned on the charmed, blaming us for all manner of suffering. Centuries of “witch hunts”
have nearly decimated our numbers.
Had Emmy not seen their leader murder Papa in cold blood, she might have bought their claims of protection. After a cursory
flip through the other Society prerogatives—safety, education, and “furthering charmed bloodlines,” which encouraged Society
members to marry other members—she’d consumed all the propaganda she could stomach for a day.
Each night, at Jack’s behest, all four of them ate together in the dining room. While the others usually fell into rapid conversation,
Emmy stalked every crumb on her plate, swallowing her own opinions. She was not here to make friends; she was here to get
her magic back. And Jack hardly seemed like a brilliant schemer. He even fell asleep at the table one night, drunkenly slamming
his head into his plate.
“His father called him ‘the harbinger of ruin,’” Caleb sighed, stabbing at his food—smoked venison. “I always thought that was rather unfair of Mr. Fontaine, but Rose drew it: Jack surrounded by the family headstones, the ground littered with wine bottles.”
“Leave him alone,” Jimmy warned. “He’s grieving.”
“She also drew him kissing several girls.” Caleb pinned Emmy with a grave look. “Even if he manages to live past June, I wouldn’t
get too attached.”
A prickling heat coursed through her. As if she cared how many girls Jack kissed. “What did Rose draw for your death?”
Caleb’s cheeks darkened to the same burgundy as the wine. “That’s personal!”
Emmy exchanged a look with Jimmy, who shrugged. Caleb had his secrets, too.
After another week of trying—and failing—to unblock her magic in the library, Emmy mustered the courage to venture outside,
where a search party of Grimsbane’s guards might surround her with ease. Spring had painted the landscape verdant green, so
bright, it seemed impossible that such a shade was real. Leaves had burst into existence, seemingly overnight. A morning mist
gathered over a meadow just north of the manor. To the west was the woods, cut with well-trodden dirt paths, all of which