Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
The hours passed in a blur of frantic guests and rapidly emptying halls. The guards inspected Mistfield for any signs of overt
conjury before giving approval for the local ordinance to be called. Emmy gave her statement to the police, using the talking
points Keeper Windsor had dictated. Soon the authorities would realize that their stabbing victim, a key witness, and the
estate’s young owner were all using pseudonyms.
The chancellor was dead. And Grace was alive, courtesy of Emmy’s conscience, which had chosen the most unfortunate time to
resurrect itself.
From the opposite side of the library, Emmy felt Grace’s vigilant gaze burning into her. Grace’s gloves were long gone, along
with the truth conjury that had nearly forced a confession from her. The graze wound on her arm had miraculously disappeared,
too. That little wench must have had one of the bandages imbued with Papa’s conjury hidden in her skirts.
The staff were beyond shaken, especially once word spread that the chancellor had stabbed Paxton before entering the ball.
They were eager to fuss over Winnie, but after accepting a glass of warm milk in lieu of breakfast, Emmy insisted she needed
to lie down while she waited for news. Once in her room, she promptly grabbed one of Grace’s many invisibility rings from
the stolen jewelry box and made her way to the end of Mistfield’s long driveway to wait.
Whatever news came about Caleb, Emmy could not trust herself to receive it with an audience.
The sun had reached its apex when a carriage finally appeared down the road. On stiff legs, she stood and waited, her heart in her throat.
The driver saw her as he passed and brought the horses to a halt a little ahead of her. Her stomach was in knots as the carriage
door flew open. Out jumped Jack, his expression haggard as his eyes found her.
“He’s all right,” he called as he strode toward her. “Lost a lot of blood but he’s alive.”
Emmy tried to nod as stoically as she could, but her facade must have cracked, because Jack threw his arms around her.
Caleb was alive. She tried to let that sink into her bones, but they’d skirted death twice in the last three nights. She could
not trust that they’d continue to have such luck.
Jack smoothed her hair, and she could not summon the will to pull away. Worse, she burrowed deeper against him. The long night
had hollowed her out, and she had nothing left. No words. No tears. No reasons not to be soothed by Jack, by the steady thump thump thump of his heart.
“This isn’t how he dies,” Jack murmured in her ear, his hands still caressing her hair.
But that was no comfort, not when Rose’s prophecy had been wrong only two nights ago.
“I need to see all of Rose’s prophetic drawings. Every last one of them.”
He hesitated. “Ask Caleb. When he’s better.” The driver must have said something, because Jack raised his voice. “Miss Fairchild
and I will walk back when we’re ready.”
Reluctantly, Emmy let go of Jack, bracing herself for the awkwardness that would inevitably follow. But it didn’t come.
As the horses trotted away, Jack rubbed his tired eyes. “He needed surgery as soon as we arrived, but he was awake when I left.”
“So he’s alive.” She needed to hear it again, to be sure.
“Thanks to you.” He turned to her. “The physicians said they never saw a tourniquet like the one you made. They said if we
had found him any later . . .”
Neither of them finished his sentence. It had been much too close.
Emmy sat on the edge of the road, pulling her legs toward her. “I couldn’t heal him.”
“Even your conjury has limits.” He settled beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, and no part of Emmy could resist
such comfort. “Jimmy was beating himself up for asking you to do it.”
Emmy winced. With Caleb hurt, Jimmy didn’t need to invent new reasons to be upset. “With the relic, even I thought it might
be possible.”
“When conjury evolves, it loses some ability as it gains new ones. Your conjury, while similar to your father’s, is not the
same. Same with Oliver and the chancellor. While they can both suppress movements, Oliver can also suppress conjury. But he
can’t silence people, like his father.”
It made sense, of course, but with the relic, Emmy had begun to feel as if her conjury were limitless. Already, she’d transformed
far more than she’d ever dreamed. “I think, deep down, I knew it wouldn’t work. I’ve never been able to heal anyone.”
“You say that as if you’ve tried,” he said gently.
Emmy’s nerves were so frayed, she didn’t fight the words. “My mother.”
“When you were eight.”
He remembered. Emmy studied a fleck of dried blood beneath her fingernail. “My father had only just begun to teach me magic,
and we thought mine was like his. That I was a healer. By the time he got home, I’d been trying to make her heart beat for
over an hour.”
Time had eroded so much of the memory, Emmy recalled very little, save her mother’s sudden bout of abdominal pain. Her lying down to rest. The tepid temperature of her skin when Emmy had crawled into bed with her.
“Sometimes I forget how much you’ve lost. How much we’ve both lost, I suppose.” With a long exhale, Jack rested against his
hands. “My mother died giving birth to me. I’m pretty sure my father blamed me for it.”
“What makes you say that?”
“He used to say, ‘You killed your mother.’”
Emmy snorted, then quickly covered her mouth, but Jack was smiling, too, though his faded far too quickly. “When you tried
to heal her . . . were you all alone?”
Emmy shook her head. She’d never forget Grace’s sky-blue eyes tearfully watching as Emmy tried to fix her dead mother for
hours. Never leaving her side. Never raising her voice above a soft whisper: It’s all right, let her go, it’s all right.
Those memories, the good ones, were the worst sort of betrayal.
“About Grace.” His teeth scraped his bottom lip. “Last night, when the chancellor shot—”
“It was a moment of weakness.” If Emmy had just let the chancellor’s bullet do its job, their vendetta would have been complete.
They could have come forward with the truth, clearing their names while shedding light on the chancellor’s conjure-blocking
scheme—and Grace’s role in it.
“It was a kindness.” His brow wrinkled at whatever face she made. “You’re not a monster, Emmy.”
“A pity.”
“Do you still want to ruin her?”
“Of course I do.” She nearly climbed to her feet. “I don’t care if I have to do it myself—”
“I’m with you. I’m with you,” he repeated more fervently, lowering his forehead to hers.
Here they were, once again in dangerous territory. A current was always crackling between them, and this close, it risked
catching fire. But she couldn’t muster the energy to care. She wanted to fold herself into him, to lose the boundaries of
where she ended and he began.
That was precisely the sort of softness that had led her to save Grace, rather than let that bullet exact its own revenge.
Emmy forced herself to stand. They’d lingered but a few minutes, and she was already losing her focus. Time to return to the
anxious staff—and to Mary, who, in the chaos of the night, she hadn’t seen since the ball began. The poor girl was probably
worried sick, given that Emmy had quite literally disappeared without telling her.
Falling into step with her, Jack slid his hand over hers. Don’t be soft, she pleaded with herself, but two years in Grimsbane had left her starving for company in the throes of her grief. Perhaps
it was the same for him.
“Was Caleb able to say what happened?” she asked, keeping her eyes on Mistfield.
With a quiet sigh, he rubbed his forehead. “The chancellor knew all along that Oliver had started the fire that killed Rose
and Lizzie. Given Caleb’s conjury, he assumed Caleb knew the truth, too. And he didn’t want any loose ends.”
Of course not. Emmy’s temper rose, despite her exhaustion. “We should have seen this coming. The chancellor wasn’t going to
let a telepath walk free. Not with all his secrets.”
“You’re right.” He glanced at her. “He’s truly dead, not just badly wounded?”
She nodded. Death had certainly not been their goal, but he’d killed Papa. And now he was dead.
It was oddly comforting how little she cared.
Jack lowered his voice. “We have only four days left, including today, which is halfway over. If we do this—”
“We have to do this,” she interrupted. “But we can’t ask the others to help. It’s too dangerous.” After nearly confessing to murder
last night, Grace would be far more suspicious. “We can’t use her own bridged jewelry against her again, either. She’ll be
ready.”
“So we go to the city first thing tomorrow. We find the person with truth conjury and bribe them to return to Avalon-on-Hudson
with us. Then we bring them to the Windsors’ for the final event, confronting Grace with the truth once and for all.” He nodded
to himself, standing taller as the plan took form.
How she longed for his confidence, but all the things that could go wrong were clawing at her throat. “What makes you think
there will still be a final ball?”
“The Golden Gala is a long-standing tradition.” With a small shrug, Jack shifted his hand over hers, sending delicious tingles
dancing over her skin. “I can’t picture the Windsors canceling it. Especially since they’ll need to hold a vote to fill the
empty positions on the triumvirate.”
She nearly asked Jack if, with his name cleared, he’d like to be commander, but she didn’t want to picture him as an upstanding
Society officer. Or worse: wearing one of those ivory uniforms, hunting down people who’d risked magic’s secret to make ends
meet.
“There are too many things that can go wrong,” she finally said. “The person with truth conjury might not be at one of the
addresses on Grace’s list. And even if I transform them beyond recognition, Grace might refuse to cooperate. There’s also
still a chance she’s made her own relic, like Rose’s.” She hated even uttering it aloud, but—Grace had the pages tucked in
her jewelry box. She’d been willing to hurt people for it—to kill for it. She would not simply accept that it was forever
lost at the bottom of the Hudson.
But Jack shook his head. “I’ve told you; relics are made with a specific bone fragment.”
“From the sternum, right above the heart. And with your flames.” Emmy lifted her shoulders. “But we can’t afford to underestimate
her again.”
“So we don’t rely on just her telling the truth.” Jack stopped walking, his face solemn. “We tell ours, too. As Jack and Emmy.”
She waited for him to laugh, but he looked so grave, her heart sank. Underneath all that anger—all that hurt that drove him
toward revenge—was an optimist.
“For better or for worse, I’ve known these people since I was born. They’re not all bad. Most of them are just—like I used
to be. Not questioning things enough. Besides, the pieces are all there. Oliver implicated himself in the fire, and last night,
Grace confirmed it. The chancellor’s the one who threw me in Grimsbane, and his word is ruined.” He paused, chewing his lip.
“Is it so far-fetched that they might realize I didn’t kill my own sister?”
It was the hope in his expression that hurt worst of all. But his heart was set on this plan of his, and with no time left,
she didn’t have a better one. “Then let’s find the truth conjurer. Today, not tomorrow.”
For a fleeting moment, he looked as if he might kiss her again. But instead, he blew out his breath. “You need sleep. We both
do. And we still have three more days.”
“Fine. First thing tomorrow.” Summoning her courage, Emmy finally let go of Jack’s hand. To take down Grace Montgomery, she
couldn’t afford another moment of weakness.