“Nothing wrong with intuition, Mr. Thorne,” Margaret grumbled from in front of the wardrobe where she unpacked their belongings.
Marcus winced. “No offense intended, Margaret.”
“None taken. It’s a trying time,” she said breezily.
Sophia looked over at her grandmother, who sat knitting quietly in a rocking chair, completely unconcerned, apparently, with the state of affairs. Sophia dropped at her feet and laid her head on her grandmother’s knee. “Tell me the answer?” she asked softly.
Her grandmother gently pushed a curl from Sophia’s forehead and looked deeply into her eyes. “You’ll appreciate it more if you come to it on your own.”
“What if I never come to it?”
Her grandmother laughed, a rich sound that made Sophia’s heart feel lighter. “You’ll come to it. You are enough like your mother that you’ll do the right thing.”
That made Sophia pause. Her mother hadn’t done the right thing. “She was banished from our world.” Her grandmother suddenly refused to look her in the eye. “Wasn’t she?”
“She is no longer permitted in the land of the fae. If you want to know how that came about, you’ll have to ask your mother.”
Ask her mother? She didn’t even know where her mother was.
Just then, a harsh, incessant rapping noise began on the windowpane. “Better let him in,” Sophia grumbled.
Marcus crossed to the window and thrust open the pane, allowing Ronald to climb over the sill. The gnome landed on his feet and bowed in front of Marcus. “I bring a missive, Mr. Thorne.” Ronald always sounded very proper when Marcus was present. Not at all like he did when Marcus wasn’t in attendance. There was none of the wringing of hands or cryptic speeche
s.
“From whom?” Marcus asked absently as he turned the envelope over and regarded the seal. “The Trusted Few?”
“Indeed,” Ronald replied, his nose rising a little in the air.
“Did you go back to the fae?” Marcus asked.
Ronald held up one finger and began. “That is neither here nor there…” but Marcus cut him off.
“Did you or did you not?” he ground out.
Ronald flushed and kicked at a speck of dust with the toe of his slipper. “It was my duty,” he informed them all.
Sophia jumped to her feet. “You’ve been spying for the Trusted Few.”
Ronald looked decidedly uncomfortable. “Not exactly.”
“You went back through the portal,” Marcus said, his voice deathly quiet. It made the hair on Sophia’s arms stand up. And it made Ronald blanch even more. “For what purpose?”
Garden gnomes could come and go at will through the portal, unlike the fae. The fae could only pass on the night of the full moon, unless they bribed the fish. “I was bid to bring reports.”
“Of our actions.” Sophia flopped onto the bed, mimicking Marcus’s earlier pose. She talked from beneath her puffy sleeve. “Pray tell what the Trusted Few have to say. Open the blasted missive, Marcus.”
“Language, miss,” Margaret warned.
“Language, my arse,” Sophia retorted, but unshed tears burned the backs of her lashes. This hadn’t turned out at all like she’d planned.
She heard Marcus break the seal with his fingertip and then heard his long exhale. It sounded heavy enough that it should have ruffled her skirts. But she looked up to find Ronald sitting on them. “Get up,” she ordered, yanking on her skirts. Ronald rolled and toppled to the floor with an oath.
“That wasn’t very nice,” he grumbled as he dusted himself off.
“Neither is spying,” she replied hotly. “What does it say, Marcus?”
“We have a new mission.” Marcus held the parchment out to her.