She nodded with a grateful smile that almost unknotted my stomach all on its own. Then one corner of her mouth quirked higher. I had the urge to brush my thumb over thatdimple.
I had the urge to do a hell of a lot more than that, if I was being completelyhonest.
“Are you still glad I’m back?” she said. Her tone was lightly teasing, but something in her gaze told me she wasn’t just kidding around. “Now that I’m getting you into all sorts of potentialtrouble?”
I did touch her then. There was nothing in the universe that could have stopped my hand from rising to rest on her waist, just for a moment. To revel in the warmth of her skin seeping through the fabric of her shirt. “Not a single regret,” I said. “You need me, I’mhere.”
The heat between us rose by a few degrees as we looked at each other. I made myself drop my hand. Rose stepped back with a breath that sounded slightlyshaky.
“I’d better let you get to it,” she said. “Stay safe. If you think you need to get out of here, justgo.”
“Of course,” Isaid.
When she was gone, I stood for a moment in the back hall, getting my bearings. What the hell was I evendoing?
A good question. One I asked myself way too much these days. I didn’t really want to be here, in a house we’d broken in to. I didn’t really want to be most of the places I found myself most days. Construction wasn’t exactly my calling; it was just the easiest way to make ends meet. Because I had no idea what else I’d be better offdoing.
I was sure of one thing, though. Even if this situation was crazy, even if I never said a word to her about how I felt, I’d do anything to protect Rose. That had always been true, and somehow the eleven years she’d been gone hadn’t shaken my instinctive devotion one bit. One solid thing I could hang my haton.
So here Iwas.
I moved back through the house slowly, methodically, as if I were here to inspect its construction for flaws, not searching for hidden evidence. Everything looked the same and as innocuous as it had the first time. I slunk through the upstairs rooms, suppressing my discomfort as I edged around the guy’s bed. Even if he were scheming with Rose’s stepmother, walking around in some stranger’s bedroom was more intrusive than I’d ever have wanted toget.
I found nothing there anyway. I headed downstairs again, ready to give up. But as I came into the front hall, my gaze slid over the wood paneling along the side of the staircase—andpaused.
The spacing of those slats in the middle didn’t totally make sense, did it? I stepped closer, running my fingers over the panels. The slats were set almost as if to support a hinge. But why would there be a hinge hereunless…
I crouched down and pressed the oddly sized panel hard. It clicked and swung open to reveal a narrow compartment on the other side. A few books with cracked leather covers lay in a stack there, a newer-looking notebook on top of them. Holding my breath, I picked up the notebook. I had to squint to make out thewords.
The pages were filled with starkly neat handwriting that matched the house’s impeccable interior. Something about pests in the back garden, something about the weather, something about a boat. The notations around those subjects didn’t make much sense to me—arm positions and degrees and “direction of flow”—but they didn’t seem to have anything to do with Rose’s worries, so I kept skimming on. The dates in the top right corners were from before Rose had returnedanyway.
About halfway through, I hit on the last pages with any writing. The top of one of them saidCH – binding.The date was from just a couple weeksago.
CH. CelestineHallowell?
My heart thumped faster. I pulled out my phone. In the dim light I wasn’t sure the camera would capture all of the light strokes of the pen, so I started typing up everything Cortland had written. A vine. A dagger. A backwards stream of water to channel “the flow.” Something about “the consortharmony.”
I still had no idea what he might be planning. I just hoped it’d mean something to Rose when I sent it toher.
Chapter Fourteen
Rose
My sharp inhale cut through the quiet in my bedroom. I almost dropped my prepaid phone. But instead I kept staring at it, tensed where I’d sat on the floor to retrieve it from under the bookcase. My gaze scanned the words Seth had written a secondtime.
CHandbinding—these notes had to be on the same matter Master Cortland had been talking to my stepmother about. What were the chances he’d been investigating bindings in some other way that related to thoseinitials?
The rest of the remarks Seth had related word-for-word were vague. Brainstorming, I guessed.A vine split and retied. A dagger brought to bear? If water is streamed backward it may channel the flow against the tide. The consort harmony—an alteration. Reversing polarities? Tangle one and then theother.
Mixed in were little asides in brackets likeas per HVandconsult YSN for confirmation. Books or fellow academics he was gathering information from, presumably. I had no idea how to decipher those. But the fragments of a picture wereenough.
My stepmother wanted a binding. A binding that had to do with my consort ceremony, unless she had some secret daughter who just happened to be undergoing that partnering at the exact same time. Something to do with reversing it or turning the connection against itself? What did that evenmean?
“Rose?” Philomena ventured. She settled into the armchair beside me and peered down at my hunched form. “What’s thematter?”
The enormity of the situation clogged my throat. It was real now. It was utterly real. “My consorting,” I said. “Celestine isn’t just meddling with my marriage using money—she’s trying to change the actual ceremonysomehow.”
Not a chance it was to my benefit, either. Even if I’d been inclined to give my stepmother the benefit of the doubt, which I wasn’t, daggers were only used to aid focus in more complicated magicking that involved severing or separation—or outright violence. None of which were factors anyone would welcome at aconsorting.