Chapter 1
Whyborne
“Are you sure this is going to work?” Persephone asked. She perched atop a bale of hay, her expression skeptical. Though we were twins, she had been given to the sea at birth, the inhuman side of our heritage brought to the surface so that she might survive. The stinging tendrils of her hair curled around her shoulders, and the pale portions of her dolphin-slick skin reflected the light of the lanterns set about the sheltered back yard.
In the past, Griffin had tended a small plot of vegetables and herbs here, but over the last few months we’d found another use for the space. The thick hedge surrounding the property—coupled with the propensity of Widdershins’s inhabitants to turn a blind eye—had allowed us to transform it into a training ground of sorts. Now it was dotted with bales of hay and dress forms turned into practice dummies. We’d even dug out a shallow pond to have water on hand for spells.
The masters would return eventually. Last July, a cult known as the Fideles—Faithful—had sent a signal through the veil dividing our world from the Outside. They meant to summon back the inhuman creatures known only as the masters, who had once ruled our world. Entities of unfathomable power, they commanded sorcery of every kind. They’d shaped new orders of beings from the raw clay of earthly life: the umbrae, the ketoi, the rust, and doubtless more. And they’d twisted the arcane lines flowing across the world, to create a titanic magical vortex beneath what was now Widdershins.
But the umbrae and ketoi rebelled, and the maelstrom sought to thwart their return. I was determined we’d fight them again, drive them back to the Outside and seal them there permanently.
How...well, that was another matter.
I’d feared they’d seek to return last Hallowe’en, but nothing had happened. Not even the Fideles had troubled us lately. The holidays had come and gone, and the calendar turned from 1901 to 1902. A part of me wanted to believe that life would continue as it had; that the threat had somehow resolved itself.
But the rest of me knew better. We had to be ready when they returned. Which led to tonight’s exercise.
“No,” I admitted. “I’m not at all sure.”
“I’m certain it will be fine,” Griffin said. He held up his sword cane, which I had spent the last week modifying. The silver head and dark wood were now etched with sigils, and bore a crudely bound set of crystals and wire that detracted from its normal guise as a fashion accessory. “You might want to move, however, Persephone. I’d hate to set you on fire by accident.”
She hopped off the hay bale. Her jewelry and gold net skirt glittered in the lantern light as she moved a prudent distance away.
Griffin took up position in front of the bale, poised to stab it with the blade of his sword cane. “Are you ready, Whyborne?”
I hesitated. This had seemed a good idea a month ago. Griffin’s shadowsight meant he could often perceive things I couldn’t, including the warp and weft of spells being used against us by enemy sorcerers. Unfortunately, he had no means beyond the mundane to deal with them.
I had magic, but no shadowsight. Last July, I’d touched Griffin briefly, while drawing on the arcane energy of the maelstrom. In that instant, we’d worked together—but the burn of magical fire through his purely human body had injured him.
Human sorcerers tapped into arcane lines as well, using wands to take the brunt of the power, rather than their own bodies. And eventually it occurred to me that there might be a way for Griffin and I to combine our skills after all.
Only now I wasn’t so certain. What if something went wrong? What if I’d made some mistake, and Griffin was harmed due to my incompetence? “It might not be safe. I don’t want you to get hurt. Perhaps—”
“I trust you, Ival,” he said. “Now come. Cast the spell when I tell you.”
I took a deep breath. “All right.” I centered myself. Though our house wasn’t on an arcane line, I could still feel the power of the enormous magical vortex rotating widdershins beneath the town. I took another breath; magic crackled along my skin, ached in the scars on my right arm. “I’m ready.”
“Now,” Griffin said, and thrust the sword cane into the hay bale.
At his signal, I spoke the true name of fire, all my will focused on the sword cane. The crystals sparked, and fire erupted from the blade.
“Well done!” Griffin exclaimed, grinning as he withdrew the blade. The hay burned merrily, flames growing larger and larger. “Er, though perhaps you overdid it a bit?”
“Oh dear!” I cast about, but the shallow pool had frozen over in the late January night. The flames were beginning to spread to the other bales nearby, and tendrils of smoke rose from one of the practice dummies.
“Unfreeze the water!” Persephone exclaimed.
I went to my knees by the pool and thrust my palm directly against the ice. I drew power through my scars, arm aching as I focused. But it worked; the ice dissolved under my skin.
Persephone touched a hand to the scars on her face, left behind by a mask made from the bones of a god. The water emptied from the pool, rose into the air—then cascaded down atop the burning hay. The flames went out, leaving behind only smoke.
I stood up. Griffin seemed fine, but I went to him anyway. “Are you all right?”
“I’m quite unharmed,” he assured me. “I saw the magic, of course, but it remained contained in the sword cane as intended.” He looked up at me, and a smile lit his features. “Well done, my dear.”
I restrained the urge to kiss him, though only because of my sister’s presence. “Thank you.”
“We’ll need to practice more,” he added. “But it was a fine start.”
Persephone glanced at the stars. “Practice all you like, but Maggie is waiting for me.”
“At this hour?” I’d never intended for Miss Parkhurst to be exposed to the horrors populating my life, not even the ones I was related to. But my sister and my secretary had developed a friendship last year, and of course Persephone couldn’t visit her in the daylight. I only hoped Miss Parkhurst wasn’t allowing Persephone to impose too greatly on her time.
“Give her my regards,” Griffin said, apparently not at all concerned over my secretary losing sleep. “We should get to bed as well, Whyborne. The workers from the telephone company will be here to install ours in the morning.”
“Yes,” I said, my mind still half on poor Miss Parkhurst. Then the import of his words caught up to me. “Wait. Did you say telephone?”
~ * ~
“I can’t believe you brought this...thing...into our home,” I said the next day. I gestured vaguely at the contraption now mounted on the wall of Griffin’s study. “What on earth were you thinking?”
“We discussed all the reasons for us to have a telephone,” Griffin reminded me, “and decided it was the most prudent course.”
“Well, yes, but I didn’t think you meant now.” I’d imagined he meant to have it installed sometime in the future. The very distant future. But of course Griffin was the sort of man to act, not dither about like me.
“It will be a boon to my business,” he said. “Not to mention, being able to quickly contact your father or the museum could make all the difference should there be an emergency.”
“Should the masters come bursting back into our world, you mean.”
“Among other things, yes,” Griffin replied. “I’m sure the telephone will prove its usefulness in many ways.”
I snorted rudely. “I have my doubts. I’ve accepted all of the modern technology you’ve brought into our lives—electricity, the motor car, the replacement motor car—and not once have I uttered a single word of complaint.”
Griffin made a choking sound. I ignored him.
“But surely a line must be drawn somewhere,” I continued doggedly. “Being forced to talk to people—and in my own home! Surely a telegraph would be more than sufficient.”
“Come now, my dear.” Griffin pitched his voice soothingly, the same way he did when coaxing Saul down from a tree. “I’m sure once you understand its operation, you’ll feel much more at ease. Let me demonstrate it to you.”
I eyed the telephone warily. A Kellogg model, it had a handsome wooden case, a pair of black enamel bells, and a black receiver and transmitter. “Must I?”
“I’ll relieve you of the burden when we’re both here,” Griffin said. “But there will be times I’ll be out on a case or the like. And do recall, Bradley would have surely murdered you in this very room last July, had I not been able to place a call from Boston to Whyborne House.”
Drat. Unable to argue, I muttered, “I recall quite clearly, thank you.”
“Then you see its uses.” Griffin smiled at me, and my heart softened at the sight. I didn’t understand how I’d captured the interest of such a man, let alone his undying affection. The white pearl of his wedding ring gleamed warm in the light, and I absently ran my thumb over the black pearl in my matching ring.
I returned his smile. “Oh, very well.”
“Good. Now, let’s place a call to your father.”
My smile transformed to a scowl. If Griffin meant to endear me to the wretched contraption, he’d chosen the wrong avenue to do so.
“I have the numbers for Whyborne House, the police station, and the museum recorded here,” he said, indicating a piece of paper he’d posted on the wall next to the telephone. “Now, one simply picks up the receiver and tells the operator which number is wanted.”
I stood with arms crossed while he did so. “Calling for Mr. Whyborne on behalf of Dr. Percival Endicott Whyborne,” he said after a pause. Presumably one of the servants had answered the telephone at Whyborne House. “Thank you.”
He took the receiver from his ear and held it out to me. “Your father will be along in a moment.”
I took it gingerly. A few moments later, Father’s voice barked directly into my ear. “Percival!”
I winced. “Yes.” Griffin pointed at the transmitter, and I redirected my reply into it. “Yes.”
“Griffin mentioned you intended to join those of us living in the twentieth century,” Father said, sounding pleased about my newest hardship. “I’m glad you called—you’ve saved me the trouble of sending a message.”
As though it were some inconvenience for him to order a servant to have a message sent. “About what?” I asked, though I doubted I wanted the answer.
“There’s a meeting tonight I wish you to attend.”
Curse the man. “How many times must I tell you, I’ve no interest in running Whyborne Railroad and Industries?”
“As if I could forget,” he snapped. “My own heir...well, never mind. It isn’t that sort of meeting.”
I was less than reassured. “Then what?”
“Come to Whyborne House no later than eleven o’clock tonight. I’m calling a gathering of the old families.”