We ended up shifting into the knot garden after all. There was such a thing as making a statement...and such a thing as much-needed privacy, too.

It had been months since I’d kissed Wrexham. Months.

I wanted to devour him.

But there was only so much that we could do outside in the snow, even with the protection of high knotwork hedges and the perfect, spellcast bubble of warmth around us. So I finally forced myself to draw back, panting, before we could go much, much too far.

Still, I couldn’t bring myself to remove my hands from underneath his coat. I kept them tucked there like a silent claim, fingers spread against his warm, lean back as his open greatcoat billowed around us both.

Home. I had to squeeze my eyes shut for an instant to take in the perfection of that feeling.

When I opened them again, I found Wrexham looking nearly as wild as I felt, with his dark eyes wide and shocked-looking and his black hair falling around his face in haphazard disarray where my fingers had raked through it. His hands loosened their hold around me, sliding down to my hips, but he didn’t let go either, even when I sank back down onto the soles of my feet.

“Harwood...” He stopped, shaking his head.

For the first time since we’d met, my ex-fiancé was apparently lost for words.

“Well?” A bubble of laughter surprised me as I took in his stunned expression. I grinned up at him, feeling every bit as young and as reckless as I’d been when we’d first met all those years ago. “You can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“If you had any idea...” He didn’t smile back. But the look in his eyes felt like a second embrace as he lifted one hand and carefully, gently traced the outline of my face. I leaned into his touch, breathing him in. “Harwood,” he murmured again.

He didn’t continue. He didn’t need to.

I shifted closer in to hug him tightly, laying my cheek against his chest. His heart beat rapidly against my cheek as he closed his own arms around me.

After two months apart, the relief was almost unbearable.

The idea of losing it again...was not to be thought of.

“Well?” My voice was muffled by his waistcoat. “What did your gardening expedition teach you? Is Hilbury our rogue magician, do you think?”

Wrexham’s warm breath ruffled the top of my head in his sigh. “Jeremiah Hilbury may well be the most cantankerous magician I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting, which is an impressive feat in and of itself...but the bulk of his ire this morning derived from the unforgivable fact that the weather is not behaving itself according to his firm expectations. So...” The muscles in his back shifted against my arms as he shrugged. “I believe we can tick him off from our list of possibilities.”

“Then there’s only one name left.” I frowned, searching my memory. “Young Luton, Lady Cosgrave called him.” Try as I might, I couldn’t summon any image to accompany the name. “Do you know him?”

“Who, Luton?” Wrexham let out a huff of laughter. “I’ve been scowled at by him once or twice in passing, but he’s certainly never deigned to engage in a conversation. I believe he considers me to be hopelessly backward, old-fashioned and deplorably chained to the establishment.”

“You?” I pulled back to stare up at him. “Is that a jest?”

He shook his head, looking unperturbed. “I’m afraid not,” he said. “I work for the Boudiccate, you see. That’s more than enough to damn me in his eyes. He’s quite the young firebrand in every possible regard—he even got himself sent down from the Great Library for over a year after an epic public eruption over the ‘ignorance’ of his teachers there. He was only finally re-admitted after his family paid a fortune to incite their forgiveness...and even then it was only on the agreement that he would stick to weather wizardry, as none of the other teachers would agree to work with him for any payment.”

Wrexham shrugged. “He is genuinely brilliant, though, from all I’ve heard. He could have graduated at the top of the class, just like you, and specialized in anything he’d wanted, if he hadn’t been so keen to dismiss all of his teachers’ own work in his final projects.”

“Hmmph.” In my opinion, anyone who couldn’t see Wrexham’s own qualities could never be described as anything close to ‘brilliant.’ Still...

“If he really has developed his own new methods for weather wizardry,” I said, “perhaps that could account for his having such different results than any other weather wizard in history.” Our teachers at the Great Library had been firm about the limitations of any human wizard’s power, and those fell far short of controlling the natural world itself, even if we’d been allowed to try. Still, the weather around us spoke for itself.

...And I had no time to stand about theorizing any longer. “Very well.” I nodded firmly and stepped back, pulling my hands free. “We’d better find him as quickly as possible, then, and see what we can do.”

“Harwood!” Wrexham’s voice stopped me just as I took my first quick stride toward the opening of the knot garden and the house beyond. When I turned back, I found him smiling ruefully down at me. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Am I?” I blinked.

Of course Luton might not wish to talk to us, but we would simply have to overcome that obstacle somehow. After all, we could hardly—

“Us,” said Wrexham, shaking his head at me. “Are we betrothed again or not?”

“Oh, that.” I rolled my eyes, my shoulders relaxing. “Really, Wrexham, do keep up! You have been publicly compromised, remember? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if my brother has already sent out the notice to all of the London newspapers. In fact, considering all the time we’ve spent in here, Amy’s probably planned out the fine details of our wedding venue by now. I hope you weren’t expecting another long betrothal, because I doubt my family would stand for that again. They’re remarkably impatient people, you know.”

“I see.” Wrexham’s lips twitched. “Good to know. In that case...” His long fingers closed around my wrist and yanked me in. Before I could take another breath, I was pressed against his chest, all of my sensible thoughts disrupted and my heart suddenly beating with disconcerting speed while his dark, intent gaze held mine transfixed. “I’ve always appreciated your single-minded sense of purpose,” he murmured, “but even while we’re pursuing our other goals today, don’t set this too far out of your mind, will you?”

His warm, clever lips were remarkably persuasive.

So were his hands.

My own hair was mussed and falling around my face by the time he finally straightened, and my legs felt shockingly weak. Perhaps it was shock, come to think of it. After all, I’d spent two long months training my body not to expect this sort of thing anymore.

I clung to the open wings of his greatcoat for balance, sucking in shallow breaths as I waited for my disobedient heartbeat to settle and my foolish legs to regain their strength. His own heart hammered a rapid beat against my wrist. I flattened one palm against it, absorbing that beat into my skin.

“You always were...astonishingly good at whatever pursuit you put your mind to.” My voice shivered on the words.

“Good.” Wrexham sounded rather hoarse himself; he cleared his throat, his hands tightening briefly around my shoulders before he stepped back and let me go. “Don’t forget it this time, if you please,” he told me.

As if I ever had.

Foolish man.

But I had revealed quite enough vulnerability for one day. So I only smiled serenely and turned to sail out of the knot garden with as much grace and confidence as if I weren’t still ripped half-open and reeling inwardly.

Perhaps it wasn’t a surprise that I tripped. But the timing—just as I stepped out through the archway of the protected knot garden—was enough to send a jolt of cold fear like an icicle stabbing through the bubble of warmth and joy that had protected me for the past half hour.

I whirled around to peer up at the hillside beyond, where I’d glimpsed the elf-lord watching me that morning.

Nothing. It stood bleak and bare in the falling snow, and the flakes around me flew harmlessly away without ever landing on my skin. No spell had truly pierced my bubble this time. It had only been a stray branch on the ground that sent me stumbling.

Wrexham came up behind me, following my gaze. “What did you see?”

“Nothing.” I forced my fisted fingers to unclench. “He isn’t there...this time.”

“The elf-lord?” Wrexham’s voice hardened. “You mean you’ve seen him again since we spoke to him yesterday?”

“Apparently, he likes to keep an eye on his investments...and make certain they see him doing so.” My lips curled into a humorless smile. Lifting my chin, I deliberately turned my back on the hills and any watchers beyond, reaching out to take Wrexham’s arm and pitching my voice loud enough to be heard by anyone. “I’m sure it’s all part of the amusement of the game for him. Tame housecats always like to play with their prey before they go in for the kill, don’t they?”

The muscles in Wrexham’s arm were rigid with tension as he gazed out toward the hills beyond with narrowed eyes, resisting my tug toward the house. His voice dropped to a dangerously low pitch, like the warning growl of a decidedly non-tame tiger. “Does Lady Cosgrave know yet that she has an elf-lord lurking about her property and menacing her guests?”

“He told her that he’s here on behalf of his king, making sure that all’s prepared for the solstice celebrations...which are scheduled for the same date as my own day of reckoning.” I shrugged. “Apparently, Lord Ilhmere has never been a fan of our treaty.”

“So he’s timed all of this with great precision.” Wrexham let out a hissing sigh through his teeth. Then his muscles finally relaxed, and he looked down at me with a rueful expression as he turned, following the tug of my hand. “You do keep life interesting, don’t you, Harwood?”

“Just wait until you hear what I have planned for the Great Library,” I told him as we started toward Cosgrave Manor and our next move in the game. “We only have to solve this one tiny problem first.”

But it wasn’t as easy to make progress on that matter as I had hoped.

Young Luton was apparently as contemptuous of festive conviviality as he was of the Great Library itself. He was nowhere to be found in any of the public rooms in Cosgrave Manor when we returned. Nor did he join the rest of the company for luncheon, afternoon tea or supper.

By the time the ladies withdrew from the supper table that evening, I was seething.

“Is young Mr. Luton ill?” I demanded before the drawing room door had even closed behind us. Amy had already moved toward the tea urn, where many of the younger women were gathering, but I was far too irate to care for hot drinks now. “Has anyone heard of something amiss with his health, to keep him hiding in his room all day?”

“What, him?” Old Mrs. Seabury let out a bark of laughter as she settled herself on the wing chair closest to the crackling fire. “Healthy as a horse, that boy! The stubbornest, most boneheaded ones always are, hadn’t you noticed?”

A round of coughing broke out around the circle as the rest of the assembled ladies alternately averted their eyes or slid pointed looks at that oldest and crotchetiest member of the Boudiccate...who had, indeed, existed in perfect health for as long as I had known her.

Clearing her throat and looking purposefully away from Mrs. Seabury, Lady Cosgrave said, “Delilah? Have you heard of anything amiss with your nephew?”

“What?” A vaguely familiar-looking middle-aged lady in the far corner gave a start, her teacup jostling in her hand and hot tea spilling across her lap. As she swiped frantically at the spill, I finally placed her as one of Lady Cosgrave’s many cousins; no great political figure, but close enough in blood to be included in any social occasions like this one. She winced now as she looked up from her tea-stained lap and found a dozen pairs of eyes watching her. “Oh, no, has Gregory offended someone else now? Do forgive me! His mother swore he’d finally learned to hold his tongue in company, but—”

“Shh.” Lady Cosgrave put out one placating hand. “We all know you aren’t to blame for his behavior, Delilah. It was kind of you to bring him with you this time to give his poor mother some respite from his moods.”

“It was meant to be practice comporting himself in high company,” Delilah said dolefully. “My sister has great plans for him, you know, if only he could ever learn to smile and be quiet when people say things that he disagrees with. He is a genius, I’m told, if only we could convince anyone to hire him! But that Sansom fellow would keep talking of his own magical theories last night, and—”

“One can hardly blame your nephew for losing patience,” I said sincerely. “But do you happen to know where he is now? I haven’t seen him all day.”

“Why, Cassandra.” Lady Cosgrave raised her eyebrows knowingly at me. “I would have thought you would have far more important things to worry about today of all days. Hasn’t your new fiancé—or should I say, your renewed fiancé—been providing enough entertainment for you?” She smiled fondly as a ripple of interest ran around the circle, and the gathered ladies drew closer with a visible eagerness that grated against my taut nerves. “We’re all so pleased that the two of you finally sorted things out after all. I always knew you would, once you overcame your little difficulties.”

“Now things can finally be just as they should have been all along!” said the lady next to her. “He’ll take care of all the magic in the family, and you can finally take your own place in politics, just as your mother always wanted. It’s almost too perfect to be believed, isn’t it?”

It was certainly something. But before I could even begin to express my full and sincere reaction to her statement, Amy hurried up behind me. Clearly, she’d sensed danger just in time.

“Are you speaking of Mr. Wrexham?” she asked brightly. “Do you know, he told me that Cassandra’s articles on magic have influenced magicians five times her age! They are so well-matched. But I think I heard someone talking about Mr. Luton beforehand. He is a weather wizard, is he not?”

“Yes,” I said tightly. “But he hasn’t emerged from his room all day, as far as I can tell.”

“Well, he’s probably working. You’ve had a few days like that too, as I recall, when you were seized by some grand new experiment you couldn’t wait to attempt.” Amy squeezed my arm gently. “At any rate, it can’t take forever, can it? I’m sure you’ll have a chance to meet with him soon, once his current project is finished. And in the meantime...”

She turned to the others with a question about the upcoming solstice celebration, and I gave up and retired to the tea urn, where the younger women clustered in a gossiping group. Miss Banks greeted me with a shy smile and Miss Fennell with a firm nod, and I nodded back to both of them, finding renewed purpose in the sight of their hands brushing slightly, discreetly, against each other as they stepped aside to make way for me.

I wasn’t, after all, the only one whose future was at stake.

I might have failed in my mission tonight, but I wouldn’t let myself fail again, for any of our sakes. As I poured the hot, steaming tea into a delicate porcelain cup, I made a vow to myself: if young Luton didn’t emerge from his room soon, I would throw propriety to the winds and go and fetch him myself.

He might have been too much for our teachers at the Great Library to manage, but after four months of broken dreams, I’d finally discovered a sense of hope again. There was no magician in the land—no matter how powerful, arrogant or obstreperous—who could be allowed to take that from me.