Page 58 of The Artist and the Dragon

“He really does,” Bronwyn agreed before taking a long sip of wine. “Do you know where he acquired it? I may have to see the designer about something for myself.”

Phillip cleared his throat and leaned in from her other side. “If you’re so taken with it, I may be able to find the designer for you. Miss Kinsley would look lovely with a stone in a similar cut, don’t you all think?” he asked, widening the discussion to the entire group. “Perhaps an emerald?”

Oh, damn it all. As if her guilt wasn’t bad enough, now he talked of buying her jewels? The urge to run away from the conversation was as strong as ever.

Bronwyn started to lift her saucer, realized it was empty, and wrung her hands around it instead. “Emeralds are lovely,” she admitted.

She needed to tell him. To find a way to break his heart gently before he purchased some lavish gift she couldn’t accept. But not here. It wasn’t the place or time, but soon.

Phillip’s eyes hooded slightly as he reached for a small lock of hair near her shoulders and twirled it around his fingers. “A perfect complement to your lovely hair.”

The mess of emotions in her sloshed like waves in a storm. She could hardly breathe, much less think, until he dropped her hair and put a respectable amount of space between them once more.

“Is it quite warm in here to anyone else?” Bronwyn fanned herself with her hand.

A few women giggled, including Charlotte. But Phillip, gentleman he was, waved to a footman. “Do we have any fans laid out for the women? Where were they placed?”

“Over here, my lord.” The footman led them over to a small table where a few lace fans were folded.

Rather than take her time inspecting them, Bronwyn set aside her empty glass, grabbed a fan at random, snapped it open, and began to fan herself.

Phillip raised a brow. “Better?”

“Much.”

And it was. For about five heartbeats, until she happened to glance at the nearby mantel and caught sight of her painting.

After everything that had happened with Malik, she’d completely forgotten to look for it, especially since it had still been white earlier that evening. But now, the place where she’d affixed the spell was black as night, the reflected moon a dark sister to the one in the sky.

Someone present was a wielder of dark magic.

Bronwyn swayed on her feet. Phillip was there in an instant, steadying her arm.

“I just need to sit,” she insisted, dropping into the nearest chair with little grace.

The spell had worked. They were one step closer. But who had activated it? It couldn’t have been anyone near them when Phillip opened her gift, but there had been plenty of others further away.

And there was one person who bore another clue.

Bronwyn’s stomach turned as she looked at Charlotte a few feet away.

But it couldn’t be Charlotte. It couldn’t. She was a commoner—a wealthy one, but common nonetheless. She shouldn’t have magic in her blood. Shouldn’t be able to work magic at all, much less dark magic.

That didn’t mean, though, that someone couldn’t have given her something bespelled. Maybe they had without her knowledge? But if Charlotte had been the one to pass the spell off to the kitchen boy, she must have known it was something foul. And then, afterward, she would have heard about the disaster…

Did Charlotte have another dark magic spell on her now? Did someone else?

All of it—the dragons, Malik, Charlotte, Ceridwen’s condition—made her want to cry and scream in equal measure.

“I’m sorry, Lord Griffith,” Bronwyn managed at last. “I’m afraid I’m not quite all right after all.”

She tried to stand, and he was there again, helping her to her feet. “It’s Phillip, and it’s no trouble at all. Would you like to stay here? I can have a room made ready for you.”

“No, no. That’s all right,” she said quickly. “I think I will be best if I’m able to return to the castle and rest.”

“Of course.”

He insisted on seeing her out. They passed the men smoking in the front parlor, where she made sure not to look at Malik. She couldn’t handle that, not now. The royal guards who waited in the warm night air called the carriage at once.

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