Page 32 of Thornbound
“You think so?” she asked coldly. “Well, perhaps you should take care with your own words, Mrs. Harwood. I believe you’ve already been informed that the business of the Boudiccate is aboveyou,nowadays.”
Amy’s expression didn’t alter. But I flinched for her as she went still, and Jonathan sucked in a breath, his strong fingers flexing around my shoulders. I didn’t struggle against that momentary discomfort; I knew only too well what he was feeling.
Lady Cosgrave’s mouth puckered as Amy held her gaze in silence.
There wasn’t time for any of this!
“There isnothing and no onein this nation above Amy Harwood, and you know it!” I snapped. “But I don’t give a damn about the private business of the Boudiccate. Keep it as confidential as you like! AllIcare about right now is whatever you’ve learned about my husband. If you don’t tell me where he isright now—”
“But Cassandra...” Lady Cosgrave sighed. “Aren’t you the one who ought to be able to answer that question, as heapparentlyabandoned his duties to enjoy your company last night?”
I blinked at her, too baffled to even argue that last point. “He left Thornfell at dawn. He would have been back to his duties long before anyone even noticed—”
“He may have leftyou,” said Lady Cosgrave, “but he didn’t return to his post. No one has seen him since last night.”
“What?” I stared at her, the world beginning to spin gently around me. “But that’s not possible. He swore—”
“Didn’t you even wonder what magical crisis had summoned Mr. Westgate away so urgently?” Lady Cosgrave’s tone gentled, her shoulders sagging. “You must know he is always the first to be summoned whenever one of his officers of magic goes missing.”
* * *
Missing.
The word pealed through me like a bell.
I hardly noticed Jonathan closing his arms around me from behind, or Amy taking my hands in a firm grip. I was floating high and untethered above my body, cut loose by that one impossible word. Their sudden stream of questions and exclamations couldn’t reach me.
“He can’t be missing,” I said numbly to myself. “I would know...”
Wait.The words stuck in my mouth as memory suddenly swamped me.
My dream last night—then my panic this morning when I’d first awoken—it had all felt so overwhelming and so irrational. I’d feltsucha crushing urge to check that he was safe! But of course, I had forced myself to ignoreit.
How could I have been such a fool?
A door slammed in the distance, cutting off Jonathan’s and Amy’s agitated interrogation. Gasps sounded in the cluster of students by the library’s entrance. Miss Rosenthal cried out near the back of the group, “Oh, Professor Luton, you’re safe!”
Oh, for...!
At least the irritation knocked me back into myself. Ignoring the latest episode of Luton-induced chaos, I addressed Lady Cosgrave urgently. “Did Mr. Westgate tell you when he would be back?”
If not, I would have to find a magician of my own to transport me across the nation to my husband’s temporary quarters...but of course, the path along the way would need to be carefully checked as well.
Wrexham had been strained to the limit by both magic and exhaustion. If his transportation spell had gone awry and landed him in danger while he was weakened by the trip... If it had turned against him entirely, as in those nightmarish warning stories of severed body parts that were told to young students as cautions for their own magical training... If he was lying injured in some isolated bog, alone and in pain, without anyone to help...
That final, much-too-vivid image froze the last of my whirling panic into icily focused determination.
He will not be left alone.No matter how many magicians I had to abduct to aid me in the search, my husbandwouldbe found—and quickly, too.
“Thereyou are, Miss Harwood. Finally!” With a put-upon sigh, Gregory Luton pushed himself into place beside me, carelessly nudging Lady Cosgrave aside. Completely missing her outraged reaction, he tossed his hat through the air to land on the back of the closest wing-backed chair and ran both hands through his rumpled lion’s mane of golden locks. Casually, he plucked out a single green leaf. “I thought I’d never hunt you down!” he said. “This place is an utter madhouse tonight. No one to be found in the dining hall despite the lateness of the hour; all of that food going to waste; no one out in the gardens but scowling servants—and there’s a great big fence sticking up around my house, which IthinkI should have been consulted about beforehand! There wasn’t so much as a doorway cut into it, so I couldn’t even change my clothes before I—”
“Professor Luton!” I had been pushed beyond all womanly endurance. “No one caresabout your attire. Right now we are attempting to address various important and urgent issues—”
“Why do you think I’ve been trying andtryingto find you?” Luton shook his head at me pityingly. “Fey are notoriously bad listeners, you see, no matter how clearly anyone tries to explain the most obvious of magical points to them. I finally had to give up on getting through to her, myself, at all. But still...”
Shrugging, he dropped his gaze from mine and straightened his cravat with care. “I thought you’d wish to know: that fellow Wrackham—Wreckham?—whatever your husband’s name may be”—he waved one hand dismissively—“he’s been a prisoner in those woods of yours for hours, and things are getting dashed unpleasant in there. If you want any chance at seeing him again, you should probably do something about it.”
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