The Magicians and Mrs. Quent (30 page)

If she is not otherwise occupied, I think the eldest would do the best, being of an age (if I recollect rightly) to carry some weight of authority with my two charges. This would be beneficial. While they are kind children, and clever, since the passing of their mother they have wanted for the benefit of a regular household and the influence of solid governance. I fear this is something I can little provide myself, being so occupied with the duties of my work, which often require me to be away.

I trust you will present this opportunity to your eldest. While I can offer nothing that compares to the brightness and busy society of the city, there are goodly folk in this part of the country, and it is possible she might make some acquaintances that are both fitting and pleasing to her. I fear there is nothing else I can promise her, save my gratitude and fifty regals a month she may put to her future.

It is long since I have seen you both, but I hope in honor of our past acquaintance you will treat me to a reply as soon as possible.

Yours with Respect,

Alasdare Quent, Esquire

Heathcrest Hall, Cairnbridge, County Westmorain

Ivy folded the letter and creased it. She went to the kitchen, warmed a knife on the stove, and held it against the circle of wax. Once softened, she pressed the letter shut and let the seal cool.

Though she performed these motions calmly, her mind raced. Fifty regals a month! How such a sum would alter their lot. They would have enough to buy all that was needed, as well as a few things that were merely wanted, and still have a good amount to save toward the future.

Why her mother had not presented her with the proposition expressed in this letter—and the letters prior to it—Ivy could not imagine. There was no reason keeping
her
in the city, unless it was the reason that her mother imagined, and that was no reason at all. She did not know this Mr. Quent; Mrs. Lockwell had never mentioned him. However, it was clear he had been a friend of the family, or at least a friend of Mr. Lockwell’s.

So why had Mrs. Lockwell kept these missives a secret?

Ivy heard heavy footfalls coming down the stairs. She rushed back into the hall and slipped the letter into the stack, turning just in time to see her mother coming down the steps.

“You are up very early,” Mrs. Lockwell said. “And you have a bright look about you. Have you already been out for a walk? By the saints, I can hardly imagine such a thing! I feel as if I could sleep through a greatnight. What have you been doing?”

“Nothing,” Ivy said. “The post just came. I will put on water for tea. Mrs. Murch is not yet risen.”

As her mother took up the letters, Ivy moved down the hall toward the kitchen door.

“Ivoleyn, wait. This letter here—”

Ivy halted, her hand on the doorknob, then turned around, a coldness descending in her stomach. Mrs. Lockwell frowned at one of the letters, then held it out toward Ivy.

“This note is addressed to you. I can see no sign of who sent it. Were you expecting anything?”

Ivy murmured that she had not. So relieved was she that her mother had not noticed her handiwork with the wax seal that she took the note without looking at it. She tucked it into the pocket of her skirt and went to the kitchen.

It was not until after breakfast, when she sat at the secretary in the parlor to look at the ledger, that she recalled the note in her pocket. She glanced over her shoulder. Rose was sewing contentedly, and Lily stared at the window with a rather less contented air while Miss Mew made a nest in her poor basket. Ivy returned her attention to the note, which had been folded so as to make its own envelope.
Miss Ivoleyn Lockwell
was written in an elongated hand on the front, but there was nothing to indicate the identity of the sender. Ivy opened the note.

I believe you will find this of interest
was the message in its entirety. It was signed simply
Bennick
.

Before she could wonder at the exceeding brevity of the letter—or the fact that Mr. Bennick had sent her a letter of any length at all—a scrap of newsprint fell to the secretary. Ivy unfolded it, seeing that it was an article clipped from one of the broadsheets—
The Messenger,
perhaps, by its stodgy typeface. She read it but with more confusion than interest.

The article concerned the new celestial object, the one she had seen the other night. Some men of science were now suggesting it was not a comet after all but rather a planet. This idea seemed remarkable, given that the object had not been observed in the heavens during all the course of recorded history; not even the ancient Tharosians had ever noted it. However, according to some astrographers, it was not beyond the realm of possibility.

The eleven known planets moved in the heavens as the spheres of aether, on whose surfaces they resided, turned about their axes. Ivy had observed this motion herself when she turned the knobs of her father’s celestial globe. The furthest planets resided on the surfaces of the largest spheres, and these spheres were so great, and turned so slowly, that some of the planets did not complete their grand circuits for a generation. Indeed, it took Loerus a full forty years to make its rounds.

It was theorized by some, the article went on, that if the celestial sphere that contained the planet was sufficiently large, and its axis was offset from the other spheres to an extreme degree, it might take many thousands of years to complete its circuit. Therefore it was possible that it had been eons since the last time this planet had drawn close enough to be seen, before the ancient precursors of the Tharosians first put stylus to clay.

Ivy set down the article and could not help frowning. It was fascinating, to be sure. That there could be a thing so great and important as an entire planet that had heretofore remained undiscovered was remarkable. However, that there was much left in creation to discover Ivy did not doubt; after all, it was only a few centuries ago that the New Lands were found across the eastern sea.

What Ivy found equally—if not more—remarkable was the fact that Mr. Bennick had thought to send her the article. They were acquainted in only the slightest way. At Lady Marsdel’s he had told her about Mr. Rafferdy’s descent from one of the Old Houses, that was all.

No, that was not all she and Mr. Bennick had spoken of. Ivy reached again for the note.
I believe you will find this of interest.

She set down the note and opened a drawer, taking out the riddle she had found in the old book, the one her father had left for her. Ivy had concealed it under a stack of demands and receipts, confident it would not be disturbed in that location. Again she read the cryptic lines.

When twelve who wander stand as one

Through the door the dark will come.

The key will be revealed in turn—

Unlock the way and you shall learn.

Upon reading the riddle, her first thought had been of the planets; her father had been something of an astrographer himself, and he had taught her long ago that the Tharosian word for planet meant
wanderer.
However, she had dismissed that line of reasoning, for the planets were eleven in number.

“No,” she murmured, picking up the article Mr. Bennick had sent her and holding it alongside the riddle. “Not eleven anymore.”

All this time her first guess had been right; the riddle
did
concern the planets. Mr. Bennick had said he knew of no myths that spoke of twelve wanderers, but what if this planet was more ancient than myth itself? What if it had last appeared before men first looked up at the sky—or before there were men at all? If that was the case, it was no wonder it was unknown in story and legend.

Yet Mr. Lockwell
had
known of it, or at least he had seemed to.
So, you have returned at last from your wanderings,
he had said two nights ago, when she first saw the red glint in the sky.

How her father had come to be aware of a celestial object whose existence had never been noted in all of recorded history, she could not guess. However, she owed Mr. Bennick thanks for remembering her odd question.

Again she studied the riddle. She had to believe she was capable of solving it; her father would never have left it for her if he didn’t think it was within her abilities to fathom. But why use a riddle at all? Why not just tell her?

Because he wanted you to be ready,
she thought. And, more darkly,
Because he did not want others to know.

She read the first line, and now that she knew it referred to planets, its meaning was clear.
When twelve who wander stand as one.
It had to refer to some sort of conjunction—a grand conjunction of all the planets, appearing together in the sky.

The next line described what would happen when this celestial event took place. It spoke of a door and the dark coming through. Ivy could not help but shudder; the line reminded her of how she felt sometimes when night fell, how the darkness seemed to creep into the house, eating the light. And it also reminded her of the man she had encountered at the old house on Durrow Street.

The way must not be opened,
the man in the mask had said.

Ivy closed her eyes, recalling that strange meeting. She had thought back to it several times since then, trying to remember everything that had happened, everything he had said. Only it was vague to her, as if from a dream. The fever she had succumbed to that night had dimmed her memories of the day. And it had all been so peculiar: the outlandish and outmoded clothes he wore, the dark mask, the way she had been unable to speak. He had spoken about a door and about a group of people: the Vigilant Order of the Silver Eye. None of it made sense to her. But could it be a coincidence that both Mr. Lockwell and the stranger had spoken of a door?

You should listen to me,
he had said from behind the mask,
because that is what your father did.

She
had
listened to her father. He had taught her how the planets Vaelus and Cyrenth never stood in conjunction, just as their namesakes were doomed never to meet. Which meant the first line of the riddle made no sense after all. Even if there were twelve planets, they still could never stand as one. She was missing something in the riddle. Her father would not have gone to such trouble to leave her a piece of nonsense. There had to be an answer.

Her head ached from staring at the papers. With a sigh, she returned the riddle to the drawer, and the article from Mr. Bennick with it.

T
HE MONTH DREW on, and still no carriage stopped at their front door.

Mr. Rafferdy was merely waiting for the right moment, Mrs. Lockwell made a point of declaring every day.

“It must be that he is making certain all his affairs are in proper order,” Mrs. Lockwell said as they took an early breakfast after a long umbral, “so that when he makes his proposal it will appear as attractive as possible.”

“No doubt,” Ivy replied solemnly, “for a woman of my position can be compelled by only the strongest of persuasions to accept the proposal of a young, wealthy, and charming man.”

“I should think not!” Mrs. Lockwell exclaimed. “But I would begin to think you are not interested at all in him, Miss Ivoleyn Lockwell, for the way you talk. You had best not act like that when he comes. You will be sorry if you cause him to take his proposal to some other woman. Don’t think there aren’t plenty who would accept in your stead!”

Of that, Ivy had no doubt. In fact, she thought as she went into the parlor, she was certain there were any number of young women who would receive such a proposal long before she would. She had not her mother’s unfounded hopes nor her sister’s romantic notions. The sound of horses and wheels clattering came from the street. A cart, no doubt. She paid the noise no heed and moved instead to the secretary to look over the ledger.

“Ivy!” came a cry from downstairs. “Ivy, come down here at once!”

It was her mother, and such was the shrill sound of her voice that Ivy thought at first some terrible thing must have occurred. She set down her pen and started for the stairs.

“Ivy, where are you? Come down here this instant! He’s here, oh, bless us, he’s here!”

Ivy halted, gripping the top of the banister, then hurried to the window and glanced out. A black four-in-hand decorated with gold trim had pulled up in front of their house.

In that moment, with one gasp of breath, all her arguments and assumptions that this could never be—that it was impossible, that it defied logic in every way—were dismissed. Instead, reason lost out, as it always must no matter how strongly founded, to wonder and delight.

For so long she had not let herself so much as entertain a hope that, when proven false as it surely must, would cause a pain that could not be borne. To not hope, to expect nothing, to dismiss at every turn—these had been her only protections against certain devastation. Disappointment could not ensue when one failed to gain what one had never wished for.