A Breath of Frost by Alyxandra Harvey

Author:Alyxandra Harvey [Harvey, Alyxandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2014-06-21T05:34:57+00:00

2 3 6 A L Y X A N D R A H A R V E Y

“That was just a side benefit,” she replied. “But you were very heroic.”

“Give over, I apologized a hundred times. And I was witched, as you well know.”

“I guess,” she pretended to grumble. “You should be at the academy too.”

Cedric picked up a brush to groom a waiting horse. One of the stable boys could have done it but she knew he enjoyed the work. “You know I can’t,” he said mildly.

“But you’re powerful,” she exclaimed, grumbling in earnest now. “You could be a Keeper, if you wanted to. Though Emma says they’re a shifty lot.”

“Can’t say I much care for them either,” he agreed. “But it doesn’t matter, Pen. The academies only take high- born witches.”

“That’s so unfair,” Penelope said, scrubbing the beet stains off her hands in a bucket of water with more force than was strictly necessary. She went to sit at the dusty, hay- strewn pianoforte to work off her temper. “And if the Greymalkin Sisters are as horrid as everyone says they are, the Order should be glad of all the help they can get.”

He wasn’t the type to sit back where there was work to be done. He’d told her that before but had always refused to elaborate. She was used to his long silences, but not his evasions.

She banged at the keys, playing a piece so menacing one of the mares kicked at her stal . “Mind the horses,” Cedric told her, amused. “You’re spooking them.”

Penelope sent him a sheepish smile, the tune instantly A B r e a t h o f F r o s t 2 3 7

changing from sinister to soothing, with all the ferocity of a sleeping kitten.

“How are you getting on at Rowanstone then?” he asked.

She shrugged one shoulder. “All right, I suppose. Until the beets, anyway. I still can’t find my familiar, though. I think it must have lost its way.” She tapped a few keys lazily. “What’s yours?” She’d forgotten to ask him before.

“Horse.”

She smirked. He raised an eyebrow in question.

“I like the irony of it,” she explained. “Daphne keeps going on about the hierarchy of familiars. And horse is one of the top.

Not like hers.” She positively beamed. “It’s a toad.”

Cedric snorted. “The witching families do like their hierarchies.”

“Exactly.” She rol ed her eyes. “Which is why I intend to rub it in her face that the coachman’s grandson, who isn’t good enough for her precious academy, outranks her in the world of familiars.”

He shook his head, well used to her grudges. “I’m not too concerned with what they think of me.”

“I know.” Penelope abandoned the pianoforte to stroke the horse’s nose while Cedric kept brushing. “But I am.”

“They love you, Pen. Why wouldn’t they?”

She made a face. “Not me, you dolt. You. I care what they think of you.”

“What for?” He looked surprised.

“Because.” She waved her hand as if it made it all clearer.

Because you’re clever and honest and brave, she thought.

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