Castle Manoeuvre by Tilly Wallace

Author:Tilly Wallace
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ribbonwood Press

Thirteen

Elliot huffed a laugh, but the guilt had not left his eyes. “You took your time getting here. What was I supposed to do while I waited? Starve?”

Sera swatted him. “I should have turned you into a toad months ago. That way, you’d eat less.”

Inside the Napier carriage, Sera nearly cried with joy to find that Kitty had packed her favourite outfit. Neatly folded on the seat were her woollen double-breasted jacket with its swirling split skirt, black trousers, knee-high boots, and a fresh shirt.

After she changed clothes, Hugh released Lord Rowan’s driver from his compulsion, with final instructions to return to Mayfair and not remember anything.

The surgeon scratched at his arm as they took the reins of the saddled horses. “Do you think that when we next stop, you will have time to examine my jewellery?”

Worry nibbled at Sera. She had seen what the Fae bracelet had done to Lady Zedlitz, although Hugh had only worn and used it for a matter of days. “Yes. But we will need quiet and no interruptions.”

Kitty thanked her staff, and the groom gave the women a boost up into their saddles. They turned their mounts to the east, and the group set off on the next leg of their journey. They rode hard all day, determined to put distance between them and the Repository. Kitty only allowed them brief stops to water their horses and themselves before they were back on the road.

Sera discovered that their saddlebags held a variety of items, both edible and practical. As darkness fell, Elliot scouted out a suitable place for them to spend the night.

“While a pub would be grand and it will be blasted cold out here, I don’t think we can risk anyone’s recognising you,” Elliot said as he gestured towards a stand of trees.

The trunks made a loose circle and fallen leaves covered the ground, offering a small bit of insulation between the frigid ground and their bottoms. They gathered up branches and twigs and soon had a fire blazing in the middle of the little glade. Blankets were laid out around it. As darkness covered them, Elliot was put in charge of producing dinner from the contents of the saddlebags.

Sera sat before the fire and took Hugh’s arm in her hands. Pushing up the sleeve of his coat, she examined the bracelet, marvelling at how it had adjusted itself to fit perfectly around the surgeon’s wide wrist. Even when she squinted, there was no sign of any clasp or seam to indicate where the piece opened or hinged. Peering underneath, she spied a thin silver tendril burrowing out of the gold and into Hugh’s flesh.

So it had begun.

Thus far, they had witnessed only two ways to remove this particular bracelet. One involved death, the other dismemberment. Sera hoped to find a solution that left Hugh alive and intact. She was rather fond of his large, gentle hands. A similar bracelet on her own arm had sprung open once she had removed all the nearly invisible strands that grew from magical metal to burrow into flesh.

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