A Marvellous Light (The Last Binding #1)(22)

No. It was just that Edwin was the only magician Robin Blyth had met so far who wasn’t actively wishing him harm.

Jack—Hawthorn—didn’t count. Indeed, his lordship was determined not to be counted. Not that it had stopped him from reinforcing the point: Edwin was an annoyance at best, something to be brushed off one’s coat and ejected from one’s house. Edwin didn’t care for this warm-voiced near-stranger’s opinion either; he didn’t, but surely he was allowed to hate that Hawthorn had made Edwin’s inferiority so clear right in front of the man’s face.

And now they were headed to a place where that inferiority would be made even more obvious.

Edwin tucked his hand into his pocket, tangled his fingertips in his string, and watched a row of poplars flick past the train window, rough yellow fingers reaching to the sky.



A vehicle that only escaped the label of dog-cart by the narrowest margin carried them from the tiny station through a two-pub village, along a road that meandered east, then deposited them and their luggage at the mouth of a narrower and better-kept road with a sign announcing PENHALLICK HOUSE.

It was an odd name for Cambridgeshire. Robin took an experimental breath, as though they might have somehow—magically?—ended up in Cornwall instead, but there was no sea edge to the air. He exhaled and felt foolish.

“It’s an easy walk from here,” said Courcey. Edwin. Edwin. The name suited him, in a fussy way. Apart from the straw of his hat, perched atop his pale hair, he still looked every inch the polished city man. He did not look like someone who had volunteered them to haul their luggage up a long, sloping drive simply for the joy of the stroll.

“I don’t mind a walk,” said Robin, mostly because Edwin seemed to be expecting him to argue.

The light was turning towards dusk and there was barely a breath of breeze to stir the leaves. Birds yelled from the hedges and bushes as they walked.

“So much for the quiet of the countryside,” said Robin. “Looks like a pastoral scene by any artist from the past two centuries; sounds like a fish market.”

“And people talk of country dirt as clean dirt as though that makes it any easier to remove from your trouser cuffs.” Edwin wasn’t smiling—in fact, he looked faintly disgusted—but they shared a look of more fellow-feeling than Robin might have hoped for.

Off administering a country seat, indeed. Robin had nothing at all against the country, but could never shake the impression that it would rather everyone buggered off to town and let it administer itself back into wilderness.

He was aware of the uselessness of this opinion when held by a baronet. No doubt Gunning would be thrilled if Robin were to remove himself to Thornley Hill and start tromping tweed-clad around its grounds with a gun slung over his forearm, discussing crop rotation with grizzled farmers.

Robin shook himself and caught up with Edwin, who was waiting at the crest of the gradual slope they’d been ascending.

Penhallick House sat cradled in the early dusk like a smug child in the crook of its mother’s arm. A splash of lawn ended in the pale gravel of the driveway and melded into the lines of gardens, set here and there with trees that rivalled the house in height.

It was only as they drew closer to the house itself that Robin’s mental classification hurtled abruptly from pastoral romance to outright religious fantasy as an angel floated into view from behind a thick chimney-stack.

Clad all in white and bathed in light, Robin thought stupidly. Or bathèd, rather.

“Dear Lord,” he choked, when the thought settled home, and dropped his bags.

“And it begins,” said Edwin, soft and resigned.

The angel made a highly non-ethereal whooping sound and waved in their direction. It was a young woman with a crown of blond hair, a thick plait tumbling unfashionably down over her shoulder. She was wearing a white dress that looked more like a classical robe, and she was inarguably . . . floating, as though seated on a wide swing that had become unmoored from its ropes at the height of its arc and simply failed to notice.

She was also holding a serious-looking bow and arrow. As Robin watched, she notched arrow to bowstring, tugged it back, and aimed directly at the two of them.

No. At Edwin.

“Wait—” Robin said, in real alarm.

She released the string. Robin shoved sideways, driving his shoulder into Edwin’s, trying to force the both of them to the ground. He felt the dull pain of bodily impact, then the more immediate one of his hand making the close acquaintance of the gravel drive. He shook his head and rolled off Edwin and to his feet, and only then became aware of the bright new pain in his left leg.

“Ow,” said Edwin, but he sounded more dry than hurt.

“Oh, you dolt, whatever did you do that for?” came an exasperated shout from above Robin’s head. “You confused it.”

Robin looked down at the stinging section of his leg, where his trousers now sported a frayed tear. When Robin touched the damaged part, his fingertips came away with a tiny smear of blood. It was such a small wound. Almost polite. Welcome! Robin thought, enjoy your stay! and let out a spurt of laughter. This place was incredible already.

“This place is incredible,” he told Edwin. Goodwill was surging beneath his skin and he wanted to share. He knelt and helped Edwin up, and was surprised when Edwin grabbed at Robin’s jaw, holding him still and staring into his eyes as though to read his fortune there. Edwin had a smudge of dirt on his cheek. The light was giving his hair fruit colours.