A Marvellous Light (The Last Binding #1)(32)

The index mark, ?90, was also pencilled on a bookplate inside the cover of each book. Robin flicked first through those of them with coloured illustration plates, looking for dragons, but didn’t find any. He cracked Tales of the Isles instead and became rapidly absorbed in the contents page.

The Tale of the Flute That Fell Down a Well.

The Tale of the Queen’s Seven-Year Dance.

The Tale of the Stone That Never Cracked.

He looked up to find that Edwin was no longer seated, but doing idle laps of the library floor, pacing and pausing and sometimes even spinning on the spot, or doing a half step like a dance. All the while holding a book up to his face and occasionally turning a page.

Robin didn’t say anything, but his gaze must have been palpable. Edwin paused, book lowering.

He said, defensively, “It helps me think.”

“Cheaper than coffee, at any rate,” Robin said. He’d meant it as rather a hint—he was starting to feel peckish, and could have done with some biscuits to nibble on—but Edwin just turned around and took himself over to the window seat that filled the central and largest window, where he settled as though in stubborn refute of his own claim.

Edwin probably wouldn’t allow him to get crumbs on the precious books, Robin reflected, and turned back to his own reading. He flicked back and forth in the book, dipping into stories, letting the words and ideas wash over him. None of them were very long, which suited Robin. It was like filling a plate with small quantities of food from a buffet table; no flavour lasted long enough for him to be bored of it.

He couldn’t have said how much time passed, himself engrossed in stories and Edwin crossing occasionally to the table to fetch more books back to the window seat. The curse grabbed once at Robin’s arm, and he counted his breaths and closed his throat on his whimpers until the pain released him; Edwin never looked up. The sounds of footsteps came faintly from elsewhere in the house. Once or twice Robin heard a raised woman’s voice that could have been either Belinda or Trudie, or a member of the domestic staff. Mostly, the library had the quiet that managed to fill libraries like a solid presence.

All of a sudden Robin’s eye caught on a title buried in the dense list. The Tale of the Three Families and the Last Contract.

He turned to the page indicated. That particular tale was much like the others: short and not too fanciful, as though the author were more interested in collecting the facts of the matter than dressing it up to be read aloud for entertainment. It described the last court of fae making the decision to leave the mortal realm and return to their own, and the formal contract made between these fae and the three greatest magical clans of Britain, to preserve some magic for the use of humans.

A small printed illustration was set within the text. The black-and-white lines were an unimpressive depiction of the three items that the story claimed were the physical symbol of the contract—one for each family. A coin, a cup, a knife.

Robin jumped when something moved in the corner of his vision. It was a different cat to the one they’d found in conversation with the ghost on the stairs. This one was white with ginger patches, and it prowled with purpose towards the window seat, which as the sunniest spot in the room seemed likely to be a regular haunt. It paused in feline affront when it found the cushioned seat occupied by Edwin.

In a single decisive motion, the cat leapt up into Edwin’s lap and nudged its head demandingly against the book.

A smile stole over Edwin’s face, piecemeal. One side of his mouth rose and then the other. It was a very small smile, and looked as though it didn’t often venture forth from confinement. Edwin folded the book in one hand. With the other he reached out his slender fingers and rubbed the cat beneath the jaw. At the same moment, the sun must have peeked from beneath a cloud, because the light spilling into the window seat changed.

Robin realised he was staring, but he couldn’t stop. Edwin’s colourless self had taken up the white-gold of the sunlight and he looked close to ethereal, like a fairy from the book. A witch, with his familiar.

Robin’s first impression was still correct. Edwin was not handsome. But from this angle, with that smile like a secret caged in glass, he had . . . something. A delicate, turbulent, Turner-sketch attractiveness that hit Robin like a clean hook to the jaw.

“Edwin,” Robin said. It came out thinner than he’d meant. He crossed to the window seat and showed Edwin the story he’d found.

Edwin’s brow furrowed as he read. “I remember this,” he said. “Every magician in Great Britain is supposed to be descended from one of these fabled Three Families, down one tributary of blood or another. Now, the men who attacked you, you’re sure they said that precisely? The last contract?”

“I . . . think so.”

“It’s most likely a coincidence. This is just a story.”

“Magic is just a story,” said Robin. “If magic exists then surely the fae do. Or did.”

“That’s not a logical progression,” said Edwin, veering into tutor territory again. “We have no more concrete proof of the fae’s historical existence than we do of—dragons.”

“Except the people looking for this contract don’t live only in books,” said Robin, irritated.

“Which is no guarantee that they’re not on a fool’s errand—” Edwin visibly relented. “It’s true that we do see a similar kind of origin myth arising in other cultures. The idea that magic was never ours, that every spell used to be the result of bargains struck between us and a race of magical creatures. The contractual nature of this particular rendition is very . . . English.” That small smile again. “It’s in Dufay’s poem. We hold the gifts of the dawn, from those now passed and gone.”