My Lady Jane(41)

His breath caught. “My mother?” He’d only ever seen a painting of her, fair and golden-haired and smiling a secret smile.

“I saw her change once,” Bess told him. “I was a child, but I never forgot. She could turn into a bird, Edward. A beautiful white bird.”

He held back a cough. “My mother.”

“It’s in your blood, brother. Both of your parents were E?ians, and so are you.”

How he wished that were true. But it had never happened. No matter how much he’d wanted it. “How do you know?”

“There’s no time,” she hissed. “They’re coming. Just do it, Edward. Find it inside yourself. I have to go.”

There was that flicker again, at the crack in the bottom of the door.

“Bess?” Edward whispered.

No answer.

He heard heavy footsteps at the bottom of the stairs.

“Bollocks,” he muttered to himself.

He staggered again to the window. The sky was pink against the horizon, growing brighter with every passing moment. A puff of wind touched his face, lifted his hair, filled his aching lungs with coolness. He closed his eyes.

I could change, he thought.

He wasn’t a lion. Deep down, he knew that. He’d always known it.

The footsteps were drawing closer.

He had a sudden thought. He crossed quickly to the bedside table, took out a quill and ink, and scrawled a message on the back of Jane’s letter.

She would think he was dead.

Maybe he would be.

Behind him, a key scraped into the lock.

He turned to the window.

This time, they would kill him. They would make sure of it.

He had to go.

He let his fur robe slip from his shoulders and onto the floor. He stepped up onto the windowsill.

Find it inside yourself, Bess had said.

He closed his eyes again. He thought of all the times he and Jane had tried to change themselves, to find the animal inside, and how it had never worked.

He thought of his mother, a beautiful white bird. His mother, whom he had no memory of. But perhaps she’d left him a gift in his blood.

Perhaps he could be a bird.

The door crashed open, but he didn’t hear it. He didn’t see Dudley burst into the room. He didn’t hear the duke’s shout.

Because he was falling.

And then he was flying.

And then the wind lifted him, filling his wings, and he left the palace behind.





ELEVEN


Jane

Jane was alone. At least, as she awakened the morning after her rather eventful night with Gifford, she didn’t hear the sounds of his breathing. Horse breathing or otherwise.

She checked over the side of the bed to find his blanket nest empty. He must have crept out just before dawn.

She leaned back on the pillows and closed her eyes, thinking about the adventure they’d shared, the gratitude they’d witnessed, and the laughter that had come from both of them. He’d made her laugh. She’d made him laugh. And the cutting little remarks that had defined their relationship thus far had possessed an almost friendly quality.

A thrum of pounding hooves sounded outside. Her heart thundered in response, anxious. Last night had been so— She searched for just the right word. Not magical. Not pleasant.

Satisfying. They’d done something. They’d helped those people. But now it was light out and Gifford was a horse once again. The magic (maybe it had been a little bit magical) of last night was over, burned away with the sun’s heat.

Jane rolled out of bed and found her trunks had been unpacked. Her dresses hung in wardrobes, all perfectly arranged. For a moment, she considered calling in a maid to help put her together, but she changed her mind and chose a simple dress to wear today. When she was presentable, she took a book—The Formation of Mountains and the Balance Achieved in Valleys: a Theory of E?ian Magic in the Mundane World—and a small sack of breakfast foods outside.

Gifford was running in the meadow, head tossed back and mane streaming in the wind. His tail was flagged, dark and glossy in the early summer day. In motion, he was a creature of complete beauty: his legs stretching out before and behind him, lifting him, carrying him across the grassy land.

As Jane approached a broad-trunked apple tree, Gifford switched directions and trotted toward her, snorting. She bent to place her book and breakfast on a large, protruding root, and when she straightened, Gifford stood a few feet away, watching her with those dark horse eyes.

“Good morning.” She held out a hand and approached him.

He sniffed, soft whiskers brushing her palm, and allowed her to pet his smooth, flat cheek. It was easier to touch him when he was a horse. As a horse, he, one, couldn’t talk back, and two, seemed less human and therefore was less intimidating. Which made her preferring him like this more awkward, considering they were married, but having a preference at all seemed like a step in the right direction.

“There’s something I wanted to tell you.”

He adjusted so that she rubbed between his ears, then gave a little shake as if instructing her to scratch.

She obliged. “I was thinking about the E?ian attack last night, and your actions. Or, rather, what I perceived as your inactions.”

Gifford angled his head so she’d scratch at the base of one ear. Was he even listening? Could he really listen, in this form?