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“You should take the train to Wellington,” Bellamira addressed Lord Foxglove briskly. “I will take the hearse, if you don’t mind. I can lead Mr Brand on a longer chase that way.”

Lord Foxglove retracted his hand from Clarimonde’s shoulder. “The carriage might not listen to you,” he pointed out. “And I would hate to see anything happen to it.”

Bellamira stroked the velvet next to her affectionately. “We are already friends,” she told him. “I met this carriage long ago, when Black Catastrophe was its owner. I always wondered where it had gone off to.” She offered him a reassuring expression. “I will not let anything happen to your hearse. Once I am caught, it will know its way back to Witchwood Manor.”

Clarimonde drew in a shuddering breath, trying to stabilise herself. Emotions still whirled within her, insisting that there had to be a different way—one that somehow fixed her sister’s heart and kept them all together. “Don’t be silly, Bellamira,” she said. “We must find a better solution. In any case, what will the two of us do without a carriage of our own?”

Bellamira raised her eyebrows at Lord Foxglove, with a mischievous sparkle in her dark eyes. “Goodness,” she said. “I thought the answer to that was perfectly obvious.”

Lord Foxglove stiffened in his seat. “Absolutely not,” he declared.

The hearse swerved again. This time, it elicited panicked shouts as Marylebone’s morning visitors leapt out of its way.

Bellamira offered Lord Foxglove a mild look as she pulled herself up from the floor of the hearse. “I am open to alternative suggestions,” she said.

Lord Foxglove did not answer.

CHAPTER 3

“Faeries cannot lie. This does not mean they always tell the truth. If you are ever unfortunate enough to meet a faerie, you should pay very close attention to the words that they use—and always assume that they have omitted something terribly important.”

LORD ELIAS WILDER TO MISS CLARIMONDE BETONY, AGE 10

Clarimonde considered herself to be a woman of many talents. She was, of course, a chemist of perfumes; she knew a great deal about plants and their magical properties; she was enough of a seamstress to keep her clothing in good working order; she was even, secretly, quite dangerous with a parasol.

Tragically, she had not ever learned to ride a horse.

“Oh, God!” Clarimonde whimpered, as the magnificent white horse beneath her narrowly dodged a soot-covered curricle. “Please, please slow down!” Her knees ached with the effort of holding her in place; each clattering stride came with another awkward, bruising jolt that rattled every bone in her body.

Lord Foxglove did not slow down. Instead, the faerie-turned-horse careened around the corner of Marylebone Road with unnatural speed, dancing briefly off the street in order to avoid another carriage. A knot of women scattered before him, dropping their laundry. A pair of white linen drawers snagged upon Clarimonde’s boot and stuck there, flapping madly behind her like a flag. She didn’t dare reach down to pluck them free—and so, they stayed exactly where they were.

“Do you even know where Euston station is?” she yelled over the wind.

Lord Foxglove did not answer her. It hardly mattered; Clarimonde was far too absorbed in trying to stay on his back to make any further demands of him.

As streets blurred past, it occurred to her that puca were well known for violently disposing of people who dared to ride them. Surely, though, Foxglove would not toss Clarimonde into the street? He had told Bellamira that he was there to take them back to Witchwood Manor—and that could not have been a direct lie.

But did he make a promise to that effect? Clarimonde wondered fretfully. Or is it simply his intention? He is so slippery with the truth. What if there are technicalities involved?

The longer that Clarimonde reflected on this thought, and the more that her muscles began to burn with the effort of staying on the horse, the more her fear began to rise. Lord Foxglove had fully intended to throw her from the carriage in order to save himself, she knew—and now, he had her entirely at his mercy, unable to reach for her perfumes in order to defend herself. Perhaps he intended to ride until Clarimonde lost her grip and split her head open? In which case, he could claim it was an accident⁠—

Just as this terrible idea seized her, however, Clarimonde became aware of the Euston Arch rising up ahead of them. The archway’s grand columns struck her with instant relief, and she let out a heavy breath against Foxglove’s white mane. Dimly, she noticed that he did not smell of horse at all—instead, there was only the faintest scent of violets, from the perfume she had given him before.

Lord Foxglove eased his pace as they approached the Arch. Clarimonde loosened her grip on him in turn—but the burning in her legs informed her that she would be very sore for several days to come.

Finally, he came to a complete stop next to one of the towering columns. Passers-by stared openly at Clarimonde as she eased herself timidly from the back of a white, otherworldly faerie steed, kicking halfheartedly at the pair of drawers still stuck to her foot. Her hair, she knew, was in shambles, and her legs still trembled as they tried to hold her up.

Foxglove let out a single sharp breath—and then suddenly, Clarimonde found herself clinging to his arm as he dusted off the glimmering threads of moonlight in his waistcoat. Once again, the faerie was a tall, effervescent man, with white hair spilling down his back; obviously strange, and decidedly impossible to miss.

Clarimonde swallowed, reaching up to shove her disheveled hair out of her face. A melancholy spike of relief struck her as her fingers encountered Bellamira’s tiny black braid, still firmly pinned there.

“I do, in fact, know where Euston station is,” Lord Foxglove told her mildly. He tucked her hand more firmly into his arm, and started for the courtyard. “It is hardly new to me. I used to visit London all of the time, before this nasty business with Secundus started up again.”

Clarimonde followed the faerie’s lead in a daze. Later, she would be embarrassed to realise how tightly she had clung to his arm. “You mean… Lord Cassius Secundus?” she asked dimly. “Our new Lord Sorcier?”

“Yes, him,” Lord Foxglove murmured. “He whose hound you met this morning. He has many names, of course. He would not use his true name here in England.”

Clarimonde turned her head to stare at him. “You mean to say that… the Lord Sorcier is a faerie?” she asked incredulously. “We were convinced that all of the faeries had left England! But he was right in front of us, all along?”