“Then get dressed.”
“Mum, I’m knackered.”
She’s leaning into the refrigerator. “You’ll get your second wind. Is Simon coming round tomorrow, then?”
I frown and fidget with a tray of prawn cocktails. “I don’t think so.…”
I already told her that Simon was spending Christmas at Watford, but somehow Mum got it in her head that he would still stop by here on Christmas Day. It’s tradition, I suppose.
Maybe I should feel guilty for disinviting him, but I don’t—I tried to take it back tonight.
Mum stands up, holding a sparkling tiered jelly. “I think it’s good that he’s spending the holidays with the Mage,” she says. “As far as I can tell, the Mage usually spends Christmas alone at Watford. He told me once that the holidays were too auspicious to waste on festivities.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“Oh, who knows,” she says, handing the jelly off to Helen. “I hope Simon doesn’t end up fasting by moonlight. We’ll have to stuff him with sweetmeats tomorrow.”
“Auspicious…,” I say. “Why is the Mage such a weirdo?”
“Hush, Agatha. Don’t be treasonous.”
“I’m not, I’m just saying—was he always like this?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she says. “We certainly never travelled in the same circles. I can’t even remember him from school.”
I reach for a prawn, but Helen takes the tray away. “Do you remember Professor Bunce?” I ask Mum. “From school?”
“Which one?”
“Either.”
“Martin and Mitali were a few years behind me,” Mum says. She’s getting out another pudding—a huge stacked trifle. “But don’t they have a son even older than you? They started popping them out awfully early—that’s the Bunce influence, I think. I went to Watford with a litter of Bunces, not a one of them powerful enough to be there. That happens, you know, in big families: The magic gets watered down.”
My mother is obsessed with power—who’s got it, who doesn’t. She doesn’t. At least not much. She blames her own mother for marrying down. “My father couldn’t light a match in a rainstorm.”
I’m adequate, magickally speaking. I’m no Simon. Or Baz. Or Penelope. But I get through my lessons just fine.
I know that’s why my parents never had more kids after me; they didn’t want my magic to be diluted—even though Dad says it’s an old wives’ tale that siblings split magic.
I also know my parents are hoping I’ll marry someone more powerful than I am, to get the family back on course.
Before I started dating Simon, I had a secret Normal boyfriend—Sacha. If my mother had known, she would have locked me in a tower. (She probably would have taken away my horse.) I wonder what Sacha is doing these days.…
“So, you wouldn’t have known their friends?” I ask. “Professor Bunce mentioned someone named Lucy, she showed us a photo—”
“Lucy Day?”
“I’m not sure.…”
“Lucy McKenna?”
“She was Professor Bunce’s best friend,” I say. “Butterscotch blond, hair down to her waist. Sort of a boho nouveau look.”
“Darling,” Mum says, helping Helen lift the trifle, “that was everyone in the ’90s.”
“She looked like Baby Spice,” I say. “But with big shoulders.”
“Oh, Lucy Salisbury. Hell’s spells, I haven’t thought of her in years.” Mum stops in front of the fridge and puts her hands on her hips.
“Did you know her?” I ask.
“Of her, yes. She was five or six years younger, but her family went to the club. Darling, you know Lady Salisbury. She plays Black Maria with me. She’ll be here tonight.”
I do know Lady Salisbury. She’s probably my grandmother’s age, but she hangs out with my mother’s set. She tells bawdy jokes and always encourages everyone to eat more cake.
“Would she tell me about her daughter?”
“Dear magic, Agatha, no. What a thing to ask. Everyone knows her daughter was a scandal. And her son was a dud!”
“What kind of scandal?”
“Lucy ran off, just a few years out of Watford. She was the Salisburys’ pride and joy, then she ran off with some man. I heard it was a Normal. Maybe even an American. Ruth—Lady Salisbury—broke down at a charity do, a lawn-bowling tournament for stutterers—and confessed to Natalie Braine that she was worried there might be a child involved. An illegitimate child. That’s the last Ruth’s ever spoken of it. And no one’s seen Lucy, not in our realm, since school.”
“Lucy disappeared?” I say.
“Worse,” Mum says. “She ran away. From magic. Can you imagine?”
“Yes,” I say, then, “no.”
My mother brushes nonexistent crumbs from her hands. “Get changed, darling—the guests will be here any minute.”
I start to walk out of the kitchen, and Mum hands me a stack of hand-embroidered napkins to give to Helen on my way through the dining room. I hand them to Helen without saying anything. I’m too busy thinking.…
“I knew Lucy Salisbury,” Helen says. “We went to school together.”
It’s quite like Helen to wait until my mother isn’t in the room to speak to me. My mother prefers a more formal relationship, but Helen has always treated me like family. (Not close family, more like a niece; I think she prefers Simon.)