Results had been disappointing so far. It wasn’t particularly difficult to find spells to do what she wanted, but they didn’t seem to get me anywhere. Michael had even managed to open a portal into the Deeper Realms, and the two of us spent a week there with tracking spells and a relic that all just led us in circles. Roderick believed that Rick had either been unmade or was being actively hidden from us; I refused to believe the former, and Michael believed we could muster up enough power between us to punch through whatever was doing the latter. There was little evidence to date to suggest he was right.

Melinda was concerned. A few days after we returned from the Deeper Realms, she took me out for a spa day and refused to let me talk about Rick or magic while we were out. I didn’t realize until I was halfway through a massage how obsessed I’d been recently over the matter. Not that it didn’t warrant dedication, but maybe Melinda was right when she insisted I couldn’t let this become my whole life. So I started taking more breaks, and seeing my other cousins, and putting the work aside to get some sleep with more frequency. And the less time I spent obsessing over a solution, the more time I found myself mourning him as if he was never coming back. I needed to find some distractions. I started browsing the library more, and found there was a considerable fiction collection I hadn’t even thought to explore when I was last here. I was on my fourth period romance before I realized that I had narrowed onto a specific subject, but I really didn’t have time to think about why that would be right now.

“A visitor for you, ma’am,” Hendricks said.

I blinked in surprise and turned my attention to him. I hadn’t even heard him enter the parlor, and now wondered how long he’d been standing there. “For me?”

“Yes, ma’am. An Amanda Stow. Shall I send her in?”

“Mandy’s here!?” I set Jane Eyre down and stood, straightening out my skirt. “Yes, yes, definitely send her in!”
He nodded and slipped out of the room, and after a few moments he returned to hold the door open as Mandy walked in. I ran over and gave her a hug, thanked Hendricks, and then showed her to the chairs.

“This place is so much nicer than I was expecting!” she said, softly, as if it was a secret. I chuckled.

“Yes, well. That’s what being a lord will get you.”

“Well. If that cousin of yours is single…” We both laughed as Hendricks returned and set a platter with two cups of tea and a small plate of cookies on the table between us. We both thanked him again, and he was gone.

“Why did you come all the way to England? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

She sighed and picked up a cookie, looking at it absently. “I’m worried about you.”

“That could have been a text, Mandy.” I added a bit of sugar to one of the teas and laid back in my chair while I stirred. “Why are you here?”

“To bring you back.” She took a bite from her cookie and relaxed into the chair. “And maybe some of these cookies, too.”

“I can’t go back right now. There’s so much work to do on this.”

“Hm, yeah,” she said, leaning forward and picking up the book and turning it over in her hand, “looks very important.”

“Everyone needs a break sometimes.”

“Yes, but that’s my point, Alice.” She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. “You have shut yourself off from friends and family who care about you to go chasing after some solution to Rick’s disappearance. Which is fine, for a little while, but there needs to be a point where you come home and let people be there for you.”

“It’s not so simple—”

“Of course it isn’t. Nothing ever is. He’s my cousin, I promise, I understand.”

“No, there’s so much more than that to it.”

“Is it magic?”

“Yes.”

She leaned back in her chair and we were silent for a minute. “The official report is that he was taken by a cult. How accurate is that?”

“Very.”

“And?”

“He…threw himself and their leader into a portal to stop them summoning something terrible.”

“And have you made any progress on finding him?”

“No. I haven’t.”

“Then come home.”

“Mandy…”

“Look. I get why you guys didn’t say all that to the police. I get why you didn’t tell me right away. But if this is really a magic problem, and a month of magic research hasn’t yielded any results, then maybe it’s time to do something else. And you’re going to need a support network to get through that.”

“I can’t. I can’t just…” I paused and set my tea down.

“You can’t just accept that he’s gone.” A tear ran down her cheek.

“There has to be a way.”

“And maybe there is. I hope there is. But if there aren’t answers here, then why stay, except to isolate yourself?”

I nodded, and wiped a tear away. Mandy got up from the chair and walked over, offering me her hand. I accepted and stood, and we held each other for a long while as we both started to cry. “I saw it,” I choked out, eventually. “I saw him go and couldn’t do anything to help him.”

“That’s not your fault.”

“I brought them there. I ran when we were confronted by the cult. I—”

“It’s not your fault, Alice.”

My legs went out from under me, and we ended up on the floor, crying into each other’s shoulders. I had tried so hard for the last month to bury these feelings, and now nothing was able to stop them coming out. I don’t know how long we stayed there, but we managed to get calmed down and cleaned up in time for dinner. We went into town that evening, and she spent the night in one of the rooms in the wing where I was staying, and in the morning, Melinda saw us both to the airport to fly back to the States.

Jackie was going to research the library in their basement for ways to get Rick back, and I had arranged to fly to England so Michael and I could do the same in his library, and we each agreed to call the other if we found anything. I timed the plane’s arrival with Michael to give me time to check on Matteson, who was home from the hospital. He needed to rest, still, and Jackie had said she would keep an eye on him since she was going to be there anyway. She’d found the ring in Rick’s stuff and broke down while on the phone with her job, so they just told her to take whatever time she needed and quickly ended the call.

Matteson was laying on the couch with no shirt when I arrived, his left shoulder and right side heavily bandaged. He was happy to see me, but clearly still upset in general. We talked for a little bit, dancing around the subject that neither of us knew how to raise. Finally, I told him that I would be leaving for England soon to do some study at the Hudson estate, and he turned my face to look into my eyes.

“Will you be coming back?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“I don’t mean coming back to the States.”

I hesitated. “John, I…I don’t know.”

“I saw the way you looked at me after things finally started to calm down. When I said there wasn’t any way I could help him. I’ve seen that look before.”

“And what did it mean when you saw it before?”

“That she’d seen too much and needed a way out.”

I got up and paced around the room in a circle. I ended up at his recliner, and sat back down to think for a moment. “It’s a lot, you know.”

“I know.”

“I need some space.”

“I know.”

“I’m not breaking up with you,” I said, wiping a tear from my cheek. “I just…I need some time. To process everything, to think about all of this, to…I dunno.”

“You need to decide if we are worth this,” he said. I nodded. “That’s better than I was expecting, anyway. Take what time you need.”

“Thank you.” I stood, wiped my face, and took a deep breath to center myself. “Could you do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“Don’t call while I’m in England?”

“Okay.” He gave me a weak smile, and I returned it, then left for the airport.

I had trouble looking Michael in the eyes after my encounter with The Bride, and I knew better than to risk speaking about it after having promised not to. I knew I couldn’t tell the Hudsons, but I didn’t know if I could really tell anyone, so I just didn’t. John was concerned and said I seemed distant that night. I’m sure I was. I assured him everything was okay, and it had just been a more difficult trip than I expected. He didn’t press for more than that, and I found myself pressing close to him when we went to bed and greatly comforted by his arm holding me. That close to him, the suddenly unavoidable noise of the animals outside died off, and I realized that even in his sleep his nature was enough to stifle the magic churning in me. I slept soundly.

The next morning we all enjoyed a magnificent breakfast, and then John and I were given a ride into London. We were told Benedict and Akshainie were going somewhere else and we would fly out after the plane returned, so we said our goodbyes to them before we left, and took the day to just be tourists. It was great to be away from the estate and get to actually enjoy England for a bit, and we hit as many of the sights as we could. I avoided talking about the trip, and John seemed to enjoy not having to talk about magic. He did comment at one point that London was a deeply haunted city that was surprisingly full of supernatural beings doing work in human guises, and I asked him not to identify any of them for me, and he never mentioned it again.

We were having an early dinner in view of the London Eye when I received the call that the plane was back and refueled and ready for us. We arranged a place to meet the car, and were driven straight to the plane. Our luggage was already loaded on board, including the bag of things Melinda had given me. Michael was waiting to see us off, and we had a pleasant chat before boarding. He was eager to see us again, he said, and I expressed a similar interest and tried not to betray how unsettled the idea of returning to the estate made me.

John fell asleep on the plane, and I sat at the window looking out on a dark sea and thinking about the future. I had chosen to dive deeper into the supernatural world, to experience magic, to know the truth about how the world works behind the scenes. And I was still unsure if I’d done the right thing.

We were walking back from the restaurant when Matteson suddenly stopped and started staring off into space, his nose flaring as if he smelled something foul and goosebumps erupting on his arms. I stepped forward to look him in the face and barely stopped myself from jumping back when I saw his eyes, dilated and bloodshot.

“John?” I asked, resting my hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?” He muttered a reply, almost in a droning voice, then met my gaze and told me he was sensing the flow of magic from the site being activated. So he frantically called Benedict and, after telling him what was going on, turned back to me.

“I guess I should call you a cab,” he said. “Sorry our date has to end like this.”

“Absolutely not!” I crossed my arms and stared into those seemingly bottomless eyes. “You are in no condition to go alone, and I’m certainly not letting you walk into some nest of evil without some kind of backup!”

“What are you talking about? I feel fine.”

“You don’t see what I see.”

“Okay, we can talk about that later, but, this might be dangerous.”

“Yeah! And you’re not doing it alone.”

“Alice—”

“We can stand here arguing about it or we can follow the trail. Your call, babe.”

He sighed and nodded, and off we went. It was weird watching him, he moved almost like a bloodhound, his eyes always fixed on something that wasn’t visible to me, his attention fully absorbed in the sensory trail he was following. I realized how accustomed to it he must be when I realized he was still aware of things like traffic and obstacles, but it was impossible to tell he was aware of anything physical until he reacted to it. We didn’t talk the whole way. I was thankful I’d worn flats when I realized we were leaving the town center, and more so when we finally stopped outside an abandoned stone manor nearly a half hour later.

Following the trail as we were, we arrived at a plain wall instead of the door. We went around the building, like we had for other obstacles along the way, but by the time we were around the other side he whispered to me that the energy wasn’t continuing on from this place. Whatever was happening was happening here. So we crept back around, listening for any sign of activity, and I peeked in a couple windows as we went until I got a view of the parlor through a broken door. I tapped his shoulder and waved him toward the window, and we watched as four people in hooded robes paced around a large basin. We couldn’t hear them, but when we saw the basin his eyes narrowed.

“I think they’re scrying,” he whispered.

“That’s the bit where you watch things elsewhere?” I asked, and he nodded. “Do we have any way to know what they’re scrying on?”

“Not from here. Jackie or Michael probably could, though.” We both slipped away from the window and he called Benedict again, explaining where we were and what we’d found. As he was talking, he made his way to the corner of the house and I followed. We saw a pair of headlights appear over a rise down the road, then park, and Matteson confirmed he saw them before hanging up. “Now comes the fun part,” he said, turning to me. “You can still go to the car.”

“Not a chance,” I said. “If this is what you do on a regular basis, I want to know what it’s like.” He grudgingly accepted that answer, and we went to get into position. It had apparently been agreed upon by the others that they could handle the cultists themselves, if Matteson cut off their extra power while I played lookout to tell him when to stop. I asked how he intended to do that, and he led me back to the wall where we originally arrived at the house and explained that the energy was flowing along a ley line, where he was now standing.

“Ley lines are pretty durable,” he explained, closing his eyes and cracking his knuckles. “The simple presence of an Anchor on one isn’t enough to disrupt them, unless it’s over some years, like if I lived on one or at a nexus site. But I can serve as a dam on one, or cap a nexus site entirely, if I try hard enough.”

“Have you ever tried that before?”

​“No. But Jackie’s told me about it, apparently she’s seen the results of it.” He slowed his breathing and began moving his hands as if pushing down against resistance, and soon I could taste a bit of static in the air. There was a faint, tangible crackle, and then something like a pop. I heard the people inside react immediately, apparently aware their power was gone, and got to the window just in time to see Michael’s team charge in.

“Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about them,” Roderick said, practicing some stretches in tandem with the people showing on an old VHS exercise video. They looked like the tape had been originally made in the 80s, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he hoped to accomplish when there didn’t seem to be any sort of body inside the armor. Around him, the room had become vibrant, free of dust and clutter with beautiful colors on the walls much more visible than they’d been in my last visit. Michael was lounging on a sofa eating an orange, his notepad laying on a table with the red spiral showing.

“Come now, Roderick,” Michael nudged, “isn’t knowing things your entire job?”

“I know what the estate knows. And the estate has never known this Brood of Nachash.”

“Well maybe we’ll have better luck with the boyfriend,” he grumbled, before looking to me. “Anything much there?”

“We’ve been working on it,” I said. I was in an armchair, switching my attention between them and a set of notes. “Unfortunately, we may not yet even have enough information to know what to look for. All we really know, he said, is that they’re accessing power. He joked that for all we know, they’re using it to repair a van.” Michael laughed at that and looked back to Roderick.

“You know what the estate knows, right? Does the estate think he’s getting anywhere?”

“He is unknowable to the estate,” Roderick answered, turning the tape off and turning to us. “Anchors cannot be read or properly remembered.”

“So there’s a gap where he should be?”

“More like static. Armed with knives.”

“Fascinating.”

“Perhaps this is the wrong approach.” Roderick sat down and faced me. “Can he track the energy?”

“Oh,” I said, setting the notes down and thinking for a moment. “I don’t actually know. I never thought to ask him that.”

“Magical energy flows through almost everything. As a liminal being, he should have some ability to track that, even if he has never exercised the ability. I expect you will find answers faster by seeing where the energy is going than by sitting in the library joking about vans.”

“You know, he has been working on tracking ghosts.”

“It should be similar to that. Pity I can’t explain how to apply it.”

“Maybe I could. Jackie was teaching me about that.”

“Was she?” Roderick asked, leaning back in his seat. “And how did you fare at that?”

“I had limited results. Something was blocking me, we think.” I gathered my notes and stood. “But maybe it’ll be enough to guide him just the little he needs, right?”

“Should be.”

“Do the two of you have plans tonight?” Michael asked, nodding toward the clock. It was getting well into the afternoon.

“Oh, not yet,” I answered. “Though I suppose we’re running out of time.”

“I’ll call Chez Davineau, make sure there’s a table for you this evening.”

​“Thank you,” I said, patting his shoulder. “I’ll go see what we can do. Thank you both!” As soon as I got out of the room, I glanced down at my notes, and added one about finding out what it meant that Roderick knows what the estate knows, before making my way back to the library. I decided to let him think we just happened to stumble on the restaurant later, since he’s probably had too much rich folk things for one day to handle the concept of reservations very well.

I was having dinner with my parents when Matteson called. The phone ringing caught us all off guard, my friends were so used to not calling at this time on Saturdays that I hadn’t bothered silencing my phone in months. I checked the screen and, seeing it was Matteson and realizing he probably didn’t know that this affair isn’t really meant to be interrupted, I asked leave of my parents to answer. But they were very curious about this man they hadn’t yet met, so they insisted I take the call there.

“Good evening,” I said, answering.

“Hey, I know you said you were doing something tonight, is this a good time?” he asked. Seemed to me like the sort of question that would have been better as a text message.

“Only if it is very important.” He sounded a little bit off, and I suspected he’d been drinking, but was not about to say that in present company.

“Well, okay, I guess that depends on how much weight you put on Valentine’s Day.”

“I suppose that depends on what you’re planning to do instead.”

“I’ve been hired to go do some work for a Michael Hudson in England. It’s a…magic thing. I don’t know all the details yet.”

“Michael Hudson? John, are you doing work for the estate of Lord Hudson?” I asked, looking at my parents. They perked up at the name.

“Uh, yeah. You know much about lords and shit?”

“Well, some. But the Hudsons are of particular interest, being that Michael is my cousin.”

“Is every rich person related?”

“We happen to be. Listen, John, I actually think I have something for them, right?” I looked to my father, who nodded and called Mary over.

“Be a dear and fetch the box labeled ‘Hudson’ in the foyer closet,” he said. Mary nodded and slipped out of the room as he turned his attention back to me. “If you’re going to visit you must return it.”

“What’s going on there?” Matteson asked.

“Well, last time they visited, which was probably a decade ago now that I think about it, they left a couple things behind and we all agreed it would be better to hand deliver it than deal with postage. But then we never really got together again, you see. So I should bring it along.”

“You…what?”

“John, you don’t know the first thing about dealing with the nobility, and I haven’t seen my cousin in years, and I’m certain they’re sending a plane so it will be no bother adding one more person. Besides,” I said, leaning back in my seat, “it would be nice to be in the same country as my boyfriend for Valentine’s, don’t you think?”

“Okay, okay, fine. I’ll have to tell Benedict.”

“Who’s Benedict?”

“The priest. I wasn’t going alone.”

“You’re taking a priest?”

“More like a priest is taking me. Us. Anyway, okay, then, I guess I better get you the flight info as soon as I have it.”

“That would be splendid, thank you. I should get back to dinner now, though.”

“Well that sounds like it’ll be a fun trip!” my mother said, as soon as I was off the phone. “You’ll have to give them our best when you get there.” Mary entered with the box, which was set on an open chair next to me.

“Now, you take this back to your place tonight,” father said after he’d dismissed Mary, “and make sure you take good care of it. I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to see you all grown up. In the meantime, maybe put your phone on silent?”

​I nodded, changed the phone volume, and we went back to dinner.