Chapter 531: A Minor Battlefield

Voices of the dead gathered over centuries—weeping, cursing, fumbling through half a deathbed prayer—poured over the threshold into that waiting maw, falling silent the instant they tumbled inside.

It had been eating the entire time, never once stopping.

Out of old habit, the Black Earth River Master counted its shadows once more.

One, two, three... By the time it reached the end, another one had vanished.

The bastard hadn't asked beforehand, nor had it breathed a word afterward!

Back when it guarded tombs in its youth, the Black Earth River Master had hated two kinds of people above all: grave robbers and offering thieves.

Grave robbers at least had to dig and pry while braving the risk of a curse.

Offering thieves simply waited for the tomb keeper to look down and swiped whatever sat on the altar.

Ghostfire flared straight from the crown of the Black Earth River Master's head.

It struck first.

Before summoning the other entity, it had turned every Mirror inside the pyramid face down so the gaping mouth wouldn't see what it had hidden away. Now, it turned every last Mirror outward, aiming them squarely at the doorway.

Years ago, it had relied on a single high-grade supernatural item—a Mirror that reflected the names of all things—to climb all the way from a small mud-brick shrine to where it stood today.

Hundreds of Mirrors blazed at once. The Abyss Virtuoso had no face, and its tongue had long since departed.

Finding no facial features to reflect, the Mirrors could only probe deeper, illuminating whatever lay inside its belly.

In the first Mirror stood a burning city, its walls carved with Hittite cuneiform.

In the second Mirror lay copper ingots along the coast of Alashiya, heaped like graves.

In the third Mirror rested a clay tablet inside a still-burning kiln, inscribed with half a letter:

"My father, behold, the enemy's ships have come, and my city is burning..."

There the letter broke off.

The Black Earth River Master understood at once: these were the other entity's external names—the city-states and kingdoms it had swallowed.

The great maw kept sucking downward, yet inside the Mirrors, up and down were inverted.

The Black Earth River Master's pyramid already hung upside down; once the reflection flipped it, the inverted structure stood upright, turning the downward pull into a backward draw. The suction slammed into the mirror surfaces and rebounded straight back the way it had come.

The gaping mouth sucked onto itself.

For a heartbeat, the Deep Realm fell silent. The black tide ceased to flow, and the flames of the city inside the Mirror hung motionless in midair.

The mouth at the doorway wrenched sharply to one side. Warped by its own suction, one corner stretched taut while the other caved in, biting straight into its own cheek.

As the Mirrors flashed, all sixty-four of the Black Earth River Master's shadows thrust their arms out from the pyramid's gloom.

They pried the jaws open and pinned them fast.

Once a mouth was forced open, it had to speak; to speak, it needed a tongue; and with a tongue came a name that could be spoken aloud.

The Black Earth River Master had no wish to kill it—nor could it.

Yet if it dragged this out long enough, the Mirrors would eventually catch the shape of that tongue.

Once the tongue was reflected, that roster of fallen kingdoms could be read aloud as a single name.

Such was the nature of "Substitution," a branch of the Tradition of Change: no matter what enemy it faced, there was always a way to counter them.

The Abyss Virtuoso, however, chose to meet myriad changes with constancy and stretched its maw twice as wide. The entire Deep Realm sagged downward with it, tilting the pyramid toward the doorway.

Worse still was the Black Earth River Master's own hand.

As it hauled its shadows back, it realized one of them wasn't retreating at all—instead, it was writing along the edge of that gaping mouth's lip.

It was the shadow of a temple scribe who had copied scriptures during the Ptolemaic era, tracing the oldest hieroglyphs stroke by stroke.

And what that hand was writing was none other than the Black Earth River Master's own name—the syllables that had not been taken by the lord of the hunt.

The Black Earth River Master yanked that shadow taut, hauling it back along with both hand and pen.

Before the half-written character on the lip could be finished, the suction rebounding off the Mirrors smeared it into a blur.

The stalemate dragged on, neither side able to overpower the other.

Slowly, the giant mouth shrank back to its original size.

"Keep fighting like this, and your pyramid will be sucked into the abyss while my mouth gets torn to shreds by your Mirrors."

"The Wild Hunt led by the lord of the hunt isn't far off, and the Master of Scriptures just stepped out today. The louder we clash in the Deep Realm, the easier it is for others of the same Rank to hear us."

The Black Earth River Master bent down to gather and count its Mirrors. Finding several of them cracked, it ached with such regret that it said nothing for a long while.

When it finally spoke again, it laid out new terms.

"How about this... Counting the grave robber and the forger you already took, I'll give you two more."

"On top of that, I'll throw in a sweetener."

The Abyss Virtuoso asked, "What sweetener?"

The Black Earth River Master raised a hand, and seven slender shadows surfaced against the stone wall of the pyramid, each wearing a Black Soil River god-name mask.

"You've probably heard of the seven members of the Black Soil River Pantheon Table."

"All seven at that table borrow the divine names of my homeland, and their shadows have been hanging on my web this whole time."

Going by their seating order, it introduced the seven shadows one by one.

They were Apophis (1), Horus (2), Set (3), Nephthys (4), Sekhmet (5), Bastet (6), and Anubis (7).

Among the seven were four men and three women; Bastet and Anubis had only recently joined and were merely Practitioners.

Having introduced the seven shadows, the Black Earth River Master said, "But I can't hand them over to you right now. The moment a shadow leaves the body, all seven of them will die on the spot. The Black Soil River Pantheon Table would fall apart too, and after the winter solstice night, I still need Apophis to keep watch on the lord of the hunt for me. What I can do is pledge those seven shadows to you as collateral. After the night of the winter solstice, if I fail to deliver the shadows I promised, or if I break any part of today's agreement, all seven shadows are yours. You can go over there and collect them whenever you please."

A long, heavy gulp echoed from deep within the maw.

"Seven shadows of the living wearing god-name masks—and one of them a Major Adept of my own tradition. That's far more appetizing than seventy shadows of the dead."

"You're generous indeed, old priest, putting all seven of them up as collateral. Do they know about this themselves?"

The Black Earth River Master gave a cold snort. "They don't need to know."

...

Richard had been back in the Imperial Capital for two days. That afternoon, he took a carriage to Phillips's residence.

A young footman answered the door and reached out to take his overcoat.

"The young master is waiting for you in the drawing room."

The visit had come about because Phillips had telephoned the Ashford Residence the day Richard returned, saying, "You've just been abroad, and everyone's eager to hear what's happening out there. Let's use the occasion to get together at my place."

The drawing room was on the second floor, where a portrait of the late elder Phillips hung above the fireplace.

Dressed in an inspector's uniform, the man in the painting had a sharp, piercing gaze, as though ready to interrogate anyone standing before the frame at a moment's notice.

Phillips himself still wore a black mourning armband around his left sleeve, while Constance stood beside him in plain dark gray attire.

She nodded toward Richard. "Welcome home, Mr. Williams. You look a little thinner than you do in the photograph."

"Photograph?"

"A newspaper clipping of his," Constance said, tilting her head toward her fiancé.

"The group photo from the Genoa Exposition ran on page six of the Imperial Capital Morning News. You were standing in the back row with half your shoulder showing."

Richard remembered then. Because wartime turnout had been so sparse, Mercury had simply registered him as an exhibitor too and pulled him into the group picture. As the three of them chatted, the other guests began arriving one after another.

Hugh arrived first; the moment he stepped into the drawing room, he planted himself in front of the portrait, tilting his head to study the brushwork.

Edith had come by public omnibus, the hem of her skirt flecked with mud. Upon entering, she first handed a small cloth bundle to the footman, explaining that she had baked some oatcakes herself.

Children from poorer families often cared even more about etiquette, never visiting someone's home empty-handed.

Fischer walked in with sheet music tucked under his arm, his eyes immediately locking onto the grand piano in the corner of the drawing room.

Montagu took off his overcoat as he entered, revealing his usual impeccably tailored dark suit underneath.

After greeting everyone in turn, he came to a stop beside Richard.

"I heard you crossed the Alps."

"Who told you that?" Richard raised an eyebrow, wondering how everyone was so well-informed.

"Associate Professor Ashford mentioned it in the department."

Montagu took a cup of tea offered by the footman.

"Your aunt's exact words were: 'That senile old fool dragged my nephew across the snow mountains. If he comes back with a broken leg, I'm hauling that whole room of his books down to feed the boiler.'"

Clara and Sophia were as inseparable as ever.

Clara was wearing a new dress today, a small silver tuning-fork brooch pinned at her collar.

Most of the aloof detachment that had followed her advancement to Minor Adept had faded away before anyone noticed; when she caught her foot on the threshold coming in, she was the first to laugh at herself.

Sophia, meanwhile, made a beeline for the refreshment table the moment she walked through the door.

Over on his side of the room, Richard was in the middle of telling the others about the manhole covers in Genoa.

Familiar laughter drifted up from the front hall, followed by the brisk tap of two pairs of small boots hurrying up the stairs.

Turning his head, he saw his sister walk in with her arm linked through Grey's.

The two girls were sharing a single woolen scarf, each wrapped in one end.

Grey held a Tin Box in her arms, while Evelyn carried a basket of mince pies.

With the tips of their noses flushed red from the cold, they had their heads together, chattering away about something or other.

Teacup in hand, Richard felt the words catch in his throat.

Evelyn handed the basket to a servant, caught Richard by the sleeve, and dragged him over to the window.

"Brother, what's with that look on your face? You look like you just saw a cat and a dog sleeping in the same basket."

"Since when did the two of you..."

"Right after you left," Evelyn whispered close to his ear.

"Didn't they release her family's ship? Her father brought her to Ashford House to thank us, carrying two crates of Eastern Continent spices and a canister of Ceylon tea. Grandfather took one sip and praised it on the spot."

"Aunt Isabella was there that day too. Grandfather kept them for dinner, and Aunt Isabella spent the whole evening chatting with Grey about spices and ancient trade routes."

Evelyn paused deliberately to let him digest that.

"And after that?"

"After that, she started coming over every Saturday to bake pastries with me."

His sister winked at him, stifling a laugh behind her hand. "Grandfather said it isn't safe for a girl to go home alone after dark, so he had the butler ready the south-facing guest room on the third floor. Now it's permanently hers."

Richard couldn't find his voice for a long moment. He had only been away for two months, yet everything seemed to have changed.

Evelyn studied his face with great satisfaction. "Grandfather even asked me if the two of you had a falling-out. Otherwise, how could you be abroad for two months without her getting a single letter?"

"...I did write."

"How many?"

Richard said nothing.

Shooting him an "I knew it" look, Evelyn patted his arm and strolled back to Grey's side.

Everyone gathered around the fireplace and took their seats.

Phillips waved for the footman to stoke the fire and sank back into his armchair. "All right, let's hear it. The rest of us have been cooped up in the city while you went out for a grand tour."

Richard stuck to what he could safely share. Masters, the Wild Hunt, Professor Mortimer's advancement plans—none of that could be breathed aloud, of course... and neither could anything about Lillian.

When he spoke of the Apennine peninsula, Edith jotted down the price of flour in Genoa in her notebook; when he moved on to Switzerland, Hugh flipped open his sketchbook as usual, his pencil rustling across the paper to draw a skeletal Grim Reaper pinning down a scholar's pages.

Phillips urged him on. "Skip all that and get straight to the Alps."

Richard took a sip of tea.

"The train stopped at Le Chatelard and wouldn't go any farther—the tracks ahead were snowed under and closed for the winter. The professor stood on the platform, took one look at the mountains, and said we'd just walk across."

"He's over a hundred and twenty years old!" Sophia exclaimed, dropping a few cake crumbs from her mouth.

"A hundred and twenty-three," Clara corrected her.

"That's exactly what I told him," Richard sighed.

"So the professor told me to carry him on my back."

Laughter broke out around the room.

"And how did it turn out?" Grey asked.

She was sitting beside Evelyn, both hands resting on the lid of her pastry tin.

"Halfway up the mountain, he ended up carrying my pack while I chased after him from behind."

The laughter grew even louder.

Richard described how a dry mountain wind—a foehn—had swept up from the valley floor that morning, unseasonably warm.

By afternoon, the sky had turned on them without warning, a blinding whiteout howling across the pass until they couldn't see three paces ahead.

They could only grope their way from one wooden pole to the next through the blizzard—markers the locals drove into the ground each winter to guide the postmen.

When night fell, they took shelter in a customs hut manned by two Franc soldiers.

Huddled around a cast-iron stove, the four of them emptied their pockets of whatever rations they carried and cobbled together a supper.

"What did you eat?" Evelyn asked, more eager than anyone.

"Raclette," Richard said, doing his best to describe it.

"You prop half a wheel of cheese beside the fire, and as the top layer melts, you scrape it off with a knife right over boiled potatoes, served with air-dried beef."

Evelyn swallowed hard.

In the back of his mind, Richard recalled checking his panel after returning home. Both his [walking] and [eating] skills had been pushed to 80% during that winter march across the snow-capped peaks.

His [sleep] skill hadn't been idle in those drafty, wind-whistling huts either, its progress climbing steadily the whole way.

He hadn't thought trekking across the mountains would count as a special experience—it had been an unexpected stroke of luck.

Once those last three skills reached Lv5, he would finally be able to plant that long-awaited seed of "Measure, Boundary, and Bestowal."

"There's one more thing, though you have to promise not to laugh."

"We promise we won't," Sophia said, pressing a hand to her heart even as the corners of her mouth curled upward.

"On the second night, we stopped to rest in an abandoned hay shed. In the middle of the night, I heard something breathing heavily behind the haystack—thick, raspy breaths—so I struck a match and went over to look..."

He paused to take a sip of tea.

"What did you see?" Grey's fingers tightened around her Tin Box.

"A giant lizard," Richard said, gesturing with his hands.

"Its body was this thick—thicker than my leg—with its tail trailing in the hay. It had two short front legs and no hind legs at all. The strangest part was its face: round, with a flat nose and two eyes with vertical slit pupils... It had the face of a cat."

The drawing room fell quiet.

Edith's pencil froze in midair, and Montagu's hand went completely still around his teacup.

Clara glanced at Sophia, who had forgotten to swallow the bite of cake in her mouth.

Constance slowly straightened her back.

"Brother!" Evelyn spoke up first. "You lit a fire in that hay shed, didn't you?"

"Just a small one."

"If you light a fire in a hay shed, the smoke has nowhere to go."

Evelyn delivered her verdict: "You were hallucinating from the smoke."

"The professor saw it too."

"Then the two of you hallucinated from the smoke together."

In a very small voice, Grey asked, "...Did it bite you?"

"No. The professor rapped it on the nose with his cane, and it hissed once before burrowing into the snow and scurrying off."

"It hissed?"

"Just like a cat—hiss!" Richard mimed its bared fangs.

This time, not even Evelyn could keep a straight face.

Amid the laughter, Sophia pitched her voice low enough that only Clara beside her could hear. "That's a Tatzelwurm—at least a mid-rank evil creature."

Clara kept her voice down as well. "...Was tapping it with his cane the professor's way of casting a Spell Formula?"

"Looks like it."

The two most senior upperclassmen in the room exchanged a look, neither saying another word.

Across from them, Constance quietly unclenched the fist she had tightened without realizing it.

Once the laughter died down, the footman came in to announce that a full afternoon tea had been laid out in the conservatory next door. As everyone rose and headed over, Montagu fell half a step behind to walk alongside Richard.

"I'll be in the undergraduate division next term too."

Richard glanced over at him.

"Early completion. I signed the papers yesterday."

Montagu sounded resigned. "My family says they need someone who can step out and start handling affairs early this year."

"Is that what you want?" Richard asked suddenly.

"I'd rather have stayed in the preparatory program for another year," Montagu said with a wry smile.

The conservatory was brighter than the drawing room. Three-tiered cake stands sat upon the table alongside fresh cucumbers and tomatoes picked straight from the greenhouse, a spread appetizing enough to make anyone's mouth water on sight.

Richard had just taken his seat in the middle of the long side of the table.

Evelyn immediately pulled out the chair to his left and plopped down into it, leaving the seat to his right empty.

Cradling her Tin Box, Grey walked over from one end of the table just as Clara handed her coat to a servant and approached from the other.

Their hands came to rest on the back of the chair at almost the exact same instant.

"Miss Fairfield," Grey spoke first, smiling sweetly.

"I brought him lemon tarts. The crust has to be eaten while it's crisp, or it goes soft once it cools. Sitting closer makes it easier for me to pass them to him."

"Miss Grey," Clara replied with an equally polite smile.

"Pastries placed in the middle of the table are within everyone's reach. I'm sitting here because I haven't finished reading the manuscripts he brought back yet. If he decides to revise a line on the spot, sitting on his right makes it easier for me to look on."

They traded words back and forth in soft, measured voices, smiles fixed on their faces, yet neither moved her hand an inch from the back of the chair.

Seated between them, Richard unconsciously reached for his chest, only for his fingers to brush against the pencil tucked inside his inner pocket.

He hurriedly pulled his hand back onto the tablecloth and reached for his teacup to cover the motion.

Under the table, his sister gave him a light kick.

He looked up straight into Grey's eyes, which were brimming with longing.

Turning the other way, he found Clara looking at him too, her large, clear eyes serene and quiet. Both of them were waiting for his answer. He cleared his throat.

"...Actually, the light on the right isn't very good."

In unison, both girls turned to glance at the window—which was directly to his right.

Evelyn kicked him under the table again, much harder this time.

At a loss, Richard could only look across the table, right where Sophia happened to be sitting.

Sharp as ever, Sophia caught his signal at once.

Letting out an "Ah!", she set down her piece of cake, stepped briskly over, and linked her arm through Clara's.

"Lecturer Fairfield! Come look at this right away—Fischer is trying to rearrange the Precepts song into a fugue, and that's right up your alley!"

At the far end of the table, Fischer looked completely blank. "I wasn't..."

"Yes, you were!" Sophia glared at him.

Tugged along toward the end of the table, Clara took two steps and glanced back at the chair. Her lips parted slightly, but in the end she said nothing and let Sophia pull her away.

Evelyn stood up as well.

"Grey!" she said, grabbing Grey's hand.

"Come with me to the kitchen right now. When I walked past earlier, their scones smelled a little off—I suspect the cook mixed potato flour into the dough. Your palate is sharper than mine, so come help me taste them."

"Potato flour?" Grey's attention was instantly diverted.

"Some people do that during wartime, but if you add too much, the dough turns sticky..."

"Right?!" Evelyn was already dragging her toward the door.

"Hurry, hurry, before the cook eats the evidence!"

Still clutching the Tin Box to her chest, Grey was hauled right out of the conservatory.

The door swung twice behind them and clicked shut.

Richard let out a long breath—only to see a hand reach over from beside him and pull out the empty chair.

Carrying his teacup and that old teapot of his, Phillips sat down.

'Thank heavens, this chair finally has an owner.'

Thinking that to himself, Richard watched the familiar citron tea pour from Phillips's old pot. The aroma of freshly grated lemon zest drifted to his nose, and he raised his cup for a sip.

He studied the pot. The patch on the chipped spout had been slightly off in color before, but now even the grain had grown into the porcelain, indistinguishable from the original glaze.

"...This pot actually still remembers my taste."

Phillips leaned back against his chair.

"Yes, and don't stare at it too long, or it'll get shy."

He fished a newspaper clipping from his coat pocket and spread it out on the tablecloth.

"Down to business. The latest serialized installments of The Prudent Mr have been a tremendous hit."

Richard glanced down at it; it was the readers' letters column from the Century Review, filling an entire page.

Phillips tapped the lower half of the clipping with a finger.

"A theater manager on the Strand wrote to the editorial desk asking if he could adapt it into a stage ballet. He said he's already worked out the casting: a fat actor for the Minister, a thin one for the Permanent Secretary, and a frail-looking one for the Principal Private Secretary."

"The Barker Film Company wrote in as well," Constance chimed in from across the table. "They want to turn it into a motion picture. They wouldn't even need to write separate title cards—they can just use the original text as is."

Phillips spread his hands toward Richard. "Quite a few officials want to invite you—this 'Mr. L'—to their private salons. The editorial department gave a uniform reply that the author prefers to remain anonymous, so an Assistant Under-Secretary put word out that Mr. L must have worked in Whitehall for at least ten years to write pieces like these. Now all the departments are busy suspecting one another, trying to guess who's been secretly writing on the outside."

Richard let out a soft "Oh." He had expected the series might catch on, just not this fast.

"And a more popular work like Star Legends of Olympus goes without saying," Phillips continued.

"The day before yesterday, my cook's youngest boy was playing 'stealing cattle' in the back alley with a pack of neighborhood kids. One of them pretended to be Hermes walking backward, a whole bunch pretended to be the cows, and the boy playing Apollo chased them two streets over before a constable hauled them all back by their ears."

"The constable told me the night shift at their station reads it too."

At some point, Hugh had edged over to this side of the table, his eyes shining with shared pride as he listened.

Richard looked at him. "Hugh, there's something I forgot to tell you."

"What is it?"

"There are four new manuscripts waiting for you."

Hugh's hand jerked at the news, sloshing a few drops of tea onto the tablecloth.

"Four?" His jaw dropped. "You were only gone a little over a month and you wrote four of them?"

"Two of them are only openings," Richard corrected him, slightly worried the administrator might come hounding him for manuscripts again.

Beside him, Phillips clicked his tongue in amazement, and Constance's lips parted slightly as she wondered where on earth all the ideas in this man's head came from.

Hugh set down his teacup and rubbed his hands together sheepishly. "There's no way I can draw all of that by myself. The Prudent Mr runs once a month, and Star Legends runs twice a month. Even keeping up with that has me drawing past midnight every day—my roommates say my bedside is brighter than a lighthouse. Last week I fell asleep in the middle of drawing Hera, and when I woke up there was a drool mark right across her face."

"My suggestion is that you set up a studio," Richard said.

Hugh drew in a sharp breath and fell into thought.

Richard continued, "There should be plenty of people like that at your art academy—good technique, fast hands, short on money, and without many ideas of their own."

"...Honestly, everyone's short on money," Hugh said after a moment's thought.

"But every art student wants to paint oils—Madonnas and mythology, masterpieces worthy of hanging in the Royal Academy Exhibition. Anyone who draws comic strips or advertisements gets laughed at in the academy."

"Tell them you pay by the panel," Richard said deadpan, naming his price outright.

"Sixpence per background panel, linework calculated separately, and anyone willing to put their name on it gets credited right after yours."

Art or a full stomach—reality had a way of forcing people to choose, especially in wartime.

Hugh opened his mouth, a complicated look crossing his face.

"Then... where would we draw?"

"We can't all cram into my dorm room. The warden would throw me out along with my bed."

"I've got a lead on that!" a voice piped up from the end of the table as Fischer leaned halfway across. "My aunt owns a photo studio on the street right behind Russell Square."

Fischer rattled on at top speed.

"The studio's been shuttered for over half a year with just my aunt looking after it. If she hears someone's willing to rent it..."

"How much is the rent?" Edith asked from beside him.

"I'll go ask!" Fischer slapped the table.

"I'm my aunt's favorite—I've played the piano for her plenty of times..."

Watching the lively chaos around the table, Richard felt the tension of his upcoming trip into the Spirit Realm ease a little.

The conservatory door opened again.

Evelyn and Grey returned from the kitchen, each carrying a plate of freshly baked scones.

"No potato flour," Evelyn announced.

"The cook mixed a bit of rye into the flour. That odd smell was just the rye."

The two girls set the scones on the table, and Evelyn sat back down to Richard's left. Grey paused by the edge of the table; the chair on his right had already been claimed by Phillips.

Without a word, she walked around to the other side, took the seat directly across from Richard, and pushed the Tin Box in front of him.

"Lemon tarts."

Richard opened the box to find them still warm—she must have heated them up in the kitchen oven just now.

The pastry crusts were baked to a golden brown, their rims neatly crimped by the girl's deft fingers, and the lemon curd filling glistened in the light.

He picked one up and took a bite, squinting at the sharp tang.

Watching him squint from across the table, Grey curved her lips into a smile.

At the far end, Clara watched them from across half the table for a moment before looking away and starting the manuscript over from the beginning.

Just then, Phillips set down the teapot and rose to his feet.

Once their host stood, the chatter in the conservatory gradually died down.

"Today was mainly about getting everyone together after so long to catch up now that Richard is back, and..."

"I have something of my own to announce as well."

Beside him, Constance set down her knife and fork.

"Constance and I will be married on December 20th—next Monday—at St. George's, Hanover Square."

The moment he finished speaking, Sophia was the first on her feet applauding, and everyone else joined in right behind her.

Phillips raised a hand and motioned for them to settle down.

"Our family is still in mourning, so we won't be inviting outsiders—only relatives and close friends."

"My father made it very clear in his will that he disliked waiting, and he forbade me from using him as an excuse to put the wedding off for another year."

He looked down at the teacup in his hand and let out a laugh.

"Even in death, he still has to boss me around. His reach really knows no bounds."

No one said a word.

Phillips exhaled the pent-up heaviness in his chest and turned toward Richard.

"So then, Mr. Williams, let me ask you formally once more."

For once, he held his back ramrod straight, speaking each word deliberately. "Will you stand as my best man on the day of the wedding?"

Richard quickly ran through the dates in his head.

The twentieth was Monday; the winter solstice fell on Wednesday the twenty-second.

"I'll be there," he said, rising to his feet.

Phillips clapped him on the shoulder. "Good."

"What about the maid of honor?" Sophia asked. "Who's the maid of honor?"

At that question, everyone around the table quietly pricked up their ears.

Constance set down her teacup.

"A young lady from my family—a distant cousin of mine."

"She turns nineteen this year, and the whole family says she is the most outstanding of our generation."

Her gaze settled on Richard's face. "My cousin is far more accomplished than I am."

Phillips coughed loudly, but Constance acted as though she hadn't heard him. "By custom, the best man escorts the maid of honor down the aisle during the ceremony."

"And at the reception dinner afterward, the two of you will be seated together as well."

Across the table, Grey's hand froze on her teacup.

At the end of the table, Clara turned a page of the manuscript, the rustle noticeably louder than before.

Richard frowned and asked, "...Has your family always been this patient?"

"Always," Constance said.

Phillips covered his face with a hand. "It seems the Earl is serious."

"Of course my father is serious," Constance said, looking at her fiancé.

"Just as I am serious about you."

Phillips opened his mouth to say something, but in the end he merely grabbed the teapot and poured another round of tea for everyone.

He was only halfway around the table when footsteps sounded outside the door.

Before the footman pushing open the conservatory door could even announce the visitor, someone stepped right past him into the room. Isabella wore a mink coat, her shoulders damp with mist.

Pausing at the threshold, she swept her gaze across the crowded table, lingering briefly on Grey's face and nodding to Clara before her eyes finally settled on her nephew.

"Stop eating. Grab your coat and come with me."

"Aunt Isabella?"

"I'm here to pick you up," Isabella said, pulling off her gloves and brushing the beads of moisture from her coat.

"Professor MacFie is back, and he says he has business with you."

Then she added, "He wants to see you today."