Page 74 of The Journal of a Thousand Years
This time he did smile, but it was fleeting, almost as if he was embarrassed. “You received the journal.” He nodded at the family book on the table. “Keep it safe until it’s time to pass it on to the next generation.”
“I will. Speaking of time, the book mentions a prophecy whereby a member of the Hendreau family will save time. Do you know what that means?”
“No. It’s not important anyway. What’s important is that you learn the spells in the journal. Have you tried them?”
“I’ve been busy, but I learned the moving spell. I have trouble controlling the power, though. I suppose I just need practice.”
He indicated the crate of books I still had to catalog. “Then why aren’t you?”
“Because I have work to do,” I snapped.
Alex entered the library. He nodded at Hendry but remained by the door, arms crossed over his chest. His gaze flitted around the room, taking in all the books packed onto the shelves. If he was worried about them being weaponized, he didn’t show it.
Hendry smoothed his hand over the journal’s cover. “The key to controlling your magic is to focus it.”
“How do I do that?”
“Concentrate.”
“On what?”
“The words, your target…” He sounded annoyed, so I didn’t press him. “I’ve been thinking about you ever since we met in the café.” He paused, perhaps waiting for me to say that I’d been thinking about him, too. Perhaps I would have, if I hadn’t been so preoccupied. “I didn’t want to tell you some things then. They were painful memories that I thought never to bring up again. But I stand by what I said in the café: every child has a right to know their origins. So, I’ve decided to tell you some things.”
I was taken aback. I’d given up hope of learning answers to questions that had eaten away at me for years. “Thank you. That would be appreciated.”
He shifted his weight in the chair, taking a long time to begin. I bit down on my tongue to ensure my frustration at the delay didn’t boil over. “I already told you that Lord Coyle set Marianne and me up together. He blackmailed us both.”
“I know he got you out of prison. You felt you owed him.”
“He helped Marianne, too. We were both at our lowest points, desperate, afraid, alone. We both owed him favors in return for his help, and having children together was how he wanted us to pay him back. That was his only condition for his assistance, and we couldn’t refuse.”
“Even so, what he asked you to do is extreme.”
“It wasn’t easy to get me out of prison. I owed him an enormous debt, which I paid.”
“Even though being with a woman was abhorrent to you.”
“I don’t dislike women, no matter what my sisters tell you.” Despite the denial, he didn’t meet my gaze.
“And my mother?” I asked. “How did Coyle save her?”
“Marianne’s father was cruel. She ran away and came here to London, where she became known to Coyle. I suspect it was because she was selling off items containing her father’s silversmith magic that she’d stolen before leaving Ipswich, and someone noticed and informed Coyle. Such a rare magic would have immediately grabbed his attention.”
“So he helped her when she moved to London?” I shrugged. “That’s hardly a favor worthy of her pound of flesh.”
“His way of helping her was to kill her parents.”
My head began to buzz, as if he’d struck me. In a way, he had. The news was so shocking that I could barely comprehend it. I remembered my mother’s old neighbor in Ipswich telling us about the fire that had killed my grandparents, but it hadn’toccurred to me that Marianne was the reason for the fire, even if she hadn’t lit it herself. According to the neighbor, she’d left some time before that dreadful night.
Coyle had started the fire, or sent someone to do it, killing Marianne’s parents for her sake, to keep her safe. At moments like this, when we used the name Marianne Folgate, it was a little easier to disassociate that person from my mother, the woman I knew as Alice Ashe.
But no amount of pretending ignorance could deny the fact that Alice was Marianne, and she’d either asked Coyle to free her from her cruel father, or known he was going to take matters into his own hands. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have felt obligated to return the favor.
“Her father doesn’t deserve sympathy,” Melville said, following my train of thought. “Hewasviolent toward her.”
“And her mother? Did she deserve to die so horribly?”
“She was complicit, by not protecting Marianne. It’s a mother’s duty to take care of her children.” He gave a humorless grunt. “It’s rather an ironic admission for me to make, don’t you think?”
