Snowspelled (The Harwood Spellbook #1)
Stephanie Burgis
1
Of course, a sensible woman would never have accepted the invitation in the first place.
To attend a week-long house party filled with bickering gentleman magicians, ruthlessly cutthroat lady politicians, and worst of all, my own infuriating ex-fiancé? Scarcely two months after I had scandalized all of our most intimate friends by jilting him?
Utter madness. And anyone would have seen that immediately…except for my incurably romantic sister-in-law.
Unfortunately, Amy saw the invitation pop into mid-air beside me as we sat en famille at the breakfast table that morning. She watched with bright interest as I crumpled it up a moment later in disgust…and then she dashed around the table, with surprising agility despite her interesting condition, to snatch the ball of paper from my hands before I could toss it into the blazing fire where it belonged.
Naturally, I lunged to retrieve it. But I was too late.
The moment she smoothed it out enough to read the details, her eyes lit up with near-fanatical ardor. “Oh, yes, Cassandra, we must go! Just think: you will finally see Wrexham again!”
“I know,” I said through gritted teeth. “That is exactly why we are going to refuse it!”
“Now, love…” Her eyes widened, and she gave me her most innocent look...which put me on guard immediately.
Kind-hearted, loyal, and adorable are all phrases that may apply very well to my brother’s wife; innocent is not one of them, and never has been.
She had, after all, been my mother’s final and most promising political protégée.
“I should think,” she said now, as if idly, “that you would wish to show everyone how little notice you take of any gossip. After all, if we refuse this invitation, you know everyone will say it was because you were too afraid to see Wrexham again.”
My teeth ground together. “I am not afraid of seeing Wrexham.”
“Well, I know that,” Amy said, looking as smug as a cat licking up fresh cream. “But does he?”
Well. It isn’t that I don’t know when I’m being managed. But there are some possibilities that cannot be borne. And the thought of my ex-fiancé’s dark eyebrows rising in his most fiendishly supercilious look at the news of my cowardly refusal…
I drummed my fingers against the table, searching for a way out.
Behind my brother’s outspread newspaper, an apparently disembodied voice spoke. “Better leave early,” my brother said. “It’s meant to snow next week, according to the weather wizards.”
Amy sat back, smiling and resting her hands on her rounded belly…
And that was how the three of us ended up rattling through the elven dales in mid-winter, with the first flakes of snow falling around our carriage.
Poor Amy stopped chattering half an hour into our journey, her pretty face setting into pained lines and her dark brown skin taking on a grayish hue. As I watched her, my toes tapped once, twice, and then a third time beneath my skirts.
I forced myself to look away.
The carriage bumped over a particularly large rock, and a tiny, muffled squeak escaped from Amy’s lips. My fingers clenched. All it would take was the simplest little spell to relieve her misery...if only a competent, functioning magician sat beside her.
No matter how hard I tried, I could never manage a full day without a reminder of my failure.
Beside me, Amy breathed deeply and leaned back against the seat.
All the taxes had been paid on our carriage, the glowing seal stamped proudly on its side less than a month earlier, so the trolls who guarded these dales stood unmoving in the falling snow, letting us drive past without incident. As the wintry sun lowered in the sky and the snow thickened, their massive, looming figures took on the indistinct shapes of rugged, rocky green hills…at least, until another carriage turned onto the road behind us and the closest troll swung into lumbering motion, its massive, moss-covered arms swinging by its sides.
I craned to look back through the window, grateful for the distraction, but the swirling snow obscured the scene behind us.
“Idiots,” said my brother calmly. “Thought they could get away with their old tax seal till the end of the year, probably.”
“They aren’t being foolish and resisting, are they?” Amy cracked her eyes open, frowning.
“Oh, no, they’re going quietly enough.” Jonathan snorted, crossing one leg over another. “But I shouldn’t fancy having my carriage swung about in the grip of a troll all the way to the local toll station. Would you?”
“Ugh—!” Amy’s face crumpled. She lifted one gloved hand to her lips and squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
“Think of ginger root,” I told her hastily, as I gave her husband a narrow-eyed look. “And dry biscuits. And—”
“No food, please.” Her voice was muffled by her hand. “Not while I’m still thinking of swinging carriages.”
“Sorry, love.” Jonathan looked chagrined. “We can’t be far from Cosgrave Manor now. If this dashed snow would only clear up a bit… It wasn’t even supposed to start snowing for two or three more days!”
But the too-early snowfall ignored its orders, thickening more and more until our progress had been slowed to a near-walk. It was nearly another hour before we finally arrived at our destination. Amy was positively green by then, her face pinched tight, and I was vibrating like a maddened dog with frustration.
The simplest, smallest little spell…
It would have been so easy to whisk her nausea away only four months earlier. But of course she hadn’t needed any of my spellcraft then, and now that she did…
I stalked out of the carriage at Cosgrave Manor with my spine stiff and my skirts swishing about me, ready to rip to verbal shreds anyone rash enough to get between me and the privacy of my guest bedroom. There, I could let out all of my useless rage and then compose myself before facing any crowded drawing rooms or inane small talk…
...Or, worst of all, my ex-fiancé. I couldn’t face him now. Not yet.
I should never have agreed to come here in the first place.
But the house was already in an uproar when we stepped into it.