Page 19 of Prince of Masks (Hearts of Bluestone #2)

Each year, on the second Sunday of December, the Sinclairs host the tradition at their home, one shire over.

Since the Vasiles, the Barlows, and the Stroms come from the mainland, and that means travel, they all stay at Thornbury Park, a much older, larger, country manor than Elcott Abbey. Often the families will reside at Thornbury Park for a couple of days.

But I am only forced to visit the Sinclairs’ estate on this one day.

And like always at this time of year, the weather is unkind.

The faint drizzle outside comes and goes, and with it, the clouds smear the sky in grey and white. But no storms will hit the countryside today, it’s saving itself for the seaside, just passing over.

I dress for the wet weather.

A pair of black breeches, a fitted turtleneck, boots and—a stroke of colour—a teal coat to match.

None of these protect my hair, wound waves and curls, an updo of glossy strands, thanks to the salon Mother dragged me to just yesterday, and I don’t know if she had an appointment lined up for me already that she didn’t tell me about beforehand, or she used numerus to get me in at the last minute.

Umbrellas tend to be more of a hindrance than a help, and a hat would ruin my updo, so I bother with neither.

I’ll just have to stay out of the rain.

But an umbrella held by a servant escorts me to the Range Rover—and I am not last in the car.

I am buckling myself in when Oliver drags himself down the driveway, then climbs inside, a clumsiness to his movements.

He drops onto the seat beside me, a haggard sag to his slack face.

I consider him out the corner of my eye, but it’s when he draws out a phial from his woollen coat pocket that I understand.

Migraines.

He complained of one last night, left dinner early, and I suppose it is still hanging around.

I turn my cheek to him as a servant shuts the door, and the Range Rover starts its turn around the fountain in the driveway.

It isn’t a long drive to Thornbury Park. As it’s only one shire over, we will be there in less than half an hour—if there are no cattle herds passing over the country roads on our way.

But the country roads look clear, aside from the constant mist of drizzle, as we pull out of the grounds.

I nudge my shoulder into Oliver’s.

He turns a frown on me, a soft one, patient.

“Are you looking forward to seeing Serena?”

He rubs his knuckle under the bone of his eyebrow, as though easing a tension deep in there. “I saw her for lunch in Nice.”

Oliver slumps in the leather seat.

His knee almost knocks into Mother’s.

She’s turned towards Father, tapping her nail at something on his cell screen, murmuring under her breath.

I suspect they are discussing New Year presents.

I frown at him. “When did you go to lunch?”

Nice is the middle point between us and Serena’s home in Milan, just one veil each, but it takes enough time that I wonder how he managed to squeeze a good five or six hours out of the day at Elcott Abbey without my noticing.

“The day we returned from Monte Carlo. You were poorly, remember?”

Oh.

That’s how I didn’t notice. I was hiding out in my chamber until dinner.

The smirk is sharp on his face. “I took the car, and I swear I saw someone who looked just like you walking down the road—though it was from a distance and it was rather foggy.”

I still.

Our gazes are locked.

So he saw me take my stroll towards the village, maybe witnessed me pushing the envelope into the red pillar post box. Whatever he saw, a lot or very little, he knows enough to suspect I was up to no good.

A breath of relief sags me as he turns his cheek to me. He dismisses it. Just lets it go. Like he can’t be bothered.

Migraines .

I’m grateful.

So there’s no harm intended, no hitch or snarl or sword in my voice, as I ask, “Did you two smooth things over?”

Oliver spares me a side-glance. Then, after a beat, he nods. The gesture disturbs his dark chocolate waves, dishevelled.

“I believe so.”

The smile I give him is tight, then I offer him what he wants—a reprieve.

I shift around to look out the window as we pass through the village, then down more country roads until, after about twenty minutes, we are turning onto a road that splinters from tall, iron gates.

I inch closer to the window.

If there is one thing I like about Dray Sinclair, it is his estate, his home, the grounds, the gardens.

The driveway, a paved road that winds through lush green bushes and trimmed hedges, leads us past a scattering of small stone cottages, barns and sheds.

It’s a long ride to the second walls: stone walls that encompass the private grounds of Thornbury are lush green with sprawling ivy and moss and vines climbing all over them.

I adore Thornbury Park.

But it isn’t lost on me, the prickle of anxiety I feel as I peer through the window at the massive castle looming ahead, dark grey in the smoggy weather.

Country houses from Tudor times resemble castles, without the full artillery of military, of defence and offense. The style is Medieval in the grey stone, in the octagonal towers, stretched bay windows tinted with stained glass art.

It’s intimidating. Even more so in the dark.

This drizzle, the grey clouds in the sky above, the incoming storm some hours away, it only masks the morning. Less than an hour from noon.

Still, the windows glow like warm candlelight against the grey mist, luring in those who seek comfort, who seek warmth, only to wander into the belly of beasts.

We are passing the bloated pond when Oliver tugs at the inner pocket of his coat.

I cut my gaze to him as he threads out a blue, murky phial then unscrews the topper.

He lets three exact drops hit his tongue before he tucks away the phial.

“You should have just stayed home,” I murmur, and my voice keeps below the hum of our parents on the seats opposite, muttering and whispering about whatever they consider on Father’s phone.

I want a phone.

Oliver sags in the seat. “It’ll be fine with enough tonics. I pushed myself too far, but not so far that I need to waste the day in bed.”

I nod with understanding.

All magic has… limitations.

It is a drain of energy, just as running is. But the drain of pushing one’s magic too far for too long, it is both mental and physical.

It’s called the lassitude limit , and it’s different in every witch.

Mr Younge catches a fever that keeps him to bed for days on end.

Dray gets the bleed. I once saw him on a sickbed in the infirmary when I was visiting James, and Dray was bleeding silently from his eyes, nose and ears.

Oliver suffers migraines. If he doesn’t stop then and there, and start treating the migraine, he can lose his sight and ability to stand, and he becomes a crumpled, agonised thing for days.

Serena threw up once, all over the atrium at Bluestone. Every step she tried to take up the stairs to the infirmary, it was a jolt through her body, and she sicked herself silly, and her face was purple from all the pressure building through her body.

Asta had a seizure in the mess hall. It was bad. Knocked her head on the side of a table, blood everywhere.

The cost of using too much magic is paid for by the body—and the mind, because for a while, the mind is slower, thought is slower.

Most often, the lassitude limit hits the witches at Bluestone, where the practice is overdone for so many classes and now, the preparations for the tests.

But since Oliver is clearly in lassitude limit now, beside me, I suspect that he’s been practicing for his second-semester exams at home, and he pushed just that bit too much.

If there is a silver lining to not having magic, then it’s that I don’t suffer the lassitude limit like Oliver does now.

He brings his hand to the bridge of his nose, like he’s about to pinch it—but somehow can’t summon the energy, so just rests his hand over his eyes until the Range Rover reaches the end of the stone paved driveway.

Unlike at Elcott Abbey, there is no centrepiece fountain at the end of the drive. Rather, it’s a round pond circled with damp stones.

My gaze cuts to the koi-fish pond as I step out of the car, and my faint smile tugs at the sight of the swans waddling by.

The black swans are free roaming all over the grounds, and they never fail to lighten my mood.

I linger my smile over them for a beat before I turn and follow my parents to the stone steps and, at the top of them, the double doors.

Before the Range Rover can even draw away to park over at the hedges, the doors open—and suited servants stand stiff, hands at their backs, at the entrance.

The butler waits for us in the foyer, fitted out in the French style, of golds and pastels.

Amelia brought her flair with her into the marriage, into the home she became the mistress of, and if I let myself wonder how much it cost to decorate and refurbish the entirety of Thornbury Park, even I might blanch.

James once said that, if he had the print of my brother, my father, then he would create mountains of gold and buy whatever he wanted, mansions and planes and cars.

That is fine.

Understandable.

But he said it with such ease, with a dismissive flair that told me he didn’t understand. All wealth impacts the economy.

Take my father, for instance. He must abide his own lassitude limit, and so if he was able to produce one bar of gold every second day for a year, and kept the gold hidden—nothing would happen.

But if he meant to use that gold, just to buy more homes, to purchase another jet, to decorate an entire estate in a costly, opulent style, then those actions would have a knock-on effect.

It would impact the economy, the value of currency across the whole world would change…

And the Videralli are charged with the duty of the world, including its economy.

When a rare made one is born with a great print like Father’s, like Oliver’s, they are brought into the fold of the upper classes, never elite, but they are welcomed—because they must be taught.