The four of us remaining glance at each other awkwardly.

“Ten minutes,” says Edward.

“Until…” I ask.

“Until we tear that tent apart, if Elsie hasn’t come out before then. That should shut down whatever wards are on it, and if there’s more than we can fight inside we call for help. Even if they’re both vanished by then we should still be able to track them down and – “

“Edward, stop,” I insist. “She’s a fortune-teller. The worst that she’s going to do is con Elsie out of that silver piece and tell her something about how she’ll meet a tall, handsome stranger and fall in love with him and live happily ever after.”

“You don’t know that,” he says, and I recognise the signs then. The way he’s speaking quickly, jerkily. The way he’s coiled as if about to spring into action. This is the beginning of a Malaina episode.

I snatch his hand and squeeze it tightly, trying to think of reassurances that aren’t empty. “It’s extremely unlikely that this is some sort of scheme to – what – “

“You didn’t say impossible.”

“Because it’s not,” I admit. “Because nothing is truly completely safe. But you can’t live assuming that everything is a trap and never venturing out of your protective ward bubble.”

“There’s a difference between that and not going into a shady tent with a woman who’s very probably a fraud!”

He has a point. I wouldn’t have gone. “Okay, but there’s also a difference between being probably a fraud and being a front for some kind of kidnapping scheme.”

Edward doesn’t reply for a second; he just squeezes my hand back, hard enough it hurts a little. “Keep talking,” he says with an effort.

“It’s going to be okay,” I try. “Elsie is going to walk out of that tent in less than ten minutes, and we’ll all have a laugh about how her fortune is something any of us could have made up and then go somewhere else. There’s nothing to worry about.”

He turns and stares into my eyes, as if desperately trying to find truth there.

“I promise,” I say, as if my words have the power to make it so. “I promise she’ll be fine.”

“Eight minutes.”

Stars. I can’t work out whether he’s even doing that because he’s worried about Elsie or because he needs the promise that he’ll take action to hold back the Malaina episode.

“It’ll be fine, Edward. Just… breathe, okay? One breath at a time.” I follow my own advice for a few seconds. We’re close enough that I can see him trying to obey me, his chest rising and falling.

“Is there something we can do?” asks Elizabeth.

I honestly don’t know. I don’t even know what I’m doing myself. I shake my head; if I were in Edward’s position, I wouldn’t want anyone else interfering. “That’s it. Keep breathing. Remember where you are. You’re here, in this moment, with me, and everyone is safe.”

I force as much confidence into my words as I can. I have to be certain. No-one is going to be reassured by extremely unlikely. I squash down the little voice in my head wondering if he could be right, try to ignore the scenario unfolding in my mind where he is and Elsie’s fate could depend on whether I listen to him now.

“Seven minutes.”

“Until she comes out. If not less than that. Nothing has happened; nothing is going to happen.”

I babble on in that way for a while, barely aware of what I’m saying. Another three minutes pass, according to Edward’s count. I guess he must be tracking the seconds in his mind, using the count similarly to my list of kings.

“Cutting-spells,” he says. His voice is a little calmer than before, but I can still hear that faint note of panic. He never panicked like this during the riot. “Strong but precise. As if we’re slashing through the fabric with a sword. We should spread out, each of us take a different corner – “

“Wait a second – “ says Robin. “I never agreed to – “

“You won’t help me?” Edward asks, speaking a little too quickly. “You won’t help Elsie?”

“Elsie isn’t in danger,” she insists. “And I am not being party to the destruction of an innocent woman’s property – “

I gesture frantically for Robin to shut up, and she does.

She’s not wrong. But in Edward’s mind right now, you’re either with him or against him – and he needs to be able to trust those around him to fight by his side.

What do we do, if four minutes pass without Elsie emerging from the tent? If I help Edward, then there’s a very high chance we’d be destroying the fortune-teller’s tent for nothing. If I try to stop him, then in his current state he’d see that as a betrayal which would likely tip him over the edge into an active episode. And if I stand by and do nothing, that’s quite possibly the worst of both worlds.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

I need to somehow calm him enough that he can be reasoned with and think rationally about this. But even ordinarily Edward is sufficiently paranoid it would be hard to persuade him not to act. And while I know him better than almost anyone, I’ve never seen him like this. I don’t know exactly what he’s thinking right now, don’t know what he went through to make him react like this –

It clicks into place then. I’m not qualified to deal with this, but I know someone who is. And I have a way of summoning him. I hold my free hand up to Edward, waiting for his eyes to lock onto it, and then wiggle one of my fingers. The finger that bears an enchanted ring. “Three minutes,” I say.

He nods, once, sharply.

“Tallulah, you’re not seriously thinking of helping him – “

I shoot Robin a death glare. The rings are supposed to be secret; that’s the problem. I’m not supposed to tell Elizabeth or Robin about them, which means they can’t know what I’m planning. So Robin’s conclusion is a reasonable one. And I can’t tell her she’s wrong.

Oh, stars, I can’t do this. I don’t have a choice. “I – “

I feel my heart skip a beat. I press my free hand to the enchanted bead at my necklace and focus on channelling just a little magic through it. Nothing happens.

I can’t have an episode now. Edward needs me.

“Charles First-King,” I say aloud, hoping that the list of kings can help both of us. “Edwin the Just. Simon the Drunkard. Thomas the Defender. Eleanor – “

The flap of the tent swings open.

“ – you with whatever you need,” the fortune-teller is saying. I try to make out the figures in the darkness inside.

“Thank you,” says Elsie, stepping out into the light. “Really.” She stops as she sees us: Elizabeth standing tense and ready for action, Robin with eyes blazing, Edward and I clinging to each other desperately. “Did something happen?”

“No,” I say, finding myself smiling with pure giddy relief. “Nothing happened.”

Edward takes a couple of deep, shuddering breaths, and then says “Tallulah and I need to go, though.”

Do we? I don’t question it, though. “It’s fine,” I say instead. “We’ll meet you back at the Academy later, if we’re not done before then.” I doubt my improvisation is fooling any of them – and I’m pretty sure I’ll be the one stuck answering awkward questions about this later – but that’s not what’s important right now.

“Come on,” he says. He’s still clutching my hand, and now he tugs at it. “We’ll be late.”

“But – “ says Robin.

“Sorry about this,” I say helplessly. “See you all later.”

I let him pull me away from the other three and the fortune-teller, who I think is trying to persuade the others to have their fates foretold as well. Stars, I hope none of them say yes with Edward not there.

“Sorry,” says Edward quietly as we emerge from the Market.

“Don’t be. I’ve cried on your shoulder enough that you’re owed the same by now.”

“That wasn’t the same thing – “

I shrug. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever you need, I’ll do it.”

“Would you have helped me, if it came to it?”

He doesn’t need to say what he’s referring to. The truth is that I don’t know, but I doubt that’s what he wants to hear. “Would you have done it, if it hadn’t been for…” Malaina, is the final word, but I don’t say it in public. He’ll understand.

Edward shrugs. “I don’t know. Your way was better.”

“Where are we going?” I ask; we’re walking along a wide street that leads to the Great South Road. “Back to the Academy?”

He shakes his head. “My place.”

“Right.” Blackthorn Manor, he means, but why – oh.

I guessed, a while ago, something about his Fall. And he said he wanted to tell me, but the privacy we could get at the Academy wasn’t sufficient. It seems now he’s decided that that conversation can’t wait until the next time I happen to be visiting.

“You don’t have to do that,” I say.

“Yes, I do.”

“If you don’t want to talk about it – “

“I need to talk about it.”

“Your place it is, then, I suppose.”

I don’t have a sense of where Blackthorn Manor is in relation to anywhere else. The only time I visited before I was teleported in, and by the time I left the medication was wearing off and I was in too much pain to pay proper attention to my surroundings.

It’s in the Inner Ring, it turns out. That’s not much of a surprise: anyone influential enough to have good reason to be close to the kingdom’s most important buildings and wealthy enough to afford it lives in the Inner Ring, and the Blackthorns are certainly both of those things.

The manor sits on a side-street just off the Great West Road, Edward tells me, which means the quickest way is through the Central Ring and past the Academy. So that’s the route we take. The Central Ring is thankfully quiet, or as quiet as it ever gets anyway: no protest is happening and most business has stopped for the weekend, so there’s only a stream of pilgrims approaching the Abbey, a scattering of tourists and a small patrol of the High Royal Guard keeping order.

We weave our way through the crowd, past the statue of the Mages, and turn right. Edward is more subtle than I could be about checking over his shoulder to see if we’re being followed or if anyone has recognised us, but I’m watching him closely enough to tell that despite the fading of the Malaina episode he is very much on edge. I don’t blame him.

But we make it to the Great West Road without incident, and from there it’s only a couple of minutes’ walk until the last turning, onto Blackthorn Street. Of course the family have a street named after them; I shouldn’t be surprised.

There’s also a small group of protesters gathered on the street, opposite what must be the main entrance to the manor. Edward stops walking as he sees them, and we stand on the corner of the pavement. “Lovely,” he says. “We could probably get past them – I could activate the wards to get in before they’d have a chance to react – but it’s not worth the risk. Back entrance it is.”

The back entrance is in the next street, Feather Lane. In fact, Edward casually unlocks the door of number fifty-five and beckons me in. I supress a laugh and step inside. It appears to be the perfectly ordinary entrance hall of a perfectly ordinary house.

Except that perfectly ordinary houses don’t typically have secret passages in their basements. Edward channels a little magic into one of the stones and a dark tunnel is revealed, reminding me of the one in the Abbey that the priest opened by a similar method.

“I’m not even surprised at this point,” I say, and venture into the darkness.

It’s a lot shorter than the tunnel network the Abbey is connected to, at any rate, though we still need the enchanted lights we’ve summoned. We emerge in what looks like a wine cellar. That, I reflect, looking around, is probably because it is a wine cellar. And very expensive-looking wine it is, too, not that I know enough about vintages to have much of an idea what the years and locations marked on each bottle and barrel mean.

“Can we speak freely now?” I ask.

Edward shrugs. “Relatively. The servants might overhear, but they’re all trustworthy. I’m not telling you what we came here for until we’re in a fully warded room, though.” He seems much calmer already. I suppose this must be one of the few places he feels truly safe.

“Well,” I say. “We may as well get to one of those, then.”