“I have decided,” she says from the couch where she’s tucked up beneath a quilt, “that I never again want to be the center of gossip. Gossip is much better observed and spread than lived.”

My dreamy haze collapses when I see her. She looks as though she’s lost weight even in the three days since last I called. I sit next to her, putting my hand to her forehead, which is cold and clammy.

“Have you been seen by a doctor?”

“I’m fine. Just tired. But you look like a sparrow in springtime. What has you all bright eyed and blushing?”

I laugh. “You haven’t given Finn a plant, now, have you?”

“I don’t need to spy to tell something is different. Tell me.”

“I kissed Finn.”

“Lord Ackerly? Kissed you? No—you kissed him?” She sits straight, eyes as round as children’s marbles. “You are the single best thing that has ever happened to me. I thought Moira Chapel’s flirtation with the gardener was the best story I had heard this year, but this tops all. Has he proposed, then?”

“No, and I wouldn’t accept if he did. Not yet. I’m perfectly happy to figure out just how much I adore him without committing to adoring him forever.”

“You have a strange idea of marriage if you think that’s what it is about. I expect an engagement before the end of the month. Untouchable Lord Ackerly indeed. Promise to tell no one but me first. I’ll have to book every waking hour with calls to see as many looks on as many faces as possible when they hear.”

I laugh. “Who else would I tell?”

She settles back down, resting her head against the sofa with a cat-in-the-cream smile. “Of course, it would make sense that Lord Ackerly would find the most ridiculous match possible. Oh, pardon, I don’t mean it to be rude.”

I wave my hand. “Doubtless our whole relationship is viewed as a lapse of sanity on his part. But why does it make sense?”

“On account of his parents. He’s told you about them?”

“Only that they shadowed each other.” I blush, realizing that, though I’ve only now opened myself to my feelings for Finn, he threw his soul to me with reckless abandon. I wonder if what is a thrilling, unexpected romance to me is actually a massive relief to him after how I’ve dismissed his shadow and even demanded its removal.

Eleanor huffs. “That man is hopeless. Here he was sitting on one of the great forbidden romances of the century, and he didn’t bother to tell you? I must do everything around here. He’ll have told you about the two magical lines, correct?”

I nod, remembering the symphony. “Albion has all the descendants of the Crombergs, and the rest are Hallins, spread through the continent.”

“No one knows exactly when the split happened, but it was as deep and unbridgeable as any divide in history. The Hallins, being smaller, guard their magical knowledge with deadly fierceness. Crombergs have been killed for merely asking the wrong questions while traveling abroad. We don’t have to be so vigilant about our magic, since our strength is in numbers, not skill. But for ages it’s been mandatory to keep the two lines of magic completely separate. So imagine the scandal when the youngest daughter of the king of Saxxone fell in love and eloped with a certain Lord Ackerly the elder.”

“Finn’s mother was from Saxxone?”

“A princess. Please do not leave that part out, it makes it ever so much more romantic. Anyone else would have been killed, but the king of Saxxone is the most powerful man alive, and the story is that she was always his favorite daughter. So he forbade anyone from doing them harm, but banished them both from the continental countries forever. Lord Ackerly was shunned in Alben society, but as he had already inherited—and those laws are ironclad—there was not much anyone could take from him. They moved to his country estate, removed from everyone and utterly unconcerned, so in love they were with each other.”

“What happened then?”

She smiles sadly. “No one knows. They were more or less forgotten. I hadn’t even heard of them until two years ago when the young Lord Ackerly descended on the finest social circles of the city, charming and handsome and rumored to be downright deadly with his magical knowledge. Everyone called on him, trying to find out whether he had learned Hallin magic. He never demonstrated anything but the most proficient wielding of Cromberg skill since Lord Downpike, whom many consider to be the most powerful man in Albion.

“Lord Downpike was, of course, obsessed with finding out what he knew. According to rumor, he’s been planting spies for years all over the Iverian continent—in Gallen, Saxxone, even the smaller countries like Ruma. Nothing worked. Lord Ackerly was a new, easier target. If Lord Downpike could get your Finn on his side, he thought he could access the elusive Hallin magical knowledge. Downpike tried everything—bribery, threats, even theft—to get to Lord Ackerly, but nothing worked. Lord Ackerly was unconnected to everything and everyone, acquaintance of all and friend to none. He only stepped in when he thought someone was leaning too close to encouraging war. There was nothing for Lord Downpike to do, no advantage for him to secure. Until . . .” She trails off with a pointed smile.

“Until me.”

“Until you.”

“But Finn has said nothing of having extra magic.”

“I’ve tested him myself—oh, don’t tell him! His magic is pure Cromberg. There was nothing strange in it.”