Tilly dragged herself upright. “I’ve sent messengers to all her friends’ houses. No one’s seen her in hours.” She pointed to the book with all its notes sticking out from the pages. “She marked up all the pages that had to do with the portal. They both knew about it for years. I don’t know how long exactly, but you can tell by their handwriting it’s been since they were children.”
Serena sank to the floor. “My poor baby,” she said into her skirts.
“Your poor baby is on his way to his cousin’s house,” she said. “Mine is somewhere in time, about to be—”
“Not possible,” Kostya interrupted. “You changed too much. If she went through the portal, I don’t believe things will play out the same.” He nudged Ashford out of the way and leaned over the corner as if he could see or smell the damn thing. “But I agree we need to fix this so you can go after her.”
Hope surged in Tilly’s shattered heart. Kostya was powerful. The most evil, power-hungry witch she’d ever had the misfortune of meeting was his own grandmother, and that nasty piece of work had feared his abilities. If anyone could fix what Ariana had done, it was him.
Kostya looked anxious as he rubbed his hands together. His face turned pale and beads of sweat popped out on his brow. Tilly prayed he could keep it together long enough to call up his old talents. Just this once. She knew he must be having flashbacks. He’d been cursed in the worst possible way by that wicked grandmother of his, a curse that had caused him to lose his daughter. Magic had never done a single favorable thing for him or anyone he loved. The man was happy to be a simple farmer and keep the accounts at their Scottish property. And now he was jumping back into the fray to help Ariana.
“Thank you Kostya,” she gulped. “You can do it. I know you can.”
His hands shook as he held them out toward the corner. He looked positively waxen as he muttered a few words. Within seconds he was tossed backwards, landing in a heap near the bedside.
“Well, that didn’t work,” he said, rubbing his hip. Like a champ, he got up and cracked his neck before stalking forcefully back to the portal area. “What do you suppose she did?”
“I don’t know. I can’t sense any of it,” Ashford said.
His comment was met with silence. Ashford had never been very good at magic. His power was there, but he couldn’t control it. He used his wits and his fists and sometimes a gun to help the people who were victims of the portal before it was closed up by Tilly’s step-grandfather. That itself had been an extremely strong spell. It made her head spin to think how much Ariana must know to have been able to crack through it.
“The young buggers must have been pretty adept at covering their tracks if you believe they’ve been studying the book for years,” Kostya said through gritted teeth. Whatever new thing he was trying must have hurt. “By all accounts one of us should have sensed them using magic.”
Serena looked pained. “He kept apologizing and saying I mustn’t believe anything I heard after the debacle with Maria Winters. The poor boy was so heartbroken, but I did wonder how the rumors about him got started in the first place. He was always such an honest child.”
“He wasn’t,” Tilly said harshly. “Neither was Ariana, apparently. She told me the reason she was so mad at him was that he made the whole of London society believe he was rich so Maria could marry him. It most likely wasn’t just rumors, it was probably a spell.”
Serena pushed her hands into her stomach as if to ward off the pain Tilly’s cruel announcement gave her.
“I warned him that love made people do stupid things,” she said. “I only meant that he should keep an eye on Ariana so she didn’t end up with the wrong sort.”
Terror struck Tilly anew. If they didn’t hurry, that was exactly what might happen. “Please,” she begged Kostya. “We have to get her back. You know how it works. An hour or two here could be days or weeks for her.”
Once again Kostya was sent reeling backwards. He swore and shook off whatever happened to him.
“You say they made notes in the book?” he asked, breathing hard from exertion. “Let me see. I can’t make a dent unless I know what I’m working against. It’s odd because it’s as if the portal’s not there at all. Just her wards, which if the damned things didn’t pack such a wallop, I’d think were quite brilliant. But I can’t sense a single thing behind them.”
“That’s what I thought as well,” Ashford said. “But certainly Ariana couldn’t have completely undone a six-hundred-year-old spell. That would make her…” he trailed off, glancing fearfully at Tilly. “No, she’s just done something new and clever to hide it. We’ll break it.”
He looked at the book with loathing and no one made a move toward it. Kostya looked like he might cry and Tilly couldn’t make herself reach for it either. It seemed to pulse all the hatred they felt toward it back at them, but multiplied by a thousand. Finally, Kostya sighed and gripped it, dragging it off the dresser. He sat down on the floor and began leafing through it, a joyless laugh escaping his lips.
“I think the children did that,” he said. “Put the extra layer of revulsion on it to keep people away. It’s fine now that I have it in my hands. Clever.”
While Kostya pored over the pages, the others exchanged looks. How could their children be so powerful? What monstrous things might they have done all the time they’d secretly been studying their heritage? Growing strong enough to stymie even Kostya.
Tilly shuddered, a new mantle of fear settling over the
