The Elemental Masters - The Cyprian E-Book

Mercedes Lackey

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: The Elemental Masters
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 597

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

A cozy, cottage-core Regency fantasy perfect for fans of Bridgerton and historical fantasy mash-ups like Sherlock Holmes & Count Dracula, from the New York Times best-selling author and celebrated Grandmaster of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Elena, having lost her father, must rescue herself from her evil stepmother, a Master of Water, who has bespelled her brothers into swans. She is left without home or protection by her father's villainous widow, who plans to regain her wealth by selling Elena to the highest bidder. Alone, Elena must not only find a way to save herself, but to reverse the spell that has transformed her brothers. The latest in Mercedes Lackey's Elemental Masters series is a stand-alone romantasy based on Hans Christian Anderson's "The Wild Swans".

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

Epilogue

THE CYPRIAN

The

ELEMENTAL

MASTERS

Also by Mercedes Lackeyand available from Titan Books

FAMILY SPIES

The Hills Have SpiesEye SpySpy, Spy Again

THE HERALD SPY

Closer to HomeCloser to the HeartCloser to the Chest

THE COLLEGIUM CHRONICLES

FoundationIntrigues

ChangesRedoubt

Bastion

VALDEMAR OMNIBUSES

The Heralds of ValdemarThe Mage WindsThe Mage Storms

The Mage WarsThe Last Herald MageVows & Honor

Exiles of Valdemar

THE ELEMENTAL MASTERS

The Serpent’s ShadowThe Gates of SleepPhoenix and AshesThe Wizard of LondonReserved for the CatUnnatural IssueHome from the SeaSteadfast

Blood RedFrom a High TowerA Study in SableA Scandal in BatterseaThe Bartered BridesThe Case of the Spellbound ChildJoleneThe Silver Bullets of Annie Oakley

Miss Amelia’s List

THE FOUNDING OF VALDEMAR

Beyond

Into the West

Valdemar

KELVREN’S SAGA

Gryphon in Light

Gryphon’s Valor

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The Cyprian

Print edition ISBN: 9781835416419

E-book edition ISBN: 9781835416426

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: December 2025

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

Mercedes Lackey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Copyright © 2025 Mercedes R. Lackey.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

EU RP (for authorities only)eucomply OÜ, Pärnu mnt. 139b-14, 11317 Tallinn, [email protected], [phone]

To Joshua Starr; amazing editor, total superhero

PROLOGUE

Father was absent on one of his rare visits to Bath when Benjamin Whitstone heard someone sobbing in his mother’s room. He wasn’t supposed to be in this part of the house; the rooms on this floor in the west wing were reserved for his father, his mother, and important overnight guests. But his tutor, Beecham, had eaten something last night that disagreed violently with him, and without Father about to shame Beecham into at least supervising the oldest children even though he was ill, Ben, Arthur, Carl, David, Emil, and Felix had been left to their own devices. Five-year-old Gustav and Elena, of course, were still under the care and control of Nanny in the nursery, so they were fully occupied with their ABCs and numbers. Carl and David had taken the opportunity to escape into the grounds to play at being highwaymen. Emil and Felix were exploring the attic—also technically forbidden territory, but as long as they didn’t drag what they found up there down into the main house, no one ever bothered to chide them for the transgression. Ben’s twin Arthur was alone in the schoolroom—reading, not studying, although technically, Ben supposed, the English translation of The Odyssey could count as “study.” Mind, they were supposed to be reading it in Greek, but both of them found it heavy going, and often snuck in chances to read the translation they’d found in Father’s library to give them a leg up on the Greek as well as to relish the sheer adventure of it all.

Ben, however, had other things in mind. He’d discovered that the little winged creatures in the house and grounds, the ones that he and the other children were not supposed to talk about in front of anyone but Mama and each other, were perfectly willing to aid and abet his curiosity and explorations.

Fairies, was what the siblings called them, though Mama called them sylphs. She was the one who had warned all the children as soon as they could talk to never let anyone but her know they could see the entrancing creatures.

It was just another thing they were never to do around Father. Always mind your manners, never be outwardly affectionate to anyone or anything. Control your temper at all times. Do not speak unless you are spoken to. Never ask for favors or presents. Master your lessons before play, and if the lessons were not mastered by bedtime, then you would have no playtime the following day. “Children should be seen and not heard, and seen as little as possible.”

Were all fathers like that? It was hard to tell. Certainly Father had no interest in them except when he briefly lined up the boys (not Elena), presented them to guests, and boasted about their intelligence. He never boasted about their looks or other accomplishments, although, in Ben’s limited experience, he and his siblings were quite handsome children. Maybe Father ignored how they looked because they all looked like Mama, blond and lithe, and not like him, darker haired and square faced, with an oddly high forehead and tiny eyes.

Ben often wondered why Father had had children in the first place, since he thought so little of them as to forget them for weeks and months at a time.

And Ben often wondered why Mama had ever married Father in the first place. Every time he was around it was as if the light that was inside her when she was alone or only with her children was extinguished.

At least when Father or the servants weren’t about, the fairies were only too willing to amuse and be amusing. Recently, mind inflamed by recent history lessons about the Tudors that included mentions of secret passages and priest’s holes and other equally entrancing things, he’d enlisted their help in ferreting out hiding places all over Whitstone Manor. So far he had not uncovered any secret passages, but now he knew where there were some concealed doors that let out into the servants’ stairs and passages, and a few smaller places where things were hidden away or otherwise out of reach. So far he hadn’t found anything particularly exciting—certainly no treasure—but knowing that he was privy to secrets the others weren’t was reward enough to keep hunting.

His first thought when he heard the crying was that one of the servant girls had hurt herself, or had been beaten by the housekeeper. The housekeeper was not normally a cruel woman, but she was very strict, and if a servant girl was slacking, or suspected of dallying with one of the menservants, or had broken something through carelessness, Mrs. Farthingworth did not hesitate to use the birch on her. Whenever Ben found one of the girls crying—provided he wasn’t in a position to be discovered and lectured, usually by the tutor—he’d do his best to comfort her. A nice comfit or sugarplum usually did the trick, along with a kind word and a loaned handkerchief. Not one of his good ones, of course; one of the ones little Elena was using to practice her sewing on. The loans always came back neatly washed and pressed, but there was no point in getting a lecture over “losing” a good handkerchief that was supposed to be in the laundry when one of Elena’s gifts served the same purpose and wouldn’t be missed.

He eased the door open carefully and peeked inside, only to find his mother hunched over a hassock, blue skirts spread about her, sobbing inconsolably. “Mama!” he called, startled. “Mama, what is wrong?”

His mother started like a nervous deer and looked up, blue eyes red and swollen, a curl of golden hair escaping from the careful arrangement her lady’s maid would have put it into this morning. The door to her balcony was wide open, summer sunlight streaming through it, illuminating her grief unmistakably. Even so, Ben thought, she was the most beautiful lady he knew.

“Ben!” she replied, recognizing it was him rather than his twin—something she and no one else except his siblings seemed to be able to do. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you—”

“Beecham is sick, and never mind that now,” he replied, running to her and falling to his knees beside her. Her delicate perfume, something he could never identify, wafted over him. “Mama, whatever is wrong? Are you hurt? Did you lose something?”

Those simple words seemed to send her into a world of sorrow, and she buried her face in her hands. “Yes—no—yes!” she sobbed. “Yes, but it was taken from me before you were born, and—and—and—I cannot bear this anymore! I need it! I need it more than I can say! If I do not find it, I shall surely die!”

Ben knew what Father would have said to such a statement: Don’t be ridiculous, Elsa. You’re not going to die. But Father had an intense dislike for tears, and what he called “vapors” and “hysterics,” to the point that even five-year-old Elena knew better than to cry around him, and the boys had learned to endure any amount of pain without expressing anything but verbal discomfort. But Ben was not Father, who could sail past a weeping housemaid without anything other than a sharp word and the instruction to “take yourself to Mrs. Farthingworth if you cannot control yourself,” and so he responded by awkwardly patting his mother on the shoulder and saying, “Mama, don’t cry. I’m very good at finding things that are lost. I’ll help you find it, whatever it is.”

She took her hands from her face and gave him a watery and insincere smile. “You’re a dear boy, Ben, but you’ll never find it. It is not lost. Your father took it from me to keep me with him, and has hidden it away from me on purpose. He knew very well what he was doing.”

The words—the phrasing—were very odd. Keep me with him, and He knew what he was doing. And that was when Ben had one of those moments of inspiration and certainty that came to him without any warning—but were always right. The memory of finding something inexplicable in one of those hiding places . . . something that could only be connected with Mama, for there was no one else in the household who could have been connected with such an odd but entrancing object. “Father hid it from you? What was it?” he asked, then without waiting for an answer, continued, “Was it something like a cloak of white feathers?”

His mother sat swiftly erect, gasping. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “But how—”

“Because I saw it,” he said. “I know where it is.”

“Take me to it!” she interrupted, springing to her feet. “Take me to it right now!”

He, too, shot to his feet, grabbed her hand, and pulled her along behind him. It wasn’t far, after all, just in Father’s rooms. He pulled her to a section of the wainscoted wall in the bedroom, and carefully counted dark wooden panels from the left end where the two walls met. Two, three, and four—he pressed in the carved rose at the intersection of the fourth and fifth panel, and turned it. It had taken quite a bit of trial and error to figure out just what he should do when the little fairy had shown him where there was a hidden space, but he’d managed to figure it out. There was a click, and the fourth panel popped out, just a bit. He pulled it open, showing the yellowed silk lining of the storage area behind the panel, and there, pressed into the space, was what he had guessed to be a cloak made out of pure white feathers. Why anyone should want such a thing—especially Father—he’d had no idea, but there it had been when he had first found it, and there it was now.

With a faint cry, his mother buried both hands in the feathers, and lifted it out of its silk prison.

And then, paying no heed to Ben, she turned and ran—ran as if she was running away from peril.

He followed her, calling, “Mama, Mama, wait!” but he might as well have been voiceless. She swung the cloak over her shoulders as she ran, and pulled up the hood. She was entirely enveloped in it by the time she reached the door of her room, and by the time Ben reached that same spot, he saw her racing through the door to her balcony. She paused there for just a moment—and then jumped.

Too struck with horror to utter a sound, he raced to the balcony himself and looked down, expecting to see her sprawled on the pavement of the walk beneath, dead or gravely injured.

But there was nothing there.

Frantic and baffled now, he looked up, in time to see a pure white swan beating her wings in rapid flight away—away from the mansion and into the east.

There were no swans on the Whitstone estate. Father wouldn’t allow them. He had the gamekeeper shoot at them to frighten them, or trap them and carry them off. He said it was because all swans belonged to the king, but Ben just knew that wasn’t the reason. And why would a swan have been so close to the manor that it could have jumped from the balcony to take wing?

“M-mama?” he stammered.

But the swan did not answer, and did not look back. In moments, she was out of sight.

Ben had always been the quickest of the children; even in a crisis his mind remained clear, and his thoughts logical.

Mama can see the fairies and told us not to tell Father we could. Fairies are magic. Mama could be magic, too.

Nanny told us stories about the seal people who shed their skins to become human. There could be swan-people too, like them. And in the stories, men who want a seal-person wife, because they are so beautiful, steal their skins and hide them away. Is that what happened? Did Father steal a swan-girl’s skin so he could have a beautiful wife? Certainly Mama was the most beautiful lady he had ever seen, and there were plenty of beautiful women who came to Father’s parties with their husbands or parents. More than once, when he shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, he’d heard other men congratulate Father on his “conquest.” Father always preened when such compliments came his way, gloating almost.

Gloating, because he didn’t win her, and it wasn’t even an arranged marriage. Gloating because he stole her away from her home and people! So much came clear in that moment: why Mama had always been so subdued, why she showed Father obedience but never affection, and why Father treated her more like a treasured possession than a beloved wife. Of course she was subdued! And obedient! She had been a prisoner!

Ben had never cared much for his father, which was unfilial, but nevertheless a fact—but in that moment, he hated the man. To hold someone captive against their will like that—someone who was used to being wild and free and magical—someone as kind and sweet as his Mama—it was an abomination!

But in that moment he also understood that Mama was surely gone, gone forever. He knew from the behavior of the fairies that it wasn’t wise to count on their affections; Nanny’s tales of the seal-wives told the same story. When the choice was between her children and her freedom, a magical creature would always choose her freedom.

And now he was torn, torn between grief and sudden caution. Father would be enraged when he found this out, and he would find it out, because Mama would be missing when he returned, and so would her magical cloak. So he dared not show his grief to anyone, at least not until Mama’s disappearance was known to the household. Then he could cry with feigned confusion like the rest of them. He could not confide what had just happened, even to his twin. No one could know where Mama had gone, only that she was inexplicably missing. He had to give himself an alibi, so no suspicion would fall on him. And he had to close up that panel, so Father would never know how Mama had found her cloak.

It was a very good thing he had never confided his hunt for hidden spaces to his twin. He was a much better liar than Arthur; if Father burst into a rage, Arthur would give away anything he knew.

Then grief took over for a time, the loss of Mama obliterating the anger he felt at Father. He dropped to his knees beside the hassock where Mama had been crying, and allowed himself a moment of inconsolable blubbering.

When the worst of his sorrow had been purged, he washed his face in Mama’s washbasin, returning to Father’s room to close the panel as if it had never been opened. Then, he slipped down a servants’ stair to the garden to join Carl and David in the grounds. It would be a lot easier not to cry if he was playing at highwayman. He’d even volunteer to be the victim; then, if his voice faltered or he started to tremble, they’d take it for play-acting. It would be hard not to tell the others. The servants would certainly set up a hue and cry when they couldn’t find Mama anywhere by teatime, and his siblings’ hearts would be broken when she couldn’t be found, but Father’s wrath would have nowhere to fall as long as he didn’t know who to blame.

Things would probably be horrid—well, they were horrid, because Mama was never coming back—but as he paused on the edge of the garden to look for Carl and David, then cast his eyes to the sky for one last resigned look, he knew he could not have done anything else.

“I’d do it again, Mama,” he said, though no one could hear him. “I’d do it again.”

1

Elena sat on her hands on the high stool in the nursery and tried not to squirm as Nanny braided her dark blond hair so tightly it brought tears to her eyes. “Stop moving, do!” Nanny scolded. “Your hair is a state. I won’t have your new mama thinking I have raised you to be a hoyden.”

Elena bit her tongue to keep from saying, “I’m not moving,” because that would be talking back, and Nanny would pinch her for being pert. She knew Nanny was anxious; anxiety always made Nanny strict, and Elena knew she had good reason to be anxious. Elena was thirteen and should have had a governess by now instead of Nanny, and Nanny was afraid she was about to be dismissed once this new stepmother cast her eye over the household and took charge of it all.

Really, Elena should have had a governess years ago, and would have, except that Father paid her little to no heed. Of all of his children, he paid the most of his scant attention to the two eldest, Arthur and Ben. She was a girl, and the youngest, so of very little interest to him except as an expense in the accounting books. She just felt that she was lucky that the boys’ tutor allowed her to sit and take the same lessons as her twin, Gustav, and that Nanny was able to give her instruction in most of what a young lady was supposed to learn. Not dancing or music, but she couldn’t imagine Father having any interest at all in her coming out, and only girls who were out needed to have accomplishments like singing or playing and dancing. She was about as likely to be invited to a ball as Arthur was to be invited to join a traveling circus. I will probably live here for the rest of my life, she thought with resignation. Father won’t care, as long as I am out of his sight and his mind.

Not that Father paid a great deal of attention even to Ben and Arthur, except to quiz them now and again at dinner, to make sure their tutor was earning his keep. Once there had been parties and feasts at Whitstone Manor, when Father would line up the boys (never her) and show them off to visitors, but for a long time now, there had been nothing but quiet and occasional trips to Bath on business matters. Since Mama had disappeared when Elena was five, Father had mostly left the care of his children to the servants. It probably had not even occurred to him that his daughter had outgrown her nurse, as her twin had. It was enough that Gus was now under the purview of the tutor. In fact, he probably assumed that Nanny was giving her all the education she needed, and the housekeeper would not have challenged that assumption. Mrs. Farthingworth was happy in her place as the sole authority over females at Whitstone Manor and had had no intention of bringing in a new woman. The boys’ tutor didn’t matter to Mrs. Farthingworth; he was male, and under the governance of the butler. But a governess would have had her own room and a place at the table with the family and complete jurisdiction over Elena—and, most importantly, would outrank Mrs. Farthingworth. Most governesses were of good birth, but poor—often the daughters of clergymen, which made them gentlewomen—where nannies were just servants trustworthy enough to leave in charge of children. Nanny slept in her own little room off the nursery, ate in the nursery with Gus and Elena, was subject to the housekeeper’s orders when it came to Elena, and was equal in rank to the chief housemaid, well below Mrs. Farthingworth. The housekeeper was the undisputed ruler over everyone female at Whitstone Manor, which was exactly how Mrs. Farthingworth liked things.

The nursery was not a very interesting room. Faded yellow wallpaper was interrupted only by pictures. Some were framed prints of botanical specimens, some were unframed pictures the siblings had made over the years that had been deemed worthy of being pinned to the wall. Heavy, plain canvas drapes framed the windows, and the floor was plain wood much scratched and stained, like the furnishings, which showed the abuse eight lively children had put it through. A pile of worn cushions had been tossed in one corner, the low bookcases were full of old school books and picture books, and there were four chests still full of battered, much-loved toys. From where Elena sat, the most interesting thing was the window, which didn’t show much except an overcast October sky, without even the interruption of a crow or a starling. The nursery at least was not cold; Nanny liked a good fire, and kept them burning in the nursery, the schoolroom, Elena’s room, and her own. That was one economy that Mrs. Farthingworth did not dare challenge, because the one time she had, Nanny had threatened to quit, which would have left the housekeeper in charge of Elena. Mrs. Farthingworth did not want that responsibility any more than she wanted a governess brought in.

When Elena’s braids were bound off, there was more torture to be endured, for at thirteen Elena was old enough to have her hair put up for this occasion, and Nanny seemed determined to anchor the braids in place by jabbing the hairpins directly into Elena’s scalp. Not a whimper escaped her lips, however, though her eyes stung with tears. She knew very well that they would all have to look perfect and behave beautifully today. Father’s temper was an uncertain thing at the best of times, and now that he had finally done what he had threatened to do for the last eight years since Mama vanished, and married a new wife, Elena did not want to take a chance on angering him.

Besides, Nanny was normally the kindest of souls, and Elena didn’t want to fray her temper any further. Nanny was under quite enough stress as it was, and it was just as well that Elena’s twin brother Gus was now answerable to Beecham, the tutor, because he had gotten the devil in him this morning, and had been making a nuisance of himself since he woke. Beecham had nearly been tearing his hair out, from the sounds coming from the bedroom Gus shared with Emil and Felix.

Poor Nanny! Elena wished that there was a way she could assure Nanny that her position was safe, but the fact was, she was very likely to be dismissed as soon as the new stepmother settled in. Unless—well, Stepmother might keep her for any children she would have. If I am good and obedient, that will show Stepmother what a good job Nanny has been doing. Perhaps then she’ll let Nanny stay.

“There,” said Nanny at last, giving Elena’s sore scalp a pat. “Very neat and tidy. I’ve laid out your Sunday best for you to put on, so run along and get ready. They’ll be here within the hour, according to Mrs. Farthingworth.”

Elena gratefully climbed down off the high stool she had been perched on and took herself down the hall to her own room, just off the nursery. Dear Nanny, trussed into her most uncomfortable Sunday-best of gray serge, with her gray hair tucked into a lace cap and her bosom properly covered with a modest lace fichu, went on her way. All the children were on this floor of the east wing, though of course they were all treated quite differently. Gus shared a room with the next-youngest twins, Emil and Felix, a room almost as big as the nursery, and far more chaotic with all of their games and toys spread out over it. Carl and David shared a room as well, not nearly as untidy as the three young hooligans’, and it would not be long before they each got their own room. At the moment, though, only Arthur and Ben had rooms to themselves as she did, because they were seventeen, almost men, and in a year or two would be going to university.

She closed the door behind her with a sigh of relief. The room was just big enough for her bed, her wardrobe, a washstand, and a blanket chest at the foot of her bed; it had a single window and was papered in faded yellow wallpaper with a design of green branches that still managed to be cheerful. She often wondered if this room had been intended for something else—the wet-nurse’s room, perhaps. But at least she had it to herself, and some shred or two of privacy, though Nanny was inclined to barge in without knocking. She had mostly outgrown toys, except for her two cherished dolls, carved for her by Ben and sitting on the blanket chest, dolls that she used as little mannequins to plan out potential or imagined gowns for herself. There was a row of storybooks on the mantelpiece, and her three workbaskets next to the hearth; she was as tidy as her twin was messy, and the housemaids had very little work when they came to “do” her room.

The thin late-autumn light coming in her window at the head of her bed fell on her dark blue “Sunday best” dress, laid out on a faded green wool counterpane that matched the green wool hangings of her four-poster bed. This gown would probably remain her best for another couple of years, as it had a deep hem and she was not tall and not growing very fast. It was not much to her taste, but then, no one had asked her what she would have liked when she outgrew the last best gown to the point where not even adding a flounce at the hem or letting out seams would make it fit. The seamstress from the village had turned up, taken her measurements, appeared two weeks later with this, fitted it to her, then returned a day later with the finished garment, never to be seen again. Apparently the handiwork of the maids—and of herself!—was not deemed good enough for Sunday best now that she was old enough to put her hair up. That had rather hurt her feelings at the time, since her current everyday gowns, spencers, and pelisse had mostly been made by her own two hands, with assistance from the head housemaid, Mary Ann, with fitting. She was very proud of her sewing; not only had she cut and sewn the everyday gowns, she had added touches of embroidery and needle-lace to brighten them, and had knitted the spencers, her shawls, most of her stockings, and her knitted gloves too. She had even made slippers to match and the slippers that she was going to be wearing, cut from the scant leftovers of this new gown. Nanny might not have given her the kind of education a governess would have, but she had given Elena excellent tutelage in plain and fine sewing, and indeed needlework of all sorts.

Elena had been sewing since she was five, knitting and crocheting since she was six, doing lacework since she was eight, and even knew how to spin, though that was scarcely an accomplishment Father would have approved of. She’d teased Nanny into teaching her, though Nanny had been reluctant. “Not what your father would like,” she would tut whenever Elena brought out the drop spindle and flax. “That’s not the work of a lady.” But Elena liked it; it soothed her, and it suited her very well to have all the linen thread and lambswool yarn she cared to use without having to wait for someone to buy it and bring it from the village. The shepherd who tended the sheep that kept the manor lawn close-trimmed was happy to supply her with lambswool, and it was easy to get finished flax from his wife in return for butter from the dairy.

This gown was a very sober blue linen, with long, tight, buttoned sleeves, fitted very closely in the high bodice. It was unrelieved by any embroidery or touches of lace, and Nanny had not permitted her to make any additions of that sort. She decided today to make up for that lack with one of her lace kerchiefs tucked into the neckline as a fichu.

As for the rest of her outfit, since they were all supposed to be standing outside at the front door to greet Father and the new stepmother, and the wind had some bite to it today, she elected to wear lambswool stockings and a lambswool shift over her chemise and stays instead of the silk and cotton stockings and shift Nanny had put out. She reasoned no one would be able to see them anyway. And I don’t think Stepmother is going to demand that I pull up my skirt so she can inspect my underthings. She slipped her feet into the blue slippers she had made to match the gown, tying the ribbons around her ankles while she could still move freely because her gown was not yet laced up the back.

Nanny came bustling in, as usual without knocking, just in time to lace up her gown while she used the button hook to do up the buttons on her sleeves. If Nanny noticed the change in shifts, she didn’t say anything. But probably, given the obvious state of Nanny’s nerves, she wasn’t thinking about anything except hoping she wouldn’t be dismissed on the spot.

“Take your pelisse, it’s right cold out there,” Nanny said, turning her around and inspecting her. “Make sure you keep your gloves on. A lady isn’t without her gloves.” She went to the clothes-pegs on the wall where Elena’s bonnets were, selected the plain blue bonnet that matched the gown, and tied it over Elena’s hair. “Go down and wait in the front hall for your brothers.”

“Yes, Nanny,” she said obediently, pulled the pelisse over her gown, and slipped out the door before Nanny could tell her not to run. Then she ran, down the two flights of stairs to the first floor and to the front hall. Ben was already there, though none of the others were, sitting on the hallboy’s bench, hands clasped between his knees. He looked up as he heard Elena’s footsteps, and his blue eyes warmed as he smiled. He was, she judged, very handsome: chiseled features, thick blond hair, and bright blue eyes. But then, again, they were all judged to be handsome children, and as alike, as Nanny liked to say, as peas in a pod.

“Come sit with us,” he said, patting the bench beside him. “Beecham and Addams have had to enlist Arthur’s help in forcing the barbarians into their clothing. Your twin in particular is objecting to having a cravat tied properly under his chin.”

By “us,” of course, Ben meant himself and the little flock of fairies that had dispersed themselves all over the hall furniture, what little there was of it—the staircase, the hallboy’s bench, a landscape on the pale blue wall, a little ornamental table, and a chandelier. The fairies were mostly festooned on the chandelier and the wrought-iron handrails of the staircase.

The hall bench was not particularly comfortable—the hallboy, after all, was not supposed to get so comfortable there that he would fall into a doze—but it was better than standing on her feet. She sat down next to her brother, who made an abortive movement, as if to ruffle her hair as he was inclined to do, but he pulled back his hand. “You look very proper,” he said instead. “I am certain Father will approve.”

“I don’t look anything like Mama, you mean,” she replied shrewdly. “She never looked proper.”

“She did when there was a party, a ball, or a dinner, but otherwise . . . no, you are right, she never looked proper when she was being herself,” Ben agreed, with a wistful tone to his voice.

She sighed. “I miss her.”

Ben patted her hand. “I do too. But she is probably much happier now that she has gone home.” That was all that Father had said, when he returned after he had been summoned home when Mama had disappeared. “She’s gone home to her people.”

“I wish she had taken us with her.” That was something she could never have said to anyone except Ben, not even Gus. But Ben would understand. Ben always understood.

“Father would never have let her,” Ben reminded her. “We’re his property, not hers. Well, according to the law, she was his property as well, which is probably why she slipped out of the house while he was gone. He never would have let her go, you know.” He grimaced. “It would have been hard enough for her to get away; she’d never have been able to escape trailing a crowd of children, like a s—a hen trailing a flock of chicks.”

“I wonder how ever she escaped,” Elena said, voicing something that had occupied her thoughts many nights over the past eight years. “No one saw her go.”

Ben got an odd look on his face, as if he knew something. But what he said was what he always said. “She must have been writing to her people, and perhaps had help. She must have, really, she could have slipped out of the house and run down the drive to the road without anyone noticing she was gone, but she didn’t take any of the horses, and she couldn’t have gone any farther without flying.” He paused. “And of course, that’s absurd. She didn’t have wings like our fairies do.”

Elena sighed. “She must have been dreadfully unhappy, to leave us without saying goodbye.”

“She was.” Something about the way Ben said that made her look up at him, to see certainty on his face. Did Mama confide in him? She might have, though he wouldn’t have been all that old at the time. Nine—but then, Nanny called him an “old soul,” and certainly, except when they were playing games, he always seemed much older than his years. Arthur might be the better scholar, but not by much; Ben always seemed to understand how the world worked better than anyone, even Beecham.

“What do you think Stepmother is like?” she asked.

“Well, she has to be handsome. Father won’t settle for anything he can’t boast about.” There was a bitterness to his tone she understood completely. Father always had to have the best of anything, whether it be offspring or horses. Anything that wasn’t the best was gotten rid of, or at least put somewhere out of sight.

Maybe that’s why I’m put out of sight. I’m not the best because I’m not a boy.

“Will she be kind?” Elena asked, more out of forlorn hope than anything else.

“I wish I knew.” Ben sighed. “I don’t even know her given name. Beecham let me look at the letter Father sent him, and all it said was that he had married and he was bringing his new wife home today from Bath and that we were to be made ready to be presented and receive her.”

“That sounds cold,” Elena said, with a shiver.

“That sounds like Father.” Again, that bitter tone, but Elena could scarcely blame him. It did sound like Father. If they hadn’t had Mama and Nanny and Beecham—who were very kind, really, when all was said and done—none of them would have known what the word kindness meant.

Arthur came down at that moment, looking exactly like Ben except that his coat was gray to Ben’s blue, and he joined them on the bench without needing to be invited. “This is a dead bore,” he proclaimed, a little crossly. “I’d rather be doing Greek. And your twin, little sister, seems to have been possessed of the devil this morning. Beecham and I only just managed to wrestle him into his clothing, and he tore off his neckcloth three times before Beecham threatened him with being put into a gown like an infant if he didn’t behave. You’d think he wasn’t old enough to have been breeched!”

“I don’t think he likes the idea of someone replacing Mama,” Elena said cautiously. “I think . . . maybe . . . he kept hoping that as long as Father didn’t replace her, she might come back some day.”

Arthur made an abortive attempt to pat her head and turned it into a pat on her shoulder. Ben grimaced.

“Do you remember that wild starling that Arthur tried to tame?” Ben asked. “Mother was like that bird.”

She nodded. “It was never happy. It had grown up wild and free, and it could see the world outside the window and wanted to be free again.”

“That was why I let it go,” Arthur confirmed. “If I wasn’t going to university soon, I would try again with an orphan baby; they can be very happy pets if you raise them before they have feathers, and you can let them fly free because they’ll come back to you and wish to be with you. Father should have been contented to marry a—a tame lady. One that was raised to be tame. I don’t know where he found Mama, but perhaps he should have left her there.”

“Well, I suppose he finally found a tame lady he likes,” Ben replied. Then added, crossly, “I suppose the only reason he married anyone in the first place was so he could have more sons he could boast about.”

They exchanged a look she couldn’t read, but from the little she remembered of Mama, and all that she knew about Father, they were probably right.

“What I don’t understand,” Arthur continued, “Is how on earth Mama managed to escape without anyone seeing her or even knowing she’d escaped until long after she was gone.”

Ben got that opaque look again, the one she didn’t understand. “Well, she came from somewhere, obviously, so she must have had family. If I’d been her . . . I would have found a way to get messages to them, letting them know I was unhappy.”

Arthur nodded, knowingly. “The same as we manage to do, to get things with our pocket money Father wouldn’t approve of. Like using Soames.” Soames was the groom.

“Father dismissed her maid immediately, so it could have been her,” Ben pointed out. “Then, well, someone could have lurked in the village until she got word to them that Father was gone. Between breakfast and luncheon everyone is busy, and no one would notice if she took a walk down to the gate to meet someone. At least, that’s how I would have done it.”

Arthur shook his head. “I’d have made a muddle of it. Good thing she was as clever as you are.”

Just then Carl and David came clattering down the stair noisily in new shoes as well as new suits—also gray and blue. Economies, Elena supposed, since all of the boys were in sets of suits from the same blue and gray cloth, with one twin in blue and the other in gray so they could be told apart. “Beecham managed to get the heathen to stay in his neckcloth,” Carl announced self-importantly. “But he had to send Nanny for one of Elena’s old gowns as a threat before he’d behave.”

“I don’t blame him much,” Arthur said after a moment. “He’s been running free all summer in whatever he happened to throw on in the morning, and Beecham hasn’t done anything about it.”

“He’s never gotten on Father’s wrong side,” David pointed out, and shuddered. “There’s something to be said for Father not paying any attention to you.”

All the little fairies seemed to be listening to this conversation with great interest. Obviously they understood what was being said, but Elena had never heard any of them speak—at least, not to any of the siblings.

“I wonder if Mama could talk to the fairies, and they got word to her people that she was unhappy,” she said aloud. “That makes more sense than thinking she’d have trusted any of the servants with a letter. She could see them and talk to them, so it stands to reason that the people she came from could as well.”

Ben gave her a sideways look, but Arthur seized on this idea. “That makes perfect sense . . . and it explains how she’d be able to tell a rescuer exactly when to come, that they should stay out on the road, and how she knew when the rescuer was out there. You’re very clever, little sister!”

Elena blushed, but didn’t say anything, because just then Beecham and Nanny turned up with Emil, Felix, and Gustav in tow. Gustav was very red-faced and sulky, and Arthur reached out and cuffed his ear.

“Ow!” he shouted, startled. “What did you do that for?”

“Because you were about to say things you shouldn’t have,” Arthur said. “Now you listen to me, you little barbarian. Father is not going to be in a mood for any nonsense, especially not out of you. He’s about to show off his property and his children to his new wife. If one of those children makes a poor showing, it will embarrass him. If he’s embarrassed by you, believe me, you will be regretting every sour look and cross word for the rest of the winter. Do you want to spend the rest of the winter on bread and water and gruel?”

Gus looked startled—probably because he’d never gotten on Father’s wrong side before. “N-no,” he stammered.

“Then you had better be a paper saint from now on in his presence and in the presence of his new wife. In fact, you’d better be a paper saint for Beecham too.” Arthur crossed his arms over his chest and looked sternly at Gus, who paled and shrank into himself. “That’s better. And don’t be pranking about, either. Father will either order Beecham to birch you, or do it himself, and believe me, you don’t want Father to do it.”

“I d-don’t think I like having a new mama,” Gus stammered.

“Then you’d better keep that opinion to yourself, or birching will be the least of your worries.” Arthur frowned. “You’ve been very lucky that you’ve been in the nursery as long as you have, but it’s time to grow up.”

Gus looked to Beecham for confirmation; the tutor nodded. Instantly, he went from “miscreant monkey” to “very subdued and alarmed little boy.”

Nanny was in her best gown, of course. Beecham didn’t actually have any suit that was what Elena would have considered “best,” but his stockings were an immaculately white pair she had knitted for him, his coat and breeches had been brushed and cleaned, his shoes shined, and his fine muslin neckcloth—which she had also made for him for his birthday—was as white as his stockings. He was, at the best of times, a studious, pale, and anxious bespectacled young man, who looked every bit of what he was—the son of a respectable but penurious clergyman. Right now that anxiety was foremost on his face.

They all sat or stood in silence in the hall until Mrs. Farthingworth put in an appearance, resplendent in her very best black gown, with a snowy white fichu and apron, every graying hair in place and a little lace cap on top of her head. Her usually unreadable round face bore an expression of dignified stress. “Jackie has come up the drive to say that the carriage is in sight. Hobart is gathering the rest of the servants. Come along, do.”

They went out into the biting wind, and Elena was immediately glad of her woolen chemise and stockings, her pelisse, and the shawl she had brought on impulse. Mrs. Farthingworth arranged them on the right side of the portico, all in a row, with Arthur and Ben furthest from the door and Elena and Gus nearest. Then she placed Nanny behind Elena, and Beecham behind Arthur, and went to take her place at the head of the servants on the left side of the portico, next to Hobart, the butler. Just as Hobart got the last of the servants in their row, a carriage appeared at the end of the drive.

This was not the carriage that Elena had expected, their old, green carriage with the four bays and the crest that needed a slight touch-up on the door. This was a brand new—and, she supposed, much more fashionable—black carriage, with Father’s initials and his crest picked out in gold, pulled by six spanking matched grays. And there was a new coachman on the box, with a new groom beside him. Behind came the old coach, with all manner of boxes and cases tied on top, suggesting the passenger compartment was equally full. Why, Stepmother must have more gowns and things than me, Nanny, Mrs. Banning, and Mrs. Farthingworth put together! The old coachman, Grimes, a taciturn old whip of a man who didn’t say more than five words in a week, drove the old bays, alone. The coaches rolled to a stop in front of the door, wheels crunching in the driveway gravel. The handsome new groom, black of eye and hair, trim of figure, with a very neat leg, jumped down and placed a stool that matched the carriage beneath the new coach door, and Father emerged.

Father, brown haired, brown eyed, with a narrowish face, who looked nothing like his children, was wearing a blue suit she had never seen before, with clocked silk stockings, a cravat much too fine to be called a mere neckcloth, and an expression on his face that she did not recognize. He put up his hand, and a graceful hand in a white glove emerged from the depth of the carriage, followed by the most elegant woman Elena had ever seen in her entire life.

Her immaculately coiffed chestnut hair was as smooth and shining as a polished agate, beneath a highly fashionable bonnet with three ostrich feathers; her face had the delicacy of fine marble, and was as perfect as a statue’s. She was very tall, very voluptuous, and wore the most beautiful gown Elena had ever seen, all blue brocade and gold lace. Matching shoes with red heels just showed beneath her hem as she stepped down onto the stool. Over the gown she wore a cloak of black fur as shining as her own hair.

Elena immediately felt as unfinished and clumsy as a baby goat.

A smartly dressed lady’s maid exited right behind her, although, of course, no one offered her a hand down. Mrs. Farthingworth isn’t going to like her, Elena thought, with one look at her narrow, too-clever face. She looks like a very knowing cat. Her hair was pale rather than blond, and her green gown was as good as or better than Elena’s.

Father led his wife up to the family and servants assembled in the portico. All the servants bowed and curtsied without being prompted by Hobart. Father did not introduce them. Instead he turned to the siblings.

“These are my children: Arthur, Benjamin, Carl, David, Emil, Felix, Gustav, and Elena. Children, this is your new mother. You will honor and obey her.”

As her cool blue eyes passed over them, Elena dropped into a curtsy a hair before Nanny did, and all the boys bowed, with Beecham bowing lower than any of them.

“I am sure that they shall,” she murmured, and cast a sideways glance at Father.

And that was when Elena could put a name to the expression on Father’s face.

Besotted. She’d seen that expression on Beecham’s face, when he caught a glimpse of a certain very pretty village girl that he fancied in church, and again on the face of Harris, one of the footmen, on the rare occasion he was able to catch sight of the prettiest of the dairymaids. It was not an expression she had ever expected to see on Father’s face.

He certainly had never looked at Mama that way.

“It’s perishing cold, my love,” Father murmured. “Let’s get you out of this bitter wind.”

She offered him a hint of a smile, and her hand, and they swept grandly into the front hall. Hobart followed closely behind, followed by Mrs. Farthingworth and then the children. Nanny and Beecham trailed behind, with the servants crowding after.

“Hobart, how are the arrangements for tomorrow’s dinner party?” Elena heard Father ask the butler as she and Gus cleared the door.

“Satisfactory, sir,” Hobart responded immediately. “Only Lady Ashling declined, begging her health.”

“Lady Ashling always begs her health; I was expecting that,” Father said shortly. “Good.”

“Shall I show her ladyship to her rooms, sir?” Mrs. Farthingworth said diffidently.

“Yes, do,” Father said, although the look he gave his new wife suggested he could scarcely bear to be parted from her. “Hobart, bring my steward to my office. I shall need to make some arrangements with him.”

“And will the children be dining with you, sir?” the housekeeper asked.

Only then did Father look back over his shoulder, where they all stood huddled together in the hall, as the servants parted and moved around them. Stepmother’s maid pushed through them to get to her mistress’s side. Father’s eyes finally focused on children. Then he glanced at his wife.

There was the faintest of frowns on her face, a fleeting expression Elena wouldn’t have caught if she hadn’t been watching her new stepmother so intently.

“I think not,” he said. “We’re tired from the journey. I’m not in the mood for gabble.”

We never gabble! Elena thought indignantly. On the contrary, dinners with Father were subdued and almost silent, with not even Gus saying anything except to accept or decline a dish. The only time anyone spoke was if they were spoken to by Father, and then with only the briefest of replies.

But it seemed as if Father had an altogether different impression of those occasions.

And with that, he headed deeper into the house, leaving Mrs. Farthingworth at the new stepmother’s side. “If my lady will follow me?” the housekeeper said, diffidently.

Stepmother nodded brusquely, and Mrs. Farthingworth led the way up the stairs, with Stepmother and her maid following wordlessly behind.

At just that moment, the children were shunted aside by the arrival of what seemed like every male servant in the household, heading for the servants’ stair laden with boxes, bundles, chests, and bandboxes. Beecham and Nanny dealt with the ensuing chaos by sorting the children out from the servants and sending them up the stairs to the schoolroom once Stepmother was out of sight.

“I want you all out of your best clothing,” Nanny ordered them. “You may put on what you wore this morning. Leave your clothing laid out neatly on your bed for the maid to put away, Gustav!” she added, as Gus pulled at his neckcloth.

Elena waited for the boys to start up the stairs, because there was something . . . something not quite right that she couldn’t put her finger on. Now that no one was looking at her, she raised her eyes, pushed back the brim of her bonnet, and took a look around.

And that was when it struck her.

The fairies were gone.

*   *   *

She was grateful to get out of her best gown and into something much more comfortable: her everyday winter woolen gown with generous sleeves ending in narrow cuffs that had been cut loosely with plenty of extra in the seams so it could be let out several times. Like most of her everyday gowns, it had been cut down from one of Mama’s old gowns that were in a chest in the attic. This one was brown superfine, a fabric usually used for men’s coats, but Mama hadn’t cared about that, and neither did Elena. Merino wasn’t as soft as lambswool, but it was soft enough, and delightfully warm. She put the linen gown back in the wardrobe with no regrets, but left on the lambswool chemise and new stockings. The next thing she did was to take her hair down, and put it back up again in a loose coil at the back of her neck.

The fairies still had not appeared when she had finished changing; she took a moment to peer out the window into the cold and overcast day to see if there were any outside, in the leafless trees or playing in the dormant garden.

There weren’t. And that made her very uneasy.

Weather didn’t seem to bother the fairies at all, despite the fact that all they ever wore—when they wore anything at all—were bits of ribbon and gauze. She’d seen them playing in the snow countless times, naked as Adam and Eve, so the weather had nothing to do with why they had disappeared.

They do go into hiding for a bit when Father has dinner parties. But they always come back out once their curiosity getsthe better of them. But perhaps Stepmother’s mere demeanor, so cold, had put them off. Or perhaps it was her maid.

We should all talk about it once the servants bring us supper and we’re alone, she decided. But in the meantime, she would finish another lace-trimmed handkerchief, the one she had started when Father had sent back word he was remarrying and would be bringing Stepmother home. She had intended it for a welcome gift, but in the face of that exquisite gown, it seemed inadequate.

I’ll finish this, then think of something more.

She sat on a cushion next to the fire, propped a book up on another, and glanced from one to the other as she worked. Ben had given her an English translation of The Odyssey to read, one that he and Arthur had used to help them with their Greek. It had come out of Father’s library, but Father rarely went in the room, and she doubted he would notice it had been removed. The story was strange and violent, but she found herself drawn to it. It was not an easy read, however, full of words she had never seen before, that she often had to puzzle out from context.

She had finished the handkerchief and had lit a candle to continue reading the book when Nanny came into her room. Again, without knocking.

“Beecham and I are going down to supper. Your new mama has said you all are to take your meals in the schoolroom from now on, unless otherwise ordered,” Nanny said, and frowned to see the unmistakable library binding on what was clearly not a storybook. “You should not be reading such stuff. It’s not suitable for girls.”

“Ben says it is,” she replied, without disclosing what it was.

“Oh, well, then. It must be something improving. A book of sermons?” Nanny didn’t wait for an answer. “Don’t sit reading by candlelight for too long, it will give you a headache.”

And with that useless admonition, Nanny left. Elena went back to the book, although she was not sure she was going to like what was coming next. She had the feeling that things were not going to go well for Odysseus.

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