"Elsie, stop moping around and come peel these carrots!"

Elsie grimaced. She should have known better than to look unoccupied in her mother's general area while there was dinner to be prepared. At least the carrots would give her something to occupy her hands.

She dragged herself into the kitchen and took up the vegetable knife. Her mother was tending to the chicken, while her oldest brother Mark was efficiently chopping lettuce. No sign of the younger boys, and her father wouldn't be caught dead in a kitchen. She peeled the carrots slowly, mechanically; she'd always been a little scared of the sharpness of the knives, ever since Adam had nearly sliced his fingers off five years ago.

Stars, she hated this. It was so dreadfully ordinary. She'd spent months learning magic in the company of nobility and extraordinary talents and people who would someday change the world. And now here she was in the same old kitchen in her same old home preparing the same old meals.

It was like the stars decided to slap her in the face with a large dose of reality. Go back where you belong, stop pretending you're anything special. It was ugly, the resentment she'd developed for her own home and family for things that weren't even their fault, and she hated herself for it sometimes.

The dinner with Mildred was supposed to have been her escape, her reminder that this wasn't the total of who she was. Except she'd been struck by another vision right before, which had made her late and shaken her focus, and then what they'd talked about…

Could Tallulah really have been mistaken about that library door being locked? Normally Elsie would trust Tallulah's judgement above her own, but she had been in the midst of a Malaina episode at the time, and that did change things. And the things she'd said about Edward… they were hard to argue with.

Stars, she needed to talk to Tallulah. Tallulah would understand. She was a better friend than Mildred had ever been. And she'd have answers and explanations that would make this complicated mess make sense again.

She set the last carrot down on the table and gathered the skin she'd removed into a neat pile. "May I go?" Not that it would make much of a difference. She'd only been sitting moodily on a chair trying to think of some way to entertain herself. Would it be better to offer to keep helping?

Her mother sighed, and was about to answer when there was a short sharp knock at the door. "Anyone expecting a visitor?"

"No."

"Not as far as I know."

"Probably just someone selling things, then. Go tell them to go away, Elsie, if you're looking for something to do."

Elsie went. She didn't want to; it felt like everyone else in the family was better at telling people to go away than she was. But it was better that than argue with her mother. They all knew that was a bad idea.

The man she opened the door to didn't look like he was selling anything, though. He was non-descript: average height and build, short dark hair, a smart but faded suit. Elsie felt like she'd seen him somewhere before, but she couldn't quite place him.

"I'm looking for Elsie Morris," he said. The accent did it; she remembered him, in the way one remembered that they'd just stepped off the edge of a cliff and were now tumbling to their death. The steps of the Abbey the day she'd visited it with Tallulah. The man who'd been watching the protest.

Lord Blackthorn. Stars. What did he want with her? Did he know what she was? What was he going to do?

"I – you've found her. It's me. Nice to meet you." She cringed at the sound of her voice. What was she thinking? A thousand horror stories, some her brothers used to tell her, about people who disappeared because this man willed it.

His lips quirked in amusement. "Likewise. Is there a private room in which we could talk?"

The kitchen was occupied, the dining room was in the centre of the house and regularly passed through… "There's the parlour? But I'd need to ask my mother for the key." The room hadn't been used in months; it was for entertaining visitors, but the only one they got who wouldn't just talk wherever was convenient was the priest.

It was that or her bedroom, though. And asking for the key was at least a pretext to tell someone that he was here, so that if she disappeared it wouldn't be entirely without trace.

If he realised that, he made no comment on it. "Well, then I suggest you do that."

She nodded and scampered away, back to the relative safety of the kitchen, realising too late that he'd decided to follow her. Her mother looked up as she hurried into the kitchen. "Who was – oh! Can I help you, sir?"

"I wanted a word with Elsie," Lord Blackthorn said lightly. "She said you have the key to the parlour?"

"I – yes, but – " She reached for the ring of keys she kept around her neck. "I don't mean to be rude, of course, but who are you?"

"My son is one of Elsie's classmates."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Elsie silently prayed that her mother would put the pieces together, remember that there was a Blackthorn in her class and realise who she was speaking to. There was no sign on her face of the horror that would accompany that, though, as she twisted the keyring until she extracted the long thin parlour key.

"And you're okay with this, are you, Elsie?"

"I – " What was she supposed to say? She wasn't, of course, but saying that might put her mother in danger. Stars, her entire family might be in danger just because he was here. "Yes. Yes, it's fine." She took the key from her mother and set off for the parlour. Stars. She couldn't think of a way out. No point in running, because she had nowhere to run to that wasn't here.

Her hands were shaking almost too much to unlock the parlour door, especially since she didn't have the knack for it. Lord Blackthorn made no remark on how long it was taking her, but she could almost feel his impatience.

The door finally sprang open. The parlour seemed smaller and dustier than Elsie remembered, and almost sad. Rooms were meant to be used, not to sit unopened gathering cobwebs. She stepped inside, trying to suppress her growing sense of dread and panic.

What good was it being an oracle if she couldn't even see what was going to happen to her now?

Lord Blackthorn followed her inside and shut the door behind her with a click that sounded far louder than it was. Then he pulled a stick of chalk from somewhere within his robes and sent it tracing a thick line around the edge of the parlour with a flick of his wrist.

Ward-work. So no-one could enter this room or hear what was said within. So no-one could hear her scream.

There were half a dozen chairs scattered around the room. Elsie picked the nearest to the door and began brushing off the dust so it was in a fit state to be sat on.

"You recently had dinner with Mildred Cavendish, I believe."

Elsie wasn't sure whether it was a question, but she felt as if she should answer. "Yes."

"Would you consider her a friend?"

That question was definitely a trap. If she answered yes then she was marking herself as friends with someone he considered an enemy, but if it was no then why had she gone to the dinner? Not to mention that she didn't even know the truthful answer. "It's… complicated?" She felt herself cringing.

"Elaborate."

"I – we were friends, until everything that happened last term. But – after what she did to Tallulah – it's hard to see someone the same way. And then it ended up with us not being in the same classes, so… we drifted apart. The dinner was her way of trying to mend that."

"And are you inclined towards this mending?"

"I don't know. No. I don't think it would be that easy anyway. I don't know if I could be friends with her and Tallulah at once, and if I had to choose it would be Tallulah."

Lord Blackthorn studied her curiously. "Did you discuss last term's events with Mildred?"

"Yes."

"And what was her opinion of them?"

Elsie recounted the story Mildred had told her. Or most of it, anyway; she remembered too late what its ending was and why telling it to the man himself wasn't a good idea. You didn't call Lord Blackthorn a monster to his face if you had a functional sense of self-preservation. She ended up awkwardly rewording the last few lines into something less likely to offend.

For some reason he seemed amused by the story; was he smiling? Stars. Or maybe that was just the look he got when he made up his mind what to do with the person he was talking to.

"Tallulah told you that Cavendish tried to blackmail me, did she?"

Oh. Tallulah had told Elsie that. In confidence. She was probably expected to keep the Blackthorn secrets she'd acquired closely guarded, and here Elsie was casually letting Lord Blackthorn know that Tallulah had told at least one other person. "I – " Maybe Tallulah would have been able to find the magic words here, but Elsie couldn't. It was a wonder she wasn't too afraid to speak.

"I'll take that as a yes. Did Cavendish ask you for anything?"

And the questions kept coming until she felt like there couldn't possibly be anything left of the dinner that she hadn't told him. She had to tread cautiously around what Mildred had said about Edward, and Lord Blackthorn's eyes narrowed whenever that topic came up, but beyond that he showed no emotional reaction to her words.

Was this all he wanted from her? Just to interrogate her about Mildred?

"There is another thing I thought I would mention," he said, "while I'm here. 'As for what we were worried about, it hasn't happened at all so far. I've been back less than a day so I can't be certain of anything, but I almost feel as if it's gone away altogether. I wish it would, even though I know it doesn't work like that.' Do you recognise those words?"

Elsie did. It felt as if they turned her to ice. She'd written them to Tallulah. About her visions. And now – oh, stars, no – and she couldn't play it off as something unimportant, she'd already given it away with her reaction –

What was she going to do? "I – how did you find them?"

"I monitor the correspondence of significant individuals. Tell me what they referred to."

"I can't," said Elsie, trying to keep her voice steady.

"Why not?"

"I – I just can't."

"Whatever you say won't leave this room unless it is absolutely necessary."

And there was the problem. If he found out she was an oracle… he would want to use her, no doubt about that. And then she'd be just another cog in the Blackthorn machine. No freedom, no choice in how she used her gifts, forced to drain herself in pursuit of his endless ambition. She would rather die.

So she couldn't tell him.

"I didn't find it more significant than a passing curiosity, at first," he said, watching her closely. "But when I asked Tallulah about it… she was determined that I would not find it out. And I credit her with enough intelligence to not hide things from me without a very good reason. She's a good friend to you, then, to guard your secrets so closely."

There was a reason he was telling her this. A script he was following, only Elsie didn't know enough to know its ending.

"I wonder," Lord Blackthorn said slowly, "whether she would go to war with me for your sake."

Elsie blinked. Tallulah was a good friend, yes. But something like that? Knowing what Lord Blackthorn did to his enemies, and how little she really had to fight with? She didn't know.

And then she realised. Tallulah doing that meant Lord Blackthorn doing something to Elsie that would make it necessary. Making her disappear, or – or worse. Stars.

"Of course," he went on in a less intense tone, "that question becomes academic if you tell me this secret of yours here and now."

I'm an oracle. No. She couldn't. Not while there was the slightest chance of keeping the secret and keeping her life.

Lord Blackthorn let the silence linger for a few moments, and then reached into his robes. Elsie flinched, but he merely removed what appeared to be a coin.

It wasn't quite one, though: while it was the same size and shape, and made of what seemed to be real silver, instead of the King's head it bore the silhouette of a bird that had to be a raven. He held it out to her in his open palm. "Take this," he said, "in case you change your mind. If you show it to any of my people, they will make sure I speak to you as soon as I can."

Elsie hesitated for a long moment, and then reached out and took the coin.

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