Tatiana smiled. “I want you to bring the boy, James, under your spell.”

That was even more puzzling. “What do you want me to ask of him?” What could her mother possibly want with James Herondale?

“Nothing,” said Tatiana, looking shrewd. “Nothing yet. Simply make him love you. It will amuse me.”

After all her mother’s curses and fussing over the family, Grace half expected something monstrous to come loping over the horizon with the name Herondale. James turned out to be an entirely normal boy, however, much more friendly and easy than the boors she’d met in Paris, and not too bad to look at either. And though she knew it was only in service of her mother’s orders, she was starved for company, and James seemed to welcome hers. It was nice to have someone to talk to who was not a ghost. Soon they were chatting every evening, and she could tell that James was shirking on his briar-cutting duties in order to extend the number of days he would be needed at Blackthorn Manor.

Was it her power? She wasn’t exactly sure. She had asked nothing more of James than that he visit her, and he was willing, but she thought he might have done so without any ensorcelling at all. He must also be lonely, with no friends nearby, and he had a kind soul.

At one point she said, casually, “Will I see you here tomorrow night?” It was the sort of question she’d asked a dozen times before.

James frowned. “No,” he said. “I am summoned to a reading tomorrow night, of the latest installment of my sister’s ongoing masterpiece about Cruel Prince James.”

“Oh?” said Grace, not entirely sure what this meant.

“Evidently,” James said, his mouth quirking on one side, “in this chapter the Cruel Prince James tries to keep the Princess Lucie from her true love, the Duke Arnoldo, but he falls into a pig bog. Riveting stuff.”

Grace pouted—an expression she hadn’t used with James before, but she had much practice from her time in Paris. “But I’d so like to see you,” she said in sorrowful tones. She leaned toward him. “Come see me tomorrow night anyway. Tell your family my mother has threatened you, and you have to work or risk her wrath.”

James laughed. “Tempting as that may be—I’m so sorry, Grace, but I really must be there, or Lucie will fashion me into a large hat. I’ll see you the day after next, I promise.”