Matthew and Cordelia exchanged a look. “That’s the one,” said Matthew, fixing the barmaid with his most angelic look. “Any help you could give us in finding it?”

“It’s just down the road a bit. You can see it for miles on the hillside, and folk come from all around every year to help scour the horse—keeping the chalk white, like. There’s a path up the hill leads to the chalk trenches. People climb it every so often, and they leave offerings, too—flowers and candles. It’s a witchy kind of place.”

Matthew’s eyes were sparkling as the barmaid left them alone to dig into their lunch. “You think the barrow’s there?”

“There, or near there.” Cordelia was beginning to feel real excitement. It had been a desperate gesture, coming out here in hopes of finding out what was wrong with Cortana. A method of seizing her fate with her own hands, even if it meant finding out something she did not want to know. “Perhaps it was once known that Wayland the Smith had a forge there, and the white horse was created as a sort of—”

“Shop sign?” said Matthew, grinning. “Get your enchanted swords here?”

“As a way to let people know it was a powerful, protected place. Though,” she added, “bet you a shilling there’s a stall selling hot cider once we get there.”

Matthew laughed. They hurried to finish their food and pay the bill before departing. They left the barmaid gazing longingly at Matthew and got back in the car. Cordelia crawled under a multitude of blankets as the car started up with a roar and they trundled out onto the road.

“Grace.” James blocked the door with his body. “You shouldn’t be here.”

She looked up at him, her small face shaded by her hat, her expression invisible. “But I need to speak to you,” she said. “It’s important.”

He curled his hand around the doorframe. The pressure was there in the back of his brain, the whisper that said, Let her in. Let her in. You want to see her. You need to see her. “Grace—”

She was past him somehow, and inside the house. Thank the Angel that Risa had gone to the Carstairs’ house to help Sona. James slammed the door shut—no point making a scene the whole of Curzon Street could see—and turned to see Grace already halfway down the hall.

Shah mat, he thought, and hurried after her. She always managed to get past him somehow. His emotional walls. The actual walls of his house, apparently. He could hear her skirts swishing down the corridor; he caught up with her as she was about to turn into the study.

“Not in here,” he said. Somehow this room was his and Cordelia’s place. It was bad enough having Grace in his home the day after Elias’s death. There had to be limits. “The drawing room.”