Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 128061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
She stood frozen with what she knew were hugely rounded eyes.
The mural that had just changed to the stick figures from earlier holding magnifying glasses now changed to one of the stick figures cowering low with ghosts flying all around them.
Sebastian laughed, of all things! It was clear this house delighted him, weirdo that he was.
“The house is playing with you,” he said as she unstuck herself from the floor and reached the door first. She turned the handle, but the wood stuck fast.
“Oh my God, we’re trapped.” She yanked on the door, then beat on it with her fists. “We’re trapped! Help! Jessie, can you hear me? Help!”
“Nessa, seriously, what…” Still laughing, Sebastian gently pushed her out of the way and turned the handle himself. The door opened smoothly. “The house isn’t a microphone. Jessie can’t hear you.” He passed into the hall. “Which way, Ivy House?”
The door to the opposite sitting room, which probably had some formal name she didn’t know, swung open. Sebastian calmly went that way.
“This house definitely needs an update,” she said, noting the three paintings that were moving and then crinkling her nose at the stale air and gaudy furniture. “Can you imagine how absolutely amazing it would be if it was updated? Like…the bones of the place are amazing. And I see what Austin was talking about in terms of the woodwork. Except for those stupid pictures, it’s all pretty awesome.”
“It just needs a refresh,” Sebastian said, peering in the drawers of an old-fashioned desk in the corner. It looked like one that a character in a Jane Austen novel would sit at to write a letter. “Check this out, Nessa.”
One drawer held yellowed paper with rough edges. Another held quills and dried-up bottles of ink. Still another held antique fountain pens with old ink staining the velvet-lined drawer.
“Nessa!” Sebastian flared his hands, half knocking her out of the way, as he bent over the next drawer. “Oh my God, Nessa. Oh my God. Is this… Look at this!”
“Well get”—she shoved him over—“out of the way and I will. Oh!”
A pocket watch sat on the velvet drawer lining with its chain askew. The gold top plate was shaped like a flower, the twelve petals spaced evenly, the style based on the clock inside, no doubt. It was decorated with embedded pearls and dulled sapphires, and the space between the petals was colored red to show off the pearls and gems.
“I don’t dare touch it,” Nessa said, moving a little to make more room for Sebastian. “It’s obviously antique.”
“Yeah, we should use gloves,” he said in a hush. “That design…is ringing a bell. I can’t…put my finger on it.”
“Historical?”
“I bet you anything it is. I’m guessing whoever owned it was royalty, or as good as.” He blew out a breath, straightening up. “And it’s just been thrown into a drawer in a writing desk and forgotten about for…who knows how long.”
He went through the other drawers, but nothing else held a candle to the pocket watch discovery. Then again, they were watch people. All mages were. It was like when women used fans to communicate. Subtle hints or bold statements could be made with the choice of a watch. It was a hidden language—subtle enough, sometimes, to require a cipher.
“Jessie should be a pocket watch person,” Nessa said, writing down a wiggling end table and then the shaking lamp on top, not knowing which Ivy House was actually trying to identify.
“An antique pocket watch person,” Sebastian said, nodding. “She should have special clasps on her dresses—”
“No! Pockets sewn into every dress so that she might properly carry her antique, notable, hard-to-acquire pocket watch.”
“Yes! But only to formal events and functions. During casual times, she should have simple yet exquisite collector’s editions from all the top watchmakers. Excellently crafted, one of kind, simply done.”
“Perfect.”
They walked into the next room, still in a watch daze.
“I wish we didn’t have so much to do right now,” Sebastian said, “because I would love to start working on her watch collection. Imagine the mages’ faces! They’ll know she’s making a statement, but they’ll wonder if there is a cipher because they won’t understand the language.”
“Oh my God, so perfect. And she’ll play clueless to a T—”
“Because she will be clueless…”
“—and they’ll think there is a secret club that they haven’t been invited to but are suddenly desperate to join.”
Sebastian laughed and clapped.
All the lights went out, creating a murky pall in the large room with its heavy drapes only slightly cracked. The house felt like it had stilled, somehow. Like it was waiting for them.
“We should get back to it,” Sebastian muttered, looking around. “Sorry, Ivy House. We get carried away.”
“Spoilsport,” Nessa muttered to the house.
“The last heir was a couple of hundred years ago,” Sebastian said as he began looking in end table drawers in the next room. “During that time, the house had caretakers but no actual heirs. Which is why it hasn’t gotten updates in so long. Now I guess Austin’s grandmama will be heading up the redesign project, huh?”