Maid of Wonder (27 page)

He leans back at length. “Be safe, Sophia,” he says, his worry for me returning as it ever does. “Do not attempt to enter the spectral plane without a maid to stir you to wakefulness on this side, to pull you back if the struggle grows too difficult.” His expression grows wintry. “In truth, were you to stray into my domain, I would be loath to let you go.”

“I'll be safe,” I promise, though safety to Marcus and safety to me are perhaps two very different things. I cannot promise that I will remain on this side of the veil. There is too much that I must seek out, too much that I would know. For my Queen, for my country—and now for myself and Marcus.

And I will show them all,
I think, the phrase no longer a battle cry but a simple promise. I smile again at him. “You will look for me, though? Should Dee send you to the spectral plane?”

“Every moment I am among the angels, I will search for you,” he promises. “Until the day we meet again on this side of the veil.”

We ride sedately back to the London Road, and Marcus takes his leave. It will be only a few weeks before I see him again, I am certain. The Queen is making noises to leave before the snow falls, the promise of Christmas banquets and revels quite enchanting her imagination.

But I will not remain idle in these weeks we have left at Windsor Castle. The Queen has already made sure of that. I am to begin studying all the books of the arcane arts that she has amassed within the royal library, so that I may be prepared for anything she asks of me, in this world or any other.

I will not fail her.

But I will not fail myself, either. Or Marcus. Or Arc.

With an affectionate farewell to Ladysweet at the King's Gate, I leave my borrowed horse with Seton, then make my way back through the Lower Ward, pausing a moment to glance around as I reach the wooded glen beside the Round Tower. It takes only a moment for me to slip among the trees, their shadows cool and welcoming.

Tilting my head, I close my eyes, then step into the angelic realm. As usual, I search for the obsidian bench, but of course it has vanished, and so I must have a care. Without Marcus or one of the maids to guide me out, I cannot stay here long. But neither can I stay away.

I do not know where Arc has fled, across the spectral plane, nor when I will hear his roughened voice again, or sense his words inside my mind. I do not know when I'll catch another glimpse of his tortured eyes, or have the chance to gaze anew into the shadows of his cowl, warmed by its sparking fire. Or even if I'll ever again feel his lightest touch against my cheek, the brush of his fingers across my lips.

But I must try to find him.

My dark angel has some desperate link to Marcus that goes beyond what I can understand. If I am to share a future with Marcus, then it is my duty to find the truth that the dark angel has begun revealing to me. There is something on this spectral plane that ties them together, something I must know if I am ever to share a life with Marcus, to explore both this world and the next together, seeing all there is to see. It was a gift, that brief glimpse of Marcus's face, and I know that gift has opened up the greatest adventure of my life. An adventure to last as long as there are angels in the heavens and stars up in the sky.

An adventure that begins for me now.

And so I peer into the shadows, murmuring a single word into the drift of specters approaching me. My voice is soft, but it carries just the same, piercing through the angelic realm with its quiet urgency.

For love also starts as a whisper.

© ELIZABETH BEMIS-HITTINGER, BEMIS PROMOTIONS

Also by

Jennifer McGowan

Maid of Secrets

Maid of Deception

A Thief Before Christmas

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people,

or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2015 by Jennifer Stark

Jacket photograph copyright © 2015 by Michael Frost

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The text for this book is set in ArrusBT Std.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McGowan, Jennifer.

Maid of wonder / Jennifer McGowan. — First edition.

pages cm. — (Maids of Honor)

Summary: In 1559 England, Sophia Dee, a member of the Maids of Honor, Queen Elizabeth I's secret all-female guard, is pitted against some of Europe's most celebrated mystics, including Nostradamus, in a race to uncover the answer to a deadly prophecy.

ISBN 978-1-4814-1826-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4814-1828-7 (eBook)

[1. Courts and courtiers—Fiction. 2. Spies—Fiction. 3. Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 1533–1603—Fiction. 4. Sex role—Fiction. 5. Psychic ability—Fiction. 6. Prophecies—Fiction. 7. Great Britain—History—Elizabeth, 1558–1603—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.M4784867Mb 2015

[Fic]—dc23

2014046127