Read Chapter 26: Threads of Time

The archive room at Scotland Yard smelled of dust and old paper, a scent Amara had come to associate with dead ends. But this was not a dead end. This was something else entirely.

She spread the documents across the steel table—birth certificates, marriage licenses, death records—and traced the lines with her finger. The family tree she had requested from the General Register Office had arrived that morning, and it had taken her three hours to realize what she was looking at.

Every few generations, a Cole had married someone with a surname that appeared in the occult files Julian kept locked in his flat. The Ashworths. The Kavanaghs. The Merricks. Names that showed up in witch trial records, in grimoire indexes, in the provenance documents of cursed objects.

Her great-great-grandmother had been a Blackwood.

Amara sat back in the chair, her heart doing something uncomfortable in her chest. The Blackwoods were one of the oldest magical families in London. She knew that because she had read about them in the file she had requested on the Aethelgard Collective. They were listed as founding members.

She pulled the file toward her, flipping through the pages until she found the relevant entry. *Blackwood, Cordelia. Matriarch of the Blackwood line. Known practitioner of blood magic. Disappeared from records circa 1887.*

Cordelia Blackwood had given birth to a daughter named Margaret in 1865. Margaret's father was listed as unknown.

Margaret Cole had married a man named Thomas Cole in 1889. Thomas was a constable.

Amara's finger traced the line down. Margaret and Thomas had a son, Edward. Edward had a daughter, Dorothy. Dorothy was Amara's grandmother. The woman whose face Esme had worn like a mask.

She flipped back through the birth records. Dorothy Cole, née Whitmore, had married a man named Arthur Cole in 1962. That made no sense—Cole was the surname on both sides. She checked the marriage certificate more carefully.

Arthur Cole. Dorothy Whitmore. When Dorothy married Arthur, she became Dorothy Cole.

Amara's mother had kept her maiden name. Whitmore.

But that meant—she pulled the records closer, her breath catching—her grandmother had been a Whitmore before she married. And Whitmore was another name on the occult list.

She grabbed the death records. Edward Cole had died in 1958, leaving his daughter Dorothy an orphan at nineteen. Dorothy had married Arthur Whitmore—no, she had married Arthur Cole, but Arthur was a Whitmore by blood. They were cousins.

Amara stared at the paper until the letters blurred.

Her family had been intermarrying with magical families for generations. Every name was a thread. Every thread led back to the same root.

She pulled out her phone and texted Julian: *Bring the grimoire. The one with the red binding.*

Five minutes later, she heard his footsteps in the corridor. He entered carrying a leather-bound book that looked older than the building they stood in, and set it on the table without a word.

"You found something," he said. It wasn't a question.

"Look at this." She shoved the family tree toward him. "My family has been marrying into magical bloodlines for two hundred years. Not accidentally—deliberately. Every generation, a Cole or a Whitmore married someone with power."

Julian's eyes moved across the page. She watched his expression shift, the careful neutrality cracking just slightly around the edges.

"Your grandmother," he said slowly. "Dorothy. She was a medium."

"I never knew that." Amara felt the words come out sharper than she intended. "I never knew any of this. My mother never mentioned magic. She never mentioned any of it."

"Perhaps she didn't know." Julian set the family tree down. "Or perhaps she was protecting you, the same way you were protecting Danny when you kept him from me."

The parallel landed somewhere uncomfortable in her chest. "This isn't about my mother. This is about what Esme said—that the curse was tied to my bloodline. That I was a pawn."

"She was lying." Julian said it too quickly.

"Was she?" Amara met his eyes. "You said the curse was partly your choice. You chose it. But you also said it was tied to the seal, to London, to me. You're telling me that's coincidence?"

Julian was silent.

"That's what I thought." Amara turned back to the table, pulling open the red grimoire. "This is a Blackwood grimoire. I found it in storage—it was logged in the Covent Garden case file, seized from a warlock's den in the 1970s. I thought it was just evidence. But it's my family's."

Julian stepped closer, looking over her shoulder as she turned the pages. The text was written in a cramped, looping hand, the ink faded to brown but still legible.

"It's a record of rituals," she said. "Mostly protective magic, some divination. But there's something at the back—a section that looks like it was added later."

She found it. A page that had been folded carefully, the edges softened with age. When she opened it, the writing was different—bolder, harsher. A different hand.

*For the nullification of the Witch's Stolen Age,* *When one who wears another's face doth draw breath from borrowed years,* *The blood of those who bound her shall unbind her claim,* *Speak the words at solstice midnight, where the world's knowledge sleeps,* *And the wronged shall find their rest.*

Amara read it twice. Then a third time.

"She created Esme," she said slowly. "The original spell. This is the counter-ritual, written by whoever first bound her—or tried to."

Julian took the grimoire from her, reading the passage himself. His jaw tightened.

"The blood of those who bound her," he repeated. "Your blood."

"Mine. And yours, if what Esme said is true. If the curse is tied to my family, then I'm part of the binding. Maybe the key to unbinding it."

"It says nullify the witch's power. It doesn't say free the evil." Julian looked up. "You think this can work."

"I think it's the only option that doesn't end with you breaking your binding or me letting Esme use us for her ritual." Amara took the grimoire back, folding the page carefully to mark it. "There's just one problem."

"The location." Julian's voice was flat.

"The British Museum." Amara frowned at the grimoire. "At solstice midnight. That's in three days."

"Three days from now is the new moon."

Amara followed the thread instantly. "That's what Esme wants. She thinks we'll be waiting for the new moon, planning our attack. She'll be expecting us to come to her."

"And instead, we'll be at the museum."

"If we can figure out what the ritual requires, and if we can get into the museum after hours." Amara tapped the page. "This says 'where the world's knowledge sleeps.' That could mean a lot of places. But the British Museum has one of the largest collections of occult artifacts in Europe. It makes sense."

Julian ran a hand through his hair. "The museum has a private collection. Curated by the Office. I've never accessed it—my clearance doesn't extend that far."

"Mine either." Amara pulled up her phone, scrolling through the channels she had cultivated over the years. "But there are other ways in."

She stopped at a document she had never paid attention to before. A list of staff at the British Museum. One name in particular caught her eye.

"There's an archivist named Elias Thornhill who's been there for decades. He might know something about the occult wing."

"Thornhill." Julian's brow furrowed. "That name sounds familiar."

"It should." Amara pulled up another document, one from the Aethelgard Collective files. "Thornhill is a founding member of the Aethelgard Collective. He's the one who might have been leaking information about us."

Julian went very still. "You think this is a trap."

"I think he's the only one who can get us into that museum." Amara closed her phone. "And I think if the Collective is hunting us, they're also hunting Esme. Maybe we can use that."

"Or maybe he hands us both to her on a platter."

"Then we make sure he can't." Amara looked at the grimoire, then at Julian. "We're out of time. The new moon is three nights away. Esme is expecting us to be reactive. If we want to survive this, we have to surprise her."

Julian studied her for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was quiet.

"You're asking me to trust a man who may have betrayed us."

"No." Amara met his gaze. "I'm asking you to trust me."

The silence stretched between them. Amara could feel the seal stirring inside her again—that strange, warm attention that had become harder to ignore. It was curious, she realized. It was watching her. It was watching Julian.

She pushed it down.

"Fine," Julian said at last. "We'll go see Thornhill."

Amara allowed herself a small breath of relief before she pulled on her jacket. Somewhere in the city, Esme was preparing her ritual. She had three nights, a family legacy she'd never asked for, and a goblin archivist with uncertain loyalties between her and survival.

Sounded about right.