Mildred Charlotte Wilson's Arc

Chapter 74 of 12

The house was safe, but Mildred could not sleep. She sat at the estate table while her sisters rested. The blue-stone charm lay in her palm, still glowing. Not the soft warmth of a path run true. A steady, urgent light, same as before. She turned it over. The stone in its center shimmered like a watching eye. "You already warned me once," she whispered. "Why are you still lit?" She had beaten the noon deadline. She had answered the claim. Yet the charm had not settled. It pointed the way it always did when danger waited ahead. Mildred pressed it flat on the table. "Show me what," she said. "Not when. What." The stone flared. Then it dimmed, and flared again, as if it could not answer. She could feel the warning and could not read it. That was the worst part. A clock she could not see, ticking for one of her sisters. Mildred stood and went to the steward's office. The door was shut. She remembered the clerk's shaking hands. He had known more than the claim. She knocked hard until a light came under the door. The clerk opened it, still dressed, eyes red from a long night. "The claim is answered," he said. "There is nothing more tonight." "Then why are your hands shaking?" Mildred held up the charm. Its light bent past him, into the office, toward a folder on his desk. "It points there. Tell me what's in it." The clerk looked at the glowing stone and stepped back. "That house," he said. "You saved it under the register. But the register has a second rule. Any heir bound to it can be called to serve the crown in person. Not the property. The person." He swallowed. "The claim tonight was a test. When it failed, a summons was drafted. For your oldest sister. To take her into crown service at the estate." Mildred's chest went cold. This was the danger the charm had felt. Not the house. Her sister. "When is it sent?" "At first light. I hold it until then." Mildred set the charm on his desk. The stone burned bright between them. "You warned me once already, with your hands. Warn me now with your voice. Is there a way to stop it?" The clerk stared at the light a long moment. Then he pulled the folder open. "One way," he said. "The summons names her alone. But your line is registered as one. Three names, one heir. A summons for one of a joined line is void unless it names all three." He looked up. "I can log it as improper filing. It buys you until the next session." "Do it," Mildred said. He struck the draft through and stamped it void. The charm's blue light faded to a soft warmth. Mildred picked it up. The danger had a name now. The crown would come for her sisters one at a time, through the register itself. She had stopped one summons. She knew there would be another.