Holiday Coda – A Present Conspiracy

Hello everyone, and happy holidays!
Before the holiday coda featuring Neil and Leofa from Highfell Grimoires, a short update:
In January, I’ll be completing the last of the revisions of the novel acquired by Blind Eye Books this past summer. Finally, I can tell you a little bit about it. First of all, I am unbelievably excited about this book. It was a joy to write, and I think it’ll be a sweet, fun read.
Scratcher’s Gold, set in the same thrilling world as Highfell Grimoires, takes readers on an adventure into labyrinthine depths rife with concealed traps, ancient spells, and dangerous secrets. There, Samuel Davis, a roving antiquities hunter, seeks a lost treasure that’ll make his family’s fortune but in order to survive the deceit that threatens to tear his expedition apart, he’ll need the help of the strange and sharp-witted cartographer, Morgan Keen.
Scratcher’s Gold will be released fall 2016. Watch this space for an exact release date.
And now for my gift to you: a holiday coda featuring Neil and Leofa! Please take a look and share the holiday cheer.

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A Present Conspiracy

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The three invitations arrived in close succession, each one borne by a fluttering tracker on a frigid breeze through my partially open window. The small moth-shaped flying machines strutted across my desk, scattering student essays and calculations to the floor.
“Oh, bother.” I scowled at the mess.
Irritable, I opened the first tracker and fished the invitation out from its brass body. General Deaton demanded my presence at his Darkest Night Gala, where he would debut new transit technology powered by my presence. I couldn’t afford to decline to attend—not if we wanted his continued financial support.
The second invitation came from the queen’s minister. Queen Isolde desired me to attend Her Majesty’s Darkest Night Ball, where the queen hoped I would explain to her the workings of the revolutionary pyxis device. Though an undeniable honor, the idea of delicately combatting the sniping of Higher Eidoland’s peers over the course of several hours filled me with dread.
But, of course, since an invitation from the queen was really more a polite order than an actual request, I would be required appear there as well.
The third invitation came from my sister Nora. Ill for the past few months, she apologized for the late notice but hoped I’d attend a small gathering at her home tomorrow, no masks required.
Of course, all three events occurred at exactly the same time. Tomorrow at seven o’clock, on Darkest Night.
I’d wanted to take Darkest Night off. Or the afternoon, at least. I’d hoped to spend it with Leofa. But now it looked as though those precious hours, that I’d meant to devote to him, would be spent on other people.
Would it be so terrible if I lost these invitations? Would it be completely awful if they—and the student essays upon my desk—caught fire under mysterious circumstances?
“You look like you’re contemplating committing a crime,” Leofa said.
I started. I hadn’t noticed him entering. “No. Not exactly. Well, maybe treason.”
Leofa sat down on my desk, crumpling papers under him. He didn’t seem to care. In defiance of the festive atmosphere outside, he’d opted for simple black woolen trousers and a white linen shirt that set off the golden-brown hue of his skin admirably. His dark eyes glinted with amusement. “So how come a respectable gentleman like you is resorting to criminality?”
I told him about the invitations, adding, “I’d hoped… that we could have a quiet Darkest Night, actually. No balls. No grand events. Just… you and me.”
“How long’s Nora been ill for now?” Leofa asked.
“Oh, um…” I counted, mentally. “About three months.”
“Huh.” Leofa got a peculiar expression on his face. “Well, that changes our plans.”
“What plans?”
“Come on,” he said. “You and I are visiting her.”
“Now? Unannounced?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“I have to respond to General Deaton and Queen Isolde—”
“Don’t make me haul you out that door past all of your gaping postdocs and visiting scholars,” Leofa said. “We’re going. Now.”
I scowled. Leofa didn’t make threats often. But when he did, he carried through.
Outside my office, a peculiar sight greeted me. The halls, wooden floors newly walls and walls recently repapered, seemed oddly empty. The few students who glimpsed me darted back into study rooms as if terrified. One shouted, “Get better soon!” A visiting lady scholar from Rithen, her dark puff of hair bound back in an embroidered cloth, shot me an alarmed look, covered her mouth with her sleeve, and retreated.
“What’s happening?” I asked Leofa.
“We’re taking the glider down to Herrow,” he said.
And, after picking up two packed bags that had been waiting for us beside the door, that’s what we did. Leofa flew our new crimson two-seater to the airfield nearest Nora’s townhome, where we caught a hansom cab to her well-kept dwelling.
Of course, Peggy, the housemaid, answered the door. She looked shocked when she saw me, and sputtered, “Lord Franklin! Why are you here? I heard—”
“Ask Nora if she’d like to speak with Neil,” Leofa interrupted. “Tell her we can’t attend her Darkest Night gathering because we need to catch a train down, if we’re to leave on the Maryanna tomorrow morning.”
“Very well.” Peggy curtsied. “I hope you don’t mind if I don’t invite you in. I don’t want the mistress catching anything, considering.”
I gaped as Peggy shut the door on our faces.

Peggy didn’t even invite us in, to wait in the parlor? How unbelievably rude!

But at least she made up for it with a prompt return.
“Apologies, my lords,” Peggy said, dropping another curtsy. “Lady Stanley has explained, and she will receive you momentarily in the parlor.”
There we sat. To my surprise, Nora appeared only moments later. She wore a loose pink tea gown, even though, at half past eleven, that was hardly appropriate garb. Her hair had been properly ironed and done into a smooth chignon, and despite her illness she looked to have put on at least a little weight, a sign of health that relieved me. I embraced her by way of welcome.
“Would you like any refreshments, my lady, my lords?” Peggy asked.
“Coffee, please,” I said.
“Oh no, Neil.” Nora paled. Please. Not coffee. I can’t stand the smell.”
“Ginger tea for everyone then,” Peggy surmised, and left to fetch it.
Oh. Oh. The three-month illness? The weight gain and loose clothing? And now ginger tea—presumably to subdue her nausea? This could only mean one thing.
“Nora, you’re expecting!” I bolted to my feet. Then I nearly swooned. “You’re—you should be lying down! Can I get you anything? Are you all right? You’re not going to faint, are you? You were upstairs? I could’ve gone upstairs! You shouldn’t be walking up and down stairs.”
Stanley came in with a newspaper under his arm. Looking stately in a crimson waistcoat embroidered with gold and black pin-striped trousers, his imminent fatherhood clearly suited him. He remarked, “I see Neil’s taking it about as you expected.”
“I’m going to be an uncle!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.
“Are you sure you should be visiting us now given your illness?” Stanley asked me.
Illness? I looked between them, utterly perplexed. What nonsense was this? And what was going on, exactly, that everyone felt compelled to act so mysteriously?
“No, it’s quite all right.” Nora glanced to Leofa furtively. “You see, Leofa asked that I… confirm certain rumors that, perhaps, he may have started. I was happy to do so.”
“What rumors?” I asked.
Stanley unfurled the newspaper he’d been holding, and he showed me the headline. Famous Franklin, Stricken by Ague. Who’s Next? The reporter, having received an anonymous tip-off from within the Blackwater Institute that had been confirmed by a close relation, speculated that Neil Franklin’s worsening illness was the same ague that had felled his parents but that it, like malaria, had laid dormant before returning to strike him down.
“After seeing the evening edition,” Leofa said, “no one will be expecting you at any balls or galas tomorrow. You and I are going on vacation.”
“Vacation?”
“Yes,” Nora chipped in. “I planned this surprise months ago, a little family vacation over the winter months, though of course we hardly thought we’d have to go so far in order to pry you out of your chair, but I’ve rented a small beach house on an island off the coast of Rithen. Unfortunately, though, Stanley and I can’t go with, due to my condition, so it’ll just have to be you and Leofa.”
Just me and Leofa? Finally, I began to smile. “You could’ve just asked me to take time off.”
“You would’ve never been convinced without a little pressure from your family,” Stanley said, confidently, “and besides we were quite essential when making the holidays plans.”
“How long do you think it will take me to get better?” I wondered. “I think I’m quite ill.”
“At least two weeks,” Leofa said.
“You have the cottage for a month,” Nora added.
A month? I smiled Leofa. However would we manage to pass the time?

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Happy holidays to all of you, whether you’re spending it at home, abroad, or on a beach somewhere. All the best wishes from my family to yours!