The best clues were news reports from the handful of countries that, like Great Britain, were ruled by the Skilled. Such as Japan, where the entire country’s cherry trees burst into blossom in a single instant every spring, in a public display of the Imperial Family’s power. In the Philippines, Skilled priests regularly repelled dangerous weather systems that threatened their islands. What were Britain’s Equals capable of? Abi wasn’t sure.
But she was about to find out. A mixture of excitement and apprehension closed up her throat. This was what she’d postponed her future to discover. Could it possibly be worth it?
Then it happened almost too fast for astonishment. Daisy squealed.
Directly in front of the Hadleys a gate appeared. The ornamental ironwork was a gilded riot of cleverly wrought birds and flowers. It reared up to twice the height of the wall and gleamed with a strange, intense light. Through its elegant, open tracery, two male figures on horseback were now visible.
With a start, Abi realized that they were both close to her own age. One wore a navy-blue cable-knit jumper and sat upright on a beautiful chestnut horse. His hair was the same rich russet – the famous Jardine colouring – and his face was open and handsome. The other horse was an unremarkable, all-black animal. Its rider sported muddy black jeans and creased tan riding boots. His jacket lapel was ripped and flapped loose. Surely the redhead was the Young Master, and the other a favoured slave, perhaps a groom.
But the black horse’s rider was the first to urge his mount towards them. He flicked his fingers carelessly and the massive gates began to swing open. The two horsemen passed beneath the entwined initials that surmounted the arch: the Parva-Jardine family monogram. It seemed to Abi that the top of the P tenderly kissed the J, and the curve of the J embraced the P.
The scruffy young rider swung a leg over his saddle and dropped lightly to the ground. He handed up the reins to his companion and walked to where the Hadleys stood. Abi felt the power crackle off him like static, lifting the hairs along her arms and neck, and knew instantly that she’d got it all wrong.
This boy, not the other, was the Young Master.
He didn’t look much. Around the same age as Luke, he was taller than her brother, but skinnier. Badly in need of a haircut. But dread squeezed Abi’s insides as he approached.
He stopped in front of her father. Dad opened and closed his mouth in silence, clearly unnerved.
The boy reached out a hand and touched Dad’s shoulder. It looked like the gentlest of gestures, but Steve Hadley crumpled slightly as if he’d been winded, and a soft groan escaped his mouth. The Young Master’s expression was almost bored, but beneath the mess of hair Abi saw his eyes narrow in concentration. What was he doing?
Daisy stood next in their makeshift line. Abi felt proud of her little sister’s fearlessness as the boy brought his hand down even more lightly, and Daisy blinked and swayed like a flower in the breeze. Mum, when touched, merely ducked her head and winced.
Then Silyen Jardine stood before Abi, and she swallowed as he reached out . . .
. . . and it was like the giddy pull of standing in a high place and looking down; like the queasy surge of terror after shoplifting just that once for a dare. It was the millisecond after downing an unwise triple shot of Sambuca on her eighteenth birthday; the stunned joy of opening her exam results in the kitchen that day, before she remembered she’d be doing her days, not going to uni. Her heart raced madly – then stopped, for just an instant.
She was suddenly cold to her core, and felt naked in a way that had nothing to do with clothes. It was as though something had carefully turned her inside out and inspected everything she contained. Then, finding nothing of use or interest, had put her back exactly the way she had been – to outward appearances, at any rate.
When the boy’s hand lifted from her shoulder Abi shuddered and thought she might be sick.
The Young Master was already back in the saddle, exchanging brief words with the second horseman before kicking into a canter away through the gate. Abi wasn’t sorry to see him go. The labour bureau woman’s words came back to her, about her preference for her ‘own kind’. Neither Abi nor her family were among their own kind any more.
The second rider came towards them, leading his glossy chestnut horse.
‘You must be the Hadleys,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’m Jenner Jardine. You’re very welcome to my family’s estate.’
‘Are you nicer than that other one?’ asked Daisy.
Abi wanted the ground to swallow her up, even as her mother’s face blanched. But astonishingly, the young man before them simply laughed.
‘I try to be,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry for what you just experienced. It’s unpleasant, but necessary. I do ask Silyen to at least warn people, but he never does. He says he finds their reactions interesting.’
‘It was horrid,’ said Daisy. ‘Why don’t you do it, then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad?’
Abi wanted to put her hands over her sister’s mouth before anything even more ill-advised came out.
‘I can’t,’ was the unexpected response. ‘I mean, none of us could do it quite like Silyen, but I can’t do it at all. I possess as much Skill as you do, Daisy Hadley. I presume you are Daisy,’ he added gallantly, ‘unless you are Abigail, and a little on the small side for your age, while this tall young Daisy here . . .’
Jenner Jardine turned to Abi, while Daisy spluttered and giggled and assured him that no, no, he had them the right way round.