A Restless Truth (Last Binding #2)

by Freya Marske

The truth was a flexible reed of a thing. One could weave it into all sorts of shapes, depending on what one needed it to be.

Maud Blyth’s equally unmagical brother, Robin, had been unbusheled last year by accident, and cursed by men who thought he was working against them. The curse had been removed—with no help from Lord Hawthorn—by the man called Edwin Courcey. Between them, Edwin and Robin had uncovered what their enemies were seeking: three items that had been discovered and removed from a church, midway through the previous century, by a group of lady magicians who called themselves the Forsythia Club. The unofficial leader of whom had been a woman called Flora Sutton, who had been killed for her part in hiding one of these items. And whose diaries, in code, Edwin had inherited. By the time Edwin’s brother, Walter Courcey, appeared in the narrative, Violet had managed to brush the mental dust from the name Courcey itself. A magical family, more powerful than her own, though not as wellborn by the standards of unmagical English society. The items themselves—coin, cup, and knife—had long ago been separated and disguised and hidden again by the women who found them. Because they were the physical symbols of the Last Contract, the bargain made centuries ago between the departing fae and the magicians of Britain, that magic would be left in the hands of humans in exchange for their stewardship of the land.

Casual full-page mid-sequel synopsis of the entire first book

“Mrs. Sinclair says you look at the world and decide you can live with it or decide you can’t. And if you can’t, you decide what you’re prepared to do about it.”