Sofia was blonde, blue-eyed, and not particularly beautiful. She had a gentleness about her that made up for it.
She'd come to Shelby Manor when Altair was three. Eight years had passed without either of them seeming to notice.
"Good morning, Master Altair."
She laid his clothes across the cabinet, then moved through the room pulling curtains open one by one. July light flooded in. Through the corner window, everything outside was green and loud with it.
"Good morning, Sofia."
He went to wash up while she set out what he'd be wearing: fitted white shirt, gray waistcoat, matching suit. A gold pocket watch on the cabinet beside them.
No hat today. He wasn't going out.
The Shelby hats were always something separate. Razor blades sewn into the brims, a habit that had outlasted most of the people who'd started it.
Sofia stayed while he dressed. She'd been doing this for eight years. The shyness, if there had ever been any, was long gone. When he was ready, she stepped forward, tucked the pocket watch into his breast pocket, fastened the chain to his jacket button, and straightened his collar.
"A handsome young gentleman." She meant it. "When you're older, you'll leave half of England in trouble."
He was eleven. She could already see what he was going to become.
He'd inherited his mother's Roman blood, black hair and black eyes, which carried a particular weight in Britain where everything traced itself back to Rome. Julius Caesar had looked much the same, or so people liked to say. Altair found the comparison neither here nor there, though he was comfortable in the face. In his previous life his eyes had run toward dark brown. These were closer to black. A small difference. It suited him.
They went downstairs together.
...
The whole family lived at the manor. Michael and Jimmy, his two uncles. Fiona, his aunt. Their wives: one from a noble London family, the other the daughter of a Birmingham gang leader. Nearly a hundred servants working the estate. Dozens of Peaky Blinders on guard rotation. Hunting dogs, horses, dairy cows, hens. A hundred acres of it, all told.
The Shelbys ate together every morning. After what had happened to the family, the fragmentation, the years of each branch pulling against the others, the shared table felt less like tradition and more like a deliberate repair.
Altair came in and greeted each of them by name.
"Good morning, Thomas!" came back at him from every direction.
He sat. The maids moved. Smoked meat, fried eggs, sausages, mushrooms, toast. Milk or black tea. Britain had never pretended to be otherwise, and Altair had stopped expecting it to surprise him at breakfast.
"Thomas." Michael set his cup down. Since Freddy had gone inside, he'd been the one running the manor's daily order. "After breakfast, two hours of lessons with Paul and Jenny. Shooting practice in the afternoon. Swimming or ball after training, not before."
"I understand."
Altair ate without rushing. Around him the table was full, the conversation carrying on in every direction.
He said nothing about the letter. Too many people in the room, and the moment wasn't right. A wizard in the Shelby family would become a closely held secret. Most of the people sitting here wouldn't be among those who knew.
...
Lessons were philosophy, politics, economics. The professor had come down from Oxford. Paul and Jenny, both fifteen or sixteen, sat beside him. Altair was the youngest in the room by several years, though no one who watched him follow the lecture would have known it.
He asked a question partway through that made the professor pause.
"I can hardly believe you're eleven," the man said afterward. "The way you think about problems is excellent."
Altair said goodbye to his cousins and went to walk the dogs with Sofia.
His Doberman, Charlie, was working through a slab of raw beef with total focus.
Altair watched him and thought about it seriously.
No dogs allowed at Hogwarts.