by Amy Ewing
“Father,” Leo burst out, the champagne giving his voice a passionate ring. “I wish to go on this mission. I will help find these sprites and bring them back to you, I swear it. Give me this opportunity and I promise I will not let you down.”
Xavier McLellan’s impressive eyebrows rose about an inch up his forehead. Agnes felt that Leo’s fate was balanced precariously as if on the edge of a knife. He whined about wanting to take over the business all the time, but offering to actively search for some creatures in the Knottle Plains was new for him. Agnes couldn’t decide whether she was annoyed or impressed.
Everyone at the table was watching Xavier and Leo—even Marianne seemed to understand that something important was happening.
“Very well,” Xavier finally said, giving his son a curt nod and holding out his glass for Swansea to refill. Then he smirked. “Perhaps you’ve got more of me than your mother in you after all.”
It was like a punch in Agnes’s gut. She was far better suited than Leo to join this expedition to the Knottle Plains. She had knowledge of medicine, anatomy, science. She could study the plant life, or search for footprints, or . . . anything. She was smart and capable, more than her stupid brother with his sycophantic smile.
Elizabeth and Marianne seemed to think Leo’s outburst quite bold, and they gushed excitedly about the upcoming production while Kiernan and Xavier indulged them with smiles. And Agnes kept silent, staring at the cut of tuna on her plate and fuming.
9
Leo
DINNER HADN’T GONE QUITE THE WAY HE’D HOPED, LEO had to admit.
He sat in an armchair in the drawing room, sipping an espresso and straining to hear any conversation that might make it through the door of his father’s study. Xavier and Kiernan had been holed up in there for nearly an hour now, since dinner ended and Marianne and Elizabeth had said their good nights. Agnes had long gone off to bed, but Leo stayed up, hoping to catch a private moment with his father.
He couldn’t believe Xavier had decided to stop financing new productions without telling his family first. And what were all those creatures about, that mertag and the tree? Why was the show only for one night, and why hadn’t Xavier explained this “new direction,” whatever it was? Leo had been caught completely off guard. And he hadn’t been able to sneak in a sliver of the business knowledge he’d acquired in the afternoon. The two girls had captured most of his father’s attention, and Kiernan’s too. Leo didn’t understand why his father had gotten so involved with the man. Obviously he had been useful in finding those weird Pelagan creatures, but why bring him to Kaolin?
Leo would just have to find these sprites himself and prove to his father that he was worthy of being included, too.
Perhaps you’ve got more of me than your mother in you after all.
The words made Leo feel proud and itchy at the same time. He watched the pendulum on the grandfather clock swing back and forth and wondered how much longer the two men would be.
I’ll show him, he thought. I’m his son. A McLellan, through and through.
There was no trace of their mother in this house, no picture or token, nothing except Eneas. Eneas, who never stopped telling Leo how much he looked like her, no matter how many times Leo asked him not to.
Xavier had never loved their mother, and Leo’s face must have been a daily reminder of the fact that he had been forced to go against everything he believed in, to marry a heretic, because he needed the money. But he didn’t need Pelagan money anymore.
Or maybe he did. Leo remembered the declining figures he’d seen for The Great Picando, and how his father had said the play’s run had been cut short. Maybe the business was in trouble. Was that why he was branching out into something new? Sure, there had been more theater companies popping up lately, as Xavier had noted, but none of them had the prestige and panache of the McLellan empire. Or was Leo just too biased to see the competition?
He put his espresso down and began to pace the room. Tomorrow he would be on his way to the Knottle Plains. He hadn’t realized how unsure he’d been that Xavier would even let him go on this expedition until he was halfway through asking. The humiliation of his father’s refusal would have been severe. Elizabeth would have told her brother, and Robert would have tried to make Leo feel better in all the ways that actually made everything worse. Robert was a great friend, but he was a fool sometimes. He assumed all fathers were proud of their sons. He assumed everyone had mothers who loved them and sisters who weren’t complete and utter embarrassments.
Leo couldn’t do much about the mother or the sister, but he could damn sure make his father proud. And starting tomorrow, that was exactly what he was planning to do.
The study door opened and the sound of voices made Leo jump.
“. . . not likely to be able to produce any again,” Kiernan was saying.
“That is not what you told me when we had it shipped here,” Xavier replied sharply. “You said that tree could make hundreds of them.”
“I told you we were entering uncharted territory. Factors are different here—climate, soil, water quality . . .”
“I am not interested in a geology lesson.”
“I’m merely saying we should have kept the sprites in Pelago if you are so sure they can find the island.”
“I am aware of what we should have done,” Xavier said, and his words were threaded with warning. “But you yourself said it would be far too dangerous to leave anything behind that could be traced back to you.”
“To us,” Kiernan said.
Leo had no idea what was going on. He’d thought the sprites were from Kaolin. And what was this island Kiernan was talking about? Pelago had hundreds of islands, but the way Kiernan said it, Leo did not think he meant Thaetus or Cairin or any of the major ones.
Something about the tone of this conversation made Leo hesitate to reveal himself. He had been hoping the men would let him in on whatever it was they were planning, now that he was part of the expedition and all. But he did not want to interrupt his father during an argument. In fact, he was pretty sure his father would be livid if he knew Leo was overhearing this. He wondered if he had time to make it upstairs when the voices came closer, the men walking down the hall toward the front door.
“It is as I said before: if you truly wanted to understand these creatures, you should have come to Pelago yourself.”
“I will never set foot in that goddamned country again for as long as I live and you know it, Ezra. Don’t act the fool, it doesn’t suit you.”
Leo was less stunned by the vulgarity and more by this revelation. As far as he was aware, Xavier had never been to Pelago in the first place. So how could he set foot in it again?
“We do not have limitless resources, Xavier.”
“Don’t we?” There was a cold silence. “Do not forget, Ezra. I know who you are and I know what you’ve done. I can protect you here. Do not test me, though, or you will be back on a ship to Pelago in the morning. And that bitch will not be as forgiving as I am.”
“Yes, yes, I know.” The Pelagan sounded frightened. “You should not have told them the sprites lived in the Knottle Plains,” he said after a moment.
“That’s where they would go, you said. Grasslands.”
“Yes, but that isn’t where they are from!”
“I honestly don’t see how it makes a difference.”
“Credit should be given where credit is due. The creatures are Pelagan.”
“Don’t tell me you have developed a sudden pride in your heritage?” Xavier sneered, and Leo felt there was an insult in the words that he did not quite understand. “Besides, the creatures are dead, if what you have told me about them is correct.”
“Then why search for them at all?”
Leo pressed himself against a bookshelf, his heart pounding.
“Because I do not give up until I have exhausted all options,” Xavier replied. “If there is the slightest chance of reclaiming them, we have to try. Unless you h
ave another idea, or a magic compass or map that will tell us where the island is.”
Kiernan muttered something too low for Leo to hear. But when Xavier laughed, it felt like an ice cube had slipped into Leo’s stomach—it was a laugh that held all the darkness of a threat and not a shred of good humor.
“Did you think I was joking when I told you not to mention that name, Ezra? Did you think I was putting on a show for the sake of my children? You’re lucky I got you out of Pelago when I did. Ambrosine Byrne could snuff out this operation before you can say ‘mertag.’ I’ll not dangle my family as bait.”
That didn’t make sense at all—Xavier had had no contact with the Byrne family, much less Leo’s own grandmother, since his mother had died. But he was talking about her as if he knew her.
Kiernan’s reply was muffled, but Leo caught the words, “could be useful, is all.”
“I’m fully aware of what he looks like, thank you very much. But it would be Agnes she’d want, and I will never let that happen,” Xavier said with a tone that declared the matter finished. “Forget the sprites. Branson will find them or he won’t, and that will be the end of it. What we really need is another Arboreal, a bigger one, a stronger one. The droughts and heat waves are getting worse. The timing is ripe for the show to get on the road, so to speak.”
“We are trying but—”
“Try harder. They’re your sacred trees. Shouldn’t they be easy to find?”
“Not all naifa trees are Arboreals, Xavier. And we cannot go back to Culinnon.”
Leo knew from his father’s plays that naifa trees were sacred in Talmanism, and they only grew in Pelago. He had no idea what Culinnon was—another island, perhaps? Leo found himself wishing he had just gone up to bed when his sister had.
“Besides,” Kiernan continued, “many Pelagans will not accept the job we are offering, no matter what price.”
“Use my men then. They aren’t squeamish about some goddamn trees.”
“You really are the coldhearted bastard they say, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Xavier said. “I am.”
Leo kept stone-still as he heard the front door open.
“The island, Ezra. That’s all that matters.”
Kiernan sighed. “Xavier,” he said, “you are quite, quite sure this was not just some story she told you? To impress or—”
“It was not a story. It is real.” His father’s voice was brittle as new frost. “And she never sought to impress me.”
The silence that followed lasted so long, Leo wondered if they had simply parted ways without saying good night.
“We will speak again tomorrow,” Kiernan said, and Leo jumped. Once the Pelagan was gone, his father called for Swansea.
“Yes, sir?”
“Have that man followed,” Xavier said. “I want to know his every movement. Get Roth on it. He knows enough seedy characters and he damn well owes me.”
Roth? Leo thought. James Roth?
“I take it you don’t trust this Pelagan then, sir?” Swansea said.
“I don’t trust anyone, Swansea.” There was a pause. “Why are the lights in the drawing room on?”
“I’m not sure, sir. I was in the kitchen, I thought Janderson—”
Leo was intimately familiar with the sound of someone being silenced by his father. Quick as a flash, he sank into the nearest armchair and closed his eyes, his head lolling to one side to feign sleep. He heard footsteps approach and tried to keep his breathing steady. If his father knew he had been listening in on private conversations . . .
“Leo.”
He opened his eyes and rubbed them for effect.
“Oh, sorry, Father. I must have dozed off.”
“Mm.” Xavier frowned. “Get to bed. You have a big day ahead of you.”
“Yes, of course.” Leo got up and stretched. “Good night.”
But Xavier was already walking toward his study. Swansea disappeared after him and Leo was left alone, his heart pounding, wondering what exactly his father was up to.
10
Agnes
AGNES SAT IN HER LAB, A CANDLE BURNING DOWN ALMOST to the nub as she scribbled in her journal, trying to put down on paper as much as she could remember about the Arboreal and the mertag and her guesses as to what her father was planning to do with them.
There was no place in Old Port where Agnes felt more comfortable than in her lab. She had painted the walls a light green, but they were spattered with specks of blood, smeared guts, scorch marks, and various scratchings from when her notepad had been too far away. She didn’t have as much equipment as she’d like—just a lone microscope, a Bunsen burner, a few beakers in various shapes and sizes, some graduated cylinders, and a set of scalpels. She had bottles of chemicals too: hydrochloric acid, ethanol, xylene, paraffin . . . she’d been working up the courage to see if her father would allow her some potassium hydroxide.
She put the pencil down and cracked her knuckles. This one-night-only endeavor looked to be the splashiest of Xavier’s productions, as well as his last. She didn’t care a whit for her father’s plays, and she would be happy to see less anti-Talman shows being performed in Old Port. Agnes was not particularly religious, but it seemed to her that everyone in the world was required to ascribe to something, and as far as she could tell, science didn’t count. Talmanism didn’t seem as oppressive as Solitism; certainly not where women were concerned. But something about this new project left her with a cold feeling of dread that she couldn’t quite put her finger on—as if her father was moving past simple propaganda and on to something more dark and dangerous.
The candle sputtered and went out, dousing the lab in darkness. Agnes stood and stretched, then left her lab, locked it, and hid the key in its usual spot in an old jewelry box. She peered out her bedroom window; Creekwater Row was dimly lit with gas lamps and lined with brownstones as large and handsome as the one she lived in. All were silent and dark. The night air was thick with humidity.
Just as she was turning back, she heard a noise, like a hoot owl. It hooted twice, paused, then hooted again. Agnes went still.
“Eneas?” she called softly. The chauffeur stepped out from behind the motorcar, covered for the night in the driveway, and waved up at her. There was an envelope in his hand. Her knees turned to jelly. She pointed down toward the kitchen door and Eneas nodded and disappeared.
Agnes wanted to take the stairs two at a time, but she couldn’t risk waking anyone up, especially not Leo or her father. She froze when she saw the light was still on in his study, the door closed. Ever so cautiously, she crept to the kitchen, skirted the long table that dominated the room, copper pots and pans hanging from the ceiling, and eased the service door open. Eneas was bouncing on the balls of his feet, a wide grin spread across his face. Agnes put a finger to her lips and pointed in the direction of her father’s study. He nodded and handed her the envelope. She took it with trembling hands. The postmark was from Pelago.
She stared at her name, Miss Agnes McLellan written out in perfect curling script. And the return address: University of Ithilia. Academy of Sciences. The envelope was thick and cream-colored and made a satisfying rip as she opened it. The paper that fell out shook in her trembling grasp, and she read it in the faint light from the kitchen.
Dear Miss McLellan,
Thank you for your application to the University of Ithilia’s Academy of Sciences. I am pleased to inform you that your application has been accepted and you have successfully passed the first round of admissions. We invite you to submit a secondary essay for consideration, followed by an interview with the academy Masters, before the decision to officially offer you a place at the university is made. Please return your essay to us by the twelfth of September. Interviews will be scheduled the first week of October. We look forward to hearing from you.
All the best,
Magdalena Lokis
Dean of Admissions
University of Ithilia
“I passed,” she s
aid breathlessly. She looked up at Eneas, her eyes brimming with tears. “I passed the first round of admissions!”
A bird screeched and took flight from a nearby dogwood, and Eneas wrapped her up in a tight hug.
“Your mother would be so proud,” he whispered. “Now get upstairs before your father sees you!”
Agnes nodded and whirled around, not daring to breathe until she was back in her room. She collapsed onto her bed and read the letter several times before it really began to sink in that she had been accepted. Well, there were still a few more hoops to jump through, but that was better than no hoops at all. The essay shouldn’t be a problem, but her heart sank at the thought of an in-person interview. How was she ever going to get to Pelago by the first week in October?
There was a second sheet of paper containing instructions for the essay. It was only one sentence, which read, Please describe in detail the bravest thing you have ever done in the name of science.
The first thing that came to mind was the day she had asked her father to build the lab for her, but that didn’t seem very brave if you didn’t know Xavier McLellan. And it wasn’t any sort of scientific discovery but more of a personal triumph. All her experiments felt silly and childish, not anything she would classify as brave.
She sat on the edge of her bed and chewed at her thumbnail. She had to stand out. She had to think of something impressive, something unique. . . .
It hit her in a flash. The sprites. What could be bolder than sneaking onto an expedition in the name of science? And for a magical creature, no less? She could discover a new species. That should get their attention. She could steal one away back to her lab to study it.
She’d have to be careful. If she was caught . . . well, she didn’t want to dwell on that thought. But Agnes knew in her heart that this was the thing that would set her apart. She clutched the letter and felt her world turning, shifting, moving closer to what she so desperately wanted it to be.