“Piece by piece, love,” he murmured, continuing with his chatter.
To his great pleasure, at times the ash would seem to scream and roar, proving there was fight in his lady yet. He was off to unfasten another seal, but he would return soon.
With the good professor absent for an unprecedented few days, the remaining Guard felt giddily unsupervised. This sense of wanton freedom manifested itself each in very different ways.
Elijah Withersby made it very clear to Josephine Belledoux that she was to draw every shade and lock every door in Café La Belle et La Bête. He demanded she remove any potentially breakable object from the tables, floor or bar, because he intended to utilize every possible surface to their amorous advantage. There would, subsequently, be discussion of marriage, and when that may or may not be appropriate…which would likely start a fight, which would likely end in lovemaking. They had their rituals, and fresh titillation came from the fact that their rites needn’t be contained solely to the walls and surfaces found in the flat they secretly shared.
Jane had studied plans of how to quietly break into a children’s hospital. She could only hope none of the rest of The Guard read the papers in the morning.
Headmistress Rebecca Thompson was experiencing a different, far less entertaining sort of abandon. From the moment Alexi left Athens, the fissure inside her had grown to cavernous proportions. She wandered to a nearby dim and empty pub for a less-than-savory meal. Returning to her office, she lit a gas lamp atop one of her file cabinets and kept it trimmed low. From her desk she pulled something she had never before used but had prepared for this day: a flask of potent liquor.
When she let Frederic in the window, the bird hopped about, inspecting his mistress from various angles. She removed her jacket, loosened the ties of her collar and took a draught. The sensation that burned her throat was welcome; it would help numb what was breaking apart.
She leaned upon the desk and a strange growl emerged from her lips. Why couldn’t she have a prophecy of her own? Was she not as swift, decisive, strong-willed and suited for leadership? Why were she and the other four resigned to a lonely fate while Alexi alone might reap a life almost average? Could not all of The Guard be granted complementary companions as Percy was meant to augment Alexi?
But, Rebecca didn’t want just any companion. She wanted him—compelling, arrogant, difficult, honourable, inscrutable, magnetic, haughty, inimitable him. The man who was wed after the whirlwind course of a school quarter. The man who had never been and would never be hers.
The stinging draughts she took increased in both frequency and effect. Prickling numbness drifted down her limbs and blurred her unmatched mind. Her elbow brushed Percy’s bridal bouquet. Scowling, she picked it up and began wresting the lily blossoms one from another. “He loves me not.” She tossed a lily to the floor. “He loves me not.” Another. “He loves me not.” Soon all the blossoms lay mutilated upon the floor, the stalks cast aside as headless stumps.
Frederic noticed the change. She did not respond to his squawk nor his nibble upon her ear; she only folded in upon her body and there were soft, strangled sounds of sorrow. The raven flew out the window.
There had been a time, long ago, when she contemplated how easy it would be to jump from Westminster Bridge, to fall lightly from that precipice, to sink heavily and leave the weight of her lonely heart at the bottom of the Thames. But her strong will—one that cherished the greater good of the Grand Work—hadn’t allowed for serious consideration. When she turned away from that bridge at the age of twenty, a cluster of spirits had gathered at the crest, and one came close enough to mouth the words, “Thank you.” The dead needed The Guard to keep order. They needed her. She had to keep order inside herself and out.
This had been enough to sustain Rebecca for a long while, but today the ache was too much to feel her life had any reward. Anger, too, was close at hand. She had never understood the burden of her heart, as she’d known from an early age that Alexi cared for her in friendship not passion. Her love was an inane trap, and not a day passed when she did not curse her womanly weakness.
“Cheers,” she mumbled, raising her flask, her words thick and fumbling. She kicked a lily blossom. “Cheers to the newly wedded couple. May they find eternal bliss. May they tell me how in hell I might find just a hint of it. Just a bit of something.” She felt the flask slip from her hand and tumble onto her desk, soaking a few scattered papers with a strong scent—a hazy realization as she collapsed onto her arms, weary and bitter and slipped into unconsciousness.
She had no concept of the time when a soft knock at the door roused her. Sitting up with a jolt, she watched the room spin. “Who is it?” she called, her words slurred.
After a moment, a familiar voice replied. “Don’t you know the soft rap of your friend?”
“Carroll? I’m busy. What do you want?”
“A not-so-little bird told me you were not well.”
“I’m…fine.”
“You do not sound so.” There came the sound of him trying the knob. “Rebecca, open the door.”
“Told you, I’m busy. I’ve…institution to run, you know.”
“Of course you do. But it’s well past the hours of business, even for a worker such as yourself. Rebecca, please unlock the door.”
“I’m not in the mood for company,” Rebecca replied.
“You leave me no choice, then, Headmistress.” Rebecca heard an otherworldly sound familiar from their Work, and the door of her office swung open to reveal a well-dressed, cautious Michael Carroll, whose ever-untamed hair was in a state of relative calm. Barely able to lift her head, Rebecca had to take a moment before her eyes would focus.
The vicar’s rosy cheeks flushed darker when he saw her. “Ho-ho,” he breathed, entering and closing the door behind him. “What have we here, my dear headmistress?”
It took Rebecca a moment to realize that she was slumped in a puddle of liquor, the scent of which had filled the room and that soaked the sleeves of her blouse. An alarm sounded—she was not a woman to be seen like this—but she was too incapacitated and vulnerable to make any show of rectification.
And, Michael knew her. When her eyes could focus, she recognized such a softness in him, such frightening concern and understanding. It was as if he could see right into her soul, because she’d inadvertently allowed it. She was furiously ashamed and knew he saw this, too.
“Michael, I…”
“You needn’t explain.” He walked around to her.
“But Michael, this isn’t—”
“Like you? I know it isn’t, dear.” His arms were lifting her to her feet.
“What are you—?”
“I’m taking you upstairs.”
“Oh, that isn’t necessary. I’m just a bit…under the weather,” Rebecca said curtly, taking a step and swaying. She sputtered, chuckling suddenly as he swept her into his arms. “I suppose I’m not well at all, actually.” Frederic the raven had returned to perch upon the sill. Once he saw his mistress being attended, he flew off again into the darkness.
The vicar carried her out of her office and began to ascend the two flights of stairs to Rebecca’s apartments. En route, a staff member came upon them and gasped. “Not to worry, not to worry,” Michael was quick to respond. “The headmistress is quite under the weather, and I am a doctor as well as her friend, so she will be well managed.” He wasn’t a doctor but he forgave himself the lie. Anything to protect Rebecca’s reputation.
Her apartments had a wide sitting room laid with Persian rugs and chairs covered in dark fabric, an adjoining bedroom, boudoir and water closet. Michael sat Rebecca in her high-backed Queen Anne, and her head lolled to the side.
“Michael, what are you doing?” she mumbled as he left her to rummage in a pantry set apart from the sitting room by carved wooden doors.
“We must tidy you up a bit, my dear.”
“I’m…fine. Come here. Come back.”
“Yes, dear?” Micha
el had returned with water, handed her the glass and bade her drink.
“Why did you come?” she asked slowly, her words almost an accusation.
“Because I felt the weight of your heart, my dear. I was already en route when Frederic found me. Such knowledge is my job, you know.”
There was a long pause as Rebecca’s face twisted. “But you didn’t go to Alexi when his heart was heavy, did you? Not when we turned against him and made him forsake Miss Park—his bride.”
“No, I didn’t go to him then,” Michael replied slowly. “And that was a mistake. I tried to gauge the damage, but I felt nothing. He kept it too well hid.”
“Not from me,” Rebecca said. “He didn’t hide it from me. I saw him broken. We broke him. He loves her that much. So much.”
“Is that what this is about?”
“What?” Rebecca eyed him sharply before her eyes unfocused and she took a sip of water.
“About Alexi’s love for his wife?”
Rebecca grimaced. “No. I just wonder why you’re here. Save your talents for our Work, not me. This has nothing to do with The Guard.”
“Oh, but it does.”
“No,” Rebecca said. “My…I am…capable. I can well handle myself without meddling.”
“Is that so? All of us have hearts, my dear. And what goes on within them affects us—and those around us. Deeply. But, come now. We must get you out of this soaked chemise.” As if happy to change the subject, the vicar stalked off to rummage through her boudoir closets.
“Michael, what are you doing? I can certainly dress myself!”
“Here, then.” He returned with a crimson quilted velvet robe and took Rebecca by the arm, leading her into the water closet, hanging the robe on the back of the door, which he then slid closed behind her. “I am standing right by this door until you dress in something that does not reek of whiskey.”
“Don’t be a pest.”
“You are very welcome, my dear.”
It took some time before Rebecca’s hand fumbled upon the handle, but when the door slid back, Michael smiled. The bleary-eyed, tousle-haired woman was changed into the robe and Michael wasn’t sure he’d ever found her so lovely. Brown hair streaked with strands of silver; high, noble features…The awkwardness of the moment caused them both to colour slightly, before Rebecca again swayed on her feet.
Michael chuckled as she leaned against the door frame. “Come now, my dear headmistress, off to bed with you.” He refilled her water, then led her by the shoulders into her bedroom. He placed the glass and two white tablets upon her bedside table, allowing her to lean upon him as he did. When he turned again to face her, in the light of the low-trimmed lamp, she appeared soft and youthfully frightened. “Michael, please don’t…”
“Speak of this? You know me well enough to know better.”
“Thank you.” She fell against him in a clumsy embrace.
Michael closed his eyes and slowly allowed his arms to encircle her. Gently he eased her down to the bed, pulled back the covers and tucked her in, bending to gently brush from her drained face a waving lock of dark hair. She looked up at him but could not hold his stare.
“Forgive this old spinster, Michael. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.” Tears leaked from her downcast eyes.
Michael knelt by her bedside. “Don’t apologize to me, Rebecca. I only wish I could heal your heart.”
“I…I love him so,” she murmured, her voice cracking.
Michael turned away. “I know. I know.”
Rebecca, quietly crying, reached for his hand. After a long moment, Michael turned to face her. Dimly, through her tears, part of her realized there was something he wanted to say but was struggling against it. She could see it in his face: something sad and desperate, something lonely and furious, something startlingly familiar. But, she recalled, she was drunk. Nothing could be trusted, for she was a broken old woman.
He took a deep breath, and his usual smile returned to his face. “Shall I bring you breakfast tomorrow, dear headmistress? Methinks you might not feel keen to wander down to the kitchens in the morning.”
Rebecca gave a little moan and covered her face with her hands. “Oh, what you must think of me!”
“I think nothing but that I like eggs in the morning. You?”
Rebecca chuckled wearily. “Yes, yes.”
“Good, then.” Michael paused. “Shall…I leave you?”
“Yes, yes, you’d better,” she hastily replied. The thought of company in her bedchamber, however innocent, was vaguely appealing yet entirely foreign and off-putting.
“Good night then, Rebecca.”
When the vicar rose, she looked up, meeting his eyes. “Thank you, Michael. And…yes, company will be nice in the morning, indeed.” Her still-incapacitated brain working slowly, she suddenly reached out. “Wait, I’ve a confession.” Michael sat, ever attentive, and words tumbled clumsily forth: “I knew it was her. Somewhere within me, instinct told me Percy was our Prophecy from the start. I…I just didn’t trust it. Whether that was because I was honestly concerned with her being a student, concerned about the traps of which we were warned, or if it was instead my own blind jealousy, I’ll never know. I could have cost us everything.”
Michael shook his head. “No, no, Rebecca. Nothing is up to just one of us. We have all been blinded differently. Alexi needed to be questioned. We hardly recognized him for his passion and vehemence. It was cause for discussion, then, as were the gifts we honestly noted in Miss Linden.”
“Betrayal was a part of Prophecy, and I—”
“So it was,” Michael interrupted. “But we’ve all scored little betrayals here and there, unwittingly, over the course of our work. We’re mortal, and if the gods wanted something different, they shouldn’t have sent us to do the job.”
Rebecca nearly smiled. “You are so sensible.”
“It’s about time you thought so,” he chided playfully. But he meant it. “Sweet dreams,” he said, rising again. Rebecca sighed slightly as he slid her bedroom door closed behind him. On the other side, Michael sighed as well, aching keenly for all that remained unsaid.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The black door hissed open again. Beyond, a shape. He not often took form, but when he did he wore that beautiful face. Tick…tock. Flesh…and bone. The beautiful face, looking about for something lost. Those terrible, burning red coals in the sockets of a skull. A burst of righteous fury. Those burning eyes blinked out, and soon afterward the hiss of the door closing. Peaceful darkness returned. For now. He couldn’t know her. Not like this. It wasn’t her anymore. But would he seek her nonetheless?
Percy stirred, her eyelids fluttering as she began to wake. She released the dream, refusing to give nightmares importance. Instead, she focused on the fact that her beloved lay naked against her. She heard the lull of the waves and opened her eyes enough to glimpse bright morning light play upon the curtains.
At the sound of her husband’s breathing, she blushed and recounted each exotic moment of the night. How beautiful he looked while sleeping—and he stirred in turn, his eyes slowly opening. He emitted a soft, purring groan. The press of his warm, bare body sent a pulse of longing through hers.
“Good morning, love,” he said.
“Good morning, indeed,” Percy breathed, sighing and shivering as he kissed his way down her neck and back. The previous night hadn’t merely whetted their appetite for each other, it had illuminated starvation.
As the next morning saw Michael arrive in the front hall of Athens Academy, he looked up into the transparent face of a young boy. The harmless haunt of the foyer chandelier, a particular favourite of Rebecca’s who had floated in the crystals for as long as Michael could remember, was gesturing worriedly up the stairs. It took a moment for Michael to realize the boy must have seen him carry Rebecca to her rooms.
He looked around to assure himself the foyer was entirely empty before he dared answer. “The headmistress is fine. Don’t worry. She’s
simply tired.”
The boy’s brow furrowed in disbelief. He then pointed down the hall toward the headmistress’s office, bobbing a bit for emphasis.
Michael walked under an arch into the hall beyond, his footsteps echoing across the polished marble. A few students ducked into doors here and there, late to classes, as normal. But…something wasn’t quite right. And as he stood before the formidable door marked headmistress, he recognized what it was: a narrow, unmarked door, subtle, and of the same wooden paneling as the walls, had appeared beside Rebecca’s office, which Michael would swear was never there before.
Suddenly, a spirit burst through and nearly right through Michael, had she not floated back with an irritated bobbing, folding her arms over her chest. She was tall, and Michael recognized her from just before the wedding.
“Mrs. Tipton, isn’t it? Hello. What are you doing?”
The ghost gave Michael a knowing, unsettling look. She opened her mouth and began speaking. He tried to follow the movements of her mouth, but it was no use; only Percy could hear the dead. The spirit batted her hand and, as she did, a bit of familiar blue fire leaped to life in her palm. Then she vanished.
The middle of the new doorway sizzled, and a flash of blue fire emblazoned upon it the number seven.
“Can you feel them—your friends?” Percy asked softly, attempting to translate the expression on Alexi’s face. They lounged side by side, sipping tea by the sitting-room hearth of their honeymoon cottage. “You have not often been away.”
“True, duty requires us close. But there is no danger, if that concerns you. A few spectral rumblings, but nothing they can’t handle.”
“You would be able to sense if there was pressing danger?”
“Yes.”
She wondered about mentioning Beatrice’s hint of betrayal, wanting to know what her husband thought of it, but she was afraid it would sound like she was questioning his friends, the people he knew, loved, trusted and led—or worse, questioning him. Until she had reason to doubt, she simply could not. Instead she would stay alert, as advised.
The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker Page 11