Chantress

by Amy Butler Greenfield

  As we made our way to the minstrels’ gallery above the Great Hall, I could feel the tension between us. I was much too aware of every move that Nat made, and he, too, seemed to be on edge—though perhaps that was only because I was so hard to see. I had reached the point where I could sustain the effects of the concealment song for a full hour, provided I breathed properly and kept the song alive in my head. If Nat looked carefully, he could usually see a slight shimmering in the air where I was, but that was it.

  The first time he bumped into me, I heard him inhale sharply.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  Nat was silent for a moment. “I hate not knowing where you are.”

  “But that’s the plan, isn’t it?” I struggled to keep talking while breathing in the proper way. “The only way I can succeed is if no one can see me.”

  “Of course.” He pulled away from me. “But it’s unsettling to have a mind-reader on the loose.”

  “You’re never going to forget that, are you?” I said under my breath.

  He swung around. “What?”

  He misjudged the distance, coming so near that his lips almost brushed my cheek. Startled, I stopped breathing—and quick as a blink, turned visible.

  In that moment of transformation, I saw dismay in his eyes. But I saw something else, too, something that made my breath catch again.

  That must be the look Lady Helaine meant.

  “Lucy,” he said.

  But someone was coming, and there was no chance to say more. We pressed ourselves into the shadows—and this time he kept a full arm’s length away from me. For the rest of our time together, he was silent, and I felt more unsettled by him than ever.

  Perhaps I would have tried harder to say something if I had known what was coming. For when we returned to Lady Helaine, Nat told us that he would be absent for a month or more. The Invisible College was sending him up north to track down another possible moonbriar grove.

  Awkward as things were between us, I knew I would miss him terribly.

  None of this, of course, did I discuss with Lady Helaine.

  † † †

  What else did I keep hidden from my godmother? Any number of things, from my occasional explorations around Gadding House while she was asleep to my worries about Nat’s safety. Above all, I hid my fears and doubts about my progress as a Chantress. There was no room for doubt with magic, Lady Helaine said. But doubt continued to haunt me anyway.

  I was making progress, it was true. Yet despite relentless practice, none of the song-spells came easily to me. When I was tired or worried or sick, they became almost impossible. One week I caught a bad cold, and for two days my voice was too hoarse to do any magic whatsoever. What bothered me most, though, was that even when the songs did work, they felt all wrong.

  I had tried to broach the subject with my godmother. “It’s like singing shut up in a box,” I had protested. “It doesn’t feel natural.”

  “Of course it doesn’t,” was Lady Helaine’s cool response. “You are twisting nature against itself, goddaughter. It ought to go against the grain.”

  With this as my measure, I tried to interpret feeling wrong as the mark of success. And perhaps it was. But I often thought it wasn’t nature I was twisting but myself. When I sang, it felt as if I were forcing my voice through someone else’s throat. Even breathing properly was still difficult: On the worst days, it was like drowning over and over again.

  All of this turned even simple song-spells into a trial. A complicated spell like concealment—which required rigid breathing the entire time I wanted to remain unseen—was excruciating.

  Nevertheless, I was determined to conquer every spell Lady Helaine set before me. And gradually, as the gloom of March receded, and I started to feel the warmth of spring when I sneaked through the upper halls, my skills improved. By early April, I could sustain the effects of the concealment song for a full three hours.

  Over the next fortnight, I worked to perfect the other critical song-spell: the song that would destroy the grimoire. As I did so, I tried my best to set aside my worries about Nat. I reminded myself many times that he was canny and brave and skilled in evading discovery. Surely he was safe, wherever he was. Yet as the weeks passed and he failed to return, my fears mounted.

  † † †

  “I must admit that I’m worried too,” Penebrygg told me when it was his week to stop by and check on me. It had done my heart good to see him—and to see the parcel he’d brought from Norrie, with her love—but when he admitted his fears to me, my stomach plummeted. If Penebrygg was concerned, then there was real cause for alarm.

  “We had word of them through our chain of allies up until last week,” he said. “There were more soldiers on the move than they’d expected, and more Watchmen, and they couldn’t get close to the site. And then, suddenly, no word at all. Nothing for a whole week now.”

  I reminded myself that Deeps’s cousin, Josiah Quicke, had vanished for a full fortnight and still returned to London without injury.

  Evidently Penebrygg was calling to mind the same thing. “Not that such silences haven’t happened before, of course. No doubt they’re tucked safe away somewhere, and we’ll hear from them soon. Now tell me: How is your magic coming along?”

  “Quite well,” I said cautiously, for Lady Helaine was within earshot. She continued to believe that my training in magic was a sacred secret. Whenever a visitor from the Invisible College showed impatience with this, she stated her position again, and promptly showed them the door.

  “Will you be ready soon?” he asked.

  “Very soon, I should think.”

  Lady Helaine glided over to us like a chill wind. “Dr. Penebrygg, I am certain you have better things to be doing. And I know for a fact that we do. Lucy will not become better without practice.”

  “Of course, of course.” Penebrygg rose and took my hand. “Take care, my dear. And try not to worry about Nat.”

  He might as well have asked the stars not to shine.

  To keep my burgeoning fears in some kind of check, I forced myself to work harder than ever in the week that followed. My godmother’s eyes gleamed as she saw how diligently I practiced.

  “Songs of destruction are among the most difficult spells,” she said. “And this one especially. But you are coming along well.”

  When the Invisible College asked me to demonstrate my progress, however, Lady Helaine was furious.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  THE DELEGATION

  When the delegation from the Invisible College came to call, I was in the back room, asleep. An unusual circumstance in the early afternoon, but I had worked on the song of destruction into the small hours the night before, and I was desperate for a rest. I awoke, however, when I heard Lady Helaine’s ringing tones of outrage: “You wish my goddaughter to perform like a common magician?”

  “This very hour, if possible.” I recognized Nat’s voice immediately. So he had returned at last from his moonbriar expedition! A knot inside me released—then tightened again as I tried to hide, even from myself, how glad I was to have him back.

  “Not this hour, or any other,” Lady Helaine said harshly.

  I was disconcerted by her flat denial. But when I entered the chamber, I was even more surprised to discover that Nat was not our only visitor. Standing with him before the fire were Penebrygg, Sir Barnaby, and Isaac Oldville.

  Nat stood silent, face downcast, and did not greet me. Not sure what to make of this, I looked at Lady Helaine. “I do not mind showing them—”

  “No.” Lady Helaine was obdurate. “Their request is out of order.”

  “Out of order?” Oldville repeated incredulously, his gaunt frame looming over us. “I think not, madam. We have sheltered you and fed you and kept you safe for months now, at considerable peril to ourselves. It is time you fulfilled your end of the bargain.”

  “How dare you speak to m
e that way? My goddaughter is not a servant, working for her hire—”

  “My lady, forgive us,” Penebrygg said to Lady Helaine. He motioned for Oldville to be silent. “We are under great strain, and our words are not always well chosen. We have had bad news, you see.”

  Nat looked up then, his face haggard.

  “You didn’t find the moonbriar grove?” I guessed.

  “It was there, all right,” Nat said. “But Scargrave found it first.”

  I put my hand to my mouth. This was disaster indeed.

  Nat winced. It was only then that I saw what I ought to have noticed right away: his left hand, half hidden by his jacket, crisscrossed with a bloody bandage.

  “You’re hurt!” I said.

  He pulled the hand back, as if to keep it from sight. “It looks worse than it is.”

  “What happened?”

  “The Ravens’ Own were guarding the moonbriar grove. We didn’t see them until it was too late.”

  “We lost two of our best men.” Sir Barnaby’s well-bred face betrayed no emotion, but his hand was tight around his ivory cane.

  “They were caught?” I asked.

  “Trapped,” Sir Barnaby said. “So they shot themselves.”

  “Shot themselves?” I repeated blankly, still staring at the crimson bandage on Nat’s hand.

  “Anything rather than be sent to the Shadowgrims,” Penebrygg said. “Then everything truly would be lost.”

  “You said you would protect us.” Lady Helaine’s accusation took in the entire delegation. “You said—”

  “We did our best,” Sir Barnaby interrupted, tapping his cane fretfully. “But no one is perfect. In any case, we cannot afford to waste time in recrimination. Scargrave has stolen a march on us: Our spies say he is breeding the Shadowgrims again—and this time there are eggs.”

  Eggs? Fear hammered at my throat. In a voice I did not recognize as my own, I asked, “How many are there?”

  “At least a hundred of the cursed things,” Oldville said.

  “And how long do we have before they hatch?”

  “We cannot say for sure,” Sir Barnaby said, “for we do not know exactly when the eggs were laid. Ordinarily, however, raven eggs take about three weeks to hatch.”

  “So it may only be a matter of days,” I said faintly.

  “More than that, almost certainly.” Penebrygg adjusted his spectacles, trying to put the best face on things. “It will be five or six weeks until the hatchlings leave the nest for the first time, and months more before they are adults. And we believe that it is only then that they come into their full powers.”

  “Do not obscure the truth,” Oldville said sourly. “We know nothing for sure about Shadowgrim hatchlings. It may be that they come out of the eggs with their powers already developed. Or they may have even more monstrous appetites than grown Shadowgrims do. It remains to be seen. Every day we delay may tilt the balance in their favor.”

  Dour he might be, but at least he had made the situation clear. “You mean that I must seize my chance now.”

  The look Penebrygg gave me over the rim of his lenses was full of worry. “Only if you are ready.”

  “Which is why we have come here,” Sir Barnaby said. “To see for ourselves where you are. If you will show us—”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “No.” Lady Helaine gripped my arm. I could feel how much she hated being answerable to these men, and how much it distressed her to share Chantress rites with strangers. And in truth, I felt some sympathy with her, for it was not easy for me to share such private things either.

  Lady Helaine spoke over my head to Sir Barnaby. “She overestimates herself, poor child—”

  My sympathy vanished. “Let me show you what I can do,” I told Sir Barnaby. I shook off Lady Helaine’s hand, and I started to sing.

  “No.” Lady Helaine grabbed at me. “You mustn’t—”

  But the song of concealment was already doing its work. My outline was thinning, my body dissolving into air.

  “Heaven above,” Penebrygg murmured.

  Even Oldville’s skeptical face looked impressed. “There’s a faint glimmer . . . no, now I’ve lost it.”

  Sir Barnaby sat down and clutched his cane in excitement. “Nat tried to prepare us. But truly, it is beyond belief.”

  “That is enough, quite enough,” my godmother said.

  “Oh, I’m not done yet,” I said, working hard to keep my breathing right. All but invisible, I sang most of the songs she had taught me. I charmed open the locks that Nat had given to me for practice. I turned keys without touching them. I kindled the flames of candles and set a torch alight and made the fire burn brighter. Everyone but Lady Helaine stood open-mouthed in wonder and awe.

  Oldville recovered himself first. “Chantress?” He addressed the query to the air.

  “Over here,” I said, trying not to chuckle as Oldville’s eyes wandered, unable to locate me. “By the fire.”

  “Ah.” He still couldn’t quite place me, I saw, and it was making him a bit cross. “I notice you haven’t sung the song to destroy the grimoire.”

  “How could she, without the grimoire to sing it to?” Penebrygg said reasonably.

  Oldville turned to my godmother. “The song will not work on other books, then?”

  “Of course not,” Lady Helaine snapped. Her anger, I guessed, was as much for me as for Oldville. “The grimoire is utterly unlike other books. Anyone knows that.”

  “But this is hypothesis only? You have not attempted any experiments?” Oldville pressed.

  “No, we have not,” I put in from my place by the fire, for this was a sore point. I found it frustrating to practice a song when I could not judge its effects. “But I should like to try.”

  Oldville palmed a small book from his pocket and waved it in my general direction.

  “No,” Lady Helaine barked. “A most ill-advised idea.”

  “I don’t see why,” Oldville said. “This volume is the work of dunderheads; I’ve disproved all its theories myself. It’s ideal for our purposes.”

  “No,” Lady Helaine said again. “You must not—”

  If I waited for her permission, I would wait forever. No one could see me; I could do as I wished. I plucked the book from Oldville’s hand, dodged Lady Helaine’s outstretched arm, and let the song of destruction flow through me.

  It was an incredibly complex song, closer to Wild Magic than any other I knew, with vivid, joyful syllables that I did not in the least understand. It had taken me ages to memorize, and I was determined to perform it perfectly.

  To my astonishment, however, the spell took effect far sooner than most. Before the end of the first phrase, the book disintegrated in my hands.

  I broke off, bewildered.

  Nat let out a whoop. “She did it!”

  A cat’s grin spread across Lady Helaine’s face.

  Penebrygg and Sir Barnaby looked ready to do a jig. Even Oldville appeared satisfied.

  I smiled mechanically, but my mind was stepping through the notes of the song I had just sung. Why had it worked in such a strange way?

  The question preoccupied me so much that I forgot to breathe in the proper Chantress manner. When I saw the shadow of my hand appearing in midair, I caught myself and tried to call the magic back. But too late: My grip on the concealment spell had slipped past recovery. Sighing, I let the remaining strength of the song leave me, and I became visible once more.

  My godmother continued to smile as the others crowded around to offer their congratulations.

  “A most astounding performance.” Behind the glimmering glass, Penebrygg’s eyes were proud.

  “Most impressive,” Oldville said. “Most impressive indeed.”

  “Here, here,” Sir Barnaby agreed, pounding his cane. “If we were to send you into the Tower tomorrow, I wager you would come up trumps.”

  “Tomorrow?” Lady Helaine’s smile disappeared. “No. There can be no question of that.”
>
  “The sooner the better, my lady,” Sir Barnaby said. “Time is of the essence.”

  “Another week,” Lady Helaine demanded. “A week to perfect her training.”

  “We can afford to wait that long, I expect,” Penebrygg said cautiously.

  “It will give us time to do our part too,” Sir Barnaby agreed. “It is no easy task to set a rebellion in motion, even after so much preparation.”

  Oldville looked disgruntled, but he nodded. “Very well. But only a week, no more.”

  Lady Helaine inclined her head. “Very well. And now you must go, and allow us to be about our business.”

  As she began herding them out the door, Nat turned to me again.

  “Your hand,” I began.

  “It will heal,” Nat said, his voice brusque. “Don’t fret about it. You’ve enough to occupy you already.”

  What he said was true. There were songs I must rehearse and maps I must review and a thousand details I must see to before I went to the Tower.

  But still I worried as Nat took his leave, shielding his hand from sight. I thought of the battle he had lost and the weary set of his shoulders. I thought of how he had never quite met my eyes. And I thought, too, of the men who had fought beside him, who had shot themselves rather than face the Shadowgrims.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  A QUESTION OF POWER

  After the delegation left, I turned and saw Lady Helaine looking into the fire. Her mouth was quirked in that little cat’s smile again. She was like someone hugging a secret to herself, one too delectable to share.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” I asked.

  She looked at me, and her smiled deepened, until she looked exactly as she had when I had destroyed Oldville’s book with my song.

  “That song.” It was a shot in the dark, but I was certain I was right. “Why did it destroy the book so quickly? The pages practically flew apart in my hands.”