‘Alice?’
Jen’s voice. Not rasping, not taunting. Just Jen.
‘Alice, run! He wants you!’
She sat up with a gasp, her hands clenching the bedsheets. The curtains weren’t fully closed, and the street lamp outside bobbed around the edges of her vision like a yellow orb. She whipped back her sheets and wriggled her feet. They were white with cold. Numbed and icy to the touch. Trembling, she wrapped the covers around them and squeezed her toes for warmth. Was it just a dream? She glanced over at the dormant fire in the grate. This room had always been cold. But her feet were frozen . . .
Alice sighed and stared blankly up at the ceiling. After a few moments, she frowned and squinted into the shadows. They were moving. Wiry oak twigs curled out of the white plaster above her head and she realized what she was seeing: life had blossomed out from the wooden joists supporting the floor above. She tensed, expecting an attack – but they dangled immobile, posing no threat. As she sank into the pillows and tried to empty her mind for sleep, Jen’s voice reverberated through her mind.
Alice, run! He wants you!
She had no intention of running – from anyone.
‘Why is it so cold in here?’ asked Alice as she prepared a bowl of lingonberry porridge for breakfast the next morning. The entire house was chilled.
‘The underground mains pipes have burst,’ said Sasha, who was sitting on the countertop in stripy blue pyjamas, eating breakfast yoghurt with a tense expression. ‘I was out there half an hour ago. Three streets away, there’s a sinkhole in the road that’s taken out the heating in every house up to half a mile away. Ours included.’
‘Aftershocks,’ said Jude, ‘from last night.’
Alice nodded, her shoulders sinking at the thought of there being yet more damage caused by the Summer Tree, like ripples in a pond.
‘The Council will fix the pipes,’ said Jude, flicking a hand at the fire, where an explosion of flames suddenly leapt into the grate. ‘And in the meantime, warmth won’t be a problem for us.’
She nodded. Jude was dressed in the clothes he usually wore to his forge – turned-up jeans and a grey shirt with J. Lyons embroidered on the pocket. He seemed quietly contemplative. Not that that was unusual for Jude, but there was an air of solemnity about him this morning that was strangely detached.
The door swung open and Alice glanced towards it, but it was August, not Crowley.
‘He’s gone out,’ said Sasha, sensing what she’d been hoping to see. ‘He left at the crack of dawn, but he said he’d be back before lunch. I think he thought you’d be sleeping in till then. It was a long night.’
Alice nodded and moved to sit with her porridge and a cup of tea. Crowley vanishing was common practice. Alice suspected he’d gone to check on his sister – comatose in a London hospital – to check that the chaos of last night hadn’t left echoes in London.
‘I’ve been doing some digging,’ said August. ‘And your biological mother . . . If she was a member of House Mielikki, then she wasn’t a practising necromancer.’
Alice jerked upright, caught off guard by the randomness of his comment. ‘What?’
August ruffled his straw-like hair and threw himself into a kitchen chair, long legs stretched out like a spider’s. He looked like he hadn’t slept all night. Like the rest of them, she supposed.
‘Is there any coffee?’ August asked through a yawn.
‘Just tea,’ said Jude, holding up his flask. He always carried a flask of emergency tea. As a compulsive tea drinker, it was one of the things Alice loved most about him.
‘No good. I need double the amount of caffeine that tea can give me,’ said August.
‘Well, genius,’ said Sasha, throwing her bowl into the sink, ‘you could always have two cups.’
‘Point noted,’ he replied. He gestured for the flask, and Jude wheeled closer, uncapped it and poured him a cup.
‘You look like you could do with a shot of something in this,’ said Jude. ‘Where were you last night?’
‘Running errands,’ said August.
‘You’ve been doing some research into my family history?’ asked Alice, placing her spoon on the table with great deliberation, as though any sudden movements would distract him. The possible overstepping of boundaries hung in the air for just a moment.
‘Call it professional interest,’ he said. He looked around the kitchen. ‘Oh come on. No one else was curious about how Tuoni, basically the chief necromancer, managed to meet a woman and . . .?’
He trailed away and gestured at Jude as though for support. Sasha shook her head in disgust, while Jude sighed.
Alice sat up straighter, her tiredness falling away. ‘Tell me what you’ve found out,’ she said. ‘Please.’
August raised a smug eyebrow at Jude, before turning to Alice.
‘They keep a record of all the registered necromancers, going back years, at the Council’s White Tower offices,’ he said. ‘And Eris Mawkin owed me a favour.’
‘Eris doesn’t work for the Council,’ said Sasha.
‘Maybe not,’ he said, ‘but she’s got a nice shiny badge from the Runners that says she’s allowed any file she asks for. Anyway, I went to see her last night.’
‘At midsummer?’ said Sasha.
He shrugged. ‘We had a drink at Hyde Park.’
‘At midsummer?’ Sasha repeated, crossing one leg over the other. August gave her a strange look and Sasha frowned. ‘I’m just surprised you gave up an opportunity. All those lovesick women dropping their standards for one night only.’
‘Sasha, please remember the house rules,’ said Jude, forcing a smile and clearly trying to rally his mood. ‘You’ve been banned from cooking for us, cleaning the bathroom and bullying August. We’ve spoken about this.’
‘Deprived of all my favourite hobbies,’ she replied, shaking a curl out of her eyes. ‘Fine, so you saw Eris Mawkin and . . .?’
‘Mawkin is the only registered House Mielikki necromancer for at least three decades.’
Alice’s eyebrows shot up. She’d had no idea Mawkin was a member of the House – so few necromancers ever were. ‘What about unregistered ones?’ she asked. ‘The ones who’ve gone off-grid to avoid the Runners taking too much of an interest in them?’
‘No unregistered necromancer belonging to House Mielikki either,’ he said.
‘But how would she know?’ Alice pressed. ‘If they’re unregistered and underground, no one would know who—’
‘Mawkin would know,’ August said. ‘You know what she’s like, always propping up a bar somewhere or other. Twenty-odd years ago she’d have been a wildcat. Same trade, same House; they’d have crossed paths.’ He turned to Alice, his expression serious. ‘Whoever your mother was, I don’t think she met Tuoni through necromancy.’
Alice nodded. She knew so little about her biological parents. Even Tuoni, who had become such an overwhelming presence, was a mystery to her.
‘What are your theories on the incident last night?’ Jude asked quietly.
Alice started. Her mouth opened, and swiftly closed again. She didn’t really want to talk about last night.
‘I’ll tell you mine,’ said August, with morbid relish.
Alice dropped out of the conversation, unable to concentrate. All she could think about was her ceiling and the fact that she had woken feeling tired, but without a single ache or pain. She and Crowley had clawed through mud, had fallen against tables and been flung about by the uneven ground. She should have woken with muscle burn and bruises blooming across her skin. And yet she didn’t have a scratch. Every full member of House Mielikki – even those with only one foot in the door – seemed to benefit from the growth of the tree. She was starting to believe that its extraordinary power was already beginning to balance Tuoni’s deathly legacy and save her life. A prospect that was desperately welcome and hideous in equal measure, because if correct, she was benefiting from the Summer Tree’s growth while others died. The echoes of the screams an
d shouts of Crane Park Island washed over her and she shuddered.
‘Jude?’ she said, slipping off her oval signet ring and glancing down at the faded crest. ‘Can I ask a favour?’
Alice had deliberated long and hard, but in the end she hadn’t waited for Crowley to return to Coram House before she left. Jude had taken himself off to his workshop to try to clarify the engraving on her ring, and Alice took the opportunity to check in on Bea again. She wanted news about last night – real news, from the House and not gossipmongers or newspapers – and only Bea could give it to her.
Bea, however, was not at the university when Alice arrived. There was a sombre air over the entire campus. Students and staff, or their loved ones, may well have been caught up in the Crane Park disaster. There were no lectures in the halls, no seminars in the fusty rooms, no sounds of the Ditto machine cranking out paperwork. One or two of the administrative staff passed her in the corridors and nodded solemnly as they went on their way, but there was a blanket of silence draped over the place that was unnerving during term time.
Alice found herself at a loose end, waiting for Bea’s return. She had walked the length of the Arlington Building several times, and sat in the library, staring at the same page for half an hour while the words slid off the paper. It was impossible to concentrate on her training books. She needed to do something practical to distract her mind.
Genealogy books. That’s what she needed. Jude had the ring with the faded crest on, and she couldn’t truthfully remember what it looked like without it in front of her, but she could make a start. Bea would not be pleased at the state of the shelves. The ripples of Crane Park’s destruction had stretched further than Alice had expected: one of the shelves had snapped and another had tipped its load onto the floor. She stacked them up neatly and moved on to the genealogy section. The volumes found here were arranged in House order, with titles like Esteemed Houses of the Eighteenth Century. She traced a finger along those in the House Mielikki section and settled on The Roots of House Mielikki.
She flipped through the pages, searching for crests, but there were very few on offer. In fact, it appeared to be less a genealogical study and more a salacious story of five-hundred-year-old sex scandals and political marriages between the Gardiners and the Florins – apparently two of House Mielikki’s oldest families.
Alice paused, book in hand. She was tempted to return it for a more serious tome, but last night had been serious enough. So maybe sex scandals and centuries-old gossip was exactly the sort of levity she needed right now. Besides, if House Mielikki was on the rise, it was useful to know exactly what it had risen from. Trudging back to the comfy chairs, she settled down, slung one leg over her knee and scanned through the book.
She was deep into the tale of how the Gardiners – the longest-surviving dynasty and the original bloodline of Mielikki herself – had married into the Florins and found themselves erased from history. The last Gardiner daughter married a Florin who stole her inheritance, divorced her and then married a Lynn. And the Florilynns, as they became known after scrapping the double-barrel, went on to found The Rookery Herald before losing their entire fortune to gambling debts at the end of the nineteenth century, when the bloodline dwindled and vanished for good. There was a whole chapter devoted bitterly to the fact that Maurice Beale, a newly moneyed industrialist, had swept in and bought the newspaper, despite being a member of the opposing House Pellervoinen.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ asked Bea, sweeping into the library, her voice instantly breaking the mournful silence.
Alice blinked up at her, closing the book with a snap. ‘I could ask you the same question.’
Bea shook her head. ‘Not here,’ she said. ‘Out on the lawns. Let’s go.’
‘Outside?’ asked Alice. ‘Why?’
‘The House has been debating whether to postpone the membership applications until this whole palaver with the Summer Tree is over.’
‘They’re cancelling my test?’ asked Alice, horrified.
‘No,’ replied Bea. ‘They’re bringing it forward. To tomorrow night.’
The university gardens near Holly’s memorial were empty, but they took the precaution of choosing a secluded clearing behind the laurel hedges. Here, the grass was long and a neat arc of crab apple trees lined the area.
‘You’re imagining a knife instead of a fist,’ said Bea.
Alice was standing over a pine log suspended by laurels. She felt like a black belt martial artist, chopping wood for the approval of a trainer. Every now and again, Kuu churred loudly as though attempting to cheer her on.
‘If you’re slicing strips off the trunk, you’re narrowing your focus,’ said Bea. ‘Fist, not knife, darling. Fix it up and try again.’
Bea’s instructions were incredibly specific. Split the log, but don’t carve through it; use force but don’t physically touch it; snap it cleanly without splinters. Alice’s lips pursed. She pressed her hand to the log, and under her palm the nicks in the bark smoothed out.
‘Geraint has fobbed me off.’
‘What?’ asked Alice. Bea’s surprising relationship with Chancellor Litmanen was the least important thing that had happened lately.
‘He doesn’t think it will play well with the voters if he’s seen getting too cosy with a member of House Mielikki. Or, to put it another way, the House is on the public’s shit-list and he wants to come out strong against us.’
‘Against us?’ said Alice, flexing her hand for another go. ‘But the House hasn’t done anything wrong. It’s not our fault that the tree is having a growth spurt.’
‘Yes, well, not quite true, but nice try. We are, all things considered, in the middle of a shit-astrophe.’ Bea relaxed against a small apple tree and buried her head in her hands. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t even like that word; I’m just having a moment.’ She took a deep breath and murmured, ‘Shitshitshitshitshit.’ Then she lifted her head and wafted cool air onto her face. ‘Okay. Okay, I’m good now. The fresh air helps; we should work out here more often.’
‘Why isn’t it quite true?’ asked Alice, ignoring the brief meltdown. ‘Are you saying it is House Mielikki’s fault?’
There was an expectant pause. Alice bent her arm, took a deep breath and shoved from the elbows. Her hand snapped forward – a little too curved – and lopped off a chunk before the log broke in half.
‘When the hand’s about to land, it needs to be—’
‘Straight,’ said Alice, ‘I know. Channel it evenly through the ball of my palm.’
She picked up both halves, pressed her hands over it and resealed the log. Breaking the wood was easy. But she was used to relying on the tingle in her fingers and the feel of Mielikki’s legacy surging up her arms. Bea wanted to sharpen her ability to focus her power through the fleshy part of her palm – it was the most stable part of the hand, and if the legacy poured down her arms rather than up, she could exert much more force into the pressure point.
‘Is it House Mielikki’s fault that the tree is causing problems?’ asked Alice, replacing the wood, ready for another try.
‘Possibly. Mielikki’s tree is our responsibility,’ said Bea, closing her eyes and tipping her head back. ‘It’s always been the responsibility of her House, in one way or another.’
‘What happened at Crane Park . . .’ Alice began.
‘Awful,’ said Bea, her eyes flying open and her expression darkening. ‘We lost so many to the sinkholes.’
‘I saw tree roots in the trenches, in the cracks. I’m sure I did. The Summer Tree’s roots?’
‘Yes,’ said Bea wearily. ‘There’s no hiding it now, I’m afraid. The other Houses know. The Council knows. Like I said – Geraint’s throwing us under the bus for votes.’
Alice nodded, sinking briefly into her own thoughts before resurfacing. She stared at the pine log, focused on its weakest point in the middle and arched her arm over her shoulder. Imagining the desire starting in her chest, the back of her neck prickled and s
he shivered. The blood raced through her arms. She swung her hand out like a punch and stopped a centimetre clear of the bark. The air warped around her closed fist and smashed through the wooden log. Obliterated it. Annihilated it. Pine dust and splinters exploded across the grass, and Alice’s sleeve was covered in it.
‘Fuck,’ she muttered.
‘Yes,’ said Bea, spitting out sawdust. ‘A little heavy-handed, I agree.’
Alice flicked the powdered debris off her clothes and swiped up a second log. She slammed it into position with a vengeance.
‘Tell me about the tree,’ urged Alice. ‘Tell me the things that aren’t in the books you’ve given me so far.’
‘Oh, darling—’
‘You’re my mentor,’ Alice pointed out, fixated on the wood. ‘Come on, mentor me. I want to know . . . everything. Like – when it’s said that the foundations of the Rookery are built on the tree, is that literally or metaphorically?’
‘I’m not sure I know a great deal more than you, any more,’ Bea murmured. ‘It’s not in the books. That’s the problem. Everything we know has been passed on by word of mouth, and people are fallible – we make mistakes, we misinterpret what we’ve heard.’
There was a rustle of movement in the grass and Tom appeared, striding out from the trees and into their glade.
‘That’s not strictly true,’ he said with a solemn smile. ‘There was one book that put forward a theory about our foundations.’
Bea threw him an exasperated glance. ‘A book that burned to a crisp hundreds of years ago.’
Tom slumped down next to Bea in the grass and kicked out his long legs. ‘There are rumours that Governor Whitmore has a copy of it.’
‘All nonsense, darling,’ said Bea with a sigh. ‘If Gabriel Whitmore owned one of the Rookery’s greatest losses to literature, I think I’d know about it.’
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