The Rookery

by Deborah Hewitt

  Other methods. She’d used hemomancy, blood magic, to trick new members and swell the ranks with compulsion.

  ‘Catherine Rose vanished – and many suggested Marianne had killed her.’

  ‘She went to the mainland,’ said Alice – the world on the other side of Marble Arch. ‘Reid travelled Europe, taking short posts at different universities to further her research. She left the Sorbonne under a cloud.’

  ‘But . . . why did she reappear twenty years later as Vivian Reid?’ Crowley mused.

  ‘Because of her research project on souls,’ said Alice.

  ‘Which she herself destroyed?’

  ‘Yes. The bulk of it.’

  ‘Strange,’ said Crowley, ‘to have found something important enough to resurface – after a decades-long absence – only to obliterate that very thing within a year.’

  Alice nodded. It certainly was strange – but it wasn’t the only thing. Something nagged at her, something that didn’t seem to fit.

  ‘Crowley?’ she said slowly. ‘You’re talking about Vivian Reid as though you’ve never heard her name before today. But . . . you were the one who told me about the job working with her in the first place.’

  He glanced at her. ‘It wasn’t me – it was Sasha who found the advert in the newspaper. It didn’t mention your employer’s name, only Magellan’s. For an aviarist, it seemed perfect.’

  She nodded, lapsing into silence. It had been perfect for her. Until Reid had destroyed everything.

  ‘I think Catherine – Reid, whoever she is – knew my biological mother. But if Reid was in House Pellervoinen, and a member of the Fellowship . . . is it possible my mother was too? Have I got this wrong, assuming she was in House Mielikki?’ She shuddered a breath. ‘The legacies aren’t always that clear, are they? You can have a bit of any of them – be a jack of all trades,’ she said, remembering Cecil’s words.

  ‘That’s true,’ said Crowley. ‘But to pass for a House you must have a dominant legacy. The jacks of all trades don’t usually pass.’ His eyes narrowed, searching hers. ‘You have a House Mielikki parent; I’m certain of that.’

  She hoped he was right, because if not, the second test might kill her. Alice shifted in her seat, one nagging argument against his theory refusing to slide. ‘But you passed for House Ilmarinen,’ she pointed out, ‘and you’re . . .’ She searched for the right word.

  ‘Prodigiously talented with the doorways?’ he offered, his mouth tugging into a faint smile.

  ‘Yes.’ She hesitated. Then, ‘I should have thanked you earlier. For what you did for my parents. The safety door.’

  His eyes held hers. ‘It was my pleasure.’

  Alice felt something in her chest begin to thaw. She nodded and looked away. Crowley and his doorways. He could open almost any door for travelling. There was virtually nowhere closed to him, and nowhere he couldn’t go. And yet, it wasn’t Ilmarinen who had created the doorways – it had been Pellervoinen.

  ‘Your dominant Ilmarinen legacy wasn’t diluted by your Pellervoinen one,’ she said.

  He smiled to himself. ‘That’s . . . not quite correct.’

  ‘Well I’m glad anyway,’ she said after a moment. ‘I’d rather you were in Ilmarinen. Mielikki and Pellervoinen were at odds with each other. I think you and I have enough problems without our opposing Houses getting in the way.’

  He laughed. ‘Pellervoinen and Mielikki weren’t in opposition.’

  She cocked an eyebrow. ‘No? She created the most incredible tree in the world and he went and slapped a big bloody abbey round it. He literally imprisoned her greatest creation.’

  ‘Non-factual rubbish,’ said Crowley.

  She glared at him, aghast. ‘Why on earth are you defending him?’

  Crowley gave a long-suffering sigh – designed purely to irritate, she had no doubt. ‘They built the foundations of the Rookery together, tree and stone.’

  ‘Well, given that the foundations seem to be disintegrating under our feet,’ said Alice, ‘their teamwork skills weren’t up to much.’

  ‘You can thank Mielikki’s unmanageable contribution for that,’ he said.

  She shot him a dark look.

  ‘Look, Pellervoinen didn’t place the abbey around the tree to imprison it,’ said Crowley. ‘He placed a monumental stone abbey around her tree . . . to protect it. To keep it safe for her.’

  Alice shook her head sceptically.

  ‘They didn’t despise each other; they loved each other,’ he pressed. ‘Why else do you think they built the foundations of their Houses so close together?’

  She hesitated, unwilling to cede the point to him – though she didn’t really know why. Habit, she supposed.

  ‘Alice,’ Crowley said in a low voice, his gaze locked on hers. ‘Look at my nightjar.’

  Four small words that sucked out the air in the room. She stared at him. She had only ever seen his nightjar once. He’d always gone to great lengths to hide it from her – one of the few people who could. And now he was offering it up for inspection – the guardian mirror of his soul?

  Her eyes began to drift, searching, but she shook her head. ‘No. I don’t need that from you.’

  Once, the curiosity had almost driven her mad. But she’d learned since then that her gift came with responsibilities, and that no one owed her their deepest self. Though it meant something to her that he’d offered.

  Crowley leaned closer, his shirtsleeves pushed up and his elbows resting on his knees. ‘Please,’ he said, his eyes glittering with something like mischief. ‘Just look.’

  She hesitated – before nodding.

  Her gaze left his face, tracing a path from the glowing cord around his wrist to the dark-feathered bird resting on the table, watching her. Sharp-beaked and strong, it had a series of short intersecting lines on the breast feathers – as expected from a member of House Ilmarinen – but the overwhelming pattern was of speckles, barely visible against the dark mahogany vanes, like those from Pellervoinen.

  Confusion lined her brow and she shuffled closer to be sure, before backing away again.

  ‘The pattern . . .’ she said. ‘It’s mostly Pellervoinen. But then why aren’t you a member of that House?’

  He sat back and tugged down his shirtsleeves, and she had the sense that having exposed himself, he was buttoning himself up again – literally and metaphorically.

  ‘I could never belong to the House in which Marianne Northam, murderess, is a member. They didn’t expel her, you know. They know what she’s capable of, but she was never officially charged. Apparently, murder only counts if it’s committed on this side of Marble Arch.’ He shook his head bitterly. ‘Allowing her to retain her membership – it legitimized her; it legitimized what she did. I could never be part of that. So I trained harder than you can possibly imagine, under Josef Skala, honing a weaker legacy to pass their tests and hoping that my weaknesses wouldn’t kill me off during my membership bid. But I passed, and the rest, as they say, is history.’

  They fell into a silence. Alice wasn’t quite sure what to say. She’d known he had the mental strength of iron, but to sharpen a weaker legacy to such an extent was remarkable. And to throw off a legacy he didn’t want was just as incredible.

  ‘Do you ever regret it?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve made my peace with it. Though I have no doubt my mother would turn in her grave to see me in another House.’

  ‘The Northams were another big Pellervoinen family, like the Roses?’ said Alice.

  He paused, considering his answer.

  ‘The Northams were the Pellervoinen family,’ he said with a quick, tight smile. ‘Or . . . the tapered end of it.’

  Alice frowned, not quite processing his meaning. ‘Do you mean—’

  ‘My grandmother was a Wren. Rumours that the Wrens were really Pellervoinens had circulated for years,’ he drawled. ‘My grandmother neither confirmed nor denied them. She was, apparently, far too sharp for that; she
knew that there would have been expectations and demands made of her if it was confirmed.’

  ‘Crowley,’ Alice repeated. ‘Are you actually saying that the Northams – as in, you and Marianne – are descended directly from Pellervoinen?’

  He shrugged offhandedly. ‘Everyone is descended from someone.’

  Alice’s eyes widened and she laughed into the silence, a shocked sound. She stared at him, incredulous.

  ‘You’re serious?’

  He raised a coy eyebrow.

  ‘You’re . . . the heir of the man who helped build the Rookery’s foundations? The foundations that are starting to—’

  He shook his head to forestall her. ‘My lineage gives me a talent for opening doors, that’s all,’ he said, ‘not for rebuilding the shoddy foundations of an entire city.’

  ‘But Crowley—’

  The front door creaked and she glanced over her shoulder as the rumble of chatter and laughter came from the hallway. Footsteps approached, and then the kitchen door was batted wide. August, chewing on a hunk of sourdough bread tucked under his arm without a cover on it, grinned down at them.

  ‘Not interrupting anything, are we?’ he said.

  Crowley’s eyes narrowed. ‘You are always interrupting something,’ he said. ‘Unwanted appearances are your way of life.’ He sighed. ‘Alice was just . . . preparing for her test, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh. Let’s see then,’ said August, dumping his bread on the counter while Jude wheeled into the room, with Sasha following close behind. They stared down at her expectantly, and she turned to Crowley with a faint glare. This was his fault. He raised an eyebrow, clearly amused.

  Alice sighed and reached up to the fireplace mantle for one of the pot plants in a ceramic container. She placed it on the table and dug her fingertips into the soil, allowing warmth to massage through them. She pressed harder, and the drooping spider plant was taken over by a growth spurt, shooting up, the stem thickening, bursting with a flurry of new leaves. She removed her hands and sat back down with a satisfied smile.

  ‘In the last test,’ she said, ‘they pitted us against objects tainted from the other Houses, to see if we could withstand—’

  Crowley waved a lazy hand and her plant burst into flames. Fire ate holes through the smouldering leaves.

  ‘Crowley,’ Sasha shouted in laughing admonishment.

  He gave her an innocent look. ‘What? I was just checking if it could withstand—’

  Behind him, August snapped his fingers. A hovering balloon of water appeared to grow out from the soil and exploded, dousing the flames.

  ‘Thank you, August,’ said Alice, shooting a glance at Crowley.

  But August had overdone it with the water. It sloshed like a wave over the kitchen table.

  Jude pulled a coin from his pocket and flipped it in the air. It reshaped itself, widening into a broader disc, the edges rising. When it landed in his hand, it had transformed into a bronze cup. He held it under the table’s edge and caught the water pouring across the surface.

  He winked at Alice, and there was a moment of stunned silence in the kitchen as he raised the metal cup – and drank the lot.

  ‘Did I ever tell you that I was the three-time Cream of the Crops champion – rock, paper, scissors round?’ he said.

  The room erupted with laughter, and Alice felt a weight on her chest lift as she looked around at them all.

  ‘I have a present for you,’ said Jude, leaning closer while the others fell to bickering. He reached into the side bag on his wheelchair and pulled out a small box.

  ‘The signet ring?’ she said. ‘Did you have any luck?’

  He flipped the lid open in answer and she picked it out with careful fingers.

  He’d worked a miracle. The ring gleamed in the light, the engraving on the burnished gold clear as day. If it was a crest, it was an unusual shape: an oval, made of intertwining branches and leaves, with a handful of simple shapes around the edges. What she’d taken to be scratches now looked like birds.

  ‘You mentioned Chancellor Westergard’s ring,’ he said quietly so the others couldn’t hear. ‘So I checked for you. It’s not the Westergard crest, Alice.’

  She let this sink in for a moment, and then nodded. She knew it had been a long shot anyway. ‘Thanks for this – if nothing else, it was special to someone once, and now it looks good as new. How did you restore the detail so well?’

  Jude laughed. ‘Magic.’

  There was a chill in the air, and Alice burrowed her hands into her pockets as she crossed the road. Overhead, the falling sun hid itself behind thick grey clouds, and a lone star twinkled in the darkening sky. They were in for rain. Not the warm summer rain welcomed with relief – the cold, lashing rain that drilled into your clothes and left you sopping and miserable. The woven branches and leaves that formed two of House Mielikki’s walls might be glad of it, however.

  ‘This test is different to the first,’ said Bea as they crossed the road towards the House. ‘Tonight is a competition. You won’t speak to the others beforehand, and that’s for the best. And if you see them at all during the test, don’t speak to them, don’t look at them, don’t make yourself small out of politeness.’

  Alice nodded. She had no intention of losing out of misguided civility. This was too important. But she felt ready – even despite the emotional upset of the past few days. The return of Sasha and the others to Coram House had ended her conversation with Crowley. She’d been left with multitudes of unanswered questions, but their presence had lifted her spirits in a way she hadn’t realized she’d needed. She’d slept in her old room, and she’d slept well. A solid eight hours. She hadn’t had time to speak privately with Crowley before she’d had to leave for some final hours of practice with Bea, but he’d wished her luck and offered to wait outside the House for her. She’d declined – she hadn’t wanted to risk any distractions – and he’d respected her decision.

  Alice paused outside the entrance, absentmindedly rubbing her signet ring.

  ‘Should we warn someone?’ she asked suddenly. ‘About what Reid said? About Crane Park Island being her fault? It might give them something more solid to investigate.’

  On their walk to the doorway for travelling, Alice had given Bea a shortened account of Reid’s panicked claims. She trusted Bea implicitly. But there were some things she had left out about her encounter with Reid – private things she wanted to probe mentally before she shared them with anyone other than Crowley.

  ‘I can’t see how one university professor could be responsible,’ said Bea. ‘You don’t think it smacks of delusions of grandeur? Our tree – the Summer Tree – is the most powerful force in the Rookery.’ Bea snorted dismissively. ‘She isn’t even a member of Mielikki’s House. Which does she belong to?’

  ‘Pellervoinen,’ Alice replied, her brow furrowing as she considered this in light of her conversation with Crowley. If both Mielikki and Pellervoinen had built the foundations and Mielikki’s offering had somehow begun to fail, could House Pellervoinen be responsible? But why would they want to destroy the Rookery? They would gain nothing. It made no sense.

  Bea’s nose wrinkled. ‘As a precaution, I suppose we should report it to the Runners,’ she said, although it had been House Mielikki’s authority figures Alice had been thinking of.

  ‘If you’re heading to Islington to retrieve Reid’s research, I’ll come with you,’ said Bea. ‘I used to live in Islington myself.’

  Alice shook her head. ‘Thanks, but it’s okay – I’ve made arrangements already, and I’ll be keeping it short and sweet.’ It wasn’t quite the truth – if she had the opportunity, Alice planned to see what else Reid was hiding. The remainder of her research was one thing, but Reid had had an intimate connection with Alice’s past, and she wanted to know what it was.

  Alice glanced up at the arched bough that shaped the House’s doorway. Warm light flickered invitingly in the shadows beyond it. She took a deep breath and stepped inside. Behind he
r, slithering vines and branches crept across the gap, knitting together to close off the entrance.

  ‘Ready?’ whispered Bea.

  ‘Yes.’ Time to stop thinking about Reid and focus on herself.

  Bea squeezed her arm and swept off down the corridor, leading Alice into Cecil’s office.

  The room was unchanged from her last visit. All luxurious walnut furniture, leather chairs and crowded walls. Ornamental wooden and terracotta animals jostled for space with the framed portraits of House Mielikki’s most prestigious members – chancellors, governors, rectors and treasurers – and in pole position was the current governor, Gabriel Whitmore, his unreadable face staring out from a particularly elegant frame.

  Cecil was seated behind his desk, suited in a dark grey three-piece, his glasses hanging on a chain around his neck.

  ‘Is the governor here today?’ she asked lightly.

  ‘No,’ said Cecil. ‘He was here first thing this morning, but he was called away. A shame. He’d expressed an interest in staying for the tests, but circumstances being as volatile as they currently are . . .’ He trailed away and gave her a knowing look over his glasses.

  Alice considered this while he busied himself with paperwork. Hadn’t Cecil said last time that the governor only dealt with the test-takers if they reached the final stage and he had to confer membership on them? Why would he be interested in watching them at this early stage?

  Alice took a seat and tried to ignore the portrait of Governor Whitmore, which her imagination now had her half convinced was watching her.

  Cecil scooped up the dangling pocket watch and checked the time.

  ‘Would you like to stay?’ he asked Bea. ‘Or did you have other business in the House?’

  Bea nodded. ‘I might just catch up on some news in the clubhouse bar. Is Tom already here?’

  Cecil winced. ‘He is. There’s been some discussion among the others. Some of the other candidates have requested that he doesn’t administer their binding draught, after the incident with Holly Mowbray. He’s putting a brave face on it, but an arm around the shoulder wouldn’t go amiss if you have time.’