‘Gabriel Whitmore and Leda Westergard?’ Crowley murmured.
Alice’s mind jumped back to Cecil’s office, where Leda’s portrait hung in pride of place. They made quite the pair . . .
Alice pressed her fists into her eyes. ‘It can’t be true,’ she said. ‘I’d have . . . I’d have sensed it. I know I would.’
‘Can Tuoni age?’ said Crowley. ‘Whitmore was a young man when he became governor.’
Alice shook her head. ‘He isn’t Tuoni,’ she said, shoving aside the sickening feeling in her stomach. ‘He just isn’t, Crowley.’ Alice’s chest was too tight. ‘Tuoni isn’t just a man living an ordinary life.’ She shuddered. ‘I don’t trust Whitmore – he lied about being in the grove when the siren went off; he lied about the tree growing at the abbey; he threatened Tilda, telling her there was nothing to be done about the destruction of the city moments before another quake; and he – oh God, what if it’s true about the book?’
‘What book?’ Crowley asked sharply.
‘Tom and Bea . . . There was a rumour that Whitmore had a copy of a book. Some sort of Latin book about how the Rookery’s foundations were built over the Summer Tree. Bea once said it was nonsense – but what if it wasn’t? What if he’s doing all this, Crowley? Wouldn’t the head of House Mielikki have access to hidden knowledge the other members don’t? The House’s legacies are growing stronger. Maybe it is a power grab.’
‘But Alice,’ said Crowley, ‘who wants to rule over a broken kingdom? If the Rookery is destroyed, his power is meaningless.’
They fell silent, and Crowley began to pace the tiny room. ‘The Westergards were descended from the Gardiners? That’s what Leda suggests in her diary?’ He stopped, turning to her abruptly. ‘Alice,’ he said, staring at her like he’d never seen her before, ‘regardless of Whitmore – if you’re a Gardiner, this changes everything.’
She was thrown back to the memory of Tilda’s words.
Your mother’s tree . . . You haven’t taken the binding draught? . . . Can you feel it . . .?
Alice couldn’t sleep. Hunkered down in her old Coram House bed, Leda’s words and Tilda’s questions played through her mind on repeat. She was a Gardiner. And if ever in history a Gardiner was needed, it was now. But Leda was only half of Alice’s make-up. How much would her Tuoni ties prevent her from assuming any of the duties a true Gardiner might have been able to perform?
And yet . . . buried so far down that she didn’t dare give it room to grow was the tantalizing prospect: could she become something other than what she was? Leda had wanted her to have the freedom to be herself, but Alice’s concept of self was so warped by her dread of Tuoni’s influence that she had begun to fear herself. Was this a chance for reinvention? Was this her absolution for what had happened to Jen?
Bea had said all control over the tree had ended with the last of Mielikki’s line. If she took the final binding draught, linking herself fully and irreversibly to Mielikki’s Summer Tree, might she somehow be able to control it? To regress its growth? To safely prune it the way a gardener might – and stop it from damaging the city? To save the Rookery from any more destruction?
‘If Gabriel ever loved me . . .’ Alice stared up at her shadowy ceiling. Gabriel Whitmore. Tuoni? She tried out the idea in her mind, but Alice had never felt more numb in her life. What was wrong with her? She gave herself a mental prod, seeking some sort of reaction, but her mind was anaesthetized. Leda wasn’t with him when she’d died. Why? What had he done? Leda claimed she’d broken him – by leaving him?
Tuoni . . . She took a deep, shuddering breath. If Tuoni was alive and well, living in the Rookery . . . then he was no longer an abstract concept, or a bogeyman: he was a man with shrewd blue eyes and thinning hair. It was so normal it was laughable. But he simply couldn’t be Tuoni. Surely she’d have felt it in her bones when they’d first met. Whatever the case – whether he was Tuoni or not – Whitmore had known Leda. He’d loved her, even. So did he know that Alice was really her daughter? And if he was blind to her real identity, might that give her an advantage while she investigated further? Alice exhaled heavily and pulled the blanket up over her head. Downstairs, Crowley would be tossing and turning too, no doubt. He’d grown so deathly quiet after the mention of his mother in Leda’s book that she hadn’t been able to face telling him she’d visited Marianne. Not tonight. They’d fallen into a silence, both consumed by their own thoughts.
Tomorrow, they were going to follow up with Tilda Jarvis. She’d written down the address so as not to forget it. Tilda might be able to tell them more about the odd link between their families. She might also be able to tell them how Alice could save the Rookery from Mielikki’s tree.
‘Are you sure this is it?’ asked Alice, her teeth chattering in the frozen void.
‘I know this area well,’ said Crowley, pushing open the door to a narrow street of Victorian houses. ‘I once took a case near here. A husband who was accusing his wife of running off with most of their savings. He wanted me to track the money down – but of course he really wanted the wife.’
As a thief-taker by trade, Crowley tracked down stolen goods and returned them for a reward. The Runners tolerated him for his usefulness and he despised them for their incompetence.
‘Did you find her?’ asked Alice, shivering. It was summer, and yet the build-up of exhaustion made it difficult to withstand the icy cold every time she travelled.
Crowley glanced down at her. ‘Of course. She was living over in Bermondsey. But it turned out she’d run off with their savings because she’d taken one too many black eyes from him.’ He squinted out into the street. ‘I gave her the money he’d given me to find her and locked all of her doors to travel. I doubt the idiot was bright enough to find her himself, but even if he did, he’d never be able to get in.’
They stepped out from the void, the wind chasing their hair and rippling Crowley’s long coat around his legs.
A creaking open-topped bus rolled past them, a winding staircase spiralling to the upper deck and an advert for Oxo’s Motoring Chocolate, only twenty shillings! stretched across the side. It threw up a draught as it passed and Alice shivered again. Crowley frowned down at her, concern in his eyes.
‘Take this,’ he murmured, pulling off his coat.
He wrapped it around her shoulders, his fingers accidentally brushing her throat, and his eyes caught hers. Crowley stilled, his fingers on her collar and his expression inscrutable, and then cleared his throat.
‘We should go,’ he said, faint reluctance in his tone. ‘I think it’s just up here.’
Alice sank gratefully into the fabric of his coat. Her stomach fluttered with awareness: it was still warm from his body.
The Jarvis family had allowed their fortune to dwindle in the intervening years. Their original family seat in Kensington hadn’t survived their lavish spending and had been sold almost thirty years ago. Tilda Jarvis now lived in a cramped terraced house in the Rookery’s Mile End. Inside, it was filled with the most elaborate interior design Alice had ever seen, as though Tilda had taken lessons on home decoration from the royals. It was such a contrast from the ordinary exterior that it stopped them both in their tracks.
‘They must have managed to retain the furniture when they lost the house,’ said Crowley, his eyes tracing the silk upholstery, gilt-edged ornamental clocks and candlesticks, lush velvet curtains and an eclectic mix of darkly imposing Regency cabinets with theatrical baroque chairs and lamps.
Alice’s shoulders hunched and she buried her face in the collar of Crowley’s coat, squeezing the unbuttoned sides together.
‘Crowley,’ she said quietly. ‘That smell . . .’
A nerve twitched in his temple. ‘I know.’ She glanced over at him. His eyes met hers and he nodded grimly. ‘Can I convince you to stay here?’
‘No.’
Tilda had told Alice to find her again when the chaos settled. The answered knock at the door and the rank, coppery stench of blood to
ld her they were too late.
Crowley moved slowly through the ground-floor rooms, his nose twitching and his face tight with disgust. When it became clear that there was nothing out of place downstairs, he made for the stairs.
‘You’re sure?’ he whispered.
Her fingers clenched the coat’s collar. ‘Yes,’ she replied, a rasp in her voice.
He swept up the stairs ahead of her. She lifted up the ends of the long coat, so as not to trip, and hurried after him. The dreadful odour of death was strongest on the landing.
Crowley was very pale, the most terrible indecision gripping his features, pulling down his brows and thinning his lips.
‘Alice—’ he tried.
‘Crowley,’ she said, ‘I don’t need you to protect me from death. I am Death.’
She stepped past him and into the bedroom, shuddering as she crossed the threshold.
Tilda Jarvis sat at her dressing table. Slumped ever so slightly backwards, her head resting on one shoulder and both hands extended, palms upwards, on the arms of her chair. Her skin was mottled, her face pale, but her limbs were purple where gravity had pulled the un-pumped blood down to settle. A clotted gash had opened up her left forearm, and dried blood had gushed across the dressing table and chair, soaking into her dark skirt. A spray of congealed blood splattered the mirror, and Alice could see her own distorted reflection in it as she entered. Tilda, it was clear, had died of blood loss. But she had not given in without a fight.
I’m glad you’ve come home . . . Tilda’s last words slid into Alice’s memory, spoken just as Tilda ran towards the danger. She’d been courageous and strong. And for her life to end like this . . .
Desperately trying to regain control of her stomach, which was on the verge of expelling its contents through her gullet, Alice had to turn away from the old woman. While Crowley inspected the body, Alice was drawn to the splintered window frame and the four-poster bed, which was missing three of its posts. She surveyed the remains of an oak wardrobe in the corner and the warped wooden floor. The floorboards had been torn up, the planks twisted and the ends sharpened; it almost looked like a mouthful of teeth, biting upwards. The old woman must have thrown every Mielikki defence she could think of at her attacker.
‘She fought for her life,’ Alice said numbly.
‘Yes,’ said Crowley, the toe of his boot sifting through a mound of brick dust strewn by the bottom of the bed. ‘But she was bested by someone younger. Stronger.’
Alice’s gaze drifted back to Tilda and fixed first on the ravaged arm of congealing blood and then the grit and brick dust – where a single white dove’s feather lay, stained a deep red. The one-time calling card of the Fellowship of the Pale Feather.
‘Marianne,’ said Alice, her voice clipped with anger. ‘She did this because of me. Because she knew I wanted to speak to Tilda, and because I tricked her with the rotting fucking’ – she kicked out at a wooden board, smashing it to pieces – ‘research folder.’
Alice clamped a hand on her mouth, her jaw clenched and sudden angry tears in her eyes. That hateful, evil bitch.
‘You . . . went to see Marianne?’ he asked.
She nodded, and his expression darkened.
‘There are things I need to tell you,’ she said, averting her eyes from Tilda with a shudder. ‘Marianne said your mother—’
‘Don’t,’ he said, flinching. ‘I don’t want to know. That woman is poison. You should never have risked it.’
He swallowed thickly, a muscle in his jaw twitching as he tried to master his emotions, forcing down his anger. He hated Marianne even more than she did.
She hesitated before pushing on, more tentatively. ‘In Reid’s file, she mentioned something about a – a Pellervoinen safeguard. And Marianne hinted that your mother—’
‘My mother, the woman she murdered,’ he said, his voice tight. ‘I don’t want to hear more of Marianne’s twisted lies.’ He stepped away from her, hiding his face, and moved to the window to peer out over the street. ‘We should go before someone sees us. We can notify the Runners when we return to Coram House.’
Alice nodded. Maybe now – here – was not the time or place for this. She spun round and strode to the door, wanting to bleach the hideous images from her mind. Marianne had murdered an innocent old woman in petty revenge. Alice hated death. She was so sick of the violence and the pain, and the loneliness of it.
Out on the landing, she held up a hand and inhaled sharply as Kuu appeared with a flutter. Needle-thin claws pinched the sleeve of her coat and the little white bird sidestepped higher, from forearm to shoulder, where she nuzzled Alice’s neck and churred rhythmically.
‘At least I’ll never die alone,’ she whispered fiercely. ‘Not when I have you.’
She stared at Crowley’s back as he stood framed by the window, the sun backlighting strands of too-long dark hair. He had mastered the ability to hide his nightjar – quite a feat, considering he wasn’t even able to see what it was he was masking. His grip had begun to loosen, however, and she had caught one or two fleeting glimpses of it lately. It hovered in the air to his left, like him, peering down at the street. The sun caught its glossy black eyes and the tips of its feathers, and though it was a dark shade of rich browns it seemed almost to glisten in the light. It was a strong bird, imposing and stiff-postured. If a bird could be haughty, then that one word would describe Crowley’s nightjar perfectly.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked, turning to watch her, his eyes concerned.
Alice nodded. ‘Yes. But I think I might like some fresh air now.’ She avoided glancing in Tilda’s direction as she powered down the stairs on shaky legs before bursting out the front door, onto the pavement. She sat on the kerb, stroking Kuu’s feathers.
When Crowley emerged ten minutes or so later, she was finally able to greet him without a quiver of rage in her voice.
‘You’ve . . . stolen her books?’ she asked, staring at the two battered books he carried in one hand.
‘I hardly think she’ll notice,’ he said.
Alice’s eyes flashed, and she opened her mouth to issue a suitable response, but he cut her off.
‘I thought I’d have a quick look before the Runners arrive and confiscate the lot,’ he said. ‘She’s a librarian, who left you a book, and who apparently had further information she could provide us about our guilt-ridden mothers.’ He gestured at the books. ‘A quick check of her personal library – not as extensive as you’d probably have imagined – was worth a moment of my time.’
‘And . . . so what did you find?’ asked Alice, frowning.
He held them out to her. ‘I found two books . . . that I couldn’t open.’
One of the books was nearly empty – all of its pages had been torn out except one on which a slash of ink read, Natura valde simplex est et sibi consona. In contrast, the other book was crammed with writing and drawings in every available space. Blotches of ink made some passages illegible, and sunlight had faded others. There were at least three or four different styles of penmanship, making it impossible – without further investigation – to tell whether any of the commentary belonged to Leda Westergard.
The first few pages contained an image drawn in thinly inked lines of a small, enclosed room, the stone walls curved and something indecipherable in the centre. The drawing had been annotated in Latin. In fact – she turned the yellowed pages with great care – the vast majority of the book was in Latin, a dead language that she had very definitely not studied in her comprehensive school.
She had raised an eyebrow at finding two books in Latin so soon after their conversation about Whitmore’s rumoured book. Until Crowley had pointed out that there were shelves of Latin texts at the university, and that while it was a dead language now, it hadn’t been hundreds of years ago when many were written.
‘I can’t read them,’ she said, frustration flickering in her chest as she turned to Crowley, who was making them a cup of tea in the Coram House kitchen. ‘What the
hell is “natura valde simplex est et sibi consona” supposed to mean?’
‘Nature is exceedingly simple and harmonious,’ Crowley responded automatically.
Alice blinked up at him. ‘You can—?’ She shook her head. ‘Never mind, of course you can.’
‘It’s a quote,’ he said with a sharp laugh. ‘One of Isaac Newton’s. The rest of my Latin is admittedly rusty.’
‘Well mine is non-existent,’ she said, sitting back and rubbing her face wearily. ‘This is just great. I can’t read the words, and you can’t even see them.’
Crowley couldn’t see a single word on these pages either; they appeared utterly blank, like Leda’s biography. They had clearly been locked to unapproved eyes as part of some Mielikki legacy trickery.
‘I could copy it out for you,’ she said, casting a doubtful look over the thick wedge of pages filled with incomprehensible handwriting. She could spend hours copying useless pages before she ever reached anything important.
‘Read it to me,’ he said, pulling aside the chair and feigning a most un-Crowley-like patience. ‘I might be able to translate.’
It was a frustrating process. Alice was pronouncing as phonetically as she could, but Crowley could understand only two words in every twenty. The fire in the grate had dwindled to nothing before they had a breakthrough.
‘Say that part again,’ said Crowley, suddenly stiffening.
‘I can’t read it properly, there’s a big blotch and then it’s faded.’ She squinted at the page again. ‘Tutela est lapis, that one?’
‘And before that?’ he said.
‘I . . . It’s impossible to see it properly. Est . . . Es? Or aestas? I’m not sure how to say it . . .’
Alice trailed off, watching as – with sharp efficiency – Crowley snatched his coat from the back of his chair.
She put down her teacup. ‘What does it mean?’
He hesitated. ‘Lapis . . . is “stone”. And aestas is “summer”.’
Alice’s senses sharpened. Stone and summer?
The Rookery Page 31