He shook off the bite of anger in his tone and glanced out of the window again, returning to face her with a blank expression. Always shoving his emotion behind a mask, thought Alice. She instinctively moved to search out his nightjar but caught herself just in time.
‘According to photographs – which you have of course seen,’ he said, ‘she had brown hair, bright green eyes and a very noble, one might say patrician proboscis.’
Alice’s face screwed up. ‘Proboscis?’
He gave her a withering look. ‘The nose, Alice. She gave me the nose.’
She bit her lip to keep from laughing. ‘And a very splendid nose it is.’
Crowley nodded in acknowledgement.
‘Many of my memories are sketchy. Sylvie tried to bring them to life, but . . .’ He shook his head.
Sylvie was the aviarist who had awakened Alice’s gift. It seemed like a lifetime ago that she’d sent Alice a feather from her nightjar – every dying aviarist’s nightjar shed a feather to pass on and catalyse another’s sight. Sylvie had also taken Crowley in when he’d needed a refuge from his father. She’d stepped into his life when he was a teenager, lost in grief for his sister, and taken him under her wing.
‘I used to think it was coincidence that we met,’ said Alice. ‘But it wasn’t, was it?’
He set down his cup to listen to her more carefully.
‘Sylvie’s nightjar made me an aviarist—’
‘You were always an—’
‘All right, well, she opened my eyes to it, then. And you found me because you’d been waiting to find her successor. But she knew your mother, and yours knew mine. And even our oldest ancestors were linked . . .’ She shook her head. ‘It’s just . . . strange.’
‘I think it’s likely that’s the very reason our parents knew each other. Shared histories are binding. What’s more strange is that they died in the same year.’
‘How do you know when—?’
‘Everyone knows when Chancellor Westergard died.’
‘What did Leda do that made her so well loved?’ she asked quietly. ‘All I hear is that she was the greatest chancellor the city had ever had, but . . . why?’
‘Your mother—’
She laid a hand on his arm. ‘I’m not sure I want to call her that any more. I know she is, or was, but . . . I have a mum. I’d rather . . . Can we just call her Leda?’
His eyes softened in understanding. ‘Leda abolished all of our old social and class boundaries in one fell swoop,’ he said. ‘That’s why she was loved. She pushed through a law abolishing the old House membership system. Originally, membership was only for the upper classes, and Houses were joined at birth. There was no testing system.’
She nodded, but it occurred to her that there was one glaring issue with that. ‘How did that work if your parents were from different Houses?’ said Alice.
‘Whichever side of the family had the strongest position would usually be the decider – unless the alternative house was more politically favourable at the time. If you married a Gardiner, for instance, your children were going into House Mielikki, whether you liked it or not.’
‘But . . . that still doesn’t resolve the issue. What if it was the wrong House for you? What if you were useless with that legacy but better suited to the one from your other parent’s House?’
‘Then you kept it to yourself and practised in private.’ He shrugged. ‘No one questioned the system because, as legacies are inherited, it was seen as the deepest insult to question someone’s right to membership – an insult to the whole family. The inference being, you are questioning whether my child has weak blood, and therefore whether my own blood is weak – or worse, you are questioning whether my child is really my child.’ He paused.
‘That must have actually happened, at some point,’ said Alice. ‘People finding themselves in the wrong House, feeling like they just . . . didn’t fit. Affairs and concealed parentage – that sort of thing has been going on for years.’
He smiled. ‘Ironically, although the upper classes were determined to keep membership within families, the old political system actually diluted the legacies. Marriage became nothing more than a horse fair.’ He ran a hand through his dark hair and gave her an amused look. ‘The families were very vocal about which Houses they belonged to, but showy displays of legacy prowess were treated with contempt on the grounds of crassness. Of course, the real reason was absolute terror that you might publicly fail – because you were in the wrong House – and shame your family name forever.’
There was a long pause. ‘What if you weren’t from one of the richer families and didn’t automatically join a House at birth?’ asked Alice.
‘Then you were not allowed to join, or even attempt it. Membership was divvied out among less than a hundred families. But Chancellor Westergard abolished all that. She made deals with anyone prepared to help her agenda and she was able to gain a majority in the Council without even needing the support of the four governors. It was unprecedented. Automatic membership was prohibited, and membership was awarded on merit alone. The tests democratized the entire House system. And as a result, the Houses actually grew stronger in terms of their magic, pulling in the most skilled instead of the best connected. But it wasn’t just a matter of the legacies. It broke the hold of the upper classes – of contracts awarded under the table, of agreements that denied workers’ rights decided over a malt whisky in the House Ilmarinen bar. Opportunities were opened up to the masses, not just a tiny fraction of the population. It changed everything, Alice. And she did it. It could only ever have been her that pushed it through.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it had to be one of their own. She was a Westergard. The last of them, and they had been one of the most respected House Mielikki families for years. It meant that she was able to turn the few voters to her cause who might otherwise have rejected her proposals before she’d got them off the ground. She turned the Jarvis, Florilynn and Derbyshire families to her cause – families who had watched her grow up, who were sympathetic and running out of heirs so had nothing to lose.’
‘But the tests are brutal,’ she said. ‘Is it really better to have a system that kills and maims people who just want to belong?’
‘The tests weren’t always so deadly,’ replied Crowley. ‘They were made so by the Pellervoinen chancellors that followed her. Don’t let it eclipse what she did for democracy.’
They grew silent, each lost in their own thoughts before Crowley spoke again. ‘Leda Westergard and Helena Northam,’ he said quietly, running his finger around the lip of his cup. ‘Friends who grew up together and had all the opportunities they could wish for. One went on to change the face of the Rookery for good, and one abandoned it forever.’ He glanced up at Alice. ‘What might have been, I wonder? If my mother had stayed – as Leda did.’
Both ruined by love, Alice realized. Leda had broken her oath of office for Tuoni, and Crowley’s mum had married the one man who grew to despise everything the Rookery stood for.
‘Your mother never had any designs on Council or House leadership when she was younger?’ Alice asked.
He shook his head. ‘Apparently not. According to Sylvie, she had a grander purpose.’
Alice stared at him in gradual understanding, remembering Marianne’s words about Helena’s duty.
Crowley smiled humourlessly. ‘My mother was the custodian of the Rookery’s London Stone.’
Watching Crowley stride through crowds of London tourists and city workers was a thing of wonder. He sliced through them like a blade, groups parting around him and flowing back together as he passed. Maybe it was the fact that he dressed like a scruffy undertaker, or some sort of decadent land pirate with a sweeping coat. Or perhaps it was the permanent frown that promised dire consequences if you got in his way. In any case, in a city as busy as London, this Moses-like ability was something of a superpower.
She trudged after him, her pace slowing to watch the crowds of peo
ple hurrying past, unaware that the world was so much bigger than they realized. While London’s tourists and general population used the tube to travel the city, she and Crowley used the doorways. And it occurred to Alice, as they went from door to door, that she didn’t know quite what her relationship with London was any more. Her flat and job were gone, and her visits here infrequent.
‘I’m a tourist now,’ she murmured to herself.
By the time they made their final crossing, striding through Marble Arch in London and exiting through Marble Arch in the Rookery, only yards from Goring University, Alice knew immediately that something was wrong.
The campus was deathly silent. No students crossed the lawns, the main doors in the Arlington Building were firmly shut, and the blinds and curtains were drawn. All were signs of a lockdown drill.
‘Crowley . . .’
‘Can you hear sirens?’ he asked, turning on the spot.
The streets were too empty – only a handful of cars were rolling past, and the few people they could see were dashing inside.
‘That’s an old air-raid siren,’ Crowley murmured, gazing off into the distance, his face tight.
‘Where?’
He turned on the spot, listening carefully. ‘Towards Millbank and Vauxhall Bridge Road, on the edge of the Thames. The Council used them in the fifties, when they wanted to clear the streets for maintenance work.’ He tipped his head on one side. ‘I think . . . there’s still one by John Islip and Atterbury Street.’
‘Okay,’ said Alice, striding off towards the janitor’s outhouse by the side of the Arlington Building, the gravel crunching beneath her boots. ‘Then let’s go.’
‘Alice, wait,’ he shouted. ‘It could be dangerous. If the Summer Tree—’
‘Exactly,’ she called over her shoulder. If she was a Gardiner – a Mielikki – then she needed to see what was happening.
Crowley was wrong. The siren was wailing from half a mile away – because there was no Atterbury Street. Alice stood on Vauxhall Bridge, pressed against the red-and-yellow railings and clutching the barrier so tightly her knuckles hurt. Just over on the other side, near the water’s edge, half a dozen streets were missing. No Atterbury Street and no Herrick, Erasmus or Causton Streets either. And while Regency Street had been spared, Ponsonby Terrace was also gone. The roads had fallen – literally fallen – into a vast crack in the land.
Ponsonby Terrace was rubble and dust, swallowed by the river. Where the street of Georgian houses had once been, now there was only debris, floating in the water and carried under the bridge by the tide. Five streets – gone. Houses, offices, shops . . . people. All gone. Cavernous fractures had opened up in the earth like sinkholes, widening into canyons. They branched off, eating up buildings, foundations, pavements and roads like the open maw of a hungering beast. The river had burst its banks and swept into the cracks, sudden whirlpools appearing as the water collided with the remnants of crumbled buildings, spraying frothy foam into the air.
Alice scanned the landscape, nausea twisting her gut. The air was alive with shouts for help – to move blockages, for first aid, for extra blankets. On the other side of the bridge, people worked quickly to sift through the disaster, searching for signs of life. Bricks were rolled aside at the wave of a hand, walls were torn in half with a finger click, and on the remains of Millbank, the governor of House Ahti stood at the front of a large gathering, sweating and grunting as they worked together to redirect the flow of the river before it drained entirely into a fracture.
Alice peered through the gaps in the railings, at the roiling water splattering the legs of the bridge. Risen from the Thames, like the curved spine of the Loch Ness Monster, was a partially submerged tree root. And whether it was her imagination or not, she could feel it drawing her gaze towards it, and something in her fingers began to tingle. She clenched her fists to shake it off.
‘The Summer Tree,’ she said. ‘It’s causing subsidence. That’s how it’s damaging the city. Subsidence. It’s so simple.’
All tree roots were capable of it – shrinking or expanding, dislodging the soil bed and destabilizing the foundations of a house so badly it could collapse into a dip in the land. The Summer Tree’s shifting roots were collapsing the entire Rookery.
Alice shook her head and turned to Crowley. ‘But we can stop it. Can’t we?’ she urged.
Before he had time to respond, she had set off along the bridge. ‘There might still be people,’ she called out, her jog soon becoming an all-out sprint. She was vaguely aware of Crowley hurtling after her as she drew closer to the devastation, leaping over mangled parts of the bridge’s railings and chunks of disjointed masonry.
Alice was so focused on reaching the fallen buildings, where there might yet be people still alive, that she missed the subtle change in consistency of the ground. She didn’t see the way the small potholes increased, and she didn’t realize that one end of the bridge had twisted, weakening the whole structure.
Her foot landed at an awkward angle and the floor dropped suddenly. With a shocked gasp, Alice threw out a hand to steady herself, but the shifting weight caused the masonry to roll beneath her – and break away. A fragment of the bridge fell to the river below, and Alice slipped with it, through the gap. She flung out her other hand and latched on to a chunk of broken steel poking through the edge of the hole. Crowley’s alarmed face appeared overhead as he dived for her. But Alice’s scrabbling fingers slid from the metal. She plummeted from the bridge, her mouth forming a small ‘O’ of surprise.
She hit the icy water like a bullet. The cold was paralysing, and she sank deep into the murky depths. The silence of the dark water pressed in around her, muffling every sensation, the pressure shrinking her lungs. Swim! But her limbs felt like iron. She cracked open an eyelid and peered into the gloom. Beads of air bubbled up around her nose and her brown hair floated up like a halo.
And then something flickered: a buzzing sensation underneath her skin, a vibration in the water, as though something recognized her presence. The Summer Tree.
Swim! She forced herself to kick. Slowly at first, a half-hearted upwards punt, then harder, faster.
Alice broke the water with a ragged gasp, her hair slicked down her face – but her buoyancy was short-lived. The momentum of the water dragged her back under. She lashed out with her feet and propelled her arms to the top. Harder! And again! Bursting up to the surface, she spun onto her back and heaved in a great lungful of oxygen. Eyes screwed shut, the water splattered her face.
‘Alice!’
Her eyes flew open. A figure was standing on the bridge, frantically tearing off his coat. Crowley.
Alice shivered. It felt colder now. The breeze scraped her skin, leeching more heat from her bones. She raised her chin higher above the water, spitting out a mouthful and kicking her legs to stay near the churning surface. The Thames was a pattern of ripples and whirls as the water flowed around the littering debris and pushed it further downstream. Alice tried to swim with it, hoping it would push her towards the riverbank, but it soon became clear it was pushing her towards danger. The Thames was pouring into the fractures caused by the Summer Tree. She was drifting towards the sinkholes – and picking up speed. Heart slamming against her ribs, the numbness fell away and she thrashed against the water pressure.
But as the river pooled into a convergence, it collected a watery mass of destruction. Shards of splintered wood butted against chunks of plaster and broken furniture, all rushing through the water together: a chaotic soup of city life. Alice arched sideways to avoid a smashed bottle, but a spray of water sent it rushing faster than she could move. The sharp glass sliced her cheek and she hissed in pain, spinning into the path of a block of wood. The wood punched the back of her skull and the blow arrested her movements. She dipped below the surface, water sweeping into her mouth and eyes, pulling her down and down.
Battered by wreckage and detritus, she struck out for the surface but the back of her head was warm and her
energy had evaporated. Blood seeped into the water, blossoming out like roses made of ink. Her skin prickled as she dropped deeper; she sensed a wave of tremendous power below the surface.
And then a hand clamped around her arm. Another around her waist. And she was dragged upwards. Sunlight fell across her frozen face and Crowley’s wet hair was crushed against her neck as he swam, pulling her with him, tight against his chest.
‘Alice?’ he shouted above the roar of the water. ‘Don’t kick, just breathe!’
Alice screwed up her face and nodded. The cold and the knock to her head had dulled her senses. But she was in Crowley’s arms, and she was safe, she thought absently. Only, not really, because he couldn’t seem to clear them from the slipstream. Now, instead of only one of them drowning, they were going to drown together. She tried to concentrate, to focus on this thought. But every time she tried to grapple with it, it slid further away.
Focus!
With her free hand, she pinched her arm, trying to inject herself with some urgency. But she was so cold and so tired. Behind her, Crowley was breathing harder as he tried, and failed, to tow her through the water, away from the pouring rush.
‘Are we dying, Crowley?’ she managed.
‘Let’s just say,’ he managed through gritted teeth as he sent a bolt of fire at a chair hurtling towards them, ‘it’s not going as I’d planned.’ The chair exploded into ash, but others raced through the river alongside it, and it was no use. He couldn’t fight off the overwhelming onslaught of debris and keep them both above water while trying to kick them away from the nearest fracture, into which, like a waterfall, they were headed.
The Rookery Page 33