“Take your golden form,” he breathed. “I fear this is no creature of reason.”
Indeed, it was not, and before I could so much as summon the breath and will to drop my human guise, the creature dashed forward. It barreled toward us with sharp, bulbous pincers aiming for a single target. Faraday. I was still holding on to the man’s wrist, but that ended abruptly, as he was torn from my grasp and carried, legs kicking, to a rocky outcropping, the one we had just used as our high ground.
We spun to face him, but I dared not follow. Not yet. The fear was too deep . . .
“We have to do something,” I whispered. “We have to help him.”
Without another thought, I started forward, ripping my hand out of Henry’s as the creature pinned Faraday to the stone. It held him there without trouble, and for an instant Faraday fought against the massive claw, pushing and flailing, trying to land a single kick against the human stomach.
Behind me, Henry screamed something, desperate, terrified, but I would not let fear trap me into inaction. The demon had suffered enough; he did not deserve this. But even as I pumped my arms and ran as quickly as I could, the beast lowered its pale, thin lips to Faraday’s face and snapped its teeth once. Then it spoke, and its voice nearly stopped me again. It was not a thing that was made to use human speech, and the words squeezed out like the gurgle of water through mud.
“What were you told in the salt?” It snapped its teeth again. “What were you told?”
“N-Never to speak of what I saw, never to repeat what I heard! Please! Upworlder! Dark One! You must help me!” Faraday shrieked and reached toward me, but even the might of my wings once unfurled couldn’t carry me to him with enough speed. Snip. I will never forget the sound. The creature squeezed its pincer together once, hard, like two scythes, severing Faraday in the soft middle, his legs dropping to the ground before his torso did a moment later, his eyes wide with surprise.
I dropped to my knees, and the creature spun to face me. Whatever sight it used, I know it saw me there, and its head lowered as if it wished to say more. Then it shook out its claw, splattering me and the dirt with blood, and it gave a high, eerie cry like, “Lililililili!” And then it was gone, vanishing into the hills, the only sign of its true departure another hot wind and the rumble of tunneled earth.
Returning to my old quarters in Coldthistle House came with a disarming wave of comfort. My little bed; my old, rickety side table; the long looking glass where I had first beheld myself in the simple frock and apron that would become my day-to-day wear . . . It felt possible to slide back into that old life, to wake each morning and see to my chores, cleaning blood out of carpets, helping Chijioke haul corpses down to the wagon, feeding the horses and buttering scones for guests—all there, just out of reach, an existence that spun in time like a dancer in a music box.
My life, but not. A future, a path, but not. I stood at the foot of the bed and touched the blankets carefully, as if this were all a mirage and might shimmer and break at the faintest touch. For a brief time, I had known the stability and routine that most young women of my station longed for, a position that ensured I would eat, that I would sleep sheltered, and that I would put a bit of money away, maybe one day to be spent upon a paltry dowry.
That was another Louisa. I went to the looking glass and smoothed down my hair. It was in a tangle from our mad dash to the house, and my gown, torn and muddied, would need replacing. Staring into my own dark eyes, I wondered, not for the first time, if like the damned guests of Coldthistle House, I, too, had been lured here by a dark promise. They were ultimately met with death, but I seemed destined for something else.
“Death will be your promise if you do not open your eyes, girl.”
I watched in the mirror as the room filled from the bottom with grayish fog, the mist rising above my ankles and then to my knees. There was nothing in the reflection, but I turned toward the voice and gasped, finding myself face-to-chest with Father.
He towered above me, his image unsettled, half the fake human form of Croydon Frost, the other half his true appearance. A gruesome deer’s skull protruded from the human skin, bone forcing its way through flesh. His suit was in tatters, transforming as it fell into the black rags and leaves of Father’s robes. Tufts of human hair clung to the lopsided antlers that poked from his naked skull.
He smelled of death, but then that was no surprise.
I backed up against the looking glass, bracing.
“Close now,” he seethed, eyes two glowing red coals. “So close now . . . My ashes, my body, the tree that sprung from my earthly leavings . . .”
“This is not a dream,” I breathed. “Nor a nightmare. How can this be?”
Foolishly, I reached out to touch him, to know for certain that he was real and not an illusion. My palm sank through his chest as if he were made of colored smoke. But when I tried to pull my hand back it wouldn’t budge—his image held me there, his hands wrapping around my wrist.
“A Binder’s mark.” He stared, transfixed by the now-illegible lettering on my palm. Then his crimson eyes flew to mine. “You freed Mother. You survived a Binder. You are stronger than I thought, daughter.”
Daughter. Now I was not girl or fool or child but daughter.
“Release me,” I whispered. “And be gone. I am stronger than you know, and my friends are here with me.”
“Friends?” He laughed, but it was like the cackle of a raven in the gloom. “What need do you have for friends when my spirit grows powerful? Go. Go to the tree. Carve the bark, drink its sap, and there will be no dawn for the shepherd and his ilk.”
No. The word was there, just on my tongue, but no matter how hard I struggled to say it, my lips clamped shut. I felt the world go blurry around the edges, and my balance trembled, flecks of red dancing across my sight. The crimson veil was dropping again, Father’s influence too strong now to resist. It had been a mistake to come. I had not considered that being near to his physical form would somehow embolden his claim over me, but it did. My struggle was valiant but brief, for there was no resisting the tendrils that curled, steady and painful, into my brain.
The world went by as if imagined. Nothing seemed real. I felt my feet carry me out of the room and down the stairs, then down again, until I was turning toward the kitchens. The door leading outside was barricaded and too noisy to disturb without being noticed. So I went on hands and knees, and, like a rat in its tunnel, I crawled through the hole Bartholomew had dug under the house, a project he might have started months ago along with all the other holes he had put in the yard. Roots and dirt brushed my cheeks, but I was blind to that, though not unfeeling, the cold earth under my hands slippery, fragrant with grass and loam. Insects, free about their nighttime business, skittered over my hands and ankles, crawling up my back and into my hair, tickling my nape with their horrid little legs.
No, no, no. I could not go outside, not when the shepherd’s Adjudicators could descend at any moment. And if they did, I feared more for them than for me—Father controlled me now, and his wrath upon them would be terrible. My hands clawed and clawed, carrying me through the muddy tunnel until at last, I felt a gust of wind against my face, and the way curved upward. I scrambled out of the hole, breathing hard. I must have looked a true terror, covered in grime and insects, my eyes wide and unseeing, my every step guided by the beast in my head.
The tree was not far now. I could sense it—Father sensed it—and I trotted, then ran toward it, hurrying right for the eastern border of the property. Surely somebody in the house would notice me and help? Or would they be alerted to my presence only when Father succeeded and made war with me as his instrument?
Please, I pleaded with him as best I could in my head. Please. Let me make my own path. How can you be so unfeeling toward your own daughter?
But he was silent, pitiless, and I flinched, feeling suddenly the lowest boughs of the tree brush my face. Impossible. How could it have grown so fast? It had been but a sapling whe
n I left in the spring, but now? My hands found its trunk, a full-grown tree, gifted swift life by Father’s ashes.
“He should have cut this accursed thing down,” I managed to whisper.
Silence, daughter. Carve the bark. Carve it.
I had only my hands, and so he forced me to use my fingernails, shards of unyielding wood splintering into my soft palms as I pawed at it like a beast gone mad. Droplets ran down my cheeks, not the cold dew off the leaves but tears, hot and steady. The pain was unimaginable, the mark on my palm pulsing with fire.
I carved and I carved, clawing, scratching with what I knew would be raw, bloody fingers come morning. If morning came. My fear redoubled when the pain stopped, numbness spreading through my fingers to my hands and wrists. Blood soaked the sleeves of my ruined gown. But Father was relentless, and I was powerless in the shade of his death-borne tree.
A mist rose around me, and I felt the stickiness of sap trickling against my skin. The sharp, herbal scent almost shocked me into control, but no, the feeling was gone, and the sap covering my hands seemed only to deepen his hold. I stumbled back from the tree, shivering, and bent to lick my fingers.
I could already hear the blood pounding in my ears like war drums. The shepherd and his folk would not see another sunrise.
Chapter Twenty
The night would come back to me in fits and starts, fragments of a dream washed red with blood.
A cry for help. Bones snapping beneath my fingers. The scent of deep forest, then the reek of fear. A body broken on the floor. Golden feathers scattered like fallen autumn leaves.
Someone was holding my hand, but when I tried to sit up I felt the bite of heavy iron chains around my chest and legs. I blinked up at the ceiling, listening to the voices around me fade. The hand in mine was familiar and small.
“She’s awake! She’s awake! And she doesn’t look so mean now.”
Poppy was sitting beside me on the bed; I had another stirring of memory, remembering the times I had woken to her face and voice before. Those times, I had not been strapped down to the bed. My head ached, and I groaned, then accepted a bit of tea from Poppy, who held my head while I sipped.
“It’s very late now,” she said. Mother was there, too, standing at the end of the bed watching over us. She never looked tired, as if impervious to the wear of exhaustion. “The others all got tired and went away, but I said I would stay with you. Bartholomew, too.”
The dog gave a huff from somewhere next to the bed. Restrained, I could only crane my head a little. Blessedly, they had changed my gown and done what they could to clean me. At least I did not feel the wretched digging of bugs in my hair.
“Do I want to know what happened?” I murmured. My throat rasped as if filled with nettles.
“I found you before you could take too much of the sap,” Mother told me gently, her hands folded in front of her. She had left her veil somewhere and stood only in a crinkled silk gown. Her bare arms had dune upon dune of muscle. “Even so, one of the Upworlders noticed you among the trees. They . . . could not withstand your fury.”
“All smashed up,” Poppy clarified helpfully. “Like Mrs. Haylam’s mushy peas.”
“It took all of us to subdue you,” Mother added. Her smile was different now, sad. Mournful. “I will not leave your side. The risk of Father’s influence is too great.”
“The tree,” I wheezed.
“I have seen to it,” Mother said. “I can speak to the heart of a tree, and that one did not go quietly. It left a rotten wound in the earth. When there is more time I will purify it, and soon his ashes will be washed away by rain and wind.”
That ought to have pleased me, but my unease remained. If so much as a speck of him persisted, my control over him was in doubt.
“Even if I remove his spirit,” I murmured, closing my eyes and sinking down into the pillow, “I still have his blood. My father burned a field of captives alive to imprison you. That kind of darkness, that madness, will it always come out?”
Mother came around the bedpost, and Poppy made room for her, the two of them side by side, though it was Mother’s turn to take my hand. There was no reason to doubt her power, but her touch proved it, inducing a soothing warmth to trickle up from my hand to my chest, releasing the tightness there.
“He once gave me a bouquet of enchanted snapdragons. When the sun shone on them, they giggled like children, and when night fell they made the dearest snoring sound,” she recalled, her smile brightening for an instant. “That goodness was in him, too, and I know you have it.”
“Perhaps not,” I said, closing my eyes again. “I can’t seem to stop killing.”
“You will, Louisa. When he is gone and your mind is your own again. I can speak to the heart of trees, yes, but I can speak to the heart of my children, too.” She sighed and squeezed my hand tighter. “I only fear that the Dark One will try to harness your power to fight Roeh.”
Poppy leaned over and poked at one of the chains around my legs. “If we take these off, Louisa can help. I want them to go away and stop being so mean so Bartholomew and I can play in the yard again. I hate being stuck inside all day. It isn’t fair! I haven’t even gotten to do my screams because Mary went to stupid old London.”
She pouted, sliding onto the floor to curl up with the dog.
“I may have to unleash him,” I told Mother slowly. “One more time. If it means I can see him removed, then I will do it. Please try not to be too disappointed. These are my friends, after all, and I would see them protected.”
Her sad smile returned, and the warmth of her touch narrowly stayed my tears. It was hard to cry when she held my hand. I tried to remember if my own human mother had ever demonstrated such kindness, but no memories surfaced, only shouts outside my bedroom door, and my drunk of a father screaming at her while I hid beneath the blankets.
“Show mercy when you can, Louisa,” Mother said, and reached for the first strand of chains, loosening them, “for the world is far too short on it.”
In the morning, I was invited to take my breakfast with Mr. Morningside, though Mother refused to drift far from me. He allowed her to join us in the sitting room just off the main foyer—the place where he had first taught me to change a spoon into whatever my heart desired—but not before I caught the tail end of an argument between him and Dalton. Waiting outside the French doors, I couldn’t help eavesdropping, putting a finger to my lips to keep Mother from saying anything.
“We made a pact,” Henry was saying. He sounded murderous, cold. “And you broke it! In the moment when it mattered most, you broke it.”
“Because you lied.” Dalton, on the other hand, was passionless.
“THAT’S WHAT I DO.”
The house trembled.
Dalton’s voice came closer; he was just about to leave the sitting room. I backed away, pretending we had just descended the staircase and I hadn’t heard the last of their row.
“I know,” Dalton said, opening the doors but turning his head inward. “To my everlasting regret, I know. And I wished—and I wish—that you would be more than that. That’s what a man is—more than his parts, more than his history and his destiny doomed him to be.”
Dalton had no words for us as he marched away from the salon, turning sharply to take the stairs two at a time. I hesitated a moment, listening to his retreating steps, and then tiptoed through the doors to find Mr. Morningside gripping the edge of the breakfast table, his back to us.
“A deal over breakfast,” he crowed after Mary had brought us a light meal of cheese, fresh bread, and what could be spared of the dried venison. She had resumed her role at the house almost at once, as a distraction, maybe, or habit. “Under siege and yet we’re practically civilized. Do you think they ate so well while the horse was being rolled into Troy?”
“I don’t think I care,” I said, exhausted. Mother’s peaceful presence had helped, but being chained to a bed had made sleep a near impossibility. “If you want to make a deal, then
Dalton should be here, too.”
We sat at one of the small tables adjacent to the pianoforte, not far from the windows facing the west. It was the farthest room in the house from the shepherd’s property, likely an intentional choice. There had been no signs of activity along the fence, but that made me more nervous. It had all the makings of the calm before the storm, and my foot bounced beneath the table, giddy and alert.
“He has already agreed to recover the book,” he told us, pouring sugar into his tea and stirring it with deft little circles. He was positively singing with cheer. “Your display last night pushed him over the edge. He came to me early this morning and made his offer.”
My appetite was not what I expected it to be. Mother did not eat, either, but held her teacup as if simply for the pleasure of it. I choked down some of my own but took no interest in the leathery venison.
“So Dalton will find the book; then do we depart for Constantinople? How will we make the journey?” I asked.
Mr. Morningside gagged on his scone. “Louisa, you rascal, what makes you ask that?”
Ah. So Dalton had left out the small detail of the diary. I forced myself to take a drink of tea and look casual, but my hands trembled. I wanted to keep my possession of the journal a secret from him for as long as possible. There was every chance that Mr. Morningside would try to rig this deal to his advantage, and I wanted one tiny thing up my sleeve just in case. After all, he had told me himself that I was part of the game, and I needed to act accordingly. “You are in our game now, and in this game, running only takes you to the edge of the board, it does not remove you as a piece.”
“The entrance, the place where the books can be destroyed . . . It’s far to the east, in a salt plain. Dalton told me about it, about you and Mrs. Haylam going there when you were all much younger, just after . . .” I glanced nervously at Mother, but she didn’t seem bothered. “Just after the Schism.”
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