Witherward

by Hannah Mathewson

  Quick on the heels of that happy yearning was rage again.

  She turned on Cassia. So this was what she had been nervous of Ilsa learning. “I asked if I got relations here,” she said quietly, hearing the quiver in her voice. “You din’t say I had a brother.” She shot a glare at Aelius. “You din’t say nothing all the time you were showing me ’round.”

  Ilsa threw another look to the far end of the table, but Eliot appeared lost in thought, and he didn’t catch it.

  “They both had good reason,” Oren interjected with a sigh. “It’s not happy news. We decided we would discuss it together. We’re sorry to say… he’s disappeared. Over a month ago. We couldn’t even be sure he was alive. Even now, we don’t know that this was his doing. The group who visited to accuse Gedeon of the apprentice’s abduction were incredibly hostile. They refused to answer most of our questions. We have no proof of what they’re claiming and no reason to trust them.”

  “It’s difficult to know what to believe when it comes to Oracles,” Fyfe said gently. “They’re capable of knowing everything, but so few do, and even fewer will be forthcoming. It conflicts with their beliefs to share knowledge with non-Oracles.”

  “They claim Gedeon found a way to penetrate the temple without being detected, which is a tall tale if ever I heard one,” added Aelius sarcastically. Ilsa remembered something else the captain had said: that Oracles could see anything observable.

  “It has put us in quite a predicament,” said Oren. “We can’t let all of London know that we’re without our leader. Rumours abound, but a trusted-few wolves are taking turns impersonating him about Camden in order to stem them. We can’t afford to look weak at a time like this.”

  “Because of the attack?” Ilsa glanced at Cassia. “The attack what hurt Hester?”

  “The most recent in a string of such attacks,” said Aelius. “You know the way of things around here, what with your perspicacious interrogation of young Captain Fowler.” Ilsa was certain she saw him shoot a look towards the other end of the table and its occupant. “Our relations with our neighbours are less than friendly. The Changelings forced their way into this most minuscule sliver of London, and there will always be those who insist on taking it back. Our recent adversaries are a group of Sorcerers rebelling against their faction’s alliance with Camden.”

  “So the Oracles are attacking me because Gedeon kidnapped their apprentice… whatever…”

  “Seer,” said Fyfe.

  “… and these rebel Sorcerers are attacking you because they want more territory?”

  Oren hesitated. He took his eyeglasses from his pocket and folded and unfolded them. “This isn’t like the border wars we cycle through endlessly. Their target is the Zoo. They have tried to force their way in four times in as many months.”

  Ilsa took several deep breaths, but it didn’t stop her head from spinning. A missing brother. A house under attack. She looked up and made eye contact with Eliot, who swept her face with an assessing gaze.

  “And my brother’s just disappeared? In the middle of all this?”

  “Of his own volition,” said Aelius. “Took a dozen wolves with him.” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and produced a folded note. “One of them left this for his sweetheart, who is one of my foxes and brought it to me. It says they were under strict instructions from Gedeon to tell no one of their departure; that he had shared no details of why or where they were going and said nothing of their return.” The last words hung over the table, their weight showing on every face. “My best guess is that he discovered something. Before he disappeared, he was devoting all his time to trying to find out what the rebels wanted from these attacks. It appeared an awful lot like they were searching for something, yet as far as any of us know, there’s nothing in this house that could be so important to them. I believe Gedeon learned something of the true location of whatever it is they seek and has gone after it himself.”

  “And why’d he do that if he’s got you lot?”

  This appeared to strike a nerve with everyone. Cassia drew in a shaking breath. Fyfe chewed on his lip and sank into his chair.

  “That,” said Oren, “we cannot tell you. Gedeon and the wolves simply slipped away in the night.” If Ilsa wasn’t mistaken, Oren’s gaze flickered to Eliot. “We’re piecing together the evidence we can find, but for the most part, it’s guesswork. Gedeon has made no contact. And now, this matter with the Seer’s apprentice and this petty tit-for-tat. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know you’re alive. He doesn’t know he’s made you a target.”

  Aelius smirked. “Welcome to the Witherward, Ilsa my darling, where we measure our successes in blood spilled. Is it not enough to make a lady swoon from fright?”

  Ilsa’s head snapped up and she narrowed her eyes at him. “You forget I weren’t no lady ’til yesterday. I ain’t the swooning type.” She pushed out of her chair, startling them all, but she needed to breathe, and she couldn’t do it in this room with all these people telling her unfathomable things. “Am I excused? Or is there more you got to tell me? And think very carefully before you answer because I ain’t got much patience left for things I din’t know yesterday.”

  “Nothing springs to mind,” said Oren levelly. “Though I hoped we could discuss some measures for your safety given that—”

  “Oh, earth and stars,” sighed Eliot.

  All eyes swung to the end of the table, to the boy they were pretending wasn’t there. Eliot’s head was tilted back to rest against his chair, his eyes were closed, and he was massaging the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger. He appeared mildly bemused to glance up and find everyone looking at him, like he hadn’t heard himself speak.

  Oren regarded him over the rims of his glasses. “If there is something you wish to add, Eliot, the floor is yours.”

  Aelius snorted. “Anything that might have slipped your mind, Quillon? Something pertinent to the whereabouts of our alpha and renegade wolves, perhaps?”

  “You’re wasting your time, Aelius,” said Cassia.

  Eliot sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes. “Imagine my surprise in finding there’s no point in being me at this little get together after all,” he said, unfolding himself from his chair and straightening the lapels on his jacket. His eyes landed on Ilsa, just briefly, then on the door.

  And Ilsa understood. She had needed space, and he was giving it to her. A chance to slip away. A distraction. As Aelius made another snide remark about the hours Eliot was keeping, she skirted the table and softly turned the handle of the door. Then she slipped out into the hall and made for the stairs. She couldn’t have explained it to the lieutenants, but she knew where she needed to be.

  The smell of furniture polish and gardenias hit her when she stepped into the chamber she had thought belonged to her parents, and that uncanny quiet, like the room was holding its breath. Ilsa looked numbly at the papers strewn across the desk. The quarter-full decanter of liquor. These weren’t her parents’ chambers, kept as Lyander and Thorne had left them, like some sort of shrine.

  Her brother had lived here. And now he was gone.

  She sank onto the couch, her breath rushing out of her in a sigh. Gedeon had kidnapped an Oracle, in return the Oracles had tried to kill her, and somewhere in the middle was a messenger who had saved her life and brought her home. It felt like a cruel trick that she was only here because he was gone. That she was in his house, in his rooms, on his couch, and he still believed she was dead. Just another vicious twist of fate, like her mother birthing a healthy daughter only to die before she was a day old; like Lord Walcott contracting smallpox; like Martha dying for her blonde hair and hazel eyes. The unfairness of it pounded on the back of her skull, too much to comprehend.

  Someone knocked on the open door, and Ilsa looked up. She didn’t know who she was expecting, but she was surprised when it was Fyfe who entered. “I looked for you at your room,” he said awkwardly. “Then Cassia told me you might be here.”


  He sidled closer, but didn’t speak again. Ilsa didn’t want to share, but her thoughts and frustrations built inside her until they spilled out.

  “So that’s it then? A cousin what don’t care what universe I’m in and a brother what’s gone, p’raps forever?” Ilsa laughed at her own self-pity. “It’s funny. This time yesterday I din’t have no family to speak of, and I thought it’d always be that way. I told myself it was better to think like that than have hope, you know? ’Cause it’s the hope what’ll kill you. And now, somehow, it don’t seem possible but I’m… I’m…”

  Disappointed.

  It was vile and wrong and ungrateful, but it was true. Something had been taken from her in coming here, a possibility, and in its place had grown a deep and desperate wish, the hopelessness of which closed her throat. Tears came to her eyes as the wish rose up and engulfed her. It was a feeling she could never have imagined the day before. She was lonely for a woman she only knew from her portrait.

  She wanted her mother.

  “I s’pose—” The words came out as a gasp drowned in tears. She swallowed them down, but the waves kept coming. “I s’pose I really was still hoping.”

  Hoping to meet her mother. Her father. Hoping against hope that someone out there cared for her. And they had. But they were gone. So Ilsa sat on the couch in her missing brother’s rooms and felt a grief seventeen years in the making. She cried until she couldn’t see for tears and no lungful of air was enough.

  She forgot she wasn’t alone, and when she felt the couch shift, she opened her eyes, startled. Fyfe sat beside her, his handkerchief in his outstretched fingers.

  “Gedeon calls me cousin,” he said. “I know technically we’re not related, but Hester’s my blood and she’s yours and Gedeon’s blood. And some would say that makes us family. I would say that, also.” He smiled shyly. “And I’ll do my best to be a friend too, should you want one.”

  Ilsa tried to speak but couldn’t find the words. Her tears dried up abruptly, stymied by surprise. Could it be that simple? Someone offered to be your family and you accepted? A cousin who wasn’t a cousin was a thing she’d never thought to want, but her heart was lighter, joyous, even. It was the kindest anyone had ever been to her.

  “I… thank you, Fyfe,” she said, her voice hoarse.

  He took her hand and placed it in his. “I’m sorry about what you saw happen to your friend. No one should have to see the people they love taken from them like that.”

  Ilsa wiped her eyes with Fyfe’s handkerchief as another impossible wave of tears came over her. “She din’t even know why they was hurting her. She was just afraid… and then nothing.”

  Fyfe was silent awhile, chewing his lip. “What do you believe in, Ilsa? I mean to say, do you think there’s a, ah…”

  “A heaven?” Ilsa tried not to recoil. Devil’s get. He’ll drag you away to hell if I can’t cure you. “I know it don’t say nothing in the Bible ’bout a second universe, so I’m inclined to believe none of it.”

  “Well, in the Witherward, all faith starts with the stars,” said Fyfe shyly.

  “The stars,” Ilsa echoed, sceptical – though it explained Eliot’s cursing.

  “We believe our souls descend from above when we’re born, and when we die, they return to the stars. And the stars see everything. And shape everything. And that would mean that, well, your friend has a hand in the direction of the universe now. So even though it hurts to miss the people we love, we’re fortunate to have them up there, turning fate to point in our favour.”

  Ilsa turned it over in her mind. “That mean my parents are there too?”

  “Everyone,” said Fyfe. “Equally.”

  “And you believe it?”

  Fyfe nodded in earnest. “Very much.”

  Ilsa wasn’t sure she believed in Fyfe’s faith, but she wanted to in a way she never had with the Bible. That a girl like Martha – poor, homeless, a criminal – was shaping the future alongside people as wealthy and powerful in life as her parents; it had a sort of justice to it.

  “I think Martha would like that. She was always really bossy.” Fyfe laughed, the relief at having helped clear in his features. “Fyfe, I think… I think I need to give speaking with Hester another go.”

  Yes, her cousin had been cold and dismissive, but Ilsa hadn’t known what she was going through, and she’d been confrontational. If Fyfe could offer up his kinship to a near stranger, Ilsa could be kinder to her own blood.

  “Would you like me to come with you?” asked Fyfe, standing and buttoning his jacket.

  “No, s’alright. She don’t scare me.” She smiled and handed back the handkerchief. “Thanks again.”

  Fyfe smiled his whole-face smile again. “My pleasure.”

  * * *

  Ilsa got lost in the maze of long corridors, but finally found her way back to Hester’s chambers. It was her cousin’s raised voice and the smash of glass that led her there.

  She slowed in the corridor, straining to listen and ready to shift into a mouse if she needed, but she couldn’t make out Hester’s words. Somebody hushed her, their voice low and frantic. Ilsa realised too late that the second speaker was getting closer, and before she could shift or hide, Eliot opened the door.

  He was looking back into the room, one hand on the doorknob. “There are worse things than you taking this out on me, Hester,” he said. It was not the cool, uninterested Eliot from the meeting. This one sounded weary, nearly desperate. “To not even try would be one of them. You’re not weak, but if you don’t—”

  “I do not need you to tell me I am not weak, you condescending bastard.” Hester’s voice was quiet, but she couldn’t have been more fearsome if she was still shouting.

  Eliot took a long breath. “My apologies,” he said tightly, and he stepped out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

  It was only then he noticed Ilsa.

  He stiffened, alarm flashing across his features before he could tuck it away.

  “What was that about?”

  Eliot’s mask of easy nonchalance fell into place. He shot her a smile, less ghoulish in the light but still sharp as a blade. “That entirely depends on how much you heard.”

  Normally, Ilsa would have bluffed and seen where it got her. But she was distracted by Eliot’s hand wrapped around something he had pulled from his pocket; the ornate silver watch he had had on him last night. His white-knuckled grip belied his easy smile. Eliot was already bluffing.

  His grip eased as Ilsa failed to cobble together a lie. “In that case, it was nothing,” he said. He slipped the watch back into his pocket and moved so he was squarely in front of her, a mere two feet away. He was taller than she’d thought, and she caught the scent of something fresh, like new linens.

  “You didn’t tell anyone we met.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Neither did you,” Ilsa shot back.

  “No. If they knew I found solace in wandering the Zoo at night, someone would find a way to ruin it. Much like you managed to last night.” He tilted his head. “But why didn’t you tell?”

  Ilsa had no idea. Perhaps she was so used to keeping secrets and hiding impossible truths that it was second nature to her. Perhaps she’d liked the idea of a secret she could share for once. Or, just perhaps, she was taken with something about Eliot Quillon.

  She folded her arms. “You know, you’re awfully good at being unkind—”

  “Why, thank you.”

  “—but I’m awfully good at reading people, and you should know I see through you.”

  “Is that so?”

  “You kicked up a storm ’bout answering my questions, but you answered them all the same, because you knew I needed you to. You got them all angry with you and put yourself in the firing line because you was the only one to notice I couldn’t bear to be in that meeting room a minute longer. I don’t know why you feel you got to play the villain.” Ilsa closed the gap between him and flashed him a smile. “But I’m gonna find out.”

>   A thrill rushed through her when Eliot took half a step back. His eyes roamed her face, something between hunger and trepidation shining in them.

  “You shouldn’t eavesdrop,” he said, his voice quiet. “You might hear something you don’t wish to.”

  He tore himself away with a backward step, then turned and strode down the corridor without another glance. When he disappeared around the corner, Ilsa looked back at the closed door of her cousin’s chambers, the echo of smashing glass playing in her ears like Hester’s vicious laugh. She raised a hand to the wood to knock – then lowered it again, and walked away.

  9

  Ilsa’s old dress reappeared that same day; washed, mended, and folded on the bed.

  She had no idea if magic was at play, or if it had simply been rinsed immediately and dried in the summer sun. She only knew the bloodstains were gone.

  The sun crossed the sky as she sat in a stupor with the dress on her lap, running her fingers along the pristine hem. Not a trace of her friend’s blood remained on the garment, but Ilsa knew she could never wear it again without thinking of Martha and every injustice she was served.

  Martha had wanted to be an actress. She adored watching Ilsa’s magic show whenever her friend could sneak her in, just so she could be near the lights, and the curtains, and the drama of it all. It was why Ilsa had tried desperately to get Martha into a paying position in the West End one way or another, whether it was the job at the Isolde Mr Johnston refused to give her, or chasing news of every open casting in town, but it was always a no. She was too skinny. She was too cockney; how would she deal with new material when she couldn’t even read? Martha had been learning. She was trying her hardest. But there was no way up for girls like her.

  Except discovering your long-lost family is rich, thought Ilsa bitterly.

  Martha would have loved the drama of Ilsa’s story; of everything that had happened to her since the fish market and the knife in her best friend’s throat. She imagined finally telling Martha everything she had held back for two years; who she was, what her magic could do. She imagined telling her that they were heading off to another world, where they would sleep in a bed that looked like a wedding cake, and wear silken gowns, and eat cream teas.