The dragon shook himself. Burnt, blackened fur broke off, revealing perfectly normal red and gold fur beneath.
“Sorry,” Rachel blinked. “It just suddenly seemed…oddly significant. But, no matter. Rain’s let up. Let’s head home. We’re probably going to be late for class as it is.”
Chapter Twelve:
Waylaying Peter, Again
“Libra!” The window to her dorm room flew open. Rachel had dropped Siggy and Lucky by the back door of Dare Hall and then soared up to her room. Ducking, she now shot through the open window and landed on the floor beside her bed, sopping wet.
“Miss Griffin, are you well?” Nastasia leapt up, from where she had sat before her vanity, brushing her hair. She shut the window. “How wet you are! And what are you covered with? Moss? Pine needles?”
“Long story,” Rachel’s teeth were chattering too hard to speak much.
“Quick, take a hot bath,” counseled the princess, handing Rachel a fluffy towel. “We’ll speak after.”
Nodding Rachel grabbed a towel and ran to the bathroom. She stripped out of her wet clothing with some difficulty, as they were plastered to her skin and every motion caused her pain. Once free, she stepped into the shower and enjoyed the feeling of the hot water washing away the chill. Hemlock needles accumulated at her feet. Her body was covered with bruises, and her scalp was tender to the touch where hail and branches had struck her. She found no open cuts; however, and none of her ribs seemed to be broken.
When she returned to the bedroom, Nastasia was still sitting at her vanity, reading from her old gray volume that included all the textbooks used at Roanoke. Rachel, wrapped only in a towel, moved to her own dresser and took out fresh underthings, sweat pants, and robe, which she donned, wincing repeatedly.
“I am surprised you are still here. Aren’t we late for Language?” she asked.
“They postponed classes half an hour due to the inclement weather,” Nastasia replied with a sweet smile. Then her smile faltered, and her brow furrowed. “Where were you that you came home looking like a drowned kitten? The lockdown had only just ended when you arrived, and it did not end until after the rain had stopped. How could you have gotten so wet?”
Shrugging sadly, Rachel picked up her brush. “If trapped outside, what’s one to do?”
Nastasia expression was unusually stern for one so young. “That is no excuse for breaking a rule! You should have banged on the doors until someone let you inside. You could have been struck by lightning! I realize that the Heer has not ventured onto campus yet, but it may be only a matter of time.”
Rachel’s hand clutched the little amulet that still hung around her neck. Now that it was visible, she saw that could see it, she saw that it was made of polished oak and was shaped like a key. She decided not to explain to her friend just how close she had come to the lightning.
“You know, Nastasia,” she said, “Siggy was really looking forward to the trip to Hoddmimir’s Wood. It mattered to him. So was I. We’d talked about nothing else for days.”
“Be grateful you were not lost, too,” the princess replied brusquely. “And it is not as if you haven’t gone off places on your own. You were gone for several days.”
Nastasia’s lovely face took on an expression that looked suspiciously like a pout.
“I went to visit my sister! Because I was…ill!” cried Rachel, exasperated. “That’s hardly the same as going on an adventure. And when I found something out about the demon, while I was at Sandra’s, the first thing I did was tell the rest of you.”
Of course, Rachel had also gone to O.I. with Gaius, but Nastasia did not know about that.
“True,” the princess acknowledged. “Still, you have gone on adventures of your own. It is unladylike to complain upon the rare occasion that something happens without you.”
“But—you promised us,” Rachel cried. “And I’m the one who our Elf contacted.”
“If Queen Illondria had wished for you and Sigfried to accompany us, she could have said so when she came to speak to Zoë and me. Had she asked you to accompany her? Or only to pass the message to ask me to bring her home?”
Rachel swallowed with some difficulty. Illondria had not spoken to her at all. She had sent a message through Jariel. Still, Rachel had hoped to have a chance to say goodbye. Glumly, she returned to brushing the remaining needles from her hair.
“Count your blessings, Rachel,” Nastasia said sadly. “You were not lost into the darkness between worlds, as Zoë was.”
“The darkness between worlds,” Rachel gasped. “I thought she was lost in dreamland.”
“I do not know where you received that impression. I never said such a thing.”
“Oh.” Rachel swallowed.
So much for finding a door into dreamland. Even if they found one, Zoë was not there.
“I spoke to the dean,” the princess added haughtily. “She informed me that the school has an agreement with the King of Bavaria to keep his crown prince informed of certain kinds of occurrences.” She sniffed. “Still, it seems inappropriate for the prince to repeat the school’s private business in front of underclassmen who then go blabbing it about hither and yon.”
“My boyfriend telling me something he thought was pertinent to me hardly counts as ‘blabbing it about hither and yon,’” Rachel objected, hotly.
“Nevertheless,” replied the princess primly.
Outside, the class bells began to toll. Silently, Rachel and Nastasia gathered their books and departed for Language.
• • •
As part of her quest to help Vladimir Von Dread convince her father that he was not “a young tyrant in the making,” Rachel wrote her parents a long letter describing the recent Knight’s meeting and how Von Dread had vowed to protect her. She did not mention the black bracelet, but she mentioned that he had given her a card with a number to call during emergencies. She requested her mother send something for her to carry it around in, preferably a pouch to hang around her neck.
Two days later, she received a package from home. In it was a hand-woven lanyard with a pouch the size of a small wallet and a brief cheery note from her mother. The pouch contained a space about the size of a large hand bag. The note explained that folding or squashing the little wallet would not damage the object within. This was less useful than it might have been, as Rachel could not reach up and squash the wallet to crush the card and activate the emergency measures, but she was grateful to receive it.
She put the card that Vlad had given her into the wallet and slipped the whole thing around her neck, tucking it inside her robes. Any time she felt nervous, she could tap on her chest and feel the little packet beneath the cloth of her garments.
It made her feel safer.
• • •
The next few days were a whirl of activity, as tutors gave pre-holiday quizzes and students labored to finish assignments before the four-day weekend. Over a third of the student body would be heading home for Thanksgiving—for many students, even those who lived on distant continents, home was but a few travel glasses away. Those remaining at school would be sharing a Thanksgiving feast in the dining hall.
On Wednesday evening, Rachel opened the great oak doors of Dare Hall and slipped inside, shivering from the cold. The enormous foyer, with its black and white marble floor, had two fireplaces warming it. One burned cordwood. The other had a grate of golden bars, behind which a young salamander darted back and forth across a habitat of brick and glowing bronze. Waves of warmth emanated from its red-hot body. Rachel crossed to this second hearth and warmed her cold hands before the golden bars, which she suspected were actually bronze or perhaps gilded iron. She breathed in the sweet, cinnamon scent as she watched the fiery lizard flick its black tongue in and out of its snub snout.
The doors to the boys’ side opened, and her brother Peter came through, carrying his overnight bag. For the first time in weeks, he did not look away when he saw her.
“Hallo, there,” sa
id Peter.
“Hallo, yourself.” Rachel dared a tiny smile.
When Peter did not immediately scowl, she darted forward and threw her arms around him. Peter hugged her back, which hurt, as not all her bruises from falling through the hemlock were gone. She did not let on though.
Peter was a slender and bookish young man whose face was an ideal mix of their mother’s striking Asian features and their father’s handsome good looks. Before Peter left for school, three years ago, the two of them had been the best of friends, but they had not spent much time together since. He severely disapproved of her friendship with Gaius, his personal bête noire, and so had not spoken to her since September, except on the occasion of their sister Sandra’s visit. Now, however, he seemed to have returned to his normal brotherly self. Rachel rested her head against his chest, overjoyed that he no longer seemed angry with her.
Letting her go, he looked around. “You’re not packed. Aren’t you coming home?”
“Oh! I wasn’t planning to,” Rachel answered awkwardly. “Thanksgiving isn’t a holiday back home, so Father and Sandra will be working. And I just saw them and Mummy last week.”
“Yes. About that—” Now, Peter did scowl, but it was a scowl of brotherly annoyance, not one of angry disdain. As they often did at home, he addressed her with the Korean diminutive for younger sibling. “Dongsaeng, why didn’t you come and get me when you decided to go to Sandra’s? I could have come with you—”
“And been kidnapped, too?” Rachel gave him her archest look.
“I might have been able to do something. I am a rather good sorcerer, you know.”
“Better than Mother and Sandra?”
Peter sighed and looked away. Behind the golden bars, the ember-colored lizard dashed through its water trough, which emitted a whoosh of steam.
“But thank you, oppa,” Rachel laid a hand on his arm, “for wanting to help.”
“I’m just tired of my little sister being kidnapped. Most people don’t get kidnapped in a whole lifetime. You’ve gone and done it twice in three months. Really, Rachel, you have to admit that’s a bit over the top. Even Conan and Liam don’t get into that much trouble.”
“Very well, Peter. I did so enjoy being kidnapped, but, since it disturbs you, I’ll kick the habit,” Rachel drawled dryly.
Peter blinked and frowned. Then, to her delight, he laughed. She laughed, too.
“So,” asked Peter, “how’re your classes? Friends? Brooms?”
“Well enough,” Rachel replied. “Classes are very interesting. My friends are nice. And helping Mr. Chanson teach Beginner’s Broomriding is great fun. How about you?”
“I’m muddling along,” replied her older brother in his extremely English way. “Heard something happened to one of your friends. Magical accident, was it?”
“Something like that,” Rachel murmured.
“Sorry about that, but magical accidents are par for the course here. I’m sure it will all turn out all right. Glad you’ve found friends, dongsaeng. They seem a nice lot. A bit reassuring, after you demonstrated such horrid taste in boys.”
Rachel stuck her tongue out at him. He returned the gesture. Then both looked around nervously, as if afraid the ghost of their stern Victorian grandmother would catch them at it.
“Who’re your friends?” Rachel asked. “You haven’t introduced me to a single one.”
“Peter Komarek, whom I know you’ve met because he’s visited Gryphon Park twice, and Ignatius Moth are my closest friends. We’ve been rooming together since our freshman year. We get along with our fourth roommate, but Romanov’s, uh, a little weird. Hangs out with the vampire-hunting crowd and all that. Other than that, I spend time with the MacDannans—Oonagh, Conan, and Liam. And with Dart and Katie. And, uh, Lena…”
His face lit up when he mentioned the last girl’s name. Rachel, who had heard rumors about her brother’s crush on the athletic Lena Ilium, smiled secretly to herself.
“Glad you’re enjoying school,” added Peter. “It’s important to appreciate your classes.”
“Classes are fine,” Rachel replied, “but I spend most of my time studying or working on this saving-the-world thing. So I may not be appreciating my classes as much as I should.”
“Yeah, saving the world. How’s that working out for you?”
Rachel frowned.
Peter put his hands in his pockets. “What can I do to help?”
Surprise flickered through her. She tilted her head, thinking. “Not a lot right now, though there may be something you could do to help soon. Perhaps in the body guarding department—while we do experiments in dreamland. Once we get our clubhouse set up.” She paused, temporarily silenced by jab of pain through her chest, as she remembered that Zoë was missing. “Er, never mind. We won’t be doing experimenting in dreamland, in the near future anyway.”
“That sounds—” he blinked dubiously. “Well, you let me know. Otherwise, carry on.” He sounded so much like their grandparents that Rachel could not help smiling. She hugged him once more before bounding towards the stairs. He started for the front door, carrying his bag.
Four stairs up, Rachel paused. “Oppa! Wait.”
He had opened the heavy oak door. Now he paused, letting it close. Rachel raced back down the steps and across the black and white marble squares, sliding to a stop beside him.
Arriving beside him a little out of breath, she gasped. “Peter, didn’t you tell me that you knew all the graves in the family plot?”
Peter’s brow drew together, but he nodded.
“Might there be…Is there a grave with the name Amber on it?”
“Amber?” He tipped back on his heels, thinking. “How long ago?”
“Older than Sandra—so more than twenty years ago. But younger than Uncle Emrys’s.”
“Oh, no. Nothing like that!” Peter said quickly. “The youngest graves are Grandmother and Grandfather, of course. Followed by Uncle Emrys and Uncle Cadellin. After that…well, there’s our second cousin Aurie, Uncle Cadellin’s son. Aurie died during World War II. And then you get to Myrddin, his four siblings, and their mother, but that was over a hundred years ago. Oh, and there is that fellow who was an MP, from the mundane side of the family.”
“Owen Wyllt?” asked Rachel.
“Yes, that’s the fellow. Can’t recall how he’s related to us.”
“Great- great-grandfather Uther’s sister Elaine married an Unwary gentleman named Edgar Wyllt. Edgar was a distant cousin, descended from Ygraine, the sister of Lamorak, who was the third Duke of Devon. I believe he died during the Wars of the Roses. He was our great- great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.”
Peter stared at her. “I’ve known you my whole life, and it still gives me the jitters when you do that.” He patted her head. “My little walking encyclopedia of a sister.”
“So, no Amber, then. She would have been a baby.”
“No. Why do you ask?”
“It’s just that Great-Aunt Nimue has always called Sandra by the name Amber.” Rachel decided this was not the time to explain about the forgotten rattle with the A on it.
“And you thought,” asked Peter, “having discovered only last month that we had unknown dead relatives, that you might have discovered another one? No such luck. Or unluck, as the case may be. Certainly would not have been lucky for our new unknown relative.”
Peter then paused and blinked, rubbing his temples. “That’s strange. You’re right. She does always call Sandra by the name Amber. All this time. I could have sworn she used a different name each time.”
Rachel said slowly, “You know what’s strange? I would have sworn that, too. Looking back in my memory, however, it has definitely always been Amber. Why Amber?”
“Maybe she’s confusing Sandra with Amber Benson,” said Peter.
“Who?”
“Mum’s best friend from school? The one who died in the Battle of Roanoke?”
“Oh, you mean Ambie?” Rachel cried, r
ecalling her mother’s tales of her school days. “Ambie’s real name was Amber? Would Great-Aunt Nimue have met her?”
“Certainly. Ambie was going out with Uncle Emrys. That’s how Mummy and Father met. And besides, Great-Aunt Nimue definitely would have met Ambie at Father’s graduation.”
It had never occurred to Rachel that her mother must have known her late Uncle Emrys, but of course, Father and his younger brother had been at school at the same time. It was not until after Father and Mother graduated that the Terrible Five came to Roanoke—which was why her father’s younger brother had been there for the Battle of Roanoke, but her parents had not.
“But Ambie was a petite redhead,” Rachel mused, “I’ve seen her pictures. She looked nothing like Sandra.”
“No idea. Unless Mum told Great-Aunt Nimue that she was going to name her daughter after her friend and then didn’t. But the old bat remembered the comment.”
Rachel frowned. “I wonder why Mummy didn’t name a daughter after Ambie. It does sound like something she would have done.”
Peter shrugged. “Too painful, maybe? Anyway, here’s Laurel. We’re off.”
Their older sister Laurel whooshed down the stairs in a navy parka she had outgrown since acquiring it last winter, carrying a small bag that Rachel knew was much larger on the inside and a leather case containing her long, stringed gayageum. With her long legs, she crossed the foyer striding like a runway model, her dark hair flowing behind her. Laurel gave Rachel a sisterly bop on the head, and she and Peter departed.
• • •
That night, Rachel dreamed that she stood again in Dream Carthage, watching the shade of Remus Starkadder being dragged into the ground as he burned. In the dream, she traveled down with him toward a place of torment so horrific that merely approaching it filled her with unimaginable terror. Remus became Zoë Forrest, her hair the color of blood, her forelock braid streaming upward as she fell.
The dream changed, and a hart charged across the terrible landscape. It was a titanic stag, so large that it took up most of the horizon. Its antlers were a system of thunderheads, raining wrath and lightning. Its legs dwarfed mountains. Its hooves caused earthquakes. Its eyes were burning silver stars.
The Awful Truth About Forgetting (Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 4) Page 14