Clearing my throat, I cupped my hands around the cloudy rock form and mimicked the other girls. I imagined my brain, my heartbeat, connecting with the minerals inside the crystal. Nothing. I opened my right eye and peeked at Callista, whose crystal was glowing bright and clear. A handful of other girls had a subtle azure radiance growing between their palms, but couldn’t seem to manage the brightness needed to illuminate the school halls.
Miss Selsye’s eyes were now open, and she was giving me a very stern look.
I blew out a frustrated breath and closed my eyes. Clearly, I needed a different picture to motivate myself. I’d floated the vase at Raven’s Rest when I was afraid. I was near panic when the Mother Book’s symbols were crawling over my skin. Maybe I needed fear to produce effective magic? I imagined myself trapped in a dark room, with only the crayfire lamp for light, and it was cold and useless. I pictured the shadows closing in on me. I imagined how frightened I would be, in that strange room, not knowing what was lurking in the corners. The crystal grew warm in my hands. I peeked through my lashes and saw that it was glowing brighter. I took a deep steadying breath and added more detail to my frightening imaginary room. A cold draft coming from under the door. Eerie taxidermized animal heads snarling at me from the walls. A strange shadow winding its way along the floor, barely visible in the light provided by my lamp.
I was there, in that room, my breath turning to cold fog. Over my shoulder, I heard a tapping noise at the window. Thinking it was that annoying bird from the night before, I turned and saw a gaunt, grey-faced man standing on the other side of the glass, his eyes glazed over and his jaw slack as he pawed at the window. The metal dragonfly on my palms pulsed hot and angry, lashing out at the dead thing watching me. The man became shadow and the shadow became a pair of wings beating against the window.
In my head, I screamed and the light from my crayfire lamp flashed so bright that it overpowered my vision. I blinked back into awareness, surprised to find myself in the solarium, surrounded by my fellow students. And while the other girls’ chunks of azurite were glowing and alive with light, my stone was shattered on the table in front of me. And the girls were staring at me. Right, because I needed one more thing to set me apart for the rest of them.
Callista, to my surprise, stepped in on my behalf. More or less. “I told you to take off those silly gloves, darling. The satin is scrumptious, but you’re turning into quite the butterfingers. Fashion is important, but it’s second to academics, isn’t that right, Miss Selsye?”
“Quite right,” Miss Selsye said, though she was eying me with marked interest. “Miss Reed, you are excused until you are sensible enough to dress appropriately for my class.”
I nodded shakily. “Yes, ma’am.”
I stood, careful not to knock my chair over. Callista simpered, “Bad luck, darling. We’ll see you after class, yes?”
I nodded, my cheeks flaming with embarrassment, as I fled the solarium as quickly as I could. And the rest of my day didn’t go much better. My ritual dance steps were called “heavy and horse-like” by the dancing mistress, Madame Rousseau. My runes were barely legible to the remedial symbology teacher, Miss Chambers. And I hoped to forever block out my disastrous attempts at belomancy, which turned out to be predicting the future by flinging arrows at a coded target. If your arrow landed near a certain symbol, it predicted outcomes like wealth or marriage.
I wasn’t sure what was foretold when you missed the target. Several times. It probably wasn’t a good omen, though.
Miss Morton was the only teacher who seemed remotely happy to see me.
“Difficult first day?” she asked.
“Would mis-throwing an arrow and pinning the hem of Blanche Ironwood’s skirt to the ground, so deeply that it takes four students to free her while she glares at you, qualify as ‘difficult?’” I asked.
“I think the word would apply, yes.”
I groaned and buried my face in my hands.
“It was the same way when I was a student here, Miss Reed. A new girl is introduced to the student body, and it takes a few days for the equilibrium to be restored. They’ll accept you eventually. I would suggest that you stop flinging arrows at them. It’s low on my list of recommended methods of making friends. Especially with attention from girls like Miss Cavill, whom I’ve noticed you seem reluctant to befriend.”
I bit back any potential response. I didn’t want to hurt Miss Morton’s feelings. “Did you have a lot of friends when you attended Castwell’s?”
She jiggled her head back and forth. “I wasn’t unpopular. But my family… we lost any fortune we had long ago, and have even less in terms of connections. So I didn’t have much support here to start, no groups of girls that would take me in on the weight of my name. I chose to spend most of my time in the library with Miss Chance. She was the librarian then, a very kind woman, very supportive of my pursuits. And I hope to do the same that she did, helping young ladies find the books they need to be the best witches possible.”
“Even when the young lady in question doesn’t even know where to start looking?”
She smiled fondly at me, the frizzled curls forming a sort of grey halo around her face. “Especially those young witches. Look at it this way, dear, when journeys have a difficult beginning, it’s generally an easy downhill coast from there.” She patted my shoulder awkwardly and then retracted her hand immediately.
“I wouldn’t know, I haven’t traveled extensively.”
“Neither have I. This school, it’s been my life for almost twenty years. I worked in the Guild Archive for a bit, right after I graduated… but it didn’t work out, sadly. No, I’m more comfortable here. Even when I was a student, I knew there would be no place for me out in the world.”
“That’s… not particularly hopeful, Miss Morton.”
“What I’m trying to tell you, Miss Reed, is that this is home. And you have the chance to make connections I could never dream of. Take advantage. Don’t make waves. If some of the more influential girls want to take you under their wings, let them. Girls like that could open doors for you, help you make the connections you’ll need to make your way in the world. If you can last a few more days, I think you’ll find that you’ll survive.”
“Yes, but will Blanche Ironwood survive?” I muttered.
She laughed. “Go to your room. Get some rest. I’ll write you an excuse for independent study.”
“Thank you, Miss Morton.”
“Any time, my dear.
I managed to find my room without help, slammed the door behind me and flopped onto the bed. I fervently wished that the mattress would swallow me up and keep me from ever having to face those girls again.
Unfortunately, the mattress didn’t seem to have much of an appetite. I sat up, grunting in discomfort at the pinch of my bodice on my ribs. I yanked the pins from my hair and let it loose. The Mother Book caught my eye from my desk. I stood, carefully taking the fragile tome in my hands.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said to the book. “Everything I touch seems to go wrong… I just need to know what to do.”
When nothing happened, I thought maybe the book was ignoring me. Or that maybe I wasn’t the Translator after all. Maybe this overlarge insect imprinted on my skin was just a mistake. I hugged the book to my chest, wrapping myself around it, hoping to feel something besides this crushing embarrassment and disappointment.
The dragonfly hummed, spreading a warm sensation from my arms to my heart, like resting in front of the fire at our old house. I let the book fall away, into my hands and the pages fell open to an entry that hadn’t been translated yet. I ran my fingertips over the cuneiform, and they seemed to melt in response, changing and wriggling into tiny gold letters.
An elaborately wrought, gilt-edged illustration melted onto the page, depicting the sigils of the great houses of the Coven Guild. The Mountforts’ scales, the Brandywines’ flowers, the McCrays’ silver lamps, and so on, and so forth. From those major lines
sprung the minor houses, the blue compass for House Morton and the Winters’ plunging black raven. I would never describe the House as “minor” to Mr. or Mrs. Winter, of course, because I was not insane.
Mountfort House Sigil
At the bottom, smaller and more faded than the others, was a black owl surrounded by silver and gold filigree. I frowned. I didn’t know of any House, or even one of the related smaller families, that used an owl in their crest. None of the sigils were labeled, so I couldn’t even get a name for this mysterious house. I wanted to ignore the page, to move on to Translating some spell that would make a difference for me or the magical world at large. But I just couldn’t stop staring at that silly owl. Why did I get the feeling the owl was important? Why would the book show me something like this when I had so many other things to worry about?
I rubbed my fingertip around the edge of the filigreed frame. The gilt pulsed and glittered in response. I would read up on the old families in the library. Maybe I could find some clue as to what the book was trying to tell me.
“I ask for answers, and you give me more work.” I closed the book with a decisive snap. “You are not helpful at all.”
8
What Tangled Webs We Weave
It helped to think of the school as a giant household, and we students were there to serve the faculty’s whims. We woke in the mornings, had breakfast, then moved about the “house” in perfectly synchronized shifts, but instead of washing or cooking, we were embroidering or dancing or drawing runes. After classes, the girls either retired to the library for study or enjoyed a walk on the grounds with their familiars before dinner. Poor Tom, the stocky young Snipe lad who cared for the grounds, spent most of his twilight hours picking up the familiars’ “contributions” from his carefully manicured grass.
After dinner the younger girls, like me, were early to bed, the older girls gathered in study gaggles in their rooms. Though it was still autumn, they were preparing for a ritual called the Spring Interview. The most talented graduates of Miss Castwell’s would be invited to join ladies’ research guilds, like Mrs. Winter’s Demeter Society. But the girls had to prove themselves worthy of these coveted positions with rigorous magical tests. Girls who did not qualify for guild memberships had to console themselves with their mother’s matchmaking efforts. It was considered cold comfort to have enough free time to plan your wedding to your fabulously arranged match.
Mail call was held every Thursday immediately after afternoon classes. John and David, Snipe footmen who helped with the heavy work around the school grounds, pushed a heavy cart of extravagantly wrapped care packages into the atrium every week. The packages were filled with pocket money, bottles of hair treatment and silk gloves were doled out to the girls whose families wanted to make sure they knew how missed and cherished they were. Ivy’s parents sent her boxes of rose jellies and hair ornaments in the Cowell family colors. Callista’s mother showered her with new hair ornaments, beauty tonics and box upon box of chocolate bonbons that she distributed like a queen doling out bread to her favorite peasants.
Receiving one of her bonbons was more than status symbol, it was a weekly re-ordering of social currency accounts. If you received a bonbon, you were in good standing. If you did not receive a bonbon, you had done something to upset Callista and you should scramble to correct that situation immediately.
Girls who didn’t receive letters or packages from home were to be pitied. Fortunately, Mrs. Winter remembered this from her school days and on my first Thursday, sent me a box laden with my own bonbons, candied violets, and her specially blended herbal tonics to keep my skin glowing. This treasure trove was accompanied by a large carton containing several new dresses. The carton was slate blue with a large curlicued “D” from Madame DuPont’s over the enclosure. It took three housemaids to carry it up the stairs under the careful supervision of Headmistress Lockwood and most of the student body.
Anxiety crawled up my spine, because I knew that the box contained my gown for the upcoming school social, among several others. We were to dress more formally for the social than we did for classes, but not in our full ballgowns. If there was an opportunity for me to disgrace myself before all of Guardian society and reveal my origins, it was the school social. I was practically failing ceremonial dance. My feet seemed to belong to another person. And I would be wearing the biggest, fluffiest dress to date, just to increase the level of difficulty. I would make a fool of myself. And possibly be arrested by Coven Guild enforcement when I accidentally revealed my underprivileged roots. I would be the first student at Miss Castwell’s to be arrested for bad dancing.
As added torture, we were expected to participate in four socials each year. I wondered if I should fake some sort of epiphany involving the Mother Book to keep myself to my room. A Translator could have several epiphanies in a year, yes?
Callista appeared at my elbow, sniffing in a bored fashion. “Is that from Madame DuPont’s?” she asked.
Behind Callista’s blond head, I saw Ivy’s own face perk up with interest. Something about the heretofore unknown slyness in those dark brown eyes had me playing up my connection with the luxurious dressmaker, in a completely bored tone. “Yes, I suppose it’s my dresses for the socials. Auntie Aneira arranged for me to have my wardrobe made there. Madame DuPont’s staff is wonderfully talented, and so very accommodating.”
I may have taken more pleasure in saying that than was proper. I saw Ivy’s mouth twitch at the sweet poison in my tone and it took all my powers of concentration to keep my own lips still.
Callista tugged at the neckline of her own tailored green muslin day dress, clearing her throat. “Of course, I recognize the style. All of my school gowns were made there as well.”
Behind her, Ivy shook her head and mouthed the word, “No.”
I managed to smile without irony and said, “Well, of course they were, darling. Anyone can see that.”
Ivy smirked at me, and flounced away, her dark curls bouncing. Miss Morton’s advice about letting girls like Callista take me “under their wings” made sense, but I felt better offering this small victory to Ivy.
Slowly, but surely, I learned the routines of the school. The bells rang at dawn, but I was already up and dressed, ready to start my day with the help of Hannah, the housemaid assigned to help me with my toilette. My gowns were my armor, helping me contain the enormous secret I carried around with me.
Every moment of every day, I was on guard, trying to avoid saying something that revealed my formative years in the Warren. I was tensed against my instinct to rise after meals and clear the table, against assuming the submissive Snipe posture and walking behind the other students as we walked to class.
Spending time with Callista, and her two lapdogs, Millicent DeCater and Rosemarie Drummond, was a daily torture. Callista had indeed made me her pet project, eager to keep the Translator at her side for reflected glory. She picked me up at my door every morning like she might pick up the little teacup poodle, Phoebe, she carried under her arm as a familiar. And then, at night, she dropped me off, having learned nothing about me or my opinions. Like Phoebe, a little tyrant made of canine fluff and hatred, I was an accessory.
Cavill House Sigil
I had a better chance of developing a friendship with that silly blue-green bird that insisted on pecking at my window every night.
No matter her target, magic allowed Callista to take social manipulation to a level I’d never experienced at the Warren school, where the worst that could happen was a black eye or finding a frog in your lunch pail. Callista would cast a spell that made it sound like two people were whispering just behind a girl’s back, no matter where she went, even in the bathing chamber. And while the victim could never quite make out what was being said, she could hear her name in the muddled conversation. Her victims woke up in the middle of the night, sure that they could feel snakes slithering in their sheets. And there was the none-too-insignificant matter of her somehow weakening the wai
stline seams of Ivy’s day dress, so that it disintegrated while she was walking up the stairs to the classroom wing, exposing her bloomers for all the world to see. While Callista didn’t take credit for that one directly, she did take to mooing every time she passed Ivy, making the curvier girl flush red and angry.
The fact that she pulled these nasty little tricks while all of her victims carried sharp ceremonial knives on their person was proof of her vice-like grip on the school’s social order.
And all the while, I stood by and did nothing. I sat with Callista at meals, picking at my food and saying little. I sat with her in classes and joined her in the library for study hour. I smiled when it was necessary, laughed when her silly jokes were harmless and stayed quiet and ashamed when they weren’t.
I wondered if wearing my new dresses right away was a good idea. Because if Callista was intimidated by the box from Madame Dupont’s, perhaps my wearing what she knew to be DuPont gowns every day would provoke her into a vengeful frenzy. Ultimately, I decided I should discuss it with Mrs. Winter while I was home for a weekend. This sort of Machiavellian social maneuvering was her specialty.
I managed to get through my first week of classes without making a spectacle of myself. The other girls eventually forgave the slight of my claiming the Mother Book on first day, particularly after I failed to produce any world-changing magical revelations over the next few days. I became part of Callista’s clique, faceless and feared.
The teachers were not impressed with me, despite my connection to the Mother Book, because even with Mrs. Winter’s best efforts to give me a crash course in beginner’s magic, I was not a very promising student. My crystals charged for a moment, only to crack and crumble to powder on my desk. The spells I wrote burned through the page and left embarrassing scorch marks on my desk. I had raw power, marked by fluctuations as a lifetime of suppressors worked their way out of my blood. But I had very little control.
Changeling (Sorcery and Society Book 1) Page 10