by Shana Abe
Automobiles clearly had not been designed with ladylike sensibilities in mind.
So I sat back and held on to the strap fixed to the door, trying not to slide around too much, studying the sunset to our right, the intense red and pink of the clouds, thin streaky lines drawn just above the horizon. The stars beginning to kindle against the fading blue.
Jesse, are you up there somewhere? Do you visit Reginald in his dreams, but not me?
I swiped at my eyes with my free hand, smearing tears and grit.
The auto slowed, slowed, then rolled to a halt at the side of the road. Armand pulled the brake, and Mrs. Westcliffe twisted to face him inquiringly. Her black hair looked frosted in dust.
“I think perhaps we’ll pay a call on Dr. Hembry in the village before going all the way to the castle,” he said to her.
“Oh?”
“I believe Miss Jones has reinjured her arm.”
They both looked back at me, and I looked down. The seam of my fitted white cuff had a wet, growing stain, crimson as the clouds.
He waited for her in his bedroom.
He would have chosen another room, but this was the only place in all the mansion he could be certain a servant wouldn’t enter without his express permission first. And it was the only place Eleanore had ever visited him before.
As smoke. As her true self.
Armand paced a circle from one end of the Turkish rug to the other, examining his surroundings for the hundredth time: the bed crisp and tidy, the cushions on the chairs straight, his dinner tray already taken away—minus the dessert he’d requested but kept for her. He’d already pulled all the curtains safely closed. A wineglass had been left on his desk, a gleam of Bordeaux at the bottom. He paused by it, uncertain. Should he have finished that? Should he have saved the bottle to offer her some? Did she even like wine?
It seemed incredibly, deeply stupid that he didn’t know.
But then the fire in the hearth popped and the log fell apart in a splendor of sparks, and Mandy found his gaze tugged to that and his regrets about the wine falling and dying with the light.
He resumed pacing.
The room was large and sparsely furnished. Years ago, because it’d been easy and because he could, he’d picked what furniture he’d liked from Tranquility’s other chambers and hauled them up, piece by piece, to his own. Aubrey’d thought it funny and Reginald had been too drunk to notice—all this time, and Mandy was fairly certain he still hadn’t sobered up enough to notice—so nothing matched, but that was fine.
He didn’t care about that. It wasn’t as if he was going to host a soirée in here. Only Eleanore, and he doubted very much she gave a damn about matching furniture, either.
But where was she?
On his fifth pass by the big window he paused again, parting the curtains with the side of his hand. Country darkness loomed past the glass, unbroken but for the stars over the sea, glistering and humming, whispering their soft and silken secrets.
He dropped his hand, shutting them out.
Bugger them. He didn’t want to hear them now.
He was just … waiting.
In the far, unlit corner of the room, buried in the drawer that held his ascots and a handful of formal scarves, was a ring, and if he was going to be perfectly honest with himself, that’s what he was trying not to hear—that more than anything, more than even the stars.
It was a ruby ring, set in gold, and the ruby was big and round and clouded, and its song never, ever ended.
How he hated that sodding song.
He wasn’t expected to wear the ring yet, thank God. He considered himself more the guardian of it, because it was the ring of the duke, and Armand wasn’t the duke. Reginald was. Slipping it over his knuckle and wearing it outside this room it would be the same as declaring to the world that Reginald was as good as dead, which he wasn’t.
It was like he was dead, all right. Stuck in his madness, stuck in that godforsaken asylum: like it. But that wasn’t the same.
Mandy’s feet stopped; he was caught up short by a sharp, internal jerk of reality.
The ruby ring wasn’t going to be his, and he’d never have to wear it. Aubrey would.
Aubrey.
He sank into a chair by the fire, scrubbing his hands over his face, feeling rough evening whiskers and the sullen heat of the flames.
He should have taken the time to shave for her. Why hadn’t he done that?
Mandy tipped his head back, staring up at the ceiling. Seeing her.
Eleanore, pale and pinched, so almost-beautiful.
Reginald this afternoon trapped in his cage, calling her a thing to her face. Ranting.
she’s coming, whispered the stars. That one particular, infuriating star, louder than all the rest. she’s here, louis, let her in.
Mandy stood. He grabbed the blanket he’d set aside for her and went to the door. He had his hand on the knob before she even knocked.
The door opened just as my hand was lifting. I supposed he felt me there beyond the wood, maybe sensed my Turn from smoke into flesh. The door didn’t open all the way; Armand’s arm emerged through the crack to offer me a soft gray blanket. I caught it up to my chest, then shook it out and flung it over my shoulders like a cape.
The perils of Turning. It would have been convenient if my clothing somehow made the transformation with me, but it never did. Nothing ever stuck to me when I Turned, not even rain or blood or dirt. I’d spent a lot of time naked recently.
“You made it,” Armand said, opening the door wider. He sounded relieved, as if he’d thought I wouldn’t actually come.
“You seemed to require it.”
I spoke softly. It was late and I didn’t think there was anyone nearby, but Tranquility was a decaying mess of a maze, to put it kindly. It’d be easy to overlook a hidden servants’ door. Armand gave a quick glance up and down the empty hallway before stepping back.
“Come in.”
I did. I was glad to see he hadn’t turned on the electric lights, so the shadows of the room danced strictly from the fire. I didn’t like electric lights. I didn’t like electricity in general, not after Moor Gate, but even the fashionable stained-glass chandeliers here made me feel ill when they were lit. Like bees in my head, buzzing and buzzing.
I was curious if it was the same for him, but I had never asked.
“How’s your wound?”
I shrugged. “It’ll heal. Again.”
“Let me look.”
I freed my upper arm from the blanket. His touch felt light against my skin, gentle. His fingers were cold and long, like mine.
“It’s not as bad as I thought today in the auto. All that blood, I mean.”
“Dr. Hembry put a stitch in it,” I said.
“Did he?” He tipped his head, looking closer, and I smiled.
“The Turn,” I said. “It’s gone now.”
“Oh.”
He stood there, frowning, and I wondered if he noticed the bruising around the freshly broken scar. The unmistakable shape of his father’s fingers imprinted on me.
I pulled the blanket back over my shoulder and surrendered to a giant yawn.
“Tired?” he asked.
I shrugged again. “New moon. You know.”
“You’re still keeping watch?”
“Is there someone else to do it?”
It came out sounding cruel, and I hadn’t meant it to; I touched my hand to his sleeve. “Never mind. I know you’d help if you could.”
His lips thinned. I spoke again quickly to stave off whatever he was about to say.
“Is that sugar in the air?”
“Yes. I saved you dessert.”
“Cheers!”
Oh, pie! Blackberry pie, a nice f
at wedge, the crust so buttery tender it flaked apart at the first touch of my fork. I sat before the fire and devoured it all in about a minute, then swiped the plate with my finger, eager for every last crumb.
Armand was seated cross-legged at my side. I sucked the mashed blackberry goo from my fingertip, sending him a glance.
“What? No comments about my charming manners?”
“Er …” He seemed dazed in the firelight, watching me. “No.”
I placed the china plate on the floor. Gilt traced its rim, a ring of golden light, and the fire before us sighed and worked its way along the final orangey bit of log.
“You never told your father.” I didn’t make it a question. “About me. What I am.”
Another frowning, thin-lipped look.
“He said there’s a boy in the stars who speaks to him in his dreams. Who told him what I am.”
“A boy in the stars,” he repeated slowly.
“How could that be? Could Jesse … do that? Come to him like that?”
“You’re asking me about Jesse?”
“Well,” I said, and stopped, a little flustered. “Well, there’s no one else to ask, is there?”
Armand lowered his gaze. After a moment, he began to tap the pie plate thoughtfully with one finger. “All right. I think … I suspect it must be true. You’ve never told Reg about any of it, and I haven’t, so aside from Jesse, there really is no one else who knows the truth, right?”
I shook my head.
“There’s your answer, then.” He gave the plate an extra tap. “Unless he’s a bloody good guesser.”
“Or a bloody astute lunatic,” I countered, unthinking.
The words hung between us. I winced and ventured a look back at him, but the lunatic’s son was staring bleakly into the fire.
“I’m sorry, Mandy. I’m a moron.”
“No harm done,” he said, but he sounded just as bleak as he looked.
I tried to rally. “That means, then, that somehow Jesse really does talk to him. That everything that your father said that Jesse said is true. That Aubrey is alive and imprisoned somewhere. That I’m meant to fly to him.”
“To rescue him,” Armand finished.
I shook my head again. I didn’t dare blurt out what was I was thinking now: That is truly, truly insane.
I played with a fold of the blanket draped along my knee. I ran my hand over it, the center of my palm, thinking hard.
“No,” I said finally. “It can’t be done. I’m supposed to fly across the front? Across Europe, into the thick of the war, dodging zeppelins and bombs and aeroplanes and God knows what? I mean, we don’t even know where Aubrey’s being held.”
“East Prussia,” said Armand. “Schloss des Mondes. It’s a medieval ruin. Apparently they converted it into a prison camp.”
I stared at him, mute, and he lifted a shoulder.
“He’s a nobleman and an officer, a prisoner of war. Rules of the game say they have to tell us, just as we have to tell them about our prisoners.”
“They just—give you his address?”
“Something like that. So we can send him aid parcels. Extra clothing, food. Sweets. Cigarettes. Things to trade. Since he’s an officer, he’s likely to have some enlisted bloke as a servant, so you send things for him, too.”
I couldn’t help it; I let out a laugh. “Does he even need rescuing?”
Armand lifted his head. “I think he must,” he said, quiet. “If Jesse says so.”
And that was the end of my laughter.
“You should get back to Iverson.” He climbed to his feet. “Try to get some rest. We’ll work out a plan soon.”
Work out a plan. As if it was all going to be so, so simple.
Maybe it would be, for him. After all, Jesse hadn’t told the duke anything about Armand coming along, had he?
“I didn’t have a chance to sell your pinecone yet,” he said, walking a few steps away from me. His voice had taken on a flat, businesslike tone. “I’d meant to go up to London today, but then the wire came.”
“I understand. I couldn’t take the money now, anyway. I can’t carry it when I’m smoke.”
“No. Of course not.”
“Perhaps, if you’ve managed to sell it by graduation—”
“Fine.”
He turned in place, looking at me from across the room. I clutched my blanket to my chest with both hands and gazed back. I was suddenly, acutely aware of how attractive he was, and how very expressionless, and how only twenty-four hours ago he had asked me to marry him and I’d never bothered to answer.
“I hope there’s no trouble with it,” I said awkwardly.
“Don’t worry, Lora. No one ever gives me trouble about anything anymore.”
Except you, he might as well have finished.
The air felt heavy and sad. Even the fire seemed sad, the last, diminished tongues of flame beginning to flicker out. I opened my mouth to add something else, something encouraging or cheerful or even just a polite goodbye … but instead I Turned and flowed away.
Armand watched me go. He didn’t say goodbye, either.
Chapter 5
Before the war, I had never given a second thought to moonless nights.
But before the war, I’d never been given a reason to.
Now I had one.
For a few terrible nights a month, every month, England went dark. In London and Brighton and towns up and down the coast, windows were papered in black. Streetlights were extinguished. Carriages and automobiles combed the streets without the help of lanterns, and everyone hurried to get home before dusk. Just carrying a rushlight outside to check on the family dog was considered a foolish risk, not only for you but for all your neighbors as well.
Even at Iverson, we kept the oil lamps and chandeliers cold.
Because on the moonless nights, German airships slunk across the Channel. And they had bellies full of bombs.
With my dragon hearing I’d learned to recognize two new sounds since the war began:
Thup-thup-thup-thup.
That was the sound made by the propellers of the airships.
And: shoom-shoom-shoom.
The engines of a U-boat.
I listened for them every night before falling asleep, but, oh, on those damned dark nights when the moon went away, it seemed I was either awake in my bed or else smoke above the Channel, drifting. Waiting.
Even after the stars would whisper reassurances (safe, beast, tonight you’re safe), I kept my vigil. If I stopped paying attention, who would hear Death descending? Armand’s hearing wasn’t as keen as mine, not yet. So there was only me.
Smoke-thing, winged-thing. An injured monster who couldn’t even hold her shape half the time.
But still.
After leaving Tranquility that night, I didn’t return to my room. I floated with the wind out to sea, letting it thin me sheer, hoping it might ease the bittersweet ache that felt as real as anything solid above or below me.
Jesse was still here. Somehow, still here.
A boy in the stars.
Where are you? I wondered, mist beneath their shimmer. I love you, where are you?
safe, beast, was all I got in response. tonight you are safe.
Chapter 6
The school was awash in the news of Aubrey’s survival, but even that could not usurp the bubbly, simmering excitement of this year’s upcoming graduation. I was in the tenth-year class, the second-to-final year before we were unchained and loosed like primped and powdered lionesses upon society. So although I personally wasn’t going to graduate from the esteemed Iverson School for Girls (or, as Sophia once put it, “this wretched pile of rocks”) in about a week’s time, I was still expected to contribute to the
official celebration.
Every year but mine had a single, chosen girl perform some role at the ceremony to send off the graduating class. The younger pupils mostly presented bouquets or demonstrated their curtsies. But it was Iverson tradition for all the tenth-year students to do something showcasing their own particular talents. Even scholarship students.
I assumed that because the graduating girls had suffered through this the year before, all that was required of them now was to sit in the audience with their parents and make fun of us.
Lillian, Mittie, and Caroline were going to take turns reading a poem they had composed. Stella and Beatrice were going to sing a duet while Malinda accompanied them on the piano.
Sophia was going to recite a passage from one of the headmistress’s favorite books, A Young Woman’s Guide to the Veneration of Modesty and Decorum, a choice so ironical that even Mrs. Westcliffe raised a brow.
And I … well, it was clear to everyone that I had but one talent. It was also the piano. But no one could sing to any of my songs, because I made them up as I went.
Despite the best efforts of Monsieur Vachon, our music instructor, I wasn’t any good at doing it any other way. I couldn’t understand the pages and pages of music he compelled me to study. It all still looked like dots and dashes to me. I couldn’t seem to remember which piano pedal did what; my wrists were never straight enough, my posture never regal enough. And I couldn’t keep perfect time, no matter how hard he smacked me on the shoulder with his wand.
I could only invent songs, not copy them.
Or so they all thought.
The truth was, I was far from the creative idiot they all believed. I’d actually copied every single song I ever played … but only Armand knew about that.
One of the most interesting aspects of living in a real castle was that it had real castle parts to it—that is, an authentic dungeon and solar and great room, things like that. Music class always took place in the ballroom. With its high vaulted ceiling and limestone walls and bouncy wooden floors, Monsieur claimed the acoustics were superb, although to me it always seemed we were battered by echoes.