In which Sophia discovers a new ally
ophia emerged from Dream into her dark bedchamber and fumbled about for the lamp, momentarily disoriented at not being able to simply think the light into existence. Her groping fingers knocked the pencil lying on her bedside table to the floor just as they found the lamp’s round base. She should have left it burning no matter how long this Dream might take.
Grumbling, she lit the lamp, then leaned out of her warm nest to reach, upside-down, for the pencil where it had rolled beneath her bed. Such a fuss over what was surely her most disappointing Dream to date, but she dutifully noted it down in the diary she kept by her bed:
Everything shifts. People whose faces change—possibly members of E.’s organization, disposable? More money, all bills of low denomination, this time fading from bills to roast chicken of all things!
She closed the book and set it down with more than necessary force, then turned off the light and lay back on her pillows. She would Dream no more tonight; three in a night was exceptional, even for her, and she could feel her mind clouding over with exhaustion. She was almost certain, after nearly a week of studying and meditating, that she was closing in on a detail, the detail, that would show her what crime Lord Endicott was engaged in now. And then—well, she had no plans for “then,” but there was no point in making plans until she knew what she faced.
She had gone out in society almost every night since the disastrous evening at Almack’s—to private parties, the theater, more dances—and had not seen Lord Endicott at all. The mysterious Mr. Rutledge had not made an appearance, either. She chose not to relax her guard, reasoning that preparedness was an excellent policy when unpleasant men were in the habit of appearing where they were least welcome. No, that was probably unfair to Mr. Rutledge, who had been very pleasant despite being impertinent and entirely wrong. Even so, she had no interest in seeing either of them again.
She closed her eyes and tried to relax into a normal sleep, in which the doors of Dream would not appear. It was far easier to fall into a Dreaming sleep, since she had been trained to do it since she was twelve, but Dream provided no rest, and even if she refused to enter any of the doors, a Dream would eventually find her. She flexed her toes, contracting and relaxing the muscles, then her calves, then her fingers and hands, and gradually the exercise sent her off into sleep.
Unfortunately, it was a restless sleep, and Sophia was plagued with ordinary dreams in which she was expected to box up piles of unwanted things, but the piles kept multiplying, and the boxes were hard to find, and when she woke it was to a sense that she had failed terribly at some important task.
She carried the feeling with her through breakfast and dressing to ride with Daphne in Hyde Park. She half-regretted agreeing to the outing, but the idea of staying indoors with nothing but her unpleasant thoughts to keep her company was repellent. And Daphne was an excellent companion—talkative, yes, but Sophia had been surprised to discover that her conversation was clever and interesting, if one could keep her from being distracted by some tangential thought.
She almost regretted her decision again when they joined the few other riders in Hyde Park that morning. It was far colder than she had expected from the brightness of the sunlight and the clearness of the pale blue sky, and traffic through the park was consequently thin. Sophia smiled at those they passed, but without feeling, and was just as happy that they met no one she would be forced to acknowledge less perfunctorily.
“Your head does not ache, does it, Sophia?” Daphne said. Bare branches cast strange shadows across her face. Sophia shook her head, but did not elaborate. Her horse Fidelius—such a perfect name for the placid chestnut gelding, so responsive to her hand on the reins, always so happy to see her—seemed not to mind the cold, but then he enjoyed their rides, no matter the weather. She patted his neck, and he tossed his head in response.
“It’s only that you are so quiet, and I thought you would have things to say about the performance last night—I cannot abide clowns, they are so eerie when they don’t speak, though I suppose—but then I know you prefer the ballet, and they don’t speak either, I wonder what the difference is, because I am not unsettled at all by dancing—”
“I had an uncomfortable night, that is all,” Sophia said. She had learned early on that Daphne’s conversation was often like a flood that would not stop unless stemmed by the dam of someone else’s interruption. “Unpleasant dreams.”
“Not prophetic Dreams, though? Because I know Seers dream like everyone else, but I thought Dreams, the prophetic kind, did not disturb your sleep. Viola says they are like watching a play, if you were allowed to watch from onstage and wander amongst the players.”
“That is true, and yes, they were ordinary dreams.” She chose not to mention the Dreams she’d had before trying to sleep; Daphne was not privy to the details of her expulsion, nor her desire to prove Lord Endicott’s crimes.
“I dreamed of flying, but then I often do—I wonder if Movers dream of flying, the ones who are not Extraordinaries I mean—I don’t suppose Extraordinary Movers need dream of Flying, since they do it anyway—I’ve never met an Extraordinary Mover, have you?”
“One or two, during my time with the War Office.”
“Did you meet the Earl of Enderleigh, then? But I suppose you wouldn’t have, as he is serving in the Caribbean, and you were in Lisbon, and—I would imagine he might like to meet you, since you were of such help to him—are you ever tired of being famous? I wonder—”
“I find that few people understand what it is I did to help defeat the pirates. Most know only that I did something remarkable that makes me slightly more notable than my peers, but people are in general too polite to plague me for details.”
“Oh,” Daphne said, and went uncharacteristically silent.
“What is the matter?”
“It’s only—” Daphne shrugged. “I was about to ask you what exactly it was you did.”
Sophia laughed. “Therefore being impolite enough to plague me? I don’t mind telling you, Daphne, because I know you are genuinely interested and do not simply want a thrilling story you can relate to your friends later.”
“Is that why you never talk about what you did during the war?”
“For the most part, yes.” It never occurred to anyone what kind of horrors a Seer might witness in war, what brutality and violence Sophia had Seen in the course of her service. Her stories could only sicken even the most bloodthirsty soul. Cecy knew a little of what Sophia had witnessed, and often helped deflect the curious, but even she knew none of the details. “But I also do not talk about defeating the pirates because the explanation simply confuses most listeners, who lack the vocabulary Seers use when we talk about Sight. But if you are truly interested, I will try to explain.”
“Oh, yes, please do!”
Sophia brought Fidelius up closer to Daphne. The two horses crunched their way across the drifts of dead leaves that spilled into the path. “You know how Visions work, yes?”
“You touch an object, and See… is it memories? Pictures of places it has been?”
“More or less. The past, present, and sometimes the future are visible in an object that has a strong emotional resonance. Your ear-drops, for example.”
Daphne touched her ear, from which hung a tear-shaped topaz dependent from a round diamond. They were far too ornate for everyday wear, but Sophia had never seen her without them. “My mother gave them to me for my eighteenth birthday,” she said. “They were a gift to her from my father on the day of my birth. I was so small, you see, and they were like a promise that I would live. And I did. Well, of course I did—but that makes them doubly mine.”
“And if I were to handle one bare-handed, I would see that day, and the day you received them, and places where they have been worn, and I might even be able to see through your eyes. But if you had only just commissioned them at the jeweler’s, and worn them but twice, I would see nothing, feel nothing except—it
is a kind of hum through the skin, as if saying ‘nothing to be Seen here.’ “
“I understand that. So why could you not track the pirates that way? With a piece of their ships, or something like that? They must be saturated with emotions—or must they be happy thoughts?”
“No, any strong emotion is enough—hatred, fear, love, passion, anything like that. And a piece of something does allow an Extraordinary Seer to track the object to which it belonged. But acquiring such objects was impractical. We needed some other way to find them.”
“And you discovered that!”
Sophia smiled. “Emotionally rich objects throw off… I call them ‘echoes’ now, but until recently we thought of them as false Visions, because it was clear they were unconnected to the objects we handled. It is something I cannot explain to you, the way in which Extraordinary Seers put together past and present by way of Visions, but if you can imagine…you can tell the difference between leather and silk by touching them, and Seers feel a difference between true Visions and the ones that are ‘wrong.’ Though it’s nothing like touch or any other sense.”
“I will imagine it. Please go on!”
“What I discovered was that those echoes—no, that is the wrong way to say it. I found that the false Visions Extraordinary Seers were perceiving were actually Visions associated with objects identical to the ones they were handling. The echoes were true Visions; they simply belonged to other items. And then I discovered that emotionally inert objects could be compelled to produce Visions of their counterparts, and from there it was a simple step to using a generalized—and now I have lost you. I did say it was complicated.”
“I understand, a little, I was just amazed that you could speak so casually of what seems to me very difficult.”
“It was.” All those days and nights spent in Vision, hundreds of objects, comparing results with her fellow Extraordinaries, pages upon pages of notes, and then the breakthrough—holding a model of one of the Navy’s fourth-rate ships and seeing Breton itself in Vision, cruising through those blue Caribbean waters, and that intense joy at feeling her talent spread and expand to encompass possibilities no one had ever imagined. It was a victory the War Office could not take from her.
“You must be so proud,” Daphne said. “That is something I understand. I am still so much smaller—the people at Whitehall, when I was trying to convince the War Office to take me on early, some of them called me the Littlest Bounder where they thought I couldn’t hear—it is so infuriating, but I can already do things no other Bounder has ever thought of, and I know I will be the first to Bound to an outdoor location—not Skipping, but true Bounding, and everyone thinks that is impossible. But I am certain people probably believed what you did was impossible too.”
“No one even knew about it to call it impossible,” Sophia said, “but it comes to the same thing. I cannot believe anyone would be so dismissive of you.”
Daphne shrugged. “They thought they were being funny. I resolved to make them eat those words by becoming the most famous Bounder ever.”
“A goal I hope will give you great satisfaction, though I cannot say fame is as wonderful as everyone thinks. Did you know people follow me, wanting Visions?”
Daphne gasped. “Doesn’t that frighten you?”
“No, not at all,” Sophia said with a laugh, “as none of them would dare harm me and lose their chance at the Vision they crave. It is simply annoying, to turn around and see five people behind me suddenly become very interested in the shop windows.”
Now Daphne laughed so hard she was forced to rein her horse in and stop, or risk falling off. Sophia came to a halt a few steps on and regarded her cousin with amusement. “I did not consider it that funny,” she said.
“Oh, but Sophia, I can just picture it, all those people standing with their hands behind their backs and their brows furrowed, as if they had only been walking about and were surprised to find themselves in that street!” Daphne covered her mouth as if to hold in her mirth, then turned about in her saddle to look behind them. “I see no one of that description now.”
Sophia looked as well. “No, we have no followers. Such a pity, that you have no opportunity to witness fame first-hand. It might change your mind about your future.”
“Oh, bah, if fame follows my achieving my goals, I will have to endure it.” Daphne turned to face forward, then said in a low voice, “But I believe this is one of your followers; he’s certainly intent on us.”
Sophia turned to look where Daphne was discreetly pointing, and felt suddenly paralyzed. Approaching them was Lord Endicott, as beautiful as only a Shaper could be, on a black mare equally beautiful and groomed until she shone. Had he arranged this encounter? It was entirely possible. And he was certainly making directly for them.
“He is not my follower,” she said quietly to Daphne, prodding Fidelius into movement. Could she pretend not to notice him? Likely he would simply raise his hat to them and continue past. Except—his eyes were fixed on her, he was smiling in greeting, that friendly smile that concealed any number of sins.
“Mrs. Westlake, what a pleasure to see you again,” he said. “May I be introduced to your charming friend?”
There was no getting out of this encounter. That had probably been his plan, as it had been at Almack’s, to force her into conversing with him in a public place where ranting at him or insulting him would harm only herself. It is almost enough to wish myself in prison, away from him, she thought, then was stunned by a realization. He enjoyed tormenting her, was going out of his way to do so, and suddenly it made perfect sense why he would not have accused her publicly of misusing her talent—that would have put her beyond his reach.
She glanced at Daphne and saw the same expression everyone always wore when looking at Lord Endicott, that captivated, almost worshipful look, and it made her furious that society’s obsession with beauty made so many unable to look beyond it to a person’s true nature. Why she had thought Daphne would be any different…
“Of course,” she said, hating herself for letting her anger seep into her voice. “Lady Daphne, this is Lord Endicott. Lord Endicott, Lady Daphne St. Clair.”
“Quite a pleasure, Lady Daphne,” Lord Endicott said, raising his hat an inch or two off his head, as gracefully as he did everything. “I am surprised to see you here, Mrs. Westlake. I had believed you to have left London.”
“Why would you believe that, my lord?”
“I have not seen you at all these last two weeks. You seemed dissatisfied with Almack’s, when we met there, and I thought perhaps you had tired of the city.”
Hah. He thought he had driven me out entirely. She had already begun to thwart him. “Why, no, my lord,” Sophia said, “the company here is excellent, and I find I meet so many interesting people. I have no intention of leaving. I hope that is not a disappointment to you.”
Lord Endicott displayed his charming smile, but his eyes were empty of any emotion, and she felt a moment’s fear that she dismissed immediately. “On the contrary, I am glad to hear it. You know I enjoy your company. You always have the most… interesting… conversation.”
“I wonder that you say so, my lord, since I believed our last conversation displeased you.”
“Not at all. I wish only to make you think well of me.”
Sophia glanced at Daphne again. It infuriated her that Lord Endicott was making himself appear so pleasing to her innocent young friend. “I appreciate your concern, my lord.” I will see you brought low, and then we shall see if you still enjoy my company. She knew her inner turmoil was evident on her face because the brilliant smile widened.
“And you, Lady Daphne,” he said, turning his attention to her. “Do you dance?”
“I do, Lord Endicott,” Daphne said, casting her eyes down demurely. Sophia’s anger grew. How dare he captivate Daphne that way? How dare Daphne be so easily captivated?
“Perhaps you will do me the honor of standing up with me one evening?” Lord Endicott
said.
“I should like that, my lord,” Daphne said. “Soon, I hope.”
“Indeed,” Lord Endicott said. “I am glad to have met you, Mrs. Westlake, and happy to have made your acquaintance, Lady Daphne. Until later, ladies.” He clicked his tongue at his horse, which had stood as placidly as Fidelius during this exchange, and moved on down the path.
Sophia took a deep breath to calm herself. “We should return soon,” she said. She urged Fidelius into a brisk walk without waiting for Daphne, who had to scramble to catch up.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a handsomer man,” Daphne said. “Though of course one is always conscious of a Shaper’s beauty—he is a Shaper, yes?—still, he was very handsome.”
“Yes,” Sophia said. “That is what everyone believes.”
“He certainly doesn’t like you very much, does he?” Daphne said with an air of consideration. “He was almost spiteful—did you do something to annoy him, or is he simply bad-natured? Because he likely thinks too well of himself, being so beautiful, and such people often take offense at the smallest things—”
Sophia gaped. “Daphne,” she said, “do not tell me you saw past his demeanor?”
Daphne glanced at Sophia with a wry expression. “Extraordinary Bounders must be observant, to learn essences,” she said, “and it would take a much better liar to deceive me. I am nearly as good as a Discerner, though I realize that sounds like bragging—but is it, really, when it’s true? He thought he had done something to make you leave London, and when he said he enjoyed your company, the tone of his voice told me what he enjoyed was saying things to needle you. And there is something not quite right in the way he looks at one, as if he is working out what to say by rote instead of with feeling. Come, Sophia, I would suspect him of being your enemy, if I didn’t believe you incapable of doing anything that would inspire enmity in anyone, you are so kind and generous.”
Wondering Sight (The Extraordinaries Book 2) Page 4