Give the Dark My Love

by Beth Revis

  Outside, the air was slightly muggy, the croques buzzing in the leafy green bushes that trimmed a meandering path. Father’s feet crunched over the yellow pebbles, his head bent in seeming concentration.

  At a gazebo near the base of the stairs, we met my father’s political allies. I recognized some, but the most noticeable was Lord Anton. A few of the men glanced at me, curious, but most of them recognized me as my father’s son.

  “Well,” Lord Anton said, his voice as gruff as the salt-and-pepper beard on his chin. “It’s done.”

  He said the words with such finality that at first I wondered if I was somehow unwittingly a part of a crime, but I soon realized he meant Governor Adelaide’s inauguration. It was final, approved by the church and the Empire.

  “Ten years,” one of the younger men said. “We’ll have to amp up our campaign procedures. The lesser offices can block her if we shift the polls.”

  “She’s just so weak.” Lord Anton spit the words out. “How can we expect someone like her to lead us in these dangerous times?”

  I tried to hide my confusion. Dangerous times?

  My father shook his head. “As long as she’s governor, we cannot proceed,” he said.

  The men looked bitter. “A decade, though,” one muttered.

  I wanted desperately to ask questions, but I knew drawing any kind of attention to myself would lead to my father’s rebuke and a dismissal from the group. I kept my mouth shut.

  “She’s no better fit to lead than he is,” another man said, his voice low. He cast his eyes behind them, almost nervous.

  He’s speaking about the Emperor, I realized. This is dangerously close to treason.

  Lunar Island had a long and unsettling history with the Empire. We were one of the Emperor’s most troublesome colonies—at least historically. But the closest we’d ever come to revolution was an uprising that had been squashed a hundred and fifty years ago. Since then, we’d comfortably settled into our role as a province of the Empire. Aside from ceremonial duties and taxes, the Emperor mostly left us alone, and our governor led the people.

  “Well,” the youngest man said, “it’s over now. She won. We wait.”

  “It wasn’t a true win,” my father pointed out. The others agreed darkly. The council had chosen Lord Anton; the Emperor had chosen Adelaide.

  I stared at the men around me, including my father. Their dissatisfaction went beyond their candidate not being elected governor. They spoke of Adelaide and the Emperor as if they were enemies to be fought, undermined, and even overthrown.

  Father’s eyes drifted to me, and he flicked his fingers, a clear dismissal. He had wanted me to see what lay under the politics of the land, but he didn’t care about my participation—at least not yet. I followed his silent order, retreating up the stairs and heading to the exit.

  I was moving so briskly, I almost missed her. Governor Adelaide leaned against the corner of the white-stoned plaza at the top of the steps, her dress blending with the pale rock.

  She had heard everything.

  The campaign against her had been messy, sometimes even cruel. Like steel hardened in a forge, though, it had only strengthened the new governor. She didn’t look hurt by my father’s words. Her spine straightened. Her chin tilted up. Her eyes narrowed with resolve.

  Governor Adelaide touched a red poppy-bud pinned to her bodice. That flower was a part of her insignia, often illustrated over her family’s motto: To help those lesser. She’d used those words in her campaign, and I knew she was thinking them now. While my father plotted with men against her, Governor Adelaide’s thoughts were on serving the citizens of Lunar Island.

  One eyebrow raised when she turned her attention to me, waiting to see what I would do or say.

  Just as I had been in the garden, I remained silent.

  Her lips pursed, and she turned, her skirt swirling around her as she marched inside the castle, firmly shutting the door behind her.

  I don’t really care about politics. I was just . . . there. I’m not like them, I wanted to say. My father would always want a son who sank into the dirty world of politics, rooting through the mud for a string to pull. And I wanted nothing more than to be the opposite of him.

  But now I wondered if it were possible to remove myself from politics, or if my silence had been its own choice.

  FIVE

  Nedra

  Sometime past midnight, I heard the sounds of other students re-entering the building. Master Ostrum had told me no boys were allowed in the female dormitory after curfew, but I could hear deeper voices accompanying feminine giggles.

  My room was spacious—twice the size of the bedroom I’d shared with Ernesta back home. It was furnished as well—a bed, a small couch against the wall, a desk, and a bookshelf. The attached bathroom had been a surprise; I’d expected to share a lavatory.

  My trunk had seemed so heavy and huge as Papa and Carso lugged it onto the boat, and even larger when I wrestled with it on my own at Yūgen’s gates. But now, in this enormous room, the box seemed tiny. Unpacking was ridiculously easy. My winter cloak hung in the closet, while my tunics, skirts, and wide-legged trousers fit neatly in a single drawer. My great-grandmother’s book and a few old texts on alchemy that Papa had found for me were the lone occupants on a bookshelf taller than I was. I had unpacked everything I owned, and the room still felt empty. The school did not provide linens, though, and I’d not thought to bring my own, so I dried off with a shirt, then lined my bed with the quilt Mama had packed in my trunk. A couch cushion served as my pillow.

  The room was mostly dark, but the thin curtains hanging in front of the windows let in the light reflecting from the gas lamps outside.

  What must the other girls’ rooms look like? Nearly every student at Yūgen started attending the academy after years of being privately tutored, after parents and brothers and sisters attended, with the knowledge of what to expect and the preparations not just for studies but for life here. I pulled my quilt over my head as a group of students outside my room started joking loudly. Something slammed violently against my wooden door, and I jumped.

  I had never felt more alone. On the other side of that door were people who knew one another, who were already friends. And they didn’t even know I existed, hiding under this blanket, too stupid to have even brought sheets with me.

  I’d spent the last few years reading every book Papa had on alchemy, experimenting in Mama’s kitchen, begging any traveling alchemist who came through our village to let me see his crucible. When I’d left this morning, I’d envisioned a thrilling new adventure.

  I swallowed down my nerves. I could step into that hallway, introduce myself, try to be one of them.

  But before I could unravel the quilt from around my legs, doors slammed up and down the halls. The students had already dispersed, each going into their separate rooms, together or alone, but without me.

  * * *

  • • •

  I woke at dawn the next morning, my thin curtains no match for the rising sun. I dressed quickly, throwing on clean clothes but rewrapping my old braid to save time. Before I left, though, my eyes fell on the gift Papa had given me. With trembling fingers, I pulled the top off the tube, letting it dangle from the leather thong attached to the side. A rolled-up piece of parchment lay in the center, and I shook it out, spreading it across the surface of my empty desk, my hands smoothing down the inked-in shapes of the continents.

  The map showed most of the explored world. The Allyrian Empire dominated the left side of the parchment. Long and wide, like an egg on its side, the continent was crisscrossed with rivers and mountain ranges. Mostly straight lines marked where the new rail system had been added across the mainland, and major cities were indicated with stars.

  Lunar Island was a tiny fingernail near the middle of the map, the pointed ends of the crescent facing the Allyrian continent,
like a moon orbiting the Empire. Small circles of other islands trailed back to the mainland on one side and across the ocean on the other. The Stellar Chain created a convenient series of stops for ships traveling across the Azure Sea, but the Empire’s reach stopped at Lunar Island. I traced along the rest of the Stellar Chain to the other continents: Dormia and Euris and Choade. Even the smaller countries, like the southern island nation of Doisha, were marked.

  Most maps showed only the Empire, but this one reminded me that the world was larger than the land within our borders.

  A small note card was clipped to the top corner of the map, over the compass rose. I unfolded it carefully, revealing Papa’s writing—so measured, as if he feared its meaning would evaporate if the letters were sloppy. The world is vast, and it is all yours.

  Last night, I’d felt like nothing. I wished I’d thought to look at Papa’s gift then.

  My stomach ached with hunger so much that I felt as if I’d be sick, but fortunately, the cafeteria was easier to find in the light of day—it connected the male and female dormitories.

  Unfortunately, it was closed.

  “Don’t get many students up this early,” one of the cafeteria workers said as he hefted a large coffee urn onto a table.

  My stomach roared in protest. “Is there anything I can eat?”

  “Bread,” he said, pointing to a table against the wall. “And apples.”

  I hurried toward the loaf. It was a bit stale, obviously intended to be turned into toast, but I didn’t care. I grabbed a few slices and an apple.

  “Can’t eat here,” the worker added, a note of sympathy in his voice. “We have to set up for the rest of the students.”

  I headed outside wordlessly. It seemed as good a time as any to explore campus.

  The square courtyard was empty. As I swallowed the dry bread, my stomach twisted. I came to campus too late; I arrived at the cafeteria too early. Everything I’d done since arriving in Northface Harbor had been just a little off. I longed to fit seamlessly into a world with no openings.

  I shook my head, biting back an unbidden smile. Nessie would call me ridiculous and laugh at my doubts. I always did wrap myself up too tightly in my own thoughts.

  The dormitories occupied most of the buildings behind me. The clock tower and the administration building lined the south end of the quad, and across from me were most of the lecture halls. And in the center was . . .

  I wandered closer. I’d thought it was an odd statue last night, and in the daylight, it was odder still. The base was clearly stone, but it had been covered in iron, black streaked with red rust, towering above me as I approached.

  I noticed a small sign at the bottom. It said only one word, but it told me all I needed to know.

  WELLEBOURNE

  My grandmother had taught me the story of Bennum Wellebourne. He was one of the founding fathers of Lunar Island, part of the first colony that left the mainland and struck out for the crescent-shaped rock in the middle of the Azure Sea. He faced harsh weather, sickness, and near annihilation of the original colony before using alchemy to save a few survivors, who eventually grew to take control of the land.

  He was, at one point, the greatest hero of our history. They built a statue in his honor—this statue—using a stone that jutted straight up from the land.

  But then Bennum Wellebourne turned traitor, choosing to rebel against the very Empire that had supported him in a bid for the island’s independence. He’d resorted to the dark arts, twisting alchemy to raise an army of the undead. After he was captured and hung for his crimes, the citizens of Lunar Island tried to remove the stone statue, but it was wedged too deep in the earth. So they melted down iron and dumped it over the top, leaving nothing but a lumpy black monstrosity behind.

  According to my grandmother, every single woman in the colony contributed her frying pan to the cause of covering up Bennum Wellebourne’s stony face. But Grammy always laughed when she told the story, and cracked another egg in the sizzling cast-iron pan on the stove.

  SIX

  Grey

  There was a new girl in class, and she was sitting in Tomus’s seat.

  Master Ostrum’s morning lecture was small, just twenty students, and exactly enough desks for each one. Those who had arrived before Tomus and me had either claimed their own desks or hung back, watching. Waiting.

  I glanced at Tomus. The girl in his seat had rattled him, an unexpected addition to his morning. His face was passive, but his eyes were narrowed in a way I knew meant trouble.

  The girl was about our age. Her long skirt was made of homespun fabric; her hair was wrapped in braids, and she wore no makeup. She sat ramrod straight, staring at the worn blackboard caked in chalk dust as if she were trying to read the words that had long since been erased. Her hands—nails bitten short, skin cracked from labor—were folded neatly atop a short stack of books on alchemy, each so worn that threads leaked from the corners of the clothbound covers.

  Tomus strode across the lecture hall, his hard-heeled boots thudding against the wooden floor. She didn’t turn to him until he was almost on top of her.

  “You’re in my seat,” he said. He had clearly decided she wasn’t worth his veneer of politeness.

  “Oh,” she said, surprised. “I’m sorry.” She gathered her inkwell, pen, and books and stood, shifting her belongings one desk over.

  “That’s his desk,” Tomus said, his voice almost a snarl as he jerked his head toward me.

  “It’s—” I started, intending to tell her that she could sit there, but Tomus silenced me with a look.

  The girl gathered her belongings quietly, then got up, surveying the desks, all of which had now been claimed. No one met her gaze.

  “You’re in the way,” Tomus said as he sat down, as if he were speaking to a particularly dense child. The girl’s eyes flashed, but she spun on her heel and sat down on the floor, directly in front of Tomus. Tomus’s jaw clenched. His foot slid out from under the desk, but she had—by cleverness or accident—sat just out of his reach.

  Master Ostrum finally entered the lecture hall and surveyed the room, raising an eyebrow at the girl on the floor, but saying nothing. “By this point,” he said, going directly into his opening lesson, “you have learned everything the books can teach you. It’s time for hands-on instruction.” He hefted a large box onto his hip and slammed three metal vases on the desk in front of the class. One gold, one silver, and one copper.

  Every student sat up straighter. Crucibles. We knew what this meant. We were finally going to perform alchemy.

  Tomus’s eyes darted to the girl on the floor. He—along with everyone else in the room—was clearly wondering when Master Ostrum would address the new addition to our class. But no one was willing to speak up. Master Ostrum did not like interruptions.

  “Alchemy is all about trades,” Master Ostrum said, adjusting the three crucibles on the desk so they were evenly spaced. “Copper is for transactions.”

  We knew this; it had been the first lesson in every textbook we’d studied, every lecture we’d sat through. I glanced over at the girl; her eyes were wide, her attention rapt, and her lips moved silently, repeating Master Ostrum’s words.

  Master Ostrum picked up the copper crucible, tilting it so we could see it was empty. He plucked a hair from his head and dropped it into the center of the crucible, muttering as runes lit up along the metal. After a moment, he turned the crucible upside down, and a fist-sized granite rock fell into his palm.

  The new girl gasped, and though she wasn’t the only one to do so, she was the loudest. Master Ostrum cut her a glance so severe that she silenced immediately.

  Master Ostrum held the rock up for the class to see. “Silver is for transformations,” he said, dropping the granite lump into the large silver crucible. He held his palms around the vessel and spoke the runes for transformation. Symbol
s engraved into the metal illuminated.

  Master Ostrum reached inside the crucible, groping around for a bit before pulling out out a large gray rat. We had all known what was coming; Master Ostrum’s demonstration was infamous on campus. But still—to see a rock turned into a rat—the entire class craned forward to watch the delicate, almost transparent whiskers twitching as the rat’s little pink nose sniffed the air curiously.

  “And finally, gold.” As Master Ostrum dropped the rat into the golden crucible, it hissed in protest, then squeaked and scratched at the sides.

  I recalled my theoretical alchemical textbooks from our previous semester. Silver crucibles could temporarily transform any object into another object, but if the exchange wasn’t equal—like, say, that of a rock into a living creature—then the transformation wasn’t “true.” Master Ostrum’s rat would turn back to stone soon enough.

  “Can I have a volunteer?” Master Ostrum wore a smirk on his face—a clue to every single student to keep their hands firmly on their desks or in their laps. We knew better than to knock at a demon’s door.

  But the new girl didn’t.

  She lifted her hand. Several of the students behind her snickered, and Tomus bit back a laugh. I wanted to reach over and pull her arm back down, but I knew I couldn’t, and besides, Master Ostrum had already seen her.

  He motioned for her to join him at the front of the class, and she made her way to the podium. “This,” he said, turning her around by the shoulders so she was facing the class, “is Nedra Brysstain. Nedra is a new student at Yūgen, here on a scholarship.” The room erupted in whispers, but they were short-lived as Master Ostrum cocked his head and raised his eyebrow. His eyes rested on me. “Greggori Astor, she’ll be sharing your evening session time slot.”