Calliope and Cameron hurried their steps, joining the others as they entered a small, gorge-like formation of rocks. The sun was beginning to peek between the clouds, burning off the mist, but not in here. Here shadows reigned, along with that ancient magic Calliope could not explain.
He took her hand as he had at the wall, holding her steady as they descended a steep, sandy path into the enchanted land. The soles of her half-boots slipped a bit, but she trusted he would not let her fall. The river, a quiet, silvery-blue stream, suddenly seemed to bubble and writhe, stirred to a wild froth by some invisible hand. It rushed down into the gorge and dropped, dozens of feet, into a pool, tumbling and arcing over rock slabs.
The smell of the earth was strong, dark green in Calliope’s nostrils, wild garlic and moss, wildflowers that miraculously peeked out of the rocky bed.
Her steps paused, and she just stared and stared, captured by the otherworldly scene. She clung to Cameron’s hand, and it was as if everything—her friends, her place in the world, even the Alabaster Goddess—disappeared. Everything she thought was important slipped away, and she had only this one moment.
“Calliope?” Cameron asked quietly, peering back at her. “Are you all right?”
“It’s so beautiful,” she whispered. “Have you ever seen anything more lovely?”
“Only once,” he said, and one of his gloved fingertips reached up to touch, ever so delicately, a curl that sprang free from her hood.
Flustered, her face hot, Calliope tugged away from him. Her moment of magic was gone, vanished in her old awkwardness, and she walked towards the group, as quickly as she could on the slick sand. How could he do that to her, every time she saw him? Make her forget herself, her task, her place in their oh-so-careful world.
He swept her up in his golden glow, all his freedom and beauty, and she forgot everything for that happy moment. She was as drawn to his spell as every other woman in London—“the Greek god”, she remembered her friends sighing.
A god, one of light and merriment. And she was the most didactic of the Muses, full of practicality and lectures, the need for careful study and preservation. Not romance. Not wild paeans to nature and culture.
That was what she could not forget. She and Cameron were allies now, true, drawn together to save the Alabaster Goddess. But when Artemis was safe, they would still be themselves. Two very different people.
Once she reached Clio’s side, she paused to gaze at the sky above them, a pale blue sliver that barely lit the dim grotto below. It was like her own mind—she almost grasped some truth, some hidden purpose, and it was like that bit of light. Far away and elusive, it slid away before she could grasp it.
She peered at Clio, who solemnly watched the tumbling falls. Somehow, her sister had become like this grotto, too. Dark and elusive, full of mysterious crevices where ghosts could hide. It frightened Calliope, because she would do anything to save Clio from whatever haunted her. Yet she couldn’t save her, not if she didn’t know what that was.
“I love it here,” Clio said. “It’s surely an ancient place. Older than human memory, than anything we can fathom.”
“They say there’s a cave back there, behind the falls,” Emmeline said.
“I should swim over, then, to see!” Thalia said. She spoke teasingly, as if to recall their earlier quarrel. But Calliope closed her eyes in despair, for it was just the sort of thing Thalia really would do.
“You would catch your death,” Clio said absently. “Do tell us more about these falls, Emmeline, for I’m sure there must be so many legends.”
For the next hour, they all sat perched on the stone slabs by the water, listening to Emmeline’s tales of ancient water spirits. Calliope was all too aware of Cameron’s gaze on her, across the cold chasm of the magical river.
By the time they started for home, the sun appeared in earnest, breaking through the clouds to dispel the last of the morning mist. The land was no less beautiful, but it was less mystical, laid out for view in squares and rectangles divided by those ubiquitous walls. There were farmers in their fields, carts and hulking horses, white lumps of sheep meandering in search of fodder. Just daily life, free of magic.
Still, Calliope could not quite shake off the spell of the falls. That sense of being lost, even in her own mind. She didn’t like these feelings, didn’t like being confused.
There was only one way to break free. She had to concentrate on the Alabaster Goddess. She remembered the paper tucked secretly into her baggage, the list of names she had copied from the one Clio had found inside the Alabaster Goddess. Surely they meant something important? Perhaps they were that elusive clue that shimmered just out of her reach, and they would unlock all else.
She glanced back at Cameron, who strolled with Lotty, listening to her talk of her latest novel. He listened to her most seriously, nodding at all the appropriate moments, making polite comments. He betrayed not one jot of impatience. Maybe he was a reader of horrid novels himself.
There was really nothing else to do but show him the list soon. She couldn’t decipher it herself, and perhaps he, knowing something of the duke and his world, would have some ideas. Or perhaps he would just indulge her whims, as he was doing with Lotty.
“Let’s go this way,” Emmeline said, breaking into Calliope’s thoughts. “It’s a quicker route back than the main road, and Papa said Herr Mueller wants to talk to us before luncheon. Something about Socrates, I think. Or Sophocles?”
“One can hardly wait,” Clio muttered. “We’ll be sitting there until after dinnertime, getting hungrier and hungrier. Ja, fräulein…”
Calliope laughed. “Shh! Herr Mueller is very distinguished. We’re fortunate to benefit from his knowledge.”
“If you say so,” Clio said doubtfully. “Indeed, knowledge is never wasted. But I prefer the waterfall.”
They followed Emmeline down a narrower path, between an arch of wind-bent branches that cast shifting shadows over the ground. It was quiet here, almost eerily silent, broken only by their own murmurs, the crackle of their footsteps on the underbrush.
“I believe Lotty would call this The Lair of the Forest Witch,” Clio whispered. “Beware, o ye who enter here!”
Calliope laughed, but she had to suppress a shiver.
At last they left the wood, turning on to a wider, sunnier walkway, only to be faced with yet another enchanted scene. A castle, set high on a distant hilltop, framed by the vast sky.
It was not as old as the Vikings, but surely old enough. Fourteenth century, Calliope guessed, gazing at the rough stone walls, the crenellated battlements that needed only fluttering pennants to make them complete. Arrow slits stared out at them darkly, and no doubt a drawbridge and moat could be seen on closer inspection. It was silent, a solid hulk guarding the landscape. Beautiful, in its own way. Complete in a way other local castles, famous ruins like Bolton and Richmond, were not.
Permanent, and cold.
“That’s Averton Castle,” Emmeline said.
Somehow, Calliope was not surprised. The structure was so like the duke. Mysterious, beautiful, but in an off-putting way, strangely archaic.
The Alabaster Goddess was in that chilly fortress somewhere, locked away. Hidden.
Calliope reached for Clio’s hand. Clio didn’t turn her gaze from the castle, but neither did she pull away. Her fingers curled tightly around Calliope’s. “Typical,” was all she said. Then she drew away, and walked on.
Chapter Sixteen
“…In Oedipus, Sophocles shows us a man both cursed and blessed, vindicated through his many sufferings. He has lived out the themes of both freedom and destiny, as you see from this passage here…”
Calliope shifted slightly in her chair, watching Herr Mueller politely as he talked on about the Oedipus plays. Really, tonight she had no time for men killing their fathers, marrying their mothers, and ending up blind and wandering the countryside! She had concerns of her own.
Concerns that hopefully would end a
bit better than tangling with “freedom and destiny”.
She folded her hands over her beaded reticule, feeling the edges of the paper folded within. Across the room sat Cameron, also watching the professor. But his eyes seemed curiously blank, as if his true self had slipped off somewhere.
What was he thinking about? she mused. The Greek lands Oedipus wandered? She could almost see it—sun beating down on broken marble statues. Lizards skittering through dried thistle. A different place of old spells, of heat that never ended.
Maybe that was really what they were trying to recapture here, with their lectures, their endless discussions of old politics, old gods. Not freedom really, or destiny. Just that Greek sun, and the old creatures who reigned there. Gods and nymphs and naiads.
She glanced again at Cameron, who always seemed to embody those very dreams. Summer laziness that concealed a quicksilver changeability.
He shifted in his seat, catching her gaze. He smiled at her, and she nodded, tucking the reticule more securely in her clasp. After the lecture, she would have to find some way to speak to him alone, without incurring her friends’ speculation—or Clio’s questions. Somehow she wasn’t yet ready to tell her sister she had enlisted Cameron’s help.
Calliope turned her gaze to her sister, who sat on a chaise with Thalia and Lotty. She appeared to be listening to Herr Mueller, but her fingers kept plucking at her skirt, pleating the Turkey red muslin. Like Cameron, she seemed far away.
Soon enough, they would surely have all the answers. The thief would be caught, the goddess safe, and life would go back to normal.
Only Calliope feared that “normal”, whatever that was, would be quite impossible after all this. After Cameron. He had turned “normal” topsy-turvy, and she wasn’t sure she could ever right it again.
Or if she even wanted to.
Lady Kenleigh at last managed to bring Herr Mueller’s lecture to a long-winded close, long after the light of sunset had vanished beyond the windows and night’s chill set in. Calliope’s father and a few of the others clustered around the professor with their questions, while Emmeline led the younger set into the dinning room, where a buffet supper was laid out.
“Hearing about Oedipus’s travails certainly does work up an appetite!” Thalia said, reaching eagerly for her plate.
“I certainly feel that way after hearing about a good eye-gouging,” Clio muttered. “Just tea for me, thank you.”
Calliope strolled casually to Cameron’s side, keeping an eye on her sisters to make sure they stayed together, too far away to overhear.
“And what do you think of poor Oedipus, Miss Chase?” he said, handing her a cup of tea from one of the footmen.
“Herr Mueller’s views are most interesting,” she answered.
“His views are most commonplace. They’re what every scholar says these days. When will someone come out and say something shocking, such as that Oedipus’s downfall was a Spartan plot? Or a Persian ploy?”
Calliope laughed. “Is that what you really believe?”
Cameron shrugged, but grinned at her laughter. “I have no strong feelings about Oedipus at all, I fear.”
“Neither do I, I confess. I’m too fanciful. I prefer tales of gods and goddesses.”
“‘Fanciful’, my dear Miss Chase, would be the last word I would think of to describe you.”
Then what word would he use? Calliope ached to ask, yet truly she feared to know the answer. Would it be “dull”? “Annoying”? But all she said was, “I fear you may change your mind once I show you what is in my reticule.”
A light glinted in his eyes. “I burn with curiosity, Miss Chase.”
“I can’t show it to you here. Emmeline is going to organise a game of charades later. I’ll excuse myself to repair my hem or something, see if you can meet me in the small sitting room off the library. It won’t take long.”
She gave him a nod, and moved away to chat with Emmeline and Mr Smithson. Would this work?
Of course it would. It simply had to.
Calliope stood by the window of the little sitting room. The view was not of the terraced gardens as her own windows were, but of the sweep of the front drive, the long avenue of trees leading out the gates where she had watched Cameron come galloping in. The moon was bright tonight, the sky clear, and she fancied she could see the battlements of the duke’s castle.
That was silly, of course, for that fortress was too far away. The duke’s presence seemed to make itself felt all over the countryside, though. He lurked over all, like a great bird of prey.
Calliope took the list out of her reticule, smoothing it over the windowsill. What did those names mean? How did they fit together?
Behind her, the door clicked open softly. She looked back to see Cameron, outlined for an instant by the light from the corridor before he shut the door behind him. He stayed across the room, leaning back against the wall, but the space was small and she could feel his presence most acutely. Smell him, feel his warmth. She remembered the last time they were alone in the dark, in that study at the Antiquities Society. He kissed her then, and she had not been able to forget the way it felt.
Calliope tugged her shawl closer about her shoulders. “Did anyone see you leave?” she asked.
He shook his head, the movement distinct in the chalky moonlight. “Most of the gentlemen excused themselves for a quick brandy before being forced to play charades. I just slipped away at the same time—the ladies will think I went with the men, the men will think I stayed with the ladies. For a few minutes, anyway.”
“Very clever.”
“Of course. Is my cleverness not why you summoned me here? Or was it my handsome—eyes?”
“Both, as a matter of fact.”
“Indeed? I’m intrigued.” He came closer, standing with her by the window.
“I need your eyes to look at this, and your cleverness to tell me what it means,” she said, firmly setting away memories of that kiss. Or trying to, anyway. She handed him the paper.
Cameron tilted it to the light, a frown touching his brow. “The Golden Falcon? The Purple Hyacinth? I fear my cleverness is not equal to this task. It seems like gibberish. Where did you get this?”
“Clio found it on the night of the duke’s ball. Hidden in the base of the Alabaster Goddess.”
He glanced at her in surprise. “This?”
“Well, this particular list is a copy. Clio has the original. I can’t figure it out at all. Is it a code, do you think?”
“I have no idea.” He read it over again. “At university, I remember Averton and his equally noxious friends had some ridiculous nicknames for each other. I don’t think these are they, but it may be something similar.”
“A list of his friends? Some kind of secret society?”
“Like your Ladies Society?” he said, smiling.
“Our Ladies Society is hardly secret,” she huffed. “And we don’t give each other silly monikers.”
“Of course not. It’s others who call you the Chase Muses.”
“I didn’t ask to be named Calliope, you know. I would have much preferred Elizabeth. Or Jane.”
“Really? You don’t strike me as a Jane.”
“I’m much more a Jane than a Calliope. And we are off the subject! What do you think this list is? A criminal ring?”
His smile faded as he examined the list again. “I wouldn’t put it past Averton. The man is capable of anything when he’s bored, or determined. But I can’t decide why. The days of smuggling French wines and silks are past, yet from here he does have access to the old tunnels at Robin Hood’s Bay for whatever he has going on.” Cameron stared out the window, as if he, too, imagined he could see those forbidding battlements. “I need to think about this, and you should get back to the drawing room. May I keep the list?”
Calliope nodded. Those odd names were surely burned into her brain by now. “Of course. But won’t you come back, too?”
“Not yet.” He smiled at her, reachi
ng out to briefly, softly touch her hand. “Whatever would people say, if they saw us come into the room together?”
Calliope laughed. The gossip would increase, of course, and they would have to become engaged. And that would be terrible.
Wouldn’t it?
Calliope opened her eyes to find herself lying not in the comfortable, curtained bed in her guest chamber, but on a cold stone floor. She blinked into the darkness around her, her mind as heavy and hazy as if it was wrapped in cotton wool. She slowly pushed herself upright, confused. She didn’t remember leaving her bed! And certainly didn’t remember seeing anything like this.
It was a grotto of some sort, a room all of rough stone, treacherous as daggers. The only light came from a mysterious source high overhead, a pale, wavery yellow-green. As if from far away, she heard a dull, rushing noise.
Oh, she thought. I’m behind the waterfall.
And, in the same moment, I must be dreaming.
Of course. A dream. But what could it mean? Why would her dreams be of a spot she had never actually seen? A cold, stony place full of chilly draughts and dank smells.
Calliope pushed herself to her feet. She wore her dressing gown and bedroom slippers, but was not cold at all. Now that she knew it was only a dream, she had only curiosity. What in her sleeping mind had brought her here? She followed the source of the light.
It led out of the grotto room down a long, narrow corridor. The ceiling was very low, the stone floor under her thin shoes slippery. Strangest of all, the walls were lined with objects she remembered from Acropolis House. Daphne, the Egyptian lioness, Pan with his flute. Their marble eyes followed her as she rushed past, their mute stares accusing. Why didn’t you save us? she could almost hear them whisper. Why did you leave us?
Calliope’s steps quickened until she was running, dashing down the corridor as if she could leave them behind. Their cold stares, their eerie voices. She ran until she tripped, falling forward into rushing wind, into nothingness. Too terrified even to scream, she covered her eyes, waiting for the crushing death she was sure awaited her.
To Catch a Rogue Page 15