Chantress Alchemy

by Amy Butler Greenfield

  “Who are you?” I demanded.

  For a moment, I feared she might attack. But then, sweeping her dull skirts back, she curtsied low before me. “I am Margery, my lady. Your new maidservant.”

  “A maidservant?” I repeated, startled. And then, suspicious: “Who sent you here?”

  Her eyes met mine, and I saw something defiant in them.

  “The Earl of Wrexham, my lady.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  LISTENING

  The state of my room gave evidence that Margery was—at least in part—exactly what she claimed to be: a maidservant, and a very capable one at that. The hearth had been swept; the fire was burning brightly; my clothes had been rescued from their bags. She even had supper ready for me: a tureen of oyster soup and a basket of soft, snowy rolls.

  The buttery smell made my mouth water, yet I couldn’t do more than nibble. Maidservant or not, Margery had been sent here by Wrexham. It was almost certain she was one of his spies.

  Toying with my food, I questioned Margery. She busied herself about the room and gave me the barest answers she could. She had started working for Wrexham’s family as a child. Of late she had served as maidservant to his wife, the Countess, until that lady’s death a short while ago. It was Wrexham who had recommended her to the King’s Master of the Household as a maidservant for me.

  “He didn’t need to do that,” I said. “I don’t require a maidservant. I can look after myself.”

  “A fine lady like you, doing her own work? The Master of the Household would never permit it, and neither would my lord Wrexham.”

  No, I supposed Wrexham wouldn’t. Not now that he had one of his spies in my very own room.

  “Besides, there’s enough work here for two people, just getting your wardrobe in order.” Margery cast a cool eye on my skirts and bodice. “Those barely fit you, my lady. And you’ve brought hardly anything else with you, I see. We must send for a seamstress first thing tomorrow.”

  “I don’t plan to be here long,” I said.

  “First thing tomorrow,” she repeated, fingering the mulberry silk.

  It unsettled me to see Wrexham’s creature handling my clothes. Would she expect to help me dress? Would she watch me sleep?

  Oh, how I wished it were Norrie who was here with me instead! Even better, that I’d never had to leave Norfolk.

  But since that wasn’t to be, I hoped Norrie would come soon. If her recovery had been swift—and for both our sakes, I prayed it was—she might only be a day or two away from Greenwich by now.

  Cheered by the thought, I considered the situation anew. Wrexham might have his spies, but I was hardly powerless, not when I had my magic. Tired though I was, I ought to take stock now of what I could do.

  One point in Margery’s favor: she was quiet. As she silently tweaked the draperies and turned down the bedcovers, I let myself sink into the music in the room. During the journey, I’d been too seasick and weary to have any concentration for this kind of listening; the most I’d heard was a snatch or two of Wild Magic before falling asleep. But going so long without song-spells had made me feel out of kilter. It was time to center myself, to return to the heart of what made me a Chantress.

  As I stood before the fire, I heard only the ordinary sounds of the room at first: the cheerful ticking of a clock, the pop of coals in the hearth, the airy breathing of the fire itself. But that’s how it always was at the beginning. Beneath these—woven in and around them—I knew I would find the music of Wild Magic. It was simply a matter of breathing slowly, staying calm, and letting it come to me.

  This time, however, no music came.

  The minutes ticked by. At last I heard a smattering of faint notes from the River Thames, but nothing more.

  Of course, it had been much the same in the Crimson Chamber, I remembered now. I had thought then that it must be the walls that were getting in the way. After all, bricks and mortar had never had much of anything to say to me. Indeed, as I’d struggled to master Wild Magic, I often found they had a dampening effect.

  Nevertheless, alarm stirred. I went to the window.

  “You’re not going to open that, my lady?” Margery said.

  “I am.” I pulled on the latch. “It’s too stuffy in here.”

  “But it’s freezing out there, my lady.”

  “I don’t mind.” And I didn’t, not if opening the window meant hearing the river’s songs properly.

  Swinging open the casement, I leaned out into the night. Below me were the winter bones of the palace gardens; above me, the stars. Icy air flowed around me. I closed my eyes, listening.

  An instant later, my eyes were bolt open. All I could hear of the Thames—the mighty Thames, running past the palace walls—was a faint snarl of bizarre melodies, flitting in and out on the breeze.

  Something was terribly wrong.

  Forcing myself to stay calm, I leaned a little farther out the window. For a moment, one line resolved into something that resembled a song-spell, but before I could even guess at its meaning, it blurred into discord again.

  My hand went to the necklace my mother had given me. Once upon a time, the ruby-red stone had blocked the sound of Wild Magic—but by silencing the music, not distorting it. Besides, the power in the cracked stone had long since fled. Nevertheless, I pulled it off, just to be sure.

  Still no song-spells. Nothing but the strange snarled notes, and even they were fading now.

  My chest tightened, and I pulled back from the window. First the moonbriar song, and now this. Something’s wrong with my magic.

  “I did warn you, my lady,” said a colorless voice behind me.

  I whirled around to find Margery watching me. “Warn me? About what?”

  “Why, about opening the window, my lady. It’s far too cold at night.” Margery reached past me and swung the casement shut, then turned her sharp eyes back on me. “What did you think I meant?”

  “I—I wasn’t quite sure.” My hand tightened around my necklace as she continued to study me. How can I defend myself if I can’t sing magic?

  “Are you quite well, my lady?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Margery kept studying me. “You look very white, my lady. Very peaky.”

  “I’m tired, that’s all.” I turned away from her searching gaze. “I think I’ll go to bed now.”

  And so I did.

  But sleep eluded me.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE SNOWDROP

  For many hours, I lay awake, listening for music and hearing none. Even my mother’s letter, which I’d managed to hide from Margery, failed me. I could hear only the ghost of its soft, sweet voice. What was worse, however, was that I knew—having long since learned my mother’s words by heart—that there wasn’t anything in her letter that explained what was happening to me. I felt utterly alone.

  At long last, exhaustion overwhelmed me, and I slipped into a restless sleep. When I woke again, I heard the click of a door closing in the darkness.

  I lay in stillness for some moments, fearful that some intruder had entered the room. But as my eyes adjusted to the dim light of the half-banked fire, it occurred to me that perhaps the click had marked not someone coming in, but someone going out: Margery.

  Sliding out from the covers, I pushed away the bed curtains and crept to the smaller room attached to my own, where Margery slept. She wasn’t there. Did she have duties to attend to elsewhere? Or was this perhaps the hour she was expected to report to her spymaster?

  Taking advantage of her absence, I raced to the window and pulled back the draperies. Along the eastern rim of the sky, the night was thinning out, but everywhere else it was still blue-black. No one was in sight. I flung the casement open and put my head out.

  As the cold morning air rushed past my ears, the only sound I heard was the distant chirp of a stalwart robin, heralding the winter dawn. That and the merest hint of a discordant tune coming from the Thames.

  It was even worse than yesterd
ay. What on earth was happening?

  Heart thudding, I told myself to be sensible. I’ll go down to the river. Perhaps if I stand right by it, I’ll hear it properly.

  Knowing I had to slip away before Margery returned, or else face questions, I grabbed the first clothes I could find: the mulberry silk that Norrie had packed for me and that Margery herself had pressed yesterday. As with the blue wool, the skirts were a tad too short, the bodice a strain to put on. But it was ready to hand, and that was all I asked.

  After fastening the last button, I let myself out. Only as the door clicked shut did I realize I should have had the foresight to bring a candle with me. It was so dark out here I could barely see my own hand on the doorknob.

  “Lucy?”

  I whirled around, heart racing. “Nat?”

  I saw only a movement in the darkness, a shadow among shadows. But a hand reached out to clasp mine—indisputably Nat’s.

  “So it is you.” I let out a sharp breath. “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask the same of you.”

  I kept my voice below a whisper, afraid Wrexham or his spies might overhear. “I need to get down to the river.”

  “The river?” He sounded surprised. “They’ve cut off our access to it. They don’t want anyone escaping that way.”

  “A window, then, as close to it as possible.”

  “Come with me.”

  His grip was warm and reassuring, but the palace seemed more of a maze than ever. At last we halted in a long room, dark except for a sliver of pale, gray light between two draperies. When Nat twitched them back, I saw the Thames.

  But only saw. I heard no music.

  My heart thudded again.

  “We should be safe enough here for a while,” Nat said.

  “Can we open the window?” I asked.

  “I think so. But why?”

  I hated to say it out loud, but it had to be done. “Something’s wrong with my magic.” Swiftly I went over what had happened last night.

  In the faint light from the windows, I saw his jaw tense. Before I was done speaking, he was pushing back the latch. “Try that.”

  I leaned out. Fifteen feet away, the wide River Thames rolled past, dark and deep and mysterious in the sullen not-quite-sunrise. I closed my eyes and listened to the murky waves, lapping and gurgling against the brick palace walls.

  This close, the river’s music ought to have overwhelmed me. Strain as I might, however, I couldn’t hear more than a few muted, dissonant notes.

  “It’s no use,” I said at last—and then a faint melody, high and tremulous, emerged from the discord.

  I went still. The song did not peter out, but instead swelled louder, spilling itself out before me: Wild Magic, a true song-spell. And not only that, but a song-spell I could understand, one for calling up mist. It reminded me of the song-spell I’d sung when the King’s men had come, though of course there were differences. This was the Thames, after all, not an ocean; the songs couldn’t be exactly the same.

  “Do you hear something?” Nat whispered behind me.

  “A song for mist. Shh . . .” I barely breathed the words, so afraid was I of losing the music.

  Closing my eyes to concentrate, I gathered the song to me. Then I let it spin out again, my lips and tongue relishing every blessed note.

  Even without opening my eyes, I knew the magic was working. The very air was changing; I could feel it thickening around me. Soon mist clung to my bare hands and face; it dampened my hair. Elated, I kept singing, following the line of the song even as it slid into odd cadences and strange rhythms. Half dreaming, I felt as if I were rising up into the mist myself, becoming part of the river, part of the air . . .

  “Lucy!” Nat jerked me back from the window.

  Furious that he’d broken my beautiful song, I opened my eyes. A second later I was staring at myself, horrified.

  The air around me had not changed. All that was different was me: I was half-dissolved, more wraith than girl. When I tried to touch my hands together, they passed through each other like vapor.

  Don’t panic. Don’t panic.

  I put my hands to my cheeks and felt nothing.

  Nat slammed the window shut, cutting off the music.

  “My face.” Even my voice sounded thin and far away. “Is it gone?”

  “You were almost gone.” Nat was beside himself. “One moment you were there, and the next you were thinning out into nothing. If I hadn’t grabbed you when I did—”

  “My face?” I asked again. “Nat, do I have a face?”

  Nat made a visible effort to get hold of himself. “Yes,” he said. “You have a face. Very ghostlike, but it’s there. And the color’s coming back to it.”

  Maybe it wasn’t a permanent magic, then? I glanced down at my wispy hands again. They looked more substantial this time; they had the right shape. I touched my fingers together. This time they steepled properly; I felt the pads pressing against each other.

  “That’s better.” My voice was almost normal now. I hoped the rest of me was too.

  “What exactly did you think you were singing?” Nat said.

  “A song to bring mist up from the river.” I looked through the glass at the murky water below. What in heaven’s name was happening to me? Was the world going mad? Or was I?

  My face must have recovered enough to reveal my frantic thoughts, because Nat led me away from the window and sat me down in a low chair. I saw then that we were in a library. The walls were filled with books. It was too dark to read the titles, though, or even to guess how many volumes there were.

  “All right,” Nat said, kneeling beside me. “Let’s think this through.” Calmly, deliberately, he ticked off everything that had gone wrong with my magic. The moonbriar song. The strange, muffled music last night. The river song I’d just sung. “There may be one simple explanation behind all of it.”

  I made an effort to sound as rational as he did. “It might just be tiredness. Or illness. Sometimes they weaken me.”

  “As much as this?”

  “After I defeated Scargrave, I was so exhausted that it took me weeks to hear magic again. Don’t you remember?”

  “Of course. But back then the problem was that you couldn’t hear any magic, not that you heard the wrong magic. Besides, you haven’t been fighting great battles lately. And you haven’t been ill—or have you?” He searched my face with concern.

  “No.”

  “So why?” Nat asked again. “Why has your magic gone wrong?”

  “I don’t know.” In distress, I went back to the window.

  As I looked down on the dark river below, Nat came up behind me, close enough that I could feel his warmth through the silk of my dress.

  “Lucy, could someone be using magic against you?”

  “I should think I’d be able to smell it, if someone were.”

  “Maybe you can’t smell magic-making anymore,” Nat said. “Just as you can’t sing Proven Magic.”

  It was an awful possibility. I thought of Wrexham and his threats—his confidence that he knew how to deal with Chantresses—and again I almost told Nat about what he’d said to me. But I was too afraid of what Nat might do.

  “I’ve never heard of a way of stopping Chantress magic,” I said instead, arguing the thing out for myself. “If there were, wouldn’t Scargrave have used it?”

  “I reckon he would have,” Nat admitted. “He used everything else.”

  “So maybe there isn’t any magic at work here. Maybe the problem lies with me instead. Maybe there’s something I’ve done, something I’ve sung, something I’ve eaten or drunk—something that’s done this to me.”

  There was a definite note of panic in my voice now. Even I could hear it.

  Nat laid his strong hands on my shoulders and gently turned me to face him. “Whatever’s happened, it’s not your fault.”

  I put my hands over his, trying to draw strength from them. It didn’t work; I felt small and cold
.

  “We don’t know that,” I said. “And in the meantime, I’m trapped. They expect me to work magic here—and how can I do that when I can’t trust what I hear?” I shut my eyes. Wild Magic will betray you when you least expect it, my godmother had warned me. Perhaps this was what she meant. It felt as if my world had turned upside down. “Oh, I wish I’d never left Norfolk!”

  “I wish so too,” said Nat. “But we’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  “In the meantime, we’ll put it about that you’re not feeling well, and you’ll keep safe in your rooms.”

  My rooms weren’t safe with Margery there. But I couldn’t explain that to Nat without telling him about Wrexham. . . .

  “Only let in people you know,” Nat was saying. “And if you have to go out, guard against strangers especially. This court is full of people who have no alibis, and who I wouldn’t trust with tuppence.”

  “Such as?”

  “Lord Gabriel, for one. He spent the Scargrave years in Sweden, studying alchemy, and somehow he’s wangled his way into Sir Isaac’s good graces. And then there’s Sybil Dashwood. Her father was Lord Wycombe, but she and her mother lived on the Continent during the Scargrave years, and she’s only just moved back. Nobody knows much about her.”

  “I met her last night,” I told him. “Well, not met, exactly. Apparently we knew each other when we were children.”

  “Apparently?”

  “Well, I don’t remember her. But then I don’t remember lots of things, you know. She says I spent a whole summer with her when I was seven.”

  “And you have no way of knowing if you really did?” Nat shook his head. “That’s not good.”

  “It could be true, I guess. She said she comes from a Chantress family. I guess that’s why my mother brought me there. But they don’t have magic anymore.”

  “That’s what she says, yes. But who knows what the truth is.” Nat’s anxiety for me was plain in his eyes. “Think about it, Lucy: she could know more about Chantress magic than anyone else here, barring you. Maybe she knows enough to interfere with it in some way. Don’t let yourself be fooled by her—or by anyone else. Keep to yourself, if you can. I won’t be able to visit you in the day, but at night I’ll try and watch over your door.”