The Sweetest Dark

by Shana Abe

  “A true pleasure to meet you, sir,” I murmured, rising as slowly as I could.

  “And you,” the duke said back to me in a plummy, bored tone.

  I took it as permission to look up at him.

  I saw Armand before me and not. The duke was both taller and thinner than his son, with sallow skin and startlingly concave cheeks. I recognized that combination too well; it was the look of unhurried starvation. It seemed impossible to conceive, though, that a man with this house and a gemstone nearly the size of a robin’s egg on his hand would live starved.

  He did share the same wavy chestnut hair as Armand, but the Duke of Idylling’s face was, at best, intriguing instead of handsome, and his eyes were brown instead of blue.

  He was freshly shaved and pomaded, smelling of a lemony soap. When he removed his hand from the piano it quivered noticeably, and he tucked it into his jacket pocket to disguise it.

  I moved on to my next scripted phrase. “Thank you so very much for inviting me into your home.”

  But the duke had no interest in my script. He was staring at me, staring at me hard, just as his son had done when we’d first met.

  “Good God” was what he said.

  I froze, my gaze flying to Mrs. Westcliffe. She looked from him to me, her eyes narrowed.

  “You …” the duke began, and pressed a fist to his chest, still staring.

  “Sir?” I whispered.

  “Your Grace.” Mrs. Westcliffe was abruptly professional. “Do forgive Miss Jones. She’s unused to such exalted company, you may be sure, but we—”

  “No, no.” The duke began to laugh, strangely high-pitched. “It’s not that, Irene. I thought I’d seen a ghost. Good God,” he said again. He turned away from us all, collapsing into a chair. “Armand!” he called. “Have you met her, boy? Have you?”

  “I have.”

  I don’t think any of us noticed that Armand had entered the chamber. He strode toward us, mannered and composed as his father was not.

  “It’s the eyes,” Lord Armand said, looking square at me. “That’s all it is, Reginald.”

  “Yes, yes. You’re right. Her eyes. Of course.”

  It seemed everyone around us exhaled; the gentry felt it safe to begin to breathe again.

  “You have something of the look of my mother,” Armand explained. “It’s quite subtle, really. Hardly noticeable.”

  His father gave another laugh, but this one seemed despairing.

  Mrs. Westcliffe came to the rescue.

  “I hadn’t realized,” she said, beaming. “Well! How interesting! You’ve been given quite a compliment, Eleanore. Her Grace was said to be a true beauty.”

  “Oh, yes,” agreed His Grace, sounding leaden. “Yes, she was.”

  I hesitated, then curtsied again. “Thank you.”

  Chloe drew breath to speak. “Mandy, I—”

  “Shall we pick a table?” Armand offered me his arm.

  Perfect student.

  I took it and smiled. I hoped it wasn’t too insincere.

  • • •

  I did not sit with the duke for his tea, nor with any of his other guests. Armand and I had our own smallish table next to the larger one that hosted the rest of the group from Iverson. There was space at ours for His Grace, a vacant chair next to mine; I saw him look at it, look at me, and turn away.

  He sat between Chloe and Mrs. Westcliffe. The whole time he neither ate nor drank, only shot me those odd, uneasy glances when I supposed he thought I couldn’t see. Only Chloe glared at me more.

  My, yes. This was going so well.

  Maids came; food appeared; refreshment was poured. I noticed that tea for the adults evidently meant wine, as well. The chatter in the room began to climb steadily. A few bold souls even told jokes, those indoors gentlemen chortling into their sleeves. Someone—one of the wives—eventually went to the piano. A ripple of ragtime filled the room.

  Lord Armand and I sat without conversation; everything I’d practiced to say was for the duke. I picked at the jeweled bits of petits fours on my plate, wishing I was alone and had a thousand more. Armand merely pushed his around with his fork. Neither of us looked at the other.

  I had to salvage this somehow. I had to at least make an effort.

  I searched through the mental pages of my script. “You have a lovely home.”

  His dark lashes lifted; his eyes held mine. “Do you think so?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then you haven’t seen enough of it.”

  He went back to pushing around his food. Chocolate was getting smeared all over the tines of his fork.

  “Where is your friend?” I tried. “That boy from the train station?”

  “Laurence? Exeter, I imagine. He was only here for a night. Had a pass to go home before shipping out. So Exeter. Or maybe even France by now.” He stabbed viciously at a fresh petit four, impaling it all the way through.

  “Oh? He signed up?”

  “That’s what I said, wasn’t it?”

  “Not really.”

  Armand sighed, clearly put upon. “Yes, Eleanore. He signed up. He signed up and his father allowed it. There. All sorted now?”

  “You seem different here,” I said.

  He looked up once more, waiting.

  I clarified, “Even less charming than usual.”

  Oh, well. I’d tried enough.

  Armand set aside the plate and fork. He reclined back and crossed his legs, perusing me up and down. “Nice frock. Did you steal it?”

  “Not yet. Is your mother dead?”

  “Yes. Is yours?”

  “I’ve no idea. Is your father mad?”

  “Possibly. Is it jolly fun to be an orphan?”

  “Absolutely. The most jolly fun ever.”

  “Poor little waif, desperate for a proper home.”

  “Poor little lordling. It must be sad to act like such a bastard and have no one actually care.”

  We regarded each other for a moment in crackling hostility. I was aware, dimly, of a figure suddenly next to us and the spare chair being pulled free.

  “Dearest,” said Chloe, settling in with her back to me. In this place, before these people, it was a massive, deliberate slight. “I was just regaling your father with all the woes of Sybil’s wedding in Norfolk. I saw Leslie there, did I tell you? It’s no wonder he hasn’t joined up yet, Kitchener probably wouldn’t take him, anyway. He looks perfectly dreadful, utterly enormous since he inherited the title, and he said it was merely the cut of his coat! Can you believe it? It was Parisian if it was anything, a first-rate merino. He’s fortunate it wasn’t Italian or he’d have looked like a stuffed sausage—”

  “Chloe,” said Armand. “Why don’t you have a go at the Steinway?”

  “What?” I couldn’t see her face, but I could envision the pout. “But Mrs. Fredericks is already playing. She’s doing an acceptable job, for a squire’s wife.”

  “I’d like to hear you sing.”

  “Oh. Really?”

  He sent her his cold, cold smile. “Really, truly.”

  She wavered, but there was no overcoming that smile. “All right, then.”

  She left far more reluctantly than she’d arrived.

  “You’d better marry her before she reaches eighteen and the spell wears off,” I said.

  “Spell?”

  “Yes. The one that’s hiding her fangs and pincers from plain sight.”

  “I don’t find them especially hidden,” he said mildly.

  “Then perhaps you’re a pair.”

  His brows lifted. “Now, that’s the cruelest thing you’ve said so far.”

  Mrs. Fredericks cleared off, and Chloe took her place before the piano. A beam of sunlight was just beginning its slide into the chamber, capturing her in light. She was a glowing girl with a glowing face, and Joplin at her fingertips.

  “Give me time,” I muttered, dropping my gaze to my plate. “I’ll come up with something worse.”

  “No
doubt.” Armand pulled a flask from his jacket and shook it in front of my nose. “Whiskey. Conveniently the same color as tea. Are you game, waif?”

  I glanced around, but no one was looking. I lifted my cup, drained it to the dregs, and set it before him.

  He was right. It did look like tea. But it tasted like vile burning fire, all the way down my throat.

  “Sip it,” he hissed, as I began to cough. His voice lifted over my sputtering. “Dear me, Miss Jones, I do beg your pardon. The tea’s rather hot; I should have mentioned it.”

  “Quite all right,” I gasped, as the whiskey swirled an evil amber in my teacup.

  Chloe’s song grew bouncier, with lyrics about a girl with strawberries in a wagon. Several of the men had begun to cluster near, drawn to her soprano or perchance her bosom. Two were vying to turn the pages of her music. She had to crane her head to keep Armand in view.

  He sent her another smile from his chair, lifting his cup in salute.

  “I’m going to kiss you, Eleanore,” he said quietly, still looking at her. “Not now. Later.” His eyes cut back to mine. “I thought it fair to tell you first.”

  I stilled. “If you think you can do so without me biting your lip, feel free to try.”

  His gaze shone wicked blue. “I don’t mind if you bite.”

  “Biting your lip off, I should have said.”

  “Ah. Let’s see how it goes, shall we?”

  I felt flushed. I felt scorching hot in Sophia’s cool floaty dress, and Jesse’s circlet of roses was a sudden heaviness against my collarbone I’d only just noticed. My stomach burned, my eyes itched. I wanted to leave but knew I couldn’t. I wanted to vomit and knew I couldn’t do that, either.

  The duke was still sneaking glances at me and his son was downing his second cup of spirits without even blinking, and then Chloe’s song ended and I heard, with a sinking sense of resignation, Mrs. Westcliffe addressing the duke.

  “… thought we might have Miss Jones jump to the fore. It happens that she’s a fairly gifted pianist, according to Vachon. A natural talent.”

  “Indeed,” said His Grace.

  Mrs. Westcliffe twisted to find me. “Miss Jones?”

  I was on my feet. I was moving dutifully—because I was the perfect charity student, one who did not drink or swear or bite—to the grand piano, and the bench was a hard resistance against my thighs, and the keys shone in the sun like the rest of the room, dizzyingly bright and dark, the same pattern repeated over and over, and I knew that if I did not look away I would become lost in it, perhaps just as lost as the black-and-white duke.

  The sunbeam shone directly along my arms. It highlighted the silk sleeves of the dress and the scars circling my wrists, paler rings of flesh usually concealed by cuffs.

  My audience had gone obediently silent. Beyond the occasional rustle of cloth against the velvet chairs, the scrape of leather soles against marble, I heard nothing.

  No stone song. No metal.

  There had to be something. The wives wore wedding bands, earrings, bracelets. There was a mass of actual gold pinned to my bodice. There had to be some music I could steal. But for the first time in forever, I heard nothing. Even the fiend inside me had nothing to say.

  “When you’re ready, Miss Jones,” Mrs. Westcliffe said.

  I brought a hand to my forehead, feeling the whiskey heat rolling off my skin. I searched up and around and at last connected with the eyes of Reginald, Duke of Idylling. He rose awkwardly to his feet, the untouched napkin on his lap sliding to the floor. He looked as terrible as I felt.

  That’s when I heard it. The call of his ruby.

  And instantly, simply and sweetly, it was all that I could hear. My fingers searched out its echo on the keyboard; it became less and less an echo until the ruby and I were completely in concert. We shone as one.

  I don’t recall much of it. I sank into the rapture of the song and did not emerge until my hands hurt, until my hair had loosened from its pins and my breathing was ragged.

  One moment I was playing and the next I looked up and found myself back before all those people. My ears rang with the silence.

  Then they rang with the applause.

  The duke was still standing. So was his son behind him. They were quickly matched by everyone else, though, because the rest of the guests began to push free of their chairs, still applauding. Even Chloe and her ugly underlings joined in, although they didn’t look pleased about it.

  For some reason, I focused on Reginald and Armand more clearly than on anyone else, one in front of the other, an older wreck of a man and his younger reflection. They looked more alike in that moment than I’d believed they could: both of them white as snow, both of them aghast.

  • • •

  That finished it with His Grace. He wouldn’t even look at me as I curtsied my good-bye. He reared back when I approached as if he might actually flee, but since we were already departing he managed to glue his feet in place and stare desperately at Mrs. Westcliffe beside me instead.

  He was afraid of me. I knew it in my heart, even without the fiend telling me so.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t like me or that I had failed in my obligation to be the most grateful street urchin ever.

  He was afraid.

  I’d say the same of Lord Armand, but he’d vanished right after my turn at the piano. No one even offered his excuses.

  “That went very well,” Mrs. Westcliffe announced, climbing ahead of me into the backseat of our auto. “Your playing was excellent. Your manners were acceptable. His Grace seemed impressed.” She settled in against the squabs, smiling; her new pet had performed its best tricks for the master. “Most impressed.”

  “Poseur,” whispered Chloe, walking swiftly past.

  Chapter 13

  Second letter from Rue, dated January 30, 1809

  Darling girl,

  Your missive arrived at last. How thrilled I am to have received it. And how your questions have stirred my memories. It has been many, many decades since I worried about my own first Turn.

  I’m afraid I cannot tell you precisely when your Gifts will manifest. I can only assure you that they will. And that, in the end, the pain will fade, and you will be magnificent.

  I wish that you might have the example of your mother to lead you into your powers, but she was not graced with the Gift of the Turn. Your father, of course, is naught but human. I do not know why the peculiarity in our blood produces, every few generations, a child of your potential. For too many years, it seemed our kind was doomed to extinction no matter how we tried to stave it off.

  Then I was born, a girlchild like you: half human, half not. My children were all blessed with my abilities, and theirs less so, and theirs less, and less.

  Until you. You, the true heir to my power.

  You must continue to be strong in the days ahead. You must think of me, and be strong. Listen to the gemstones; celebrate their music. Imagine how it will feel to stretch your wings for the first time. To taste the clouds. To hunt the moon.

  I must rest now, my magical child. I shall write again soon.

  All my love,

  —Rue

  Chapter 14

  That night, no matter how I tried, I could not fall asleep.

  It seemed to me a far-off thunderstorm roiled the sky, but when I paced to my window to find it, all I saw were stars. The tide had come in, the surf dancing silver along the shore in its own deliberate rhythm, but that wasn’t the storm.

  I returned to my bed. I got up again. My skin felt too tight; my muscles burned to move. Even my joints burned. I felt as if I could sprint for miles, nimble as a hart.

  Instead, I stood at the window and watched heaven turn on its unhurried axis, finally deciding I needed to get outside to the green and then to the woods.

  It was an unexpected thought, something I’d never even considered doing before. Curfew was ten o’clock every evening, and breaking it would mean a great deal of trouble should I be caug
ht. Yet once the idea burrowed into me, I couldn’t shake it. If Jesse could slink about at night without anyone spotting him, surely I could, too.

  Almeda always performed the final check of the evening, usually around eleven. Sometimes she knocked, sometimes she didn’t; tonight she’d already been by, so I didn’t have to worry about that.

  Certainly the forest would be less confining than my little tower. Despite my nagging feeling that there was a thunderstorm—yes, there is—there wasn’t. The night was clear. I ached to run.

  At the very least I’d see more stars.

  The tower stairwell ended at my door, so there was no way to slip out but down along the main corridors. I crept along the stony halls of Iverson in my bare feet, boots in hand, grateful once more that Blisshaven had outfitted me in the dullest of colors.

  When I got to the hall that led to the wing of the other girls, I stopped to listen. It was very late or very early, depending, but if any of them were up, I wanted to know.

  All I heard was muted breathing. A few of them snored.

  The suites of the younger students were interspersed with those of the older ones, so a pair of lamps at the end of the hall were kept burning through the night, the better to ward off evil dreams.

  As I stole by, they sat cold and dark.

  Curious—but not enough to make me turn back.

  Eventually I reached the main doors. I fancied they’d be locked, but I’d try them anyway before searching for another way out. If nothing else, the windows of the front parlor had looked promising.…

  Yet my hand closed on the wrought-iron latch and it gave at once. It seemed a fairly shocking lack of security, but I reminded myself that this wasn’t the city or anything remotely resembling the dodgy streets of St. Giles. Who would bother to venture all the way out here for thieving? We were an island of leftover pin money and probably miserly teacher salaries.

  If anyone wanted to steal anything, they’d have better luck simply walking straight into the shambles of Tranquility, where they’d have their pick of priceless, neglected things.

  I opened the doors a crack and squeezed through.

  My hair swished back over my shoulders. My face lifted and I breathed deep, as deep as I could until it hurt, and then let it all out in a rush. I raised my arms above my head and stretched hard, wind whistling through my spread fingers.