The Deepest Night tsd-2

by Shana Abe

  It was driven home to me as I helped Aubrey into the bed I had slept in not four nights before, into sheets that were still marked with the mud of Mandy’s transformation.

  Three of us. Perhaps the last three, so damaged and undone that if you were to combine us all together, we scarcely made up one sound creature. But here we were, back in the early dawn solitude of this cabin in the woods, and as I bent over to stuff the pillow beneath his head Aubrey’s gaze slipped downward—so very briefly—to my bare chest, and my skin began to burn.

  That dragon echo in him from before. It was louder now. More difficult to ignore.

  I backed away and went to find the trunk of clothing in the other chamber. I discovered Armand already there, lifting up garments. Like me, he was crisscrossed with rose-thorn scratches. Unlike me, the shin of his broken leg was swelling into a gruesome, livid blue.

  I took the sweater dangling from his fingers without bothering to examine it. It was large and loose and fell to my thighs.

  “You need to get off that leg,” I said.

  “I know. I will. It’s just …” He was gazing at the wall, then at me. “We did it, waif. We did.”

  I smiled. “Cursed near thing, though. And we’re not done yet.”

  “But—”

  “But you’re right. Bully for us. We did it.”

  I moved to him, or he moved to me, I wasn’t certain. We were in each other’s arms, holding tight as the shadows shifted into violet and the morning’s first rays lit pearl through the foggy green forest. It was going to be a fair day somewhere, perhaps even here. Yet I longed for the fog to linger, for the mist shrouding the lake to roll closer and erase us from the sun. I wasn’t ready for daylight.

  I lowered my head and let my hair cover my face. I ached for sleep and for poise and for the bandaged and broken man in the other room. For Armand and his leg, and the soldiers we’d left dead on the ground behind us. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to wipe them from my conscience anytime soon.

  I also knew I was at the edge of my limits, because everything had taken on a flickery, unreal cast. Even the heat of Armand’s body felt like something I’d dreamed. If I lifted my head, I wouldn’t be in the hunting lodge. I’d be in my dormitory at Blisshaven. My cell at Moor Gate. I was a gifted dreamer and had conjured a daydream beyond all others, but in the end I’d wake and still be a nameless girl trapped behind locked doors. Ordinary and alone.

  “Eleanore.”

  I looked up. Armand was still there. All of it was.

  “Go to sleep,” he said kindly. “Take this bed in here. I’ll bunk with Aubrey.”

  “Someone should … someone needs to keep watch.”

  “Yes. I will.”

  I glanced at the bed, a bare mattress bumped against a headboard, a heap of blankets at its foot.

  “Go on,” he said, and gave me a gentle push.

  “Wake me when you need to rest,” I said, dropping to the mattress, dragging the blankets over me.

  “Right.”

  “Don’t …” My thoughts were drifting into soft, muddled clouds.

  “Don’t what?” he murmured.

  “Don’t burn the place down.”

  My eyes were closed; the clouds had won. But I thought I heard him laugh a little.

  “I’ll hold my breath,” Mandy said.

  I was a dreamer, though. So even though I fell into those clouds, I dreamed I heard Armand and Aubrey talking. Armand’s voice low and soothing. Aubrey’s weak at first, growing stronger and stronger.

  “ … landed in a field. Engine on fire. Nothing … I could do. Crawled out. Hid in a … ditch. Three days. Farmer turned me in. Didn’t blame him. Children … needed to eat.”

  “Reginald took it hard. Very hard. You should know that he’s changed.”

  “Heard. Asylum.”

  “That’s not the half of it.”

  “The … girl.”

  “Yes, her. And us. You and me, too, mate. All three of us the same.”

  “Bespelled … by stars.”

  Silence for a while; I nearly floated away. Then Mandy spoke again. “You never thought—it might not be real? That you were going mad?”

  Aubrey chuckled. “She asked … the same thing.”

  “She has good reason. It’s been hardest on her, I think. She was the first, and she was alone.”

  “She’s …”

  Mandy and I both waited.

  “Miraculous,” Aubrey said.

  “You’ve no notion.”

  “But I will, Mandy. Swear to you I will.”

  I stole food from the village, a loaf of bread here, a mutton pie there. Small things from different houses, so we’d not be easily tracked.

  I took the sword from the hearth and hacked free two fine straight branches from a pine, and made a brace for Armand’s leg.

  I stood as a dragon by the lake at night and mourned without words the gaping tear in my wing. It could have used some stitches, but I’d have to stay in this shape too long for it to mend. So I would endure it.

  There were, after all, many others enduring much worse.

  On our second morning there, I sat with Armand and Aubrey upon the big bed, offering hunks of bread and cheese as Armand smoothed out the newspaper I’d used to wrap it all in for my hike back to the lodge.

  There I was again, right on the front page. I looked even more fiendish than the last drawing. This time I’d been given horns.

  “Stylish,” I decided, analyzing the illustration. “Elegant but deadly. Perhaps I’ll grow some for real.”

  “Perfect as you are,” Aubrey assured me.

  “Even better than perfect.” Armand had to top him.

  I eyed them both. I’d been hoping, now that the flickering had stopped and the sun had firmly shoved its way inside the cabin, that Aubrey’s condition wouldn’t look so dire, that Armand’s leg wouldn’t be a true break but a sprain or a very bad bruise. But there was no denying that the situation was quite as critical as I’d feared. Aubrey was propped against the pillows; he was sitting up on his own, but that was about all he could do. Armand rested beside him, his bad leg stretched atop the covers, because otherwise the bark from my brace flaked off into the sheets. His toes were turning puce.

  “I’ve been thinking,” I said. “Trying to work matters through. Obviously we need to leave here as soon as we can. Tonight. I believe if we start early enough I can get us across the Channel from here in one stretch, but we should consider what’s going to happen after that. We can land in Dover, and Mandy can say he’s been in an accident or something. But Aubrey, you’re inexplicable. You’re a peer. It’s been widely reported in the papers that you’ve been captured. You’ll have to have either a new name or a new face or a damned credible reason for being in England instead of a German prison camp, and I swear I can’t think of a single one.”

  “No, I can’t go … to England. I’m no … deserter. France. Get me there. I’ll get myself home.”

  My gaze fell to his hands, the blackened nails, the fingers and knuckles scabbed over so severely there wasn’t any skin left. Good hands, he’d told me, but I’d seen enough burns at Tranquility to know he’d likely never open his fingers again.

  Tears pricked behind my lids, which irritated me. Neither of them was acting overly emotional, and they frankly looked as if they might breathe their last at any moment. I had to be stronger than they.

  “Where in France?” I asked.

  “Casualty clearing station. Army. They’ll take me in.”

  I pressed, reluctant, “But I think I’m supposed to get you home.”

  “Eleanore. You already have.”

  I looked up, took in his ravaged face, the tender smile. The tears pricked hotter.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you, miracle Eleanore.”

  “What is it with you two?” I snarled. “Don’t thank me until it’s all done.”

  I got up and stalked to the window. The lake outside gleamed green and slate,
smooth as a looking glass, unbroken as far as I could see. The forest surrounding it seemed a lot less like the safe haven I’d first thought it. More full of holes.

  “You’d better live,” I said without turning around. “Both of you.”

  “I shall,” answered Aubrey.

  “To my dying day,” topped Armand.

  Boys.

  Chapter 33

  A casualty clearing station was like a field hospital near the front. Which meant, logically, having to venture near the front. I promise you, it’s even more harrowing than it sounds. I attempted to keep us high enough to avoid the gunfire, the terrible strands of poisonous gas that slithered along the ground and ate like acid into everything they touched. Chlorine gas, phosgene. I’d seen firsthand what harm chemicals and sinister minds could do, and none of us had masks.

  Trenches were laid out below us very much as they’d been on the maps, long, winding lines scarring the earth, hiding desperate men. Protecting them from the mortars that arced white and yellow fire above their heads. Smothering them with dirt and desolation.

  I was glad that I knew no one down there. Glad that the only two beings I cared about were being carried safely over this crisis, at least.

  As safe as I could make it, that is. The sickle moon had finally waned from the sky, and this would be the night the airships took flight. I kept a wary eye out but didn’t see any. Perhaps they were already across the Channel.

  Stars of the heavens, who own my time: guide us safely only just a bit farther.

  a bit farther, a bit, they sang in reply.

  We were renegade magic, temporarily liberated from gravity and bloodshed. We were stars falling to the earth, to the shelled remains of a French village. To a pasture with very little cover because the grass was stunted and all the trees had burned away.

  To a cathedral that had been converted into a hospital for damaged men.

  I left Aubrey and Armand behind in the grass. I smoked into the nurses’ tent, where there were women sleeping fitfully and uniforms lay folded at the base of their cots, begging to be borrowed.

  Then I ran outside to find a doctor and pulled him from his breakfast, protesting all the way, to my men.

  That was how my rescue of Aubrey ended. Where my part in it ended, in any case. He was taken in, absorbed by the frantic yet diligent inner workings of the hospital, and I lingered long enough to see that he was cleaned and rebandaged and given back his name and rank.

  Yes, he’d been shot down and captured last spring.

  No, he’d never been taken so far as East Prussia. That must have been an error in the paperwork.

  He’d been taken to Belgium instead. He’d been lucky enough to escape during transport, and subsequently hidden by a sympathetic farmer’s widow who had tended to him as best she could.

  And, yes, somehow he’d made it back here to France after that.

  And even though it was perfectly clear that he was in no shape to have traveled any distance on his own, the Marquess of Sherborne’s story was scribbled down and accepted because by then it was two hours past daybreak, and the next batch of wounded men was already crowding the cathedral floors, ready to take his place.

  Armand had his leg set and cast. He hadn’t been too pleased about it, but had resigned himself to the fact that I wasn’t going to carry him back to England unless it was done. He had become Lieutenant Laurence Clayworth, injured in action. Had I been in his position, I would have made more of an ado. After all, the actual Laurence Clayworth was a selfish blighter, and I had no doubt he’d be whining for drugs and attention the instant a pretty nurse hurried by. This Lieutenant Clayworth refused the shot of heroin the nurse attempted to give him. He only glued his eyes on me and clenched his teeth and broke into a white, cold sweat as the bones of his leg were pulled and stretched and snapped back into place.

  He did not cry out. He did not faint.

  I fared worse than he did. I held his hand and knew it’d be a mistake to look back, but I did it anyway, and then I had to plunk down to the floor and put my head between my knees.

  Armand’s hand released mine to pat me on the head.

  “Sorry case of nerves, that,” I heard one of the real nurses mutter. “How’d she get in?”

  “Now, now,” muttered back her companion. “Some of us are more durable than others.”

  I could not agree more.

  We said our farewells to Aubrey that evening. I was relieved to see that he, at least, had accepted his measure of heroin. His eyes were huge and dark in his face. But his smile was just as tender as ever.

  “See you soon, old man,” murmured Armand, on crutches at my side.

  “Soon enough,” his brother replied.

  “By the by, did I mention I turned Tranquility into a convalescent hospital?”

  That seemed to rouse Aubrey some. “Did you? I say, don’t send me there. Loathe that place.”

  “Sorry. I plan to shamelessly exploit Reginald’s connections as soon as I get back.”

  “Bollocks.” Those dark gray eyes shifted to find mine. “Will you be there?”

  “I’ll be at school. At Iverson. I hope,” I added.

  He gave a nod, relaxing back. “That’s something, then.”

  Mandy touched a hand to his shoulder. “See you soon,” he said again.

  “Right.”

  I leaned down and brushed my lips to Aubrey’s cheek. “Goodbye.”

  His face angled toward mine; he returned my kiss. “Soon.”

  Armand seemed to stop breathing. As we moved off, he stared down at the limestone pavers of the floor, scrupulously following the front-back-front swing of his crutches.

  After that, flying back to England seemed very nearly easy. We crossed the Channel with the aid of a checkered layer of clouds, and it was curious now, but I didn’t really need Armand or the stars pointing me the way. I could feel England calling me, pulling at me. Tugging at my heartstrings, drawing me onward.

  Toward my home.

  We landed on the beach at Bournemouth a scant twenty minutes before first light. I was able to let him down and Turn to smoke in time to flow back to our hotel. I found our room exactly as we’d left it. Even the unfinished champagne was still in its bottle on the table.

  I dressed. Then, as furtively as possible, I slipped out of the suite and back to the beach.

  The sky to the east had become streaked with cherry. To the west, the first of the fishing boats were departing for the day, heading out into the blue with bells clanging.

  A constable was patrolling the boardwalk with rhythmic, deliberate footfalls. At the very end of the pier a man and two little boys were casting their lines, hoping for fresh fish to begin their day.

  Armand and I made our way to the entrance of the Sea Vista, only to encounter the innkeeper right as we cracked opened the front door.

  His eyes widened, taking us in.

  “Why, Mr. Pendragon! Mrs. Pendragon! Look at you! Whatever has happened?”

  I exchanged a glance with Mandy, impaired by his cast, marked by roses, and remembered all my own scratches.

  À la Chloe, I gave a trilling laugh. “Oh, dear. I’m afraid there was something of a disagreement between our auto and an unfortunate tree by the road. But it’s nothing too awful. His leg’s in something of a fix, but Mr. Pendragon and I will be fine.”

  “I should not have allowed you to drive,” Armand said. “Next time I’ll not be so pleasantly persuaded.”

  I directed my smile at him, fierce and glittering. “At least we came out at the better end of things this time! Not at all like the time you demolished that hansom cab, was it, my darling?”

  “Tsk!” said the innkeeper, still staring at us, back and forth. “Modern days! I’ve always said these motorcars are treacherous devices. I’ve always said!”

  I softened my smile. “I wonder if you wouldn’t mind sending up some food for us?”

  He brightened; breakfast was plainly more acceptable than modern day
s. “Certainly! What would you like? The wife’s beefsteak and eggs is always lovely, if I do say so, but the eldest went out yesterday and came back to us with a tidy haul of oysters and crabs that we thought—”

  “Yes, that, all of that.”

  “Er—pardon?”

  “All of it,” I said.

  “Ah,” said the innkeeper, even wider-eyed than before.

  “Everything you’ve got.” Armand swung past him with the crutches, front-back-front. “It’s been an arduous trip from there to here, my good sir, and we’re really quite famished.”

  And we ate it all, too. Beefsteak and eggs, fried oysters with red sauce, omelets stuffed with crab. We ate until we were both sated and heavy-eyed, and the sound of the surf beyond our balcony rolled over us like a lullaby.

  Children shrieked and laughed, playing in the sand. Out on the boardwalk people tottered about in heels and hats and talked about the weather and listened to an organ grinder playing song after song for copper pennies.

  I stood upon the balcony and shielded my eyes from the sun with one hand, letting the sea breeze push cool and welcome through my hair.

  “Wife,” said Armand from behind me, very quiet. “Will you come to sleep with me?”

  I turned around. He was resting atop the covers, propped up by pillows with his broken leg out, just as he’d been at the hunting lodge, except now with a proper cast. The wallpaper behind him nearly made me smile: giant pink and lavender lilacs entwined with pale green vines. He was dark and scruffy against it, a pirate again, stranded in a room of pastel blossoms.

  Since we’d been sleeping in each other’s arms for days now, I knew he wasn’t truly asking about sleep.

  “Yes,” I said. “After.”

  “After what?”

  “There’s one last thing I must do. I’m going to see your father.”

  His hands clenched. “I’ll come with you.”

  “And undo all that good work on your leg by Turning to smoke? I think not.” I abandoned the balcony and its uncluttered sky, plunging back into the shadows with him. “Besides, I imagine one drákon materializing in the middle of an insane asylum will be plenty. Let’s ease him into the story of you, shall we?”