A Universe of Wishes

by A Universe of Wishes (epub)

  I give neither of them the opportunity.

  Pulling my vase into my arms, I kick the podium into Bluethorn’s shins. He goes down but rolls with the impact, and he finds his feet as I turn to Rabi. I expect to find resentment in her honey-brown eyes, but what I find there instead is a message: Get behind me.

  It is impossible that we know each other so well so quickly. Impossible that I know beyond the whisper of doubt that just as my desire is to protect her, her desire is to protect me. Days ago, I thought the impossible task before me was getting to this moment. Now I know the true challenge will be in getting out of it.

  I curl my body around my vase and circle wide, putting Rabi between myself and Bluethorn. It’s a temporary reprieve. Bluethorn drives forward, and the three of us trade a flurry of blows. I dance and weave, kick and sweep. My body absorbs fists and elbows and knees until I feel certain I have cracked a rib and more.

  Then the herald’s voice calls out, “Three pegs down!” and we stop.

  The vase in my hands is unbroken, the flower unharmed. I retrieve my podium from where it landed and return it to its upright position, placing the precious vase on top. My ears ring and my heart pounds, and though I know the crowd now chants my name, I do not hear it.

  The room quiets as the Bloom stands and carefully descends the dais on slippers elevated on spires of green glass to match the paint on his lip and the ties in his hair. He moves effortlessly, lighting before us as a butterfly graces a blossom.

  All around, the room holds its breath, and I think I do, too, my lungs arrested on his glance, which is at once unafraid and approving. He extends a hand and presses two fingers beneath Bluethorn’s chin.

  “You fought with the might of many.” The Bloom’s voice is silk. It brushes over our sweat-soaked skin, our split lips, our bruises, and somehow it gives us strength.

  He moves to Rabi, standing next to me, so close I can smell the salt of her skin. The Bloom lets his fingers flutter down her cheek. “You, with the bravery of legend,” he says.

  Then he is standing before me, and all I can smell is the heady perfume of the summer star. The Bloom’s eyes are endless layers of brown, drawing into the perfect black points of his pupils, and when he smiles, I find the gray ring that encircles the outermost bit of brown. I could spend a lifetime studying all the ways the details of him come together to form this pristine person before me.

  He raises both of his hands, cupping my jaw in cool palms. “But you, Lady Willador Mayhew, fought with pure devotion. You are my balance and consort, the sword to my bloom.” He bends in, brushing his lips lightly over my own, and pulls away to the beautiful song of the crowd.

  This is everything I have fought for. I should feel elated, relieved, elevated, and ready to assume my place next to the Bloom. My mother will never want for anything for the rest of her life. My family will forever walk a different path. I have everything I have ever needed in this moment and more.

  My eyes stray from the glorious sight before me, searching for Rabi, who is still by my side. She looks straight ahead, avoiding my eyes, but there is a tremble in her lip, and I know it is not because she wasn’t chosen. Something has changed for both of us since crossing the Silk Bridge this morning.

  I lift my eyes once more to the Bloom. We are locked inside tradition. This is my moment. It is my turn to accept this offer and ascend with him to the dais, where the court may accept me as the strength to his grace. Where I will spend the rest of my days at his side until it is our turn in the Court of Roots, when the child of the Bloom’s line will once again choose a consort in this very room.

  I open my mouth, my heart thrashing wildly against my ribs, unsure about what will happen next. Because the Bloom has chosen me.

  But I do not choose him.

  NEW YORK CITY

  JULY 1897

  The note, black ink upon pale paper, reads simply:

  Your presence is required. The matter is urgent.

  There is a time—three o’clock this very afternoon—and an address, a tearoom at the Lenox, a fashionable hotel on the east side. There is also an edict:

  Trust no one. Come alone.

  To be certain that the letter is indeed intended for me, I read the front of the envelope again. There is my name, inked neatly across its yellow-tinged expanse: Miss Gemma Doyle. And on the back, a wax seal bearing the unmistakable skull-and-sword insignia of the Rakshana.

  Here at the Ashfield Residence for Women in New York City, I receive very little mail. Dutiful and infrequent letters from my often insufferably arrogant brother, Tom, back in London, where he is studying to be a physician when he is not trying to romance women far too good for him. An occasional postcard from whatever glamorous city my friend Felicity Worthington happens to be visiting, each one proclaiming her undying devotion to it, for Fee falls in and out of love with cities the way that some women change brooches. My other friend, Ann Bradshaw, has also managed a missive here and there, though her new life as a rising star on the stage leaves little time for letter writing. The bulk of my correspondence comes from my grandmama, who, in between complaining about various ailments, never misses an opportunity to remind me that, at nineteen, if I don’t find a husband soon, I will become unmarriageable—though, she remarks, she isn’t sure that I am marriageable at all. I am far too headstrong (“Why can’t you simply smile and agree and be pleasant, Gemma?”), too freckled (“Why do you never remember your parasol?”), and, she fears, too educated (“Why must you read so very much? It’s unseemly!”).

  In truth, there is only one man I’d wish to call husband.

  But I won’t think about that.

  I sink down on my too-soft bed. The room’s creaky corner window has been propped open with a stack of books to keep it from sliding down like a fainting dowager. The gritty city air barely moves the lace curtains; the jagged rooftops of Twenty-Eighth Street seem to undulate in the July heat. No one warned me about New York summers. I fan myself with the letter and stare at the envelope’s broken wax seal. For some time now, I’ve had no communication with that particular brotherhood. I’ve been free to attend classes and lectures at Barnard College, to read and study and try to forget the pain of the past. I have lived almost like a normal girl—woman, as my new friend Juliet would correct me with characteristic firmness: “We are not girls any longer, Gemma!” I should like to burn this letter and forget all about this meeting, but I know that I won’t. Like a cat, I am insatiably curious. And, probably, like that cat, my curiosity will be the death of me one day.

  I do not intend for that day to be today.

  * * *

  The maître d’ of the Lenox Hotel escorts me past marble-topped tables occupied by ladies in puffy-sleeved dresses and giant decorative hats who sip tea and eat sponge cake whilst gossiping. It’s as if I never left England: the accents are different but the affectations remain the same. Still. I tug at my practical navy dress and adjust my plain straw hat as I make my way past these elegant women and wish, for a moment, that I had something more suitable to wear. Funny how you can sneer at something and covet it at the same time. Pay me no heed, puffy-sleeved ladies! For I am simply passing through in this sensible frock on my way to a clandestine meeting full of danger and intrigue, as one does! Their eyes glance at me and back. And there it is: I am less interesting than their sponge cake. I should be offended if it didn’t happen so often. As Felicity would say, “Quelle tristesse, Gemma!” I am convinced she speaks French solely to annoy me.

  The maître d’ and I come at last to a section set off by claret velvet drapes, and I am reminded of Felicity’s tent in Spence Academy’s great room, where we often gathered to discuss our deepest secrets. Was it only two years ago? Seems ages. Behind the drapes there is but one table, and it is occupied by a man who rises, politely, at my arrival. He is tall and solidly built, his wavy blond hair brushed b
ack from a patrician face and a long, straight nose that seems to peer down in judgment at his neat, slightly darker mustache. His eyes are a startling blue.

  “Miss Doyle, I presume?”

  “You have me at a disadvantage, sir. For I do not know your name, Mr….?”

  “Dwight. Edwin Dwight.”

  He helps me into my seat and takes his own. The maître d’ presents me with a menu, which Mr. Dwight waves away. “The lady will have what I’m having, George.”

  “The lady is accustomed to making her own decisions about tea,” I say with a genteel smile. “I’ll have the Ceylon, if you please, and the petits fours. Thank you.”

  “How do you know they serve petits fours?” the blue-eyed stranger asks once we are alone.

  “It is a tearoom. They all serve petits fours.”

  He smirks. Drums his fingers. He wears the Rakshana’s ring. “So, a Spence girl, eh? Fine manners, raised pinkies? And magic mayhem, of course.” His bland American accent betrays no trace of place, but his air of polite condescension reeks of a certain breeding and elite schools.

  “Mr. Dwight. I think it best if you tell me what this is all about,” I snap. Despite the best intentions of the Spence Academy for Young Ladies, it did not succeed in making me much of one.

  Mr. Dwight takes my impatience in stride. From his pocket he retrieves a square of newspaper and slides it across the table. I unfold the newspaper, reading quickly whilst Mr. Dwight narrates the article to me—an annoying habit particular to certain arrogant men and my grandmama. Why ask me to read the bloody thing if you’re only going to tell me what it says?

  “His body was found near the Metropolitan Museum of Art….”

  The victim, twenty-one years old, was a clerk at a bank. Just as Mr. Dwight said, the man was found near the museum…with his heart removed. Inside the chest cavity was a feather and a scrap of pale paper inscribed with symbols and one sentence: Think upon your sins. According to the account, the murder was eerily similar to the murder of another man found three months prior.

  “Did you read it, Miss Doyle?”

  I manage a tight smile. “Yes. It’s astonishing the things one learns at Barnard. I’m doing all of my own reading now. Soon I shall be able to lace my own boots!”

  Mr. Dwight glowers. “See here, Miss Doyle. Both of those men were Rakshana. Two of our brotherhood have been murdered.”

  A flush warms my cheeks. “Forgive me, Mr. Dwight,” I say, chastened, yet also angry. I am sorry for the loss of these men, but I do not care for Mr. Dwight and the organization he represents.

  Mr. Dwight leans forward, lowers his voice. “Someone is hunting us.”

  “But why?”

  Mr. Dwight twists the ends of his mustache. I can tell he’s considering just how much to tell me. “We have reason to believe that these men were sacrifices. Someone here in the city is using sinister arts in order to enter the realms.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Rumors. We have ears everywhere, Miss Doyle,” he says rather smugly, a little power play to remind me that I am just one stupid girl with a few friends at her side and he part of a vast, shadowy organization. What I want to say is, I do hope that you also have brains everywhere, Mr. Dwight. But if I did, I feel certain that my former headmistress, Mrs. Nightwing, would reach across the ocean and give me a deserved slap for the breach of etiquette. “These men were most likely offered to the Winterlands.”

  At that, I go cold inside. “But Circe is dead. I saw her pass into the next world with the Three. She couldn’t be—”

  “Not Circe.”

  “Then who?”

  “We’ve been hearing reports. Of a new Order trying to come into existence here in the city.”

  “A…new Order?”

  He smirks. “Did you imagine yourself the chosen one, Miss Doyle? All starry-eyed about your importance? There are others who have heard of the realms and the power within them. Others who would seek out the runes and try to steal that power for themselves. Others whose mothers or aunts might have told them the tales.”

  “I’ve never encountered anyone of the sort. I would know.”

  “Would you?” Mr. Dwight holds my gaze until I am forced to look away. “Tell me, Miss Doyle: When did you last visit the realms?”

  The question slips under my skin, pricks at my nerves.

  “Almost a year, Miss Doyle. You’ve not been back for eleven long months.”

  My cheeks warm again. I busy myself rearranging the silver on the table, wishing I had my tea to stir. “I’ve had my studies to tend to. And it was time to allow the realms to heal themselves and let the creatures there work together. Surely as an American you can appreciate democratic ideals, Mr. Dwight.”

  “Democratic ideals?” Mr. Dwight laughs. “That’s what we let the common folk believe. So they’ll vote for whomever and whatever we want them to.”

  It is decided: I do not like Mr. Dwight and his shiny forehead and his oily manners. Not one bit.

  “What did you imagine, Miss Doyle? That after so many years and so much fighting, democracy would spring up overnight in the realms, with a charter drawn between all the warring creatures there?” He shakes his head and chuckles, and I imagine jabbing the point of my parasol down on Mr. Dwight’s expensive shoe. If I had remembered to bring a parasol. “The Winterlands still exist, Miss Doyle. And we know little of what else is there, what foul monsters populate its icy wilderness. What has become of the Tree of All Souls.”

  “You’re being deliberately cruel!”

  “No, Miss Doyle. I’m being brutally honest out of necessity. Even democracies require oversight. Checks and balances. You are to be one of the checks on that delicate balance.”

  The last time I visited the realms, things had been going rather well, I thought. The centaurs, the forest folk, the Hajin, and others were working together to rebuild the land, share the power, and guide souls across the river. But that world, which had brought me so many times of great happiness, had also brought me great loss. Trailing my fingers across the silver arch where I had visited with my mother’s spirit, walking through fields of achingly beautiful flowers along the river where once we girls had ruled as queens, I thought of Pip. Of Miss Moore. Of Kartik. It was so much easier to lose myself in a philosophy lecture at Barnard or in a game of badminton with Juliet or even in a visit to Samuel at the morgue. Have I shirked my responsibilities, my duties, in order to avoid the pain of my memories?

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand what any of this means, Mr. Dwight.” I am angry—at him and at myself. I’m also famished. Why has no one brought my tea yet?

  “A month ago, we sent one of our brotherhood to find these women. This coven.” He spits the word, and I can only think of Miss Moore telling us girls that women with power are always to be feared.

  “And did he?”

  “He believed so. He sent two messages. The first was that he thought he had found them and would send word soon. The second arrived a week ago. It stated that these women were far more dangerous than we had surmised. That they were ‘playing with fire’ and that he feared for his life and his soul and no longer trusted his mind. The third and final message came to us two days ago.” He slides over a scrap of paper. There are drawings of symbols: Birds. A jackal. A scale with a feather in one dish and a human heart in the other.

  “Hieroglyphics,” Mr. Dwight says as I peer at it, for, apparently, I cannot be trusted to come to any conclusions on my own; he must narrate it all for me. At the bottom is scrawled a strange message: They have shown me the way. It is beautiful beyond measure. I am with them now until the end.

  “What does it mean?”

  “Clearly, they’ve done something to our agent. Enchanted or bewitched him by some occult means. This is what comes of allowing women to run things. Go on. Turn it over.�
��

  I don’t like being commanded to do anything. But again, my curiosity wins out. On the back is a drawing that chills me through and through: an enormous ash tree and, within it, a young, handsome man with dark curls. His eyes are closed, long lashes resting against his cheeks as if he were a sleeping prince in a fairy tale. I feel suddenly faint, as if all the air has left the room.

  “The Tree of All Souls…,” I whisper.

  “Yes, Miss Doyle. So you can see the urgency of this mission.” Mr. Dwight speaks through his teeth. All pretense of gentlemanly behavior is gone. “And that is why you will accompany me to the Rakshana. And then, Miss Doyle, you will take us into the realms, where we will assert ourselves once and for all to ensure the safety and security of that world.”

  “I do not take orders, from you or anyone, Mr. Dwight,” I say, drawing in gulps of steadying breath. “I’ve had a very unfortunate association with your little club. You tried to have me killed—more than once, you might remember. That rather soured me on our ever being friends.”

  Mr. Dwight gives me that same condescending smile. I don’t tell him that it makes him look as if he’s eaten too much cheese and has a case of bad wind. Though I really want to do so.

  “I thought you might say that, Miss Doyle. I’ve taken the necessary precautions.” He grabs hold of my wrist tightly. “Don’t make a scene,” he says to me in a low, chilling voice before calling out, “Assistance, please! My companion is ill!”

  With his other hand, he signals urgently to the maître d’ now making his way toward us. A dagger glints beneath a napkin draped over the maître d’s arm. I realize at once that he is also Rakshana. No wonder I never got my tea. Everyone is staring at us now.

  Mr. Dwight tightens his hold on my wrist. Instead of fighting, I lean in close and whisper, “You’re not the only one who took precautions, Mr. Dwight.”

  “Gemma, daaarrrling! There you are!”