The maid, whose name was Bretta, led us back to the castle. I parted with Alastair in the front hall after securing his promise that he’d let me know if Selwyn shared any new information.
I followed Bretta into the Lake Hall. Save for the food and the furnishings, the long room was empty. The table had been cleared of the silver candelabras and pearl-handled utensils and was now set simply with plain dishes. Platters of cold smoked fish, bowls of fruit, chilled eggs and fresh toast, steaming porridge, and pitchers of cream filled one end. I gave the fish a wide berth.
Bretta hovered on the other side of the table as I picked up a ladle for the porridge. “Er, can I help you with anything, milady?”
“Thank you, I’m all right.”
“Oh.” She didn’t leave. “It’s just that Madam Mòrag said it’s not right for a lady to serve and I don’t want her catching me here—” She reached for the ladle.
“Really, it’s all right,” I said, but it was too late. She raised the ladle before I could bring my bowl underneath, upsetting the whole thing. Hot porridge splattered across the tablecloth and onto my skirt. “Bretta!”
She dropped the ladle. “Oh gods! Lady Daired, I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean—”
“I said it was fine!”
She covered her face and burst into tears.
“Bretta? Bretta, it’s all right,” I said. “Please don’t cry.” Her only answer was to sink to the floor, shoulders shaking with sobs. Well done, Aliza. I hurried around the table and knelt next to her. “Don’t worry about it, please. It’s only porridge.”
“It’s not that, milady. It’s just . . . just . . . everything!” She drew in a shaky breath and looked up. “You saw her, didn’t you? The menservants say you were there when they pulled her out of the lake.”
“Aye,” I said gently.
“Then Isolde’s really dead?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
She wiped her cheek with the heel of her hand. “I knew. I knew the night she didn’t come back to the castle.”
I felt a swell of sympathy for the girl. “Were you close?”
“We were f-friends. Isolde was friends with everyone.” She twisted the edge of her apron in her lap and sniffed. A tear dripped off the end of her nose.
“If you don’t mind me asking, where was she going that night?”
“To light the lantern at the end of Long Quay. One of us house-folk does it every day at sundown. And Isolde . . .” Again her face screwed up, and she clutched at my sleeve. “Oh, milady, don’t you see? She wasn’t supposed to be out there that night!”
“What on earth is going on here?” Mòrag’s voice cut through the air like shards of ice. “Miss Wrenson? What are you doing?”
Bretta scrambled to her feet as the housekeeper rounded the end of the table. “Nothing, ma’am.”
“I see.” Mòrag’s gaze wandered from the ruined tablecloth to the porridge stains on my dress to Bretta’s tear-streaked face. “I believe you have duties to attend to in the kitchen, young lady.”
Bretta rushed out.
“I apologize for her unseemly behavior, Lady Daired,” Mòrag said as I stood.
“She just lost her friend. She has every right to mourn.”
“Not in front of His Lordship’s guests.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Was she responsible for this mess?”
“No, that was me,” I said.
She knew I was lying; I could tell. She pursed her lips. “Very well. If you leave your clothes by the door to your chambers, a maid will come around shortly to collect them for cleaning. And my lady?” she said as I started for the door, dripping porridge. “There are napkins on the table.”
Thinking of Isolde’s bloated corpse made me queasy again as I made my way back to the guest tower. After changing into my last clean outfit, I riffled through our luggage for any spare beggar’s balm, but the panniers yielded nothing beyond socks and a pair of trousers. I felt the hard edge of the silver box at the bottom and withdrew my hand quickly.
A metallic thunk from the bath made me jump. With the hiss of steam the largest pipe trembled, releasing a torrent of water and filling the air with the stench of rotten eggs. With one hand over my mouth I swept up my shawl, dumped my dirty clothes in a heap by the door, and went off in search of fresh air.
The hall outside echoed with the clang of pipes moving somewhere inside the walls, and with nothing better to hold my attention, I followed it. At the foot of the stairs the noise died away, swallowed by the vaulted silence of the castle. It was only when I passed the entrance to the front hall that something about that struck me as strange: not so much that I’d lost the clanging sound but that there was nothing to take its place. Castle Selwyn was too quiet. I thought of Merybourne Manor and House Pendragon, unable to stop the pang of homesickness; even on uneventful days both estates thronged with life and bustle. By comparison Castle Selwyn was little more than a shell. A beautiful shell, but a shell nonetheless. What few servants I encountered in the corridors scuttled away before I could speak to them, like navy-clad mice fleeing before an invisible cat.
Or perhaps just a very stealthy cat. I paused in front of a familiar unadorned archway. There had to be a rational explanation for the way Mòrag appeared and disappeared as she did.
A minute later I stood in front of the portrait of Lord and Lady Selwyn. The alcove was narrow, only a few strides across, and the windows on the outside wall were high and barred by intricate iron scrollwork. She couldn’t have come and gone that way. I felt around the walls, the floor, and the bench beneath the painting. All stone and wood, solid and unyielding. That left the portrait. On closer inspection I saw no artist’s mark, but I’d sell my finest charcoals if it wasn’t a Tornay. The colors were rich and vibrant and the brushwork exquisite, every detail painted with energy and attention. Selwyn stood behind his wife, his long silver hair swept back from a face I had to admit handsome, a proud, possessive light in those pale gray eyes. One hand rested on Cordelia’s shoulder. He she’d captured to perfection. It was Cordelia’s face that seemed off. The likeness was remarkable, of course, and even as an image her beauty defied description—but there was something missing in her expression, some subtle difference between the portrait and the real thing.
The comparison gnawed at me as I examined the frame, tracing the grain of the wood, following the carved gambols of merfolk and selkies, sirens and other creatures of the sea. Where would a clever person put—?
A lever disguised as a merman’s trident sank beneath my touch. I nearly fell off the bench as the painting swung out on silent hinges. Warm air rushed out, and I smiled. The Daireds hadn’t been the only family to build secret passages throughout their home. A hallway branched beyond the painting, narrow and windowless. The right-hand corridor followed the lines of the outer wall back toward the main hall, but my eye was drawn at once to the left-hand passage. It led straight down, following a spiral staircase into darkness.
Dozens of reasons why I should absolutely not investigate further crowded thick and fast into my mind. It was dark. It could be dangerous. I could fall down those stairs and break a leg and no one would find me for days, and there might not be anything down there of interest to justify it.
But then again, there might be.
Lanterns burned on hooks on either side of the alcove. I glanced behind me and, seeing no one, detached a lantern and started down the stairs.
The passage twisted a long way into the depths of the castle. It grew warmer with every step and by the time I reached the bottom my forehead was bathed in sweat. There was a strong smell here too, but homier and more pleasant than the stench from the pipes, less like rotten eggs and more like woodsmoke. Arches rose above me, their tops lost in darkness. The floor alternated between tiles and uncut stone and I measured each step carefully, unsure what I might stumble across.
Detritus of all sorts littered the cavern, for a cavern it was, I decided, skirting a toppled wheel
the size of a cart horse. Chains lay strewn about between fallen beams twice as wide as me. Light from somewhere on my right sent red shadows leaping against the walls. I heard rushing water and a strange voice, metallic and accented with fire.
“Blast it all for a hammer that works!”
Ahead of me spread the dark waters of the hot spring, roiling and bubbling as a great wheel churned its depths. Pulleys groaned and pipes clanged. A masked and armored forge-wight stood next to the open mouth of a furnace, muttering curses over a broken mallet.
“Hello?”
The forge-wight jumped and spun around. The head of the mallet flew from her hand and landed in the spring. “Who are you? No, what are you doing here? Oh, never mind—quick, don’t let it get away!” She pointed with one gauntleted hand as the mallet head floated past me. I stooped to snatch it, but the waters caught it and sent it bobbing out of my reach. It danced on the surface of the spring before swirling out of sight. The forge-wight swore.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, mortified.
“Bah. It was a worthless mallet anyway. Who are you?”
“Aliza Daired.”
“Yes, yes, Niall mentioned something about guests last night. What are you doing down here? Did he send you down with another one of his projects?”
“No. I’m just, ah, exploring.”
“Oh.” She bent back to her work.
I sat on an overturned cart. Wheels, pulleys, pipes, and a pump house to send hot water to the rest of the castle . . . “You’re Fyri, aren’t you?”
“Know of anyone else who’d be working down here?”
I watched her for a minute before my curiosity got the better of me. “What are you working on?” I ventured.
Fyri straightened. “Listen, child, I’m very busy today. If you’ve a mechanical turn of mind, I’m sure Niall would be happy to show you the sketches he has of the wheelworks, but if you don’t have a project for me, then you’ve no business down here. I can’t be bothered to look after you.”
“Actually, I do have some questions for—”
“I don’t have time for some. You get one.”
“Three,” I tried.
The blue lights burning behind her mask dimmed. “Then you’ll leave?”
“On my word.”
“Fine.” She shoved a lever forward and the great wheel behind her churned faster, its waterlogged timbers creaking and groaning. “Ask, if you must.”
“The bathwater in our guest chamber smells like old eggs. Is it safe?”
“Oh, does it?” Fyri grumbled something in Eth and turned away. A complicated system of pulleys and pipes rose to her left. Faster than I could follow she twirled tiny wheels, disconnected half a dozen chains from their respective pulleys, and reattached them to others. She tilted her head, listened for a moment to the gurgling from the largest of the pipes, and brought her fist down hard on its side. The pipe coughed, then resumed a steady hum. “There. Flow misdirected from the kitchens. Begging your pardon. And yes, it’s perfectly safe. Good for human skin if you can bear the smell.”
I raised my voice to be heard over the splashing. “Fyri, do you know what creature’s been killing Idar around the lake?”
“What?”
“Do you know what creature—?”
“No, I heard you. Who told you about that?”
“Selwyn did. That’s why he invited us here. He thinks some new kind of Tekari has been slaying Idar in the region. He’s afraid it attacked and killed one of the castle chambermaids a few weeks ago.”
“Yes, I heard about that. Poor child.” She turned back to her machinery. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Lady Daired, but the world outside the wheelworks is none of my concern. I can’t help you.”
“She doesn’t tell you because she doesn’t know,” a new voice said. I sprang to my feet. Fyri jumped too. Cordelia stood by the pile of chains, a lantern in her hand. She raised it so the light fell on my face, and as I looked at her, I realized what Tornay had missed in Cordelia’s expression. Melancholy. The guildmaster had painted her looking too happy.
“Aliza, what are you doing down here?” Cordelia asked.
“Never mind her, Lady Selwyn. What’re you doing down here?” Sparks flashed behind Fyri’s mask. “His Lordship told you to keep out of the wheelworks!”
“His Lordship doesn’t have to know.” Cordelia took my arm. “We should go back to the castle. It’s not safe down here.” Over Fyri’s protests and the groaning of the wheel, she whispered in my ear, “There’s something I need to show you.”
Chapter 17
Deep Words, Dark Waters
Cordelia led me up the stairs, holding up a hand to ward off my questions. “Wait until we’re outside,” she said as we climbed out the portrait door. “You shouldn’t wander. Fyri means no harm, but she can be thoughtless. You might’ve fallen in the spring and drowned and she wouldn’t have noticed until the wheels dredged up your body. What were you doing down there?”
“The water pumped into our room smelled bad.” It was a half-truth at least. “I wanted to see why.”
“Sulfur. The waters here are touched with it. Fyri must’ve opened the wrong pipes. I trust she made it right?”
“Aye, I think so.”
She looked around. A manservant replacing burnt-out candles across the hall saw us and bowed. “I haven’t showed you around our gardens yet, have I?” she said in a voice just loud enough for him to hear. “They’re this way.”
Outside the sun shone brightly but the wind blew cold. Evergreens shivered around the borders of the derelict garden and I pulled my shawl tight around my shoulders. Cordelia paced in front of the central fountain, its basin empty but for a few inches of leaf-choked water at the bottom.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Truly.”
“For what?”
“For”—she waved a vague hand toward the castle—“this. For the shadows and secrets and questions I cannot answer. Niall made a mistake bringing you here. You should leave. Today, before nightfall.”
“I’m sorry, Lady Cordelia, but we can’t. Not if someone here is in danger.”
She sank onto the lichen-encrusted edge of the fountain. “So there is truth in tey iskaros. Isn’t that what you say? And please, Aliza. We women put on enough faces for the wider world. Let’s not stand by such disguises with each other. You must call me Cordelia.”
“Cordelia then. Please, tell me what’s going on here. We only want to help.”
She considered that for a moment. “What did my husband tell you about this creature that’s been plaguing us?” she said at last.
I sat next to her and summarized what I could remember of his letter. She pursed her lips when I spoke of the mutilated trolls and missing livestock.
“The Idar were killed nearby, yes, but there is more than that at work here, Aliza. There is much my husband did not tell you.” She glanced toward the castle. There was no one in sight. “Come. Quickly.”
She led me out of the garden and set off down the path to Long Quay. A few shreds of fog lingered around the archways and crumbling pillars of the abbey on the cliff, the walls stained with pale streaks of bird dung. We stopped beneath the ruins. “We found this not long after Isolde disappeared,” she said, pushing aside a pile of cut evergreen boughs on the abbey side of the path. A spar of rock broke through the turf at waist height. Strange marks covered its surface. I leaned closer.
“Is that writing?”
“It is.”
The lines formed letters, but they were not in Arlean, Eth, nor any other language I recognized. “I can’t read it.”
“There is no true translation from Mermish to Arlean, but as close as I can make it the word means REPENT.”
I looked up at her in surprise. “You speak Mermish?”
She gazed out across the lake. “I grew up south of here, at the mouth of the Langloch. My family fished off the coast of Selkie’s Keep. If you do not speak the language, you do not share the waters.
It is the same here.”
I traced the words. The letters went deep. Whatever had carved them into the stone had strength far beyond a human’s. I inspected the path beneath the writing, hoping to find a clue, a hint, anything, knowing even as I looked there’d be nothing to find. Weeks of weathering had erased all signs but the word REPENT, and even that made little sense. “What do you think it means?”
“I wish I could tell you.”
“Would it have been significant to Isolde?”
She let down the branches to cover the word. “Mòrag said she never heard the girl speak anything other than Arlean.”
Why Mermish? My gaze trailed down the path to the lake, where the glassy black waters lapped the pilings of the quay. Even if the merfolk of Lake Meera were friendlier than most, they were still Idar. If the Mermish king had lied, if they had known about the heartstone slayings, might they have wanted vengeance on the land-folk for their fellow Idar? I weighed that option, then discarded it. One of the merfolk might be strong enough to carve the words, but no merman or mermaid could survive long enough out of water to make it to the brow of the cliff, even with help. Writing the warning in Mermish had to mean something else. If it wasn’t for Isolde, who was it for? I looked toward the lake. From the distance the jetty pierced the waves like a knife. Had Isolde—? Hold on a moment. I could see the quay from where we stood. A little to our left there was a gap in the wall, not wide, full of rubble and displaced stones. It was through the gap that I could see the quay. In fact, it was only here that I could see the quay, or any part of the lake close to the shore. The height of the wall blocked the sight everywhere else. I went closer to investigate. Moorflowers poked their heads between moss-covered rocks.
“Cordelia, how long has the wall been this way?”
“Years. Niall always meant to rebuild it, but everyone knows to be careful here.”
Unless she didn’t realize where she was. Selwyn had said it himself; the path was treacherous in the dark. Carefully I peered over the edge of the gap. Black waves crashed on the rocks below. “I think Isolde may have fallen here.”
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