her guardian to marry him. But when she told him she was expecting their child, he got cold feet. Maybe he thought she’d bear another tusked wonder. At any rate, he left her.”
I felt dizzy; the mirror seemed to wobble. I’d been told that my father had died before I was born, but the details had been vague. Was it just a story? Was Ardella telling the truth?
“How awful,” Clemence said.
My whole head burned. I had to get away.
Desperate for a refuge, I stabbed the last pin in and retreated toward my room. Then I remembered: I needed to see Captain Knollys. Still dazed, I turned myself around—and almost bumped into Gabriel.
“Chantress! Just the woman I wanted to see.” He flashed a smile at me, then looked more closely. “Are you all right?”
I wasn’t all right, but I worked to hide it. I touched my bracelet to his outstretched hand—a gesture of greeting that was starting to become almost routine. “I’m fine. I was just on my way to the guardrooms, and then I was planning to look for you. Did you find anything in the library?”
“Nothing much,” Gabriel said. “Though I was there till almost dawn.”
Till dawn? He didn’t look it. Freshly shaved and fashionably tailored, he wore boots so polished that I could almost see my reflection in the black leather. People said that Gabriel’s valet was the best in all England. I believed them.
“Let’s sit down, and I’ll give you my report.” Gabriel steered me into the next room and gestured toward a velvet couch—high-sided, soft, and intimate.
Thinking it looked a little too cozy, I sat myself down in the nearest chair instead. “This will do.”
“Very well.” He pulled another chair close. “I did find a reference in a fourteenth-century chronicle to wise women who talked to the creatures of the sea. A century later, another writer speaks of a group called the Well Women who practiced certain rites on the banks of the Thames.”
“Rites?”
“Chiefly wading into its waters and making offerings. There’s one mention of a wicker Flower Maiden that was set alight and given to the river. But there’s not a word about singing.”
“Nothing at all?” That was disconcerting. Of course, early chronicles were notorious for missing out important details. “Did they mention any kind of music?”
“No.” Gabriel stretched out his legs, jaw tightening as he suppressed a yawn. “One of them talked about the music of the spheres, but that was in a different section entirely.”
“The music of the spheres?” I’d heard the phrase before, but I had no idea what it meant. “What’s that?”
Gabriel, who enjoyed playing the expert, was happy to explain. “Well, some scholars argue that all heavenly bodies—the sun, the moon, the planets, even the stars—have their own unique music. Pythagoras wrote about it, and so did Plato, and plenty of others. Some think they meant it just as a metaphor, a way of talking about theories of mathematics and astronomy. But the rest say no, it’s actual music.” His hand, idly running down the chair, came close to mine.
I pulled my own hand back. “No one suggests that it’s connected with water, do they?”
“Not that I’ve read,” he admitted. “But the moon is the force behind the tides, so that’s a connection to the ocean. Come to think of it, it might be worth seeing if there’s anything about music in Paracelsus—”
“He’s the man who wrote about elementals?”
“Yes. Although he’s better known for his books on alchemy and medicine.”
The mention of alchemy made me sit up straighter. That too was something I hadn’t considered—but perhaps I should have. “Did Paracelsus think alchemy could give people power over elementals?”
Gabriel’s fingers restlessly explored the chair arm. “He thought a true master might be able to make the invisible visible. And yes, perhaps even give him control over some elementals.”
“Does he say how?”
“No.”
A dead end, then. But a suggestive one. Could alchemy be part of the puzzle I was trying to solve? Who better to ask than the man beside me? Gabriel was one of the best alchemists in the kingdom, even if he’d sworn off active pursuit of it after his talents had gotten him into serious trouble last year.
“Gabriel, do you know of anything in alchemy that might explain what’s happening now?”
His brown eyes flashed. “If I did, don’t you think I would have said so before?” There was hurt as well as anger in his face. “I’ve expressed my loyalty in a thousand ways, not only to King and