Legacies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,9

around in the direction of the school.

But a few moments later the train pulled up about half a mile from the back of the manor house, into a station that made the one in Terry just look cheesy. It was all done in wrought iron and leaded glass—she saw as they approached—and the train pulled into it like it was pulling into a garage. If it happened to be raining that day—or snowing, or whatever—the entire platform would be perfectly dry. Only the ends were open. And of course there was no ticket office.

There were two people already waiting on the platform. One of them was a guy in a blazer with the school crest on the pocket and gold slacks, and the other was the same woman who’d been in the video, only this time she was wearing a black suit, not a red one.

“Here comes trouble,” Loch said under his breath.

When the train huffed and shivered to a stop, the two of them got to their feet and walked over to the door.

“Lachlan Spears and Spirit White.” The woman nodded at them, but didn’t offer her hand. “Please follow me.” Without waiting for an answer, she turned and walked off.

The two of them looked at each other and shrugged, but there wasn’t really any reason to argue. The man who’d been standing with her had gone straight to the luggage compartment and gone inside; Spirit guessed that they weren’t going to be expected to do something as mundane as carry their own suitcases.

The woman didn’t really seem to care if they kept up with her or not, and at least Spirit didn’t have to worry about trying to stay warm. The path from the “train station” to the front of the house was red brick, and it even had streetlights. There was a back entrance—a wide fieldstone terrace with a wall of French doors—but apparently they were going to be entering through the front door.

The front entrance, now that Spirit got a good look at it, looked more like an enormous and expensive “wilderness” hotel than either a house or a school. The architecture was geometric and sort of Art Deco, but it was all done in native stone and peeled logs that had been heavily varnished.

“Arts and Crafts ‘Lodge,’ ” said Loch, with a nod at the front entrance. “I’d bet a lot that Gilbert Stanley Underwood designed this.”

“I’d be more impressed if I knew who that was—” began Spirit, when the door was opened by yet another guy in a blazer and they walked into the Entry Hall.

It was impressive in pictures.

It was stunning in real life.

The focal point of the room was the biggest single tree trunk that Spirit had ever seen in person. Probably only one of the giant redwoods could dwarf it. It held up the ceiling, which was crossed with peeled-log beams, but between the beams were panels of wood inlay done in vaguely Egyptian patterns. Behind the tree-pillar a balcony stretched the breadth of the room, and it was embraced by two half-circle staircases with peeled-log banisters and chocolate-colored carpeted steps that led up to the balcony. Seven chandeliers made of what must have been hundreds of deer antlers hung from the ceiling.

The floor was moss green stone, also inlaid with thin strips of brass that outlined more vaguely Egyptian geometric designs in white, cream, gray, and black stone. To the right of the enormous room—it must have been sixty feet across if it was a foot—was a blonde woman behind a reception desk that seemed to fit in perfectly with everything else here, although Spirit was pretty sure there hadn’t been a reception desk here originally. To the left there was a fireplace made of rough stone that was more than big enough to park a horse in, with a huge half-log mantelpiece and peeled-log couches with buckskin cushions in front of it. Rugs made up of several sheepskins pieced together were spread around the floor in front of the fireplace, and there was a huge banner with the Oakhurst crest, the red-and-white shield with the oak tree with the gold snake coiled in the branches. It should have looked gaudy at that size. It didn’t. If anything, it looked rather sinister.

Everything was as clean as if an entire army of people spent all their time polishing every crevice. There was a faint smell of wood smoke and pine in the air from the fire in the fireplace, and the