if someone might try to snatch it away from her. His eyes lingered on the fading bruises that marked her arms from the battle with the Malefict. As the moment spun on, she had the uncomfortable feeling of being turned inside out and inspected like an empty pocket. “Are you?” he asked at last.
Unconvincingly, she nodded.
“I see you haven’t had much practice lying,” he said, still scrutinizing her. “You’re awful at it. Even if you weren’t, that tactic wouldn’t work on me.”
“What tactic?”
“Pretending to be meek and obedient in the hopes I’ll let my guard down in time for your next escape attempt. You’ve already proven yourself to be an agent of chaos. I’m not about to forget it. Is there anything else before I go?”
Heat flooded Elisabeth’s cheeks. The tray’s edges bit into her fingers. It had been foolish of her to imagine that she could trick him. But if he were willing to answer questions, at least she could take the opportunity to learn more. “How old are you?” she asked.
“Eighteen.”
She sat back in surprise. “Truly?”
“I haven’t sacrificed virgins for my perfect cheekbones, if that’s what you mean. Virgins, in general, have fewer magical properties than people tend to assume.”
Elisabeth tried not to look too relieved by that information. “It’s only that you’re young to be a magister,” she ventured.
His face grew unreadable. Then he smiled in a way that sent a chill down her spine. “The explanation is simple. Everyone standing between myself and the title is dead. Does that satisfy your curiosity, Miss Scrivener?”
She found, suddenly, that it had. She didn’t want to know what could put an expression like that on a boy’s face, as though his eyes were carved from ice, and his heart had turned to stone. She no longer wished to face the person who had murdered the Director in cold blood. Looking down, she nodded.
Nathaniel made to leave, then paused. “Before I go, can I ask you something in return?”
Staring at her supper, she waited to hear what the question was.
“Why did you grab my hair that day in Summershall?” he asked. “I know you didn’t do it by accident, but I can’t for the life of me come up with a rational explanation.”
Her stomach unknotted in relief. She had expected him to ask something terrible. Distantly, she thought, So he does remember me from the reading room, after all.
“I was finding out whether you had pointed ears,” she said.
He paused, considering her answer. “I see,” he said, with a serious expression. “Good night, Miss Scrivener.” He strode around the corner.
Elisabeth wasted no time dragging the tray inside. She was so hungry that she set upon her dinner on the floor, devouring it with her hands. She barely noticed in between bites that someone, somewhere else in the inn, was laughing.
EIGHT
AUSTERMEER’S COUNTRYSIDE FLOWED past the coach’s window. They passed farms, and rolling wildflower meadows, and wooded hills tinged gold with autumn color. Mist pooled in the hollows between the valleys, and sometimes stretched fingers across the road. As the afternoon shadows deepened, the coach clattered into the Blackwald, the great forest that slashed through the kingdom like the stroke of a knife. Everything grew dark and damp. Here and there among the undergrowth stood shocking white stands of birch trees, like specters floating among the black gowns of a funeral party. Gazing out at the gently falling leaves, the thick carpets of ferns, the occasional deer bolting into places unseen, Elisabeth was enveloped by a pall of dread, as though the mist had seeped inside the coach and surrounded her.
Nathaniel would make the attempt here, she was certain. When he reached the city without her, he could claim she’d run and vanished among the trees. In a place like this, no one would find a girl’s body. No one would even bother looking.
Escape felt increasingly hopeless. She had tried again last night, but after breaking her room’s window and climbing down the roof, Silas had been waiting for her in the inn’s garden. Strangely, she didn’t remember the rest. She must have been overcome by exhaustion. Afterward she’d had an unsettling dream of being back in Summershall’s orchard, digging the emergency salt canister out from under the angel statue. But this time the statue had come alive, and looked down at her with vivid yellow eyes.
A nudge against her hand interrupted her thoughts. Frowning, she tore her gaze from the forest to the grimoire on her lap. This was the third