I hid your entire line from the Council and the tribe, and of all my many notorious accomplishments—I am not so modest as to deny they are many—the secret of your life and that of your progenitors is my greatest.…
• • •
Jesse was going to be off the isle for most of the afternoon. He’d told me yesterday that he and Hastings would be traveling inland to run errands for Mrs. Westcliffe. But from the instant I awoke, the itching consumed me. I discovered I’d scratched my arms and thighs raw in my sleep, great red furrows dug into my flesh.
On top of that, I felt jangled. Fidgety. Colors that had been ordinary yesterday now burned brash. The morning sky hurt my eyes. The giggly, hectic rustling of five-score girls getting ready for breakfast downstairs grated in my ears as if they had all invaded the tower and swarmed into my room.
Armand had been correct: There were spiders along the ceiling. Their webs shone garish, opalescent. They picked their way from strand to strand, loud as elephants.
Somehow I endured breakfast and chapel, eating, not thinking, not listening. As I walked back to the castle with a hand shielding my eyes from the sunlight that glared along the grass, I considered how cool the air in the grotto would feel on my skin. How very soothing its dimness would be. How just overall damned perfect it sounded, with or without Jesse.
I’d go without him. There was no reason not to, actually. If nothing else, I could sit there in the dark and eat the handful of almonds I’d stolen from the sideboard this morning. He could find me when he came back.
It was still odd to think about the dual nature of his life. The sorcery that ran through his blood, all that wisdom and song … and his public face, the mute, simple boy who worked at the school because his uncle did, who dwelled alone in silence in the uncultured woods.
I supposed his life was no less odd or dual than my own. Both of us understood the safety of a public face. I didn’t want to imagine what might happen should either of our secrets come out.
Another tie to bind us. Another silken bond. If I spun enough of them, we’d be woven together forever, a single tapestry of Eleanore and Jesse.
But for Armand, now the loose thread in my little dream. What to make of him?
“Why, Eleanore, where on earth are you off to in such a rush?”
Sophia. She’d caught me right inside the main doors.
“Oh … the library.”
“Oh,” she echoed, nonchalant. “As it happens, so am I. Shall we?”
I was stuck then. She fell into step beside me, and together we strolled in exactly the opposite direction of where I needed to go.
I tugged my sleeves lower over my wrists to hide the scratches.
“Did you try the fizz last night?” Sophia inquired, not looking at me.
“The champagne? No.”
“I must say, it wasn’t swill.”
We broke through a cluster of prattling sixth-years heading the other way, parting them like sharks moving through minnows.
“I didn’t know we were allowed to have any,” I said.
“Mercy! If you feel the need to ask permission for every little adventure, what a tedious life you’re going to lead.”
“True,” I agreed, matching her drawl. “The absolutely last thing I would want is to lead a tedious life.”
“Well, naturally. I mean, for a girl like you, life has likely had its little excitements already. You’ve come from some hovel near Cheapside, I presume. Some dreadfully squalid place. And now you’re here. You should have tried the champagne is all I’m saying. You would have quite enjoyed it.”
“Perhaps Lord Armand will smuggle some in for tea,” I snapped. To my surprise, Sophia turned and regarded me with sparkling eyes.
“Wouldn’t that be marvelous? I wager he would, if you asked him.”
I laughed, uncomfortable. “Not likely.”
“You’ll never know until you try. It’d be such the coup.”
We’d reached the library. I walked purposefully up to the nearest set of shelves, hoping to shake her from my heels, and pretended to study the titles.
The Ladies of Leicester’s Guide to Successful Housekeeping, 1906.
Charts of the Principal Cities of the World, Including Railroad and Telegraph Lines.
One Hundred Uses for Pigs.
Sophia had lingered at my side, very much unshaken. She leaned her back against the shelves and twirled a strand of flaxen hair around one finger. “You are, after all, Armand’s inamorata of the moment.”