wait. It didn’t even need a war to claim lives, although I’m sure the war helped. Death had taken Jesse’s parents and mine, Mittie’s father, and Armand’s brother. Too many inmates from Moor Gate to count—if anyone but me had even been counting.
Everyone who’d built this fortress was dead. Everyone who’d set the stone and mixed the mortar and thought about the trajectory of arrows and swords with each new layer in place: dead. Everyone they’d ever loved, too. You could make all the secret tunnels in the world, cross your fingers for all the low tides to steal away, but Death was the Great Hunter, and he would still end up finding you.
“But not now,” I whispered to the stars. “Not here, not tonight.”
Almeda arrived for her final evening check. I bid her good night and got a nod in response, accompanied by a stern “Get into bed, then, miss. Dreams don’t dream themselves.”
Another half hour, just to be certain. And then, right as I was about to do it, lift into smoke, I heard a tiny scratching at my door.
I whirled about. It wouldn’t be Jesse. He was back in his cottage; I could feel him there.
A voice spoke, the barest slight sound beyond the wood. “Eleanore.”
I let out a siss through my teeth and yanked open the door.
“Sophia. What are you doing here?”
She stood alone on the landing in a robe of some voluminous, floaty material. Probably silk, like the dress she’d lent me. It billowed around her in white tucks and folds, turning her into a very pale ghost.
“May I come in?”
I couldn’t think of a suitable reason to refuse her, and, anyway, it was likely the most civil thing she’d ever said to me. I backed up, lifting a hand in permission, and she floated into my room.
“Oh. This is … pleasant,” she said, looking around at the plain stone walls.
“Yes, it is.”
“I’m sorry I’ve not come before.”
“We’re not at Sunday tea, Sophia, and there’s no one else listening. What do you want?”
She wandered to the bed, which took only a few steps. Her hair fell in a long bright braid down her back.
“I didn’t want to ask in front of the other girls, but I wondered if you would deliver a message to Armand for me.”
For a bizarre moment, I thought she knew what I’d been about to do, and how—but then she turned around and kept talking.
“I know you’ll see him before I will. Maybe you’ll slip out, or he’ll find a way to come to you. Please don’t bother to deny it. I can see the truth on your face. I’ve seen it on his ever since you came. I don’t care about that, I swear. Mandy and I … We used to be friends. In childhood. In London. Only friends, I promise. He was such a sad little brat when we were first introduced, it was all I could do to endure him. But he’s not really a brat. I’m sure you know. Deep down, he’s quite funny and kind. And when I saw him today at Tranquility, in that horrid parlor, I just … I lost my words, I suppose. I lost what I’d meant to say to him. That I was sorry. I didn’t know Aubrey as I did Mandy, but he was always nice to us. Not teasing the way some big brothers are, but good-natured. He was so clearly the duke’s favorite; I know that must have been hard for them both sometimes. But Mandy loved him. So I wanted to say how sorry I was, that I remember Aubrey and I’ll miss him, as well. But I didn’t.”
She seemed to run out of air. Even in the voluminous robe, she looked smaller and more vulnerable than she ever had, though that might have been only a deception of the shadows.
“All right,” I said gently, and escorted her back to the door. “I’ll tell him.”
Tender creatures, these aristocrats. Who would have guessed?
• • •
I knew no other chambers at Tranquility but the ones I’d been in before. The parlor, the ballroom, the study. I figured Armand’s bedroom would be on the second floor, possibly the third. But it turned out it was on the fourth, a lone secluded chamber, the last before the wing ended in breezes and open space.
A rough wall of plywood had been put up to block the sudden conclusion of the house. A tarpaulin had been nailed over that; it looked streaked with