فصل 7

SEVEN

THE COACH JOSTLED, shaking Elisabeth awake. She sat up, wincing at the crick in her neck, then froze, every sense on the alert. She heard only insects singing—no hooves clattering, no wheels rattling over the road. The coach had come to a stop. It was dark out, but lamplight shone disorientingly through the crack in the curtains. Peering between them, she found that they’d drawn up outside an old stone inn.

The door’s latch turned. She slumped back into the position from which she’d just awoken, her mind racing. Through her eyelashes, she watched Nathaniel lean inside, his face a pale blur in the dark. The wind had left his hair tousled, its silver streak agleam.

“I hope you haven’t died in here, Miss Scrivener,” he said.

She didn’t move. She barely allowed herself to breathe.

“It would be rather inconvenient for me if you did,” he went on. “There would be all sorts of tedious meetings, an inquest, an accusation or two of murder . . . Miss Scrivener?” Elisabeth still did not move.

Nathaniel heaved a sigh and climbed into the carriage. Her pulse pounded as he drew nearer, carrying with him the smell of night air and sorcery. What she planned to do was dangerous. But she had no choice—or at least, she had no better one.

When he reached for her shoulder, she came to life. He wasn’t wearing gloves, and when her teeth sank into his hand, he shouted. In a flash she was outside the carriage and running. The lights of the inn juddered up and down as she sprinted toward the road. They winked out of sight when she skidded down the embankment on the opposite side, and for a terrible moment, tumbling over rocks, she saw nothing: only blackness lay ahead. Then she struck the bottom with a splash. Water flooded her stockings, accompanied by the stench of mud and rotten weeds. She had landed in a ditch. Beyond, she made out a gloomy tangle of branches—a thicket.

She plunged inside. Twigs lashed her face, and leaves snagged in her hair. Her heart seized as something clamped down on her shoulder, but it was only another branch, disturbed by her passage. She half expected the trees to come alive around her; for their roots to uncoil from the earth like snakes and wrap around her ankles. But there was no sign of pursuit. No sign, in fact, of anything else living at all.

If there were animals in these woods—birds, squirrels—they had all fallen silent, leaving her alone with the sounds of her harsh breathing and her crashing progress through the brush. At first the silence didn’t trouble her, not so late at night. Then she thought, Where have the crickets gone?

She burst into a clearing and stumbled to a halt. Nathaniel’s servant, Silas, stood in front of her. His hands were folded behind his back, and he wore a slight, apologetic smile. Not a single white strand had escaped the ribbon that tied his hair. He was so pale that he resembled a ghost against the shadowed trees.

Terror clutched her throat with strangling fingers. “How did you get here?” she asked, her voice a thread in the dark. She should have seen him chasing her. At the very least, she should have heard him. It was as though he had appeared from thin air.

“All good servants have their secrets,” he replied, “which are better left unspoken, lest they spoil the illusion so dear to the master and his guests. Come.” He extended a gloved hand. “It’s cold outside, and dark. A warm bed awaits you at the inn.” He was right. Elisabeth suddenly felt foolish for running through the woods at this hour. She couldn’t even recall why she had fled. She took a step toward him, then balked, darting a look around. Why did she trust Silas? She didn’t know him. He was going to help Nathaniel— “Please, miss,” he said quietly. “It’s for the best. Dreadful things roam the shadows while the human world sleeps. I wouldn’t like to see you harmed.” Concern and sorrow transformed his features into those of an angel, easing her fears. No one so beautiful, so full of sadness, could have anything but her best interests at heart. She stepped forward as though hypnotized. “What sort of dreadful things?” she whispered.

Without any effort, Silas lifted her into his arms. “It is better if you do not know,” he murmured, almost too softly for her to hear.

She gazed up at his face in wonder. The moon shone silver overhead, the black branches laced beneath it like fingers clasped in prayer. Frosted by its glow, Silas looked as though he were spun from moonlight himself. He carried her between the silent trees, over the ditch, and back across the road.

When they reached the inn’s yard, a boy was leading Nathaniel’s horses toward the stable. The nearest horse pinned back its ears and flared its nostrils. A shrill whinny split the night.

The sense of peace fell from Elisabeth at once, like a heavy blanket flung from her body. She sucked in a breath. “Let me down!” she said, struggling in Silas’s arms.

What had happened just now? She had tried to run—she knew that. But how had she gotten so dirty? She couldn’t have made it far before Silas had caught her. Her last memory was of reaching the road, and after that . . . she must have struck her head in the scuffle.

Nathaniel jumped down from the carriage. “My god, she bit me,” he said to Silas in disbelief. “I think she broke the skin.”

Elisabeth hoped so. “That’s what you get for drinking orphan’s blood!” she shouted. The stable boy stopped and stared.

Unexpectedly, Nathaniel began to laugh. “You impossible menace,” he said. “I suppose it’s my fault for assuming you were harmless.” He shook his hand. “By the Otherworld, this stings. I’ll be lucky if I haven’t contracted a disease. Silas? Make sure her room has a lock. A good one.” Elisabeth’s struggling subsided as Silas carried her toward the inn. He was stronger than he looked, and she needed to save her energy, which was fading rapidly—more rapidly than she’d expected, even after the dungeon. Nathaniel watched her, but she couldn’t make out his expression in the dark.

Silas set her down inside the door. To her relief, the inn bustled with activity. The Inkroads were the best-kept roads in Austermeer, maintained by the Collegium, and heavily traveled. Lamplight glowed against the whitewashed walls, upon which the shadows of patrons stretched and laughed and raised their glasses. Her stomach growled at the smell of cooking sausages, greasy and laden with spices. A wave of hunger left her light-headed.

A maid hurried past them, but she didn’t so much as glance in their direction. No one in the busy inn seemed to have noticed Elisabeth looming there, dripping ditch water on the rug, or Silas standing silently beside her.

Before she could call for help, Silas steered her toward the stairs. “This way. Our rooms have been arranged.” He placed a steadying hand on her back when she tripped. “Careful. I fear Master Thorn would not forgive me if I let you fall.” She had no choice but to obey. Her head felt stuffed with cotton wool. The noise of the inn’s crowd throbbed in her temples like a second pulse: cheers and laughter, the clattering of cutlery. Upstairs, Silas led her down the hall, toward a door at the end. As he unlocked it, she noticed that he had on the same white gloves as that morning. But there wasn’t a speck of dirt upon them, even though he’d spent all day handling the carriage’s reins.

“Wait,” she said, when he turned to leave. “Silas, I . . .”

He paused. “Yes?”

Her head pounded. There was something important she’d forgotten. Something she needed to know. “What color are your eyes?” she asked.

“They are brown, miss,” he said softly, and she believed him.

The lock clicked behind her. At once, the pounding in her skull improved. The room was small and warm, with a fire crackling in the hearth and a braided rug whose colorful patterns reminded her painfully of the quilt on her bed at home. First she tested the window and found it wouldn’t open. Then she yanked on the doorknob, to no success. Temporarily out of options, she peeled off her dress and sodden stockings, which she laid out on the hot stones to dry. Despite the warmth, she’d begun shivering.

She was busy reviving herself by the fire, trying to decide what to do next, when green light flared in the corner of the room. She leaped up, seized a poker from the hearth, and flung it in the light’s direction. The poker bounced off with a thud. It was not Nathaniel who had materialized there, but merely her trunk, now sporting a new dent on top.

Her weariness forgotten, she rushed to the trunk and flung it open, rummaging around for anything useful. Dresses and stockings went flying across the room. Her hairbrush skidded beneath the bed. She had nearly reached the bottom, and resigned herself to a lost cause, when instead of encountering another layer of linen or cotton, her fingertips brushed leather.

Warm leather, imbued with a life of its own.

A thrill ran through her. Cautiously, she lifted the object from the bottom of her trunk. It was a grimoire, an unusually thick and heavy volume bound in glossy burgundy leather. Gilt lettering shone across its spine: A Lexicon of the Sorcerous Arts. Without hesitation, she pressed her nose to its pages and inhaled deeply. The edges of the paper had worn velvet-soft with age, and possessed a warm, sweet scent, like custard.

“How have you gotten here?” she asked, now assured of the grimoire’s friendliness. Ill-natured grimoires tended to smell musty or sour. “You’re as far from home as I am.” The Lexicon’s pages whispered as though trying to answer. She turned it over and found a numeral I stamped on the back cover. Class One grimoires were typically reference works or compendiums. They couldn’t speak to people directly like a Class Seven or higher, or even make vocalizations, an ability that most grimoires demonstrated beginning at Class Two.

The cover nudged her hand. Puzzled, she let go, and a scrap of paper slipped out from between the pages. She lifted it with a frown.

Elisabeth, the note read in a familiar messy scrawl, if you’ve found this, then I was right, and the sorcerer has spelled your trunk to his carriage. I’ve hidden this grimoire inside in case it can help you prepare for whatever lies ahead. Never forget that knowledge is your greatest weapon. The more knowledge the better, so you can hit the sorcerer over the head with it and give him a concussion. That’s why I chose such a big one.

I would tell you to remain brave, but I don’t have to. You’re already the bravest person I know. I promise we’ll see each other again.

K

P.S.: Don’t ask how I managed to smuggle the grimoire out of bounds. I didn’t get caught, which is the important part.

Tears stung Elisabeth’s eyes. Katrien made it sound like a small matter, but she could lose her apprenticeship if she were found to have stolen a grimoire. She had risked a great deal to sneak it out of the library. No doubt she had known how much it would lift Elisabeth’s spirits to hold a piece of home.

Elisabeth ran thoughtful fingers over the Lexicon’s cover, wondering where Katrien would begin. Surely there was something inside that could tell her more about Nathaniel. The more she knew about him, the better equipped she would be to fight back.

She held the grimoire aloft. “Do you have a section on magisters, please?” she inquired. It was always wise to be polite to books, whether or not they could hear you.

The Lexicon folded open in her hands. A golden glow kindled within the pages, bathing her face in light. The pages ruffled as if stirred by a breeze. They moved faster and faster, flipping on their own, until they reached a point about halfway through. Then they halted with a flourish and graciously smoothed aside. A red velvet ribbon slid into place, marking the spot. The glow faded to a burnished gleam, like candlelight shining from polished bronze.

The Magisterial Houses of the Kingdom of Austermeer, read the section heading at the top. And then, beneath that: Of all the sorcerous families, none are so powerful as those descended from the great sorcerers granted the title of “Magister” by King Alfred during the Golden Age of Sorcery, as a reward for the miraculous feats they performed for the crown. It was these first magisters who founded the Magisterium in the early sixteenth century. The organization, which began as a private occult society, later developed into a governing council from whom a Chancellor of Magic is elected every thirteen years. . . .

Elisabeth skipped onward, skimming the paragraphs until a familiar name caught her eye.

House Ashcroft, elevated to prominence by Cornelius Ashcroft, also known as Cornelius the Wise, is celebrated for its participation in a number of public works that have shaped the landscape of present-day Austermeer. Cornelius Ashcroft laid down the Inkroads and transported thousands of tons of limestone for the construction of the Great Libraries in 1523, while his successor, Cornelius II, raised Brassbridge’s famous Bridge of Saints from the waters of the Gloaming River in a single day.

Meanwhile House Thorn is known for the darkest of all magics—necromancy—with which the house’s founder, Baltasar Thorn, repelled the Founderlander invasion of 1510 using an army of dead soldiers raised to fight for King Alfred. Though necromancy is classified as a forbidden art as of the Reforms of 1672, concessions exist for its use during wartime. The might of House Thorn is credited with the kingdom’s continued independence from its neighbors, who have not threatened Austermeerish soil since the War of Bones.

She stopped reading. Her skin crawled. Tales of the War of Bones had given her nightmares as a child. It did not seem possible that all its horrors were the work of a single man, Nathaniel’s ancestor. She was in worse danger than she had realized.

The grimoire stirred beneath her hands. Without prompting, it flipped to a different section. She only had time to read the chapter heading, Demonic Servants and Their Summoning, before a knock sounded on the door. She froze, consumed by the urge to pretend she wasn’t there. Slowly, stealthily, she closed the grimoire and set it aside.

“I know you’re awake, Miss Scrivener,” Nathaniel said through the door. “I heard you talking to yourself in there.” Elisabeth bit her lip. If she didn’t answer, he might break into her room by force. “I was talking to a book,” she replied.

“Somehow I’m not in the least surprised. Well, I’ve brought you dinner if you promise not to bite me again. Or throw anything at me, for that matter.” She glanced at the poker.

“Yes, we heard you all the way from downstairs. The owner made me leave an extra deposit. I’m fairly certain she thinks you’re up here knocking holes in the walls.” He paused. “You aren’t, are you? Because I’m afraid you won’t be able to tunnel your way to freedom before morning, no matter how hard you try.” An evasive silence seemed like the best response, but just then, her body’s needs betrayed her. Her stomach gave a dizzying twist of hunger, accompanied by a noisy growl. She could barely think for the smell of sausages drifting through the door.

Why had Nathaniel brought her dinner? Perhaps he had poisoned the food. More likely, he was attempting to lull her into a false sense of security before they reached a remote area, where he could kill her and dispose of her body more easily. It didn’t make sense that he would murder her in an inn, surrounded by potential witnesses. In fact, he had practically admitted as much inside the coach.

Better to accept the food, and keep up her strength, than starve and grow too weak to fight.

“One moment,” she said, stealing toward the door. Carefully, she tested the doorknob. It was unlocked. She wrenched it open in a sudden rush of courage, only to promptly slam it shut again in Nathaniel’s face. She had recalled, too late, that she was wearing only her shift.

“I’m not decent,” she explained, hugging her arms to her chest.

“That’s all right,” he replied. “I hardly ever am, myself.”

The split-second glimpse of him standing in the hall was seared into her mind. He wore a white undershirt, open at the throat, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The light of the hallway’s sconces had revealed a long, cruel scar twisting across the inside of his left forearm. Riding outside all day had left his cheeks flushed and his lips reddened, which gave him a startlingly debauched look, enhanced by his disheveled hair and cynical, penetrating gaze. The effect was such that she almost hadn’t noticed the tray in his hands.

No, he hadn’t looked decent at all. How much of her had he seen in return? Those gray eyes seemed to miss nothing.

After a moment, he sighed. “I’ll set the tray on the floor. You can take it once I’ve left. And don’t try to run—Silas is guarding the stairs. The door will lock with magic when you’re finished.” A jingle of silverware and crockery followed his instructions. She waited until she heard his footsteps move away, and then cracked the door open again. Through the narrow space, she inspected the tray, which was laden with dark bread and herb-freckled cheese. And there—sausages. They did not seem to be a trap. She crouched down, pushing the door open wider.

Nathaniel had almost reached the end of the hallway. Watching him, she made out the sore-looking bite mark on the skin of his right hand. Proof that he could be hurt like an ordinary man. He might have killed the Director, but he wasn’t invincible. As long as Elisabeth lived, she still stood a chance.

She gathered her courage. “Nathaniel,” she said.

His stride slowed, then stopped. He tilted his head, waiting.

“I’m—” She swallowed as her voice gave out, and tried again. “I’m sorry that I bit you.”

He turned. His gaze flicked over her, casually appraising the way she reached out and clutched the edge of the tray, as 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.