The Deepest Night

Chapter 2

“Miss Jones,” Armand greeted me, winding his way through a strand of whispering beeches.

“Your Grace,” I answered.

“Not quite. That’s still my father.”

My eyes had adjusted to the night by then, and I was able to make out the pale folds of his scarf, the ghostly outline of his face and hands against his linen duster.

He would have driven from his mansion on the mainland to as far as the island bridge, then walked the rest for stealth. I wondered that he hadn’t gotten hot in that coat.

“Your … lordiness. Whatever you are now. I don’t know the proper address for a marquess, I suppose.”

“Lord Sherborne,” he supplied smoothly, coming close to the rowan. “Or simply my lord. But you can call me sweetheart.”

“I don’t believe I will.”

His teeth flashed in the gloom; I’d made him smile. “We’ll see.”

Armand had nearly everything in the world he could possibly want. He had money, social status, and inhumanly good looks. His family owned the castle and the island the castle sat upon, along with most of the mainland nearby. He lived in a monstrosity of a manor house perversely named Tranquility, a few miles inland. He was intelligent, brooding, and dangerously magnetic in that way somehow unique to young men born to power. He’d been booted out of Eton twice and I still couldn’t think of a single girl at Iverson who wouldn’t give her right arm—or, more specifically, her left-hand ring finger—to him at the drop of one of his expensive hats.

Especially since his older brother, the previous Marquess of Sherborne, had been so accommodating as to go and get himself killed in the war. So the future Mrs. Armand was guaranteed a duchess’ coronet.

I used to think it was selfishness or just boredom that had him constantly showing up at Iverson to seek me out. The desire to rebel against his father and Westcliffe and all the sticky spiderwebs of rules that entangled us both. I was hardly a seemly companion for the son of a duke, and everyone knew it, especially me.

Then we’d found out. About being dragons, I mean. And about how it would be in his nature to hunt me like this till the end of time.

I don’t which of us was more appalled.

But Armand’s drákon blood was thinner than mine, and his powers were only just emerging. He couldn’t Turn to smoke or dragon yet, so at least I had the advantage over him there. He knew if he pushed too far, I’d Turn and leave.

“Bloody dark,” he commented, settling down beside me. He was holding something bulky in his hands.

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“Really?” He stilled. “Is that a dragon trait? You can see in the dark?”

Now I was the one smiling, though I was glad he couldn’t tell. “No, my lord. It is bloody dark.”

“In that case …” He rummaged through the bulky thing, and suddenly I smelled cheese and salty olives and bread and smoked fish.

“Good God,” I said, my mouth beginning to water. “Did you bring a picnic?”

“A small something, perhaps. And …”

And a lantern, as it happened. He struck a match; the delicious food scent was briefly overwhelmed by sulphur, and then the amethyst shadows retreated against a small yellow glow.

“That’s better,” he said.

I drew my knees up to my chest. “Someone might see.”

“Who the devil,” Armand responded cordially, replacing the lantern’s glass, “is going to see all the way out here in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night? I’m not going to attempt to eat Russian caviar in the dark, Eleanore. It stains. And this is a new coat.”

“Very well.”

He sent me a glance from beneath his lashes. With the light cast up from below, he was all stark jawline and cheekbones and diabolical dark brows. I saw the dragon in him then as clear as could be. Only his eyes were reassuringly familiar: rich cobalt blue, the color of oceans, of heaven’s heart.

“Hungry?” he asked, soft.

There was an implication in his tone that he meant for something other than food.

“I’ve never had caviar,” I said deliberately.

His gaze fell from mine. “Then I’m honored to be the one to offer it to you now.”

And that is how I discovered that caviar is one of the most purely revolting substances ever to exist. I actually had to spit it out and wipe my tongue clean with a fresh piece of bread to get the disgusting fish-jelly flavor out of my mouth.

“Charming.” Armand was smearing more onto his own bread with a delicate silver knife. “Glad to know all those lessons in deportment aren’t being wasted.”

“What josser was the first person to slit open a sturgeon and see a slimy blob of eggs and think, Right, I’m going to eat that?” I swiped again at my tongue. “I never thought there existed a food I wouldn’t like, but you, my lord, have proven me wrong.”

“A first!”

“And last. What else did you bring?”

Ten minutes later, I realized I was the only one still eating. Crickets had begun to chirp sleepily from the bracken, filling the silence. I glanced up to discover Armand watching me, his face shadow-sharp and inscrutable. The last of the bread and olives lay untouched by his feet.

“Westcliffe doesn’t want you coming back next year,” he said abruptly.

I brushed some crumbs from my shirt. “That’s hardly a revelation. She thinks I’m your doxy.”

“She’s sent letter after letter to Reginald, implying it’s time to find a new scholarship girl. To cut you loose.”

Reginald was the duke, and my sponsor at the school. I’d only ever heard Armand refer to him as “dad” once. Right after His Grace had tried to murder me.

“What does he write back?” I asked.

“Nothing, so far. I’m afraid all her letters have been regretfully mislaid.”

I smiled, shaking my head. “You can’t keep that up.”

“No, I know. Eleanore—Lora—listen.”

But he didn’t say anything else, just kept staring at me, fierce. The flame of the lantern maintained its small, steady burn between us.

Crickets. Leaves rustling. Very dimly: the surging pulse of the sea.

“Don’t worry.” I tried to sound confident; I was an excellent liar, but Armand had a hardness to him that wasn’t easily fooled. “They’ll probably send me to another orphanage, but just for the summer. It won’t be for long, and I’ll be fine. You know I’m not nearly as helpless as I seem. I’ll land on my feet, no matter where I end up.”

“Another orphanage—or worse.”

“No.” I was pleased my voice didn’t crack. “That won’t happen, I assure you.”

Hell would freeze over first. The moon would plunge from the sky, cats would bark, and dogs would weep tears of rubies and pearls. I would never, ever return to Moor Gate, or any place like it. I would never let demented people like that have control over me again.

Armand ran a hand through his hair, leaving a muss. “There is another option. We get married. You stay with me.”

My attention zagged back to him; I’m sure my mouth had fallen open. “Married.”

“Yes. Kindly try not to sound so horrified.”

I covered my lips with both hands, then forced myself to drop them to my lap. “You—you’re not of age yet.”

“I will be in a month.”

“Well, I’m not of age yet. I haven’t the faintest idea when I’ll be eighteen.”

He frowned. “You don’t know how old you are?”

“No. I don’t even know my birthday.”

“How you could celebrate it if you don’t … ?”

I only looked at him.

“Oh. Right. Orphanage.”

“And the fact that I have no memory of my life before 1909. The only thing I know about myself at all is that I was born on a steamship. And only because Jesse told me that, and the stars told him.”

Armand picked up a fat green olive and held it between his finger and thumb, glaring down at it. “The stars, of course. Always the bloody damned stars.” He flicked the olive to the trees, and all the crickets went quiet.

Jesse had been a star. Of the stars, human-born but with all the sorcery of the firmament rushing through his veins. He’d been a creature caught between realms, like us, and had recognized what Armand and I were long before we two did.

Everyone at Iverson assumed Jesse Holms to have been nothing more than the simple hired hand he’d pretended to be. But he’d become my light and my guide into my drákon Gifts. It was because of him that the stars now spoke to me, instead of just singing their wordless songs.

“Don’t you hear them yet?” I asked gently.

“Yes, I hear them. I just don’t like what I hear.” Armand climbed to his feet, slapping noisily at the folds of his coat. “Look, waif, I haven’t got all night. I have to wake up early for another excruciatingly instructive meeting with my farms manager about some cows or something, so let’s get this over with. Did you bring the shovel?”

I rose to my own feet, lifting a hand to indicate the shovel, obviously just beside me.

He grabbed it, said, “Let’s go,” and moved off without another look.

I collected the lantern and the picnic basket and followed him. Neither of us really needed illumination to find the place where I’d buried my chest of gold a few weeks before, but I didn’t want to leave any evidence of our meeting behind.

Like me, Armand heard the music of the metal and strode straight to it.

I’d chosen an area that looked like any other in the woods, littered with decomposing leaves and pine needles, a few handy ferns growing lush and random around it. Oak roots pushed through ivy and peat, sinking gnarled tendrils all the way down into the bedrock.

There was a gap in the root system exactly wide enough for the chest. A little too far in any direction, and a treasure seeker would end up just slashing at wood.

Armand sank the shovel into the perfect center of the proper spot.

I would have done the digging myself, but he’d insisted. I hadn’t told him, but the truth was that burying the chest in the first place had made me so ill I’d actually passed out. I kept forgetting I was supposed to be on the mend.

“I’ve counted every piece,” I warned him, watching the shovel jab in, lift out, great mounds of moss and dirt piled to the side.

He didn’t glance up. “You think I’d steal from you?”

“Only once.”

“Your faith in me is gratifying.”

“Not especially wifelike, I presume?”

The shovel stabbed extra deep; his voice came ironic. “No. Not especially.”

Minutes later the blade thunked into the lid of the chest, and all the gold song within went sharp in response. Armand straightened, tossed the shovel aside, and clambered out of the shallow hole.

“All yours,” he said with a sweep of his hand.

I lay flat on my stomach at the edge and reached down. The chest had no lock—I hadn’t thought there’d be a point to locking it, and anyway, I’d nicked it from Jesse’s cottage and didn’t have the key—so all I had to do was lift the iron tongue of the latch to raise the lid.

It was hard not to gasp. My treasure was beautiful, it really was. Gold glimmered and sang and gleamed up at me, magnificent even in the feeble light. But since it had come from Jesse, not pirates, it wasn’t anything ordinary like ingots or doubloons.

It was a jumble of solid gold branches and acorns and leaves, pinecones and flowers. It was the work of a naturalist, of an alchemist who had lived amid nature, who had appreciated the unspoken splendor of the wild.

Jesse’d been able to transform any living thing into gold, another secret he’d taken to his grave. The contents of this chest had been his final gift to me.

So technically I wasn’t impoverished any longer. I had all this. And I had it out here in the forest because there were maids and enemies and no locks on any of the doors at Iverson, and no reason on earth for an urchin like me to possess anything of value, much less a collection of sculpted golden objects.

Armand kept his distance. I could hear his heartbeat, though, how it had quickened at the sight of the treasure, a cadence that matched my own and the precise tempo of the music that lifted from the chest.

“Hurry,” he urged, low.

I picked up one of the pinecones. It was on top of the tangle, a cool and heavy weight in my hand. I scrambled back from the edge and held it out for Armand to see.

“Will this do?”

He nodded, not even looking at it. “Done?”

“Yes.”

He bent down and grabbed the shovel again.

It wasn’t until the hole was filled once more, the music muted, and we were on our knees carefully rescattering the old leaves and needles that Armand sat back on his heels and spoke.

“Jesse’s gone, Lora. Gone forever. Nothing can change that.”

“I know.” I crumbled a clod of dirt between my fingers, watching it dissolve into dust. “But we can’t help whom we love.”

Armand sighed, bitter. “No. We can’t.”

I awoke the next morning in time for breakfast, which was a relief. I was always hungry, and oversleeping meant I’d have to wait until luncheon for food. By then I’d be seeing spots from lack of nourishment.

Apparently my drákon metabolism wasn’t quite as ladylike as might be hoped. Respectable young Englishwomen barely bothered to eat; the other girls at Iverson only nibbled at their meals and whined about their too-tight corsets. I, on the other hand, ate so much I had to hide it from Mrs. Westcliffe, and half the time I snuck about with no corset at all.

That fact alone was probably enough to get me booted from the school.

Did you hear about that tramp Eleanore? It turns out she was running around stark naked beneath her clothes!

Well, not entirely. I did usually bother with a chemise, because otherwise I got cold.

I rolled from my bed. My feet hit the stone chill of the floor and I hastened to the wardrobe, pulling open the doors to survey what I had to wear today.

Five white long-sleeved shirtwaists, all identical. Five dark plum slender skirts, also identical. Five sets of plain black stockings; ten garters. One pair of black buttoned shoes.

We all wore the same uniform at Iverson, society girls and slum girls alike. To be frank, it was a relief not to have to don my shabby Blisshaven clothes for class, even though I did still have to resort to them for the weekends. Sometimes it was just easier to mix with the herd.

A hard rap sounded on my door. It opened before I could respond, and Gladys, the maid appointed to my room, walked in with a pitcher of fresh water.

“Oh,” she said, unenthusiastic. “You’re up, then.”

I smiled at her. She brought the pitcher to the bureau and plunked it down hard, sloshing water across the wood.

“What time is it?” I asked sweetly.

“Sorry, miss.” She dried her hands on her apron, avoiding my eyes. “Been so busy, I forgot to look at the clock.”

One of Gladys’ tasks was to ensure that I was awake before breakfast was served. So far, she’d not managed it once, and that was not an accident.

Scholarship students were never local girls. I could have tried to explain to her that it wouldn’t have mattered even if the duke hadn’t set that rule; that a slippery combination of destiny and magic had brought me here to the castle, not just dumb luck.

But Gladys was skinny and hostile and too old inside for someone who was only about twenty. I’d wager she’d lost any last faith in magic the day she’d needed money badly enough to take this job.

Should she and Chloe ever join evil forces, I might be in real trouble. Fortunately, Lady Chloe stooping to converse with a common housemaid was about as likely as Kaiser Wilhelm showing up bearing roses at our door.

“Thank you,” I said brightly to Gladys’ back as she stomped out of the room.

I tried to be nice to her. Usually. I’d hate working here, too.

What Iverson lacked in electricity, enough water closets, and proper heating, it made up for in grandeur. The chambers were all done up in burnished fixtures and sinuous furniture. The staircases were of carved marble, the rugs were plush, the paintings massive and ornate.

Our dining hall was the original great room of the castle, a space so huge that the sunbeams slanting in from the windows barely reached its center, thick slices of light that blinded you on and off as you passed through them and struck rainbows from the crystal pendants of the chandeliers. Table after table was laid out in orderly rows, one for each year of students. The teachers’ dais had been placed against the southern wall, where they could critique our manipulation of forks and knives without the light in their eyes.

I made my way to the tenth-year table—blinded, not; blinded, not—sailing past the usual giggles and gossip of the other students as though I couldn’t hear any of it. Seating was assigned, so I wasn’t stuck at the end of our table because I was the last to arrive, which I was. I was stuck there because that’s where Westcliffe had put me.

I took my chair next to Malinda Ashland’s. She lifted her nose in the air and reached for the teapot between us before I could, just barely managing not to whack me with her elbow.

Pretty, snooty Malinda. No doubt she secretly wondered if Westcliffe bore her some grudge, fixing me next to her.

The rest of the girls of my class were hardly more pleasant. Beatrice, Caroline, Lillian, Stella, Mittie. I’d describe them to you, but to be honest, all you truly need to know is that they were the pampered, drawling daughters of the empire’s so-called best families. On weekends they wore cashmere and chiffon and gemstones. They knew all the rules of lawn tennis and polo and would sooner curse out loud in front of their mothers than sip champagne from a sherry glass. I existed as a boundless source of scandal for them, and that was about all.

Except for Sophia, their leader. Ever since she’d started speaking to me, they’d backed off a bit.

A bit.

“Pass the bacon, please,” I said to Malinda, who ignored me.

I leaned past her for the platter. I didn’t bother to stop my elbow from knocking into her hand just as she was lifting her cup.

She let out a hiss, shaking the tea from her fingers. “Eleanore, really! Were you raised by wolves?”

“Worse,” snickered Lillian, on her other side. “Plebeians.”

“Wolves have better manners than certain humans I know.” I scraped the last few pieces of bacon onto my plate, then moved on to the scrambled eggs. “At least they share.”

“Only after the alpha has had his fill,” chimed in Sophia, at the far end of the table.

“Or hers,” I added pointedly, with a glance at her nearly empty plate.

She sent me a lazy smile. “True enough. But then, leading a pack of lesser minds can be such exhausting work. Still, someone’s got to be in charge.”

“Someone,” echoed Beatrice, pausing over her grapefruit. “Rather odd thing to say. They’re just wolves.”

Sophia never took her eyes from mine. “Pour me another cup, Bea, won’t you?”

“Of course!”

The hardest part of meals for me was figuring out how to eat as much as I wanted without attracting adult attention. In Blisshaven there had been no assigned seats, no snowy crisp tablecloths, no chinaware, no fine silver. There had been minders instead of professors, and they’d all carried wooden batons. Breakfast had been nonexistent, tea was nothing but day-old bread, and dinner was usually a thin fish stew or veggie soup or—only on Sundays—gristly bangers and mash. About once a year someone from the government would show up for a tour, I suppose to ensure we orphans weren’t wasting any of their enormous goodwill, and suddenly our boots would be patched and our clothes mended and there were apple slices to share, or crumpets, or even gingerbread.

Imagine going from that to this: Huge salvers of roasted meats, steaming in their juices. Seafood lapped in creamy rich sauces. Vegetables no longer dissolved into soup but sautéed or baked or boiled, so you could tell what they were. Fresh rolls, so fresh the insides were still warm when you tore into them. Butter and jam, white sugar and chilled milk. Whole apples, pears, persimmons. Bread pudding, iced cakes, sweet biscuits for dessert.

Every day. Every single day.

It isn’t sloth or even birth that pins the poor in their place. It’s hunger. Hunger kinks you up. Keeps your mind obsessed and your body cramped and shivering, and you dream of how lovely dying is going to be because no one ever goes to bed starving in heaven.

I added more eggs to my plate. Malinda rolled her eyes and gave a sniff.

“Look at her,” fake-whispered Lillian to Caroline, loud enough for all the table to hear. “Speaking of wolves! She bolts down her food as if it’s the very end of the world, doesn’t she?”

“As if she’s doomed never to dine again!” Caroline fake-whispered back, stirring sugar into her tea, clink-clink-clink.

I didn’t bother to respond. As far as my stomach was concerned, it might well have been my last meal. You never knew.

I was nearly a third of the way through when I heard the ominous, unmistakable rustling of organdy and the snap of high heels against stone.

Blast.

I slowed my chewing, swallowed, and lifted my gaze to find Mrs. Westcliffe standing beside my chair. I hoped like hell there weren’t any egg bits on my face.

“Miss Jones,” she said, pinch-lipped.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“You will join me in my office, if you please.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I cast a longing look at my unfinished breakfast.

“Now, Miss Jones.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I pushed back from the table. Westcliffe was already pacing away, so I don’t think she noticed the giggles that whipped up anew, my classmates with their hands pressed over their mouths, their eyes sparkling with malice, and Sophia real-whispering “Dooooooom” under her breath as I walked past her.