The Deepest Night

Chapter 3

When you find yourself really, truly in the thick of trouble, there’s one very important rule to remember: Never volunteer information. Just keep your mouth shut and let the others do the talking, and maybe they don’t really know anything much and you’ll get to walk away.

I’d learned that rule, and learned it well. But as I followed the ebony-clad figure of the headmistress out of the great room and down Iverson’s hallways, my thoughts were already babbling.

Oh, was I eating too quickly, ma’am? I beg your pardon! I’m ever so anxious not to be tardy to class!

Oh, did I use the fish knife to slice the butter? How careless of me! Of course I know the difference between a fish knife and a butter knife and a tea knife and a fruit knife!

Oh, did it seem I struck Malinda on purpose? Honestly, that was an accident! I had no idea she’d be thrusting her hand in front of me then, and in her defense, I don’t think she saw me at all, since her head was turned and she was talking with her mouth full to Caroline.…

The office of the headmistress was a place no student normally wished to go, nor—if she was mannered enough or at least clever enough—would she have reason to.

I, however, was already dismally familiar with the chamber, from the lace panel curtains patterned with pansies and pearls to the vases of lilies discreetly scattered about, freshened every three days. Even the porcelain angels framing the clock on the mantelpiece smirked at me with their same familiar smirks.

You again, eh? What a shock.

I was most especially familiar with Mrs. Westcliffe’s imposing cherrywood desk (always smelling of beeswax) and the pair of baroque leather wing chairs set at precise angles before it.

Westcliffe took her seat behind the desk. I waited until she gestured at me before sinking into mine.

They were huge wing chairs. I fancied I looked like a cornered elf whenever I was perched in one.

The headmistress stared down at me with narrowed eyes. I pressed my lips into a line and stared back until I realized I shouldn’t. Then I stared at my knees.

“How are you feeling these days, Eleanore?”

I lifted my head, wary. Whatever else I’d been expecting, it wasn’t this.

“Very well, ma’am.”

“And how is your—ah—arm?”

I’d been shot in the arm. I’d been shot in the wing, too, but she couldn’t know about that.

“Doing better, ma’am.”

“The village physician has informed me that your physical recovery appears to be properly on course.”

At least something about me was proper. “Yes, ma’am.”

“It is unfortunate about the scar, but—well! What can one do?”

One can avoid being in the path of a spray of bullets, that’s what.

Mrs. Westcliffe looked away and cleared her throat. She lifted a hand to her immaculate black coif and patted at it fretfully, and I thought, incredulous, Crikey, she’s going to do it. She’s going to boot me out of the school.

Despite what I’d said to Armand, I hadn’t really thought about not coming back next year, and sitting in that overstuffed chair right then, I realized how very much I did want to come back. That however difficult my life had been at Iverson, it was still the closest thing I’d ever had to a home. I wasn’t ready to give that up yet. I’d just thought … somehow it’d all work out. Somehow the magic would keep me here, even with Jesse gone.

The angel clock began to chime.

“I’ll be late to literature, ma’am,” I said hopefully.

“You will be excused,” she replied, curt. “In fact, you will be excused for the remainder of the day. I’ve received a cable from the Duke of Idylling’s personal physician in Bath. It seems His Grace has requested a visit from you.”

Now I was the one who had to clear her throat, because when I’d sucked in my breath I’d inhaled my spit. “Uh—from me?”

“Yes. In addition, it was specified that for sake of the duke’s continued … peace of mind, the visit is to take place at once. There are tickets already reserved for us at the train station in Bournemouth. We must leave immediately.” Westcliffe drummed her nails atop the desk, frowning. “I have struggled to maintain contact with His Grace, I admit. It seems the communication policy of his new … place of residence is rather restrictive. Still, I find the haste of this plan very nearly mysterious, especially since not even one of my letters …”

She trailed off, glanced up, and noticed I was still there. The frown deepened.

“You may cease looking so stupefied, Miss Jones. Did you imagine I’d allow you to see His Grace alone?”

No, actually, I didn’t. Because Reginald, the Duke of Idylling, was locked away in a madhouse, and what I’d imagined was that I’d never have to see him ever again.

Bugger it.

I had been on a train only once before in my life. Once that I recalled, that is. Earlier this year I had traveled third class from London to the town of Bournemouth, which had the station nearest to Iverson, and it had been cramped and stinky and slow and absolutely fantastic, because every hour that passed had put more distance between me and my life at the orphanage. I hadn’t even minded the torturously upright wooden pews they’d called seats.

But I wasn’t traveling third class now. Mrs. Westcliffe and I made our way down the station platform to the first-class compartments, and strange men touched the brims of their hats to us, and a porter took my hand to help me up the steps—which I appreciated, since my skirt hobbled me so severely I had to hitch it to my shins just to climb the first rung. Good thing Westcliffe had gone aboard first.

The first-class seats weren’t merely padded, but padded in real burgundy velveteen. More porters moved up and down the aisle, offering glasses of cold water or ale and doily-lined trays of chocolates and nuts. The handful of other passengers already seated glanced up idly at the headmistress (clearly I was only a schoolgirl, and thus insignificant) but then just continued on with whatever they were doing, chatting or reading or staring out the windows as they (probably) pondered their great gobs of money.

We found our seats. I sat back and closed my eyes, hoping Westcliffe would take it as a sign I was far too weary and delicate for conversation.

No such luck.

The train gave a hard whistle to signal our start, and everything lurched and gradually settled again.

“I do not wish for you to feel apprehension at our upcoming appointment with the duke,” Mrs. Westcliffe said over the rising whine of the wheels.

I opened my eyes. She was gazing not at me but at the wall ahead of us, walnut paneling heavily varnished and a brass plaque that read Mind the Cinders. Beyond our window, the world was slipping by, faster and faster.

“No, ma’am,” I said.

“I realize that on the last occasion you saw him, matters were … extraordinary. His rational mind had retreated beneath the unbearable grief of his eldest son’s demise.” Now she did shoot me a look, sharp and pained. “His Grace is a good man, Eleanore. One who, under ordinary circumstances, would never harm a soul.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Do not be afraid of him.”

“No, ma’am,” I said, looking her square in the eyes. “I’m not afraid.”

She returned her gaze to the wall. “I also wish for you to know that I have appreciated your discretion in the matter. Prudence and kindness are the hallmarks of a lady, ones we foster at Iverson with great diligence.”

“Of course,” I agreed, without even a trace of sarcasm.

England past the window glass was green and blue, smeared up close, crystalline in the distance, all trees and cloudless sky.

“A good man,” Westcliffe repeated to herself, very softly, as the train rocked along the tracks.

I couldn’t help but feel for her. She loved the duke, I knew she did. And both of us knew that him loving her back was as impossible as a slum girl turning into a duchess.

Richardson Home. That was the name of the duke’s madhouse. My own had had an equally oblique title, but names are dismal hiding places, really, and there was no getting around what either building actually was.

Richardson turned out to be a peachy-stoned, Georgian sort of prison, with a good long lawn opening up behind its iron gates and a few spindly trees peppering the grounds, but no hedges or ditches or anything but flat grass from here to there.

Again: no place to hide.

We were escorted inside by a burly, broken-nosed man who was obviously not a butler, although he was dressed as one. I noticed Mrs. Westcliffe delivering him a sidelong glance as he accepted our wraps, but all he did was ask our names and then disappear behind a door—also burly, composed of wide oaken planks and steel studs—leaving us standing alone like almswomen in the foyer.

“My!” said Mrs. Westcliffe, but not too loudly.

The foyer was plain stone, unfurnished and chilly; I’d bet those walls were ruddy thick. I hugged my arms over my chest, then rubbed at my cold nose. Westcliffe drew her spine straighter and stared fixedly at the oaken door.

If she was willing it to open, it worked. The man who came out now was nothing at all like the make-believe butler who’d gone in.

“Ladies,” the new man greeted us. He was short and pudgy and nervously blinking, rather like a mouse spotting a pair of cats before him at the last second. But he kept coming forward, and with his very next step the stench of rancid grease from his hair pomade nearly flattened me.

Westcliffe was shaking his hand, introducing us both. I nodded at the right moment, then eased behind the headmistress and tried to breathe shallow breaths.

This, then, was the duke’s personal physician. This fidgety, fat, smelly man.

For the first time ever, I think, I felt a thread of sympathy for His Grace.

The doctor led us through the doorway, talking all the while.

“ … that you made it here in all haste. It will please the duke mightily. He’s been adamant that he speak with you—that is, with the young lady—as soon as possible. We’ve been utterly unable to reason with him about it.”

“I see,” said Westcliffe faintly.

Richardson Home on the inside was nothing whatsoever like a real home. We were walking down a corridor lined with sulphur-glass sconces, passing no parlors, no drawing rooms, only closed doors, most inset with small, barred windows. The reek of pomade had become overwhelmed with that of bleach and morphine and sour human waste.

Faces popped into view from behind the bars. Hands reaching up, fingers clawing, palms slapping at the doors. Voices keening, moaning—one man actually barking—all the prisoners feeding on the noise, an awful chorus of desperation bouncing against the barren walls.

Westcliffe’s feet began to drag. Her skin had blanched, but I …

Oh, I had seen all this before. I had lived this before.

I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek, tasting blood. There was a sound building up inside me, a hot hopeless pressure inside my throat, but I wasn’t going to moan back to these people. I wasn’t.

A woman’s hand with dirty, chipped fingernails poked out from a window as my head went by. I ducked out of the way just in time, leaving her fingers to scratch at empty air.

“Jeannie,” the woman shrieked, now her cheek pressed against the bars, one rolling eye. “At last! Come visit! Jeannie, Jeannie, where have you been all this while? Come visit your mother!”

“Pay them no mind,” the doctor called from over his shoulder. “Pitiable, of course, but one does grow accustomed to the everyday sights and sounds of their sickness. They’ll quiet after we pass. Er—avoid the cell windows, please. Some of the younger children have a fair reach.”

“Children,” repeated Westcliffe, still faint, but the good doctor had heard her.

“Oh, yes,” he enthused. “At Richardson we utilize the most modern medicines and methods for every manner of patient. Weakness of the mind acknowledges no boundaries of age, and I’m pleased to say that neither do we. All who are in need are welcome here.”

For the right price, I finished silently for him.

Moor Gate, asylum of the indigent, hadn’t used nearly this much bleach.

And that wasn’t the only difference, I soon saw. When the doctor unlocked the door to the duke’s cell, I had to stop in place and stare.

Here, then, was the home part of Richardson Home. Here was the gracious space, the luxurious surroundings, a peer of the realm would expect. There were rugs and tables and chairs, a writing desk, a silk folding screen, and a hulking canopied bed done up in royal blue damask. There were even windows set up high along two walls, letting in the sun past the bars, something I’d never glimpsed once in my year spent in the bowels of Moor Gate.

A fireplace held a crackling fire—no chill in here—and Reginald, Armand’s father, was seated before it in a smoking jacket with a blanket over his lap and a cup of something in his hands.

His Grace took in the three of us at his door with an air of mild astonishment. Then he set the cup aside and rose to his feet.

“Look, my lord,” said the doctor in a chipper tone. “Only look and see who has come to call on you.”

“Yes,” said the duke. “How kind.”

Mrs. Westcliffe slid an uncertain step toward him. “Your Grace.”

“Irene.” A brief smile lifted his lips. For a heartbreaking instant he looked so like his handsome son. “Lovely to see you.”

She sank into her curtsy, and I copied it. Reginald’s gaze jumped to mine.

“Miss Jones. I am glad you’ve come.”

I couldn’t think of a polite response to that—Blimey, I’m not!—so I only nodded.

“Timothy,” said the duke, sounding abruptly like his old, imperious self, “we’ll need tea. Some of those scones with the currants in them, fresh ones. See to it, old boy.”

“My lord, I don’t think—”

“The ladies shall be perfectly fine in my care,” Reginald interrupted. “I can assure you of that.”

“Yes,” agreed Westcliffe, forceful. “We shall be.”

“Indubitably true, my dear woman! The Duke of Idylling is a model patient, a paragon of a patient. But I cannot—”

“Do go,” I said, stepping in front of him, drawing his eyes to me. My voice slipped soft and smooth. “Go and see to the tea in the kitchens yourself.”

There is another drákon Gift I’ve not mentioned yet, and like all the others, it’s one I hadn’t mastered in the least. Occasionally—rarely—I was able to induce people to do what I wanted simply by darkening the tenor of my voice. There were times I tried it and failed miserably; I ended up sounding like nothing more than a cheap fortune-teller at a carnival sideshow.

But this time it worked. I hadn’t even meant to attempt it, but it had happened, and it worked.

The duke’s physician offered me a few more squinty blinks, but they were slower now. Baffled.

“Yes. I’ll … go to the kitchens.…”

“Splendid,” said His Grace.

I let them reunite with my back to them, hands clasped before me, studying the curtains that draped so stylishly from the canopy of the bed.

I pretended I didn’t hear them at all.

I pretended I didn’t hear the moans that still ricocheted down the hallway past the open door, and the woman weeping, “Jeannie, my Jeannie,” from behind the walls of her cell.

“And now, Irene, if you don’t mind, I’d like to speak to Miss Jones.”

I turned around. They were seated a nice proper distance from each other, the fire glowing between them.

Westcliffe pursed her mouth.

“Privately,” added the duke.

“Well … I …”

I looked at her. I said nothing.

“Certainly.” She stood and went to the door. “I’ll wait here for the doctor to return, shall I?”

I approached the empty chair. The duke lifted a hand to it—and there was Armand in him again, sweeping a hand at me in the forest to inspect the hole he’d dug.

I settled gingerly against the cushions. The heat from the fire caressed the left side of my face and lit the right side of his, highlighting the deep hollow of his cheek, the sallow skin. Reddish glints danced in his lank brown hair.

“I know what you are,” Reginald said quietly.

I froze, then made myself relax back and cross my ankles.

His Grace had never seen me as a dragon. Not only that, but Armand’s drákon blood had come from his mother’s side, and even she hadn’t known what she was. She’d died not knowing, so I didn’t see how Reginald suddenly could.

“Oh?” I murmured.

“Yes, Miss Jones. I do.”

“If you mean that I am the very grateful recipient of your scholarship to Iverson, Your Grace, you are absolutely correct.”

“Oh, you’re that as well. Indeed you are. But you’re far more than meets the eye, Miss Jones. Armand sees it, too, though he won’t speak of it. You are something … dangerous.”

“Hardly.” I forced a stiff smile. “Just an ordinary girl.”

“No, Eleanore. No. You’ve been sent here. Sent to me, sent to Armand. And now I am going to send you to Aubrey.”

I let out a huff of surprise, but he wasn’t smiling back or even looking especially barmy. The lines of his face were drawn serious, his brown eyes glittering.

I leaned in close so Westcliffe wouldn’t overhear.

“Reginald, Aubrey is dead. Your eldest son is dead. His plane was shot down by the Germans this spring. Remember?”

“That’s what we were told. That’s what the telegrams said.”

“Yes.”

“But the telegrams were wrong. They were all wrong, because Aubrey is alive. And you’re the beast that’s going to bring him back to me.”

The beast.

A chill prickled my skin, creeping over me despite the fire. Reginald never released me from his dreadful gaze.

“That’s what he told me. That it will be up to you. Smoke-thing, winged-thing. Monster within.”

“What?” I managed.

“The boy in the stars. He speaks to me in my dreams, you know. Tells me things. You will be the one to find Aubrey. You must find him!”

I’d risen from the chair. I hadn’t meant to, but like my voice changing, it had just happened, and now Westcliffe was watching us and the duke’s fragile grip on his composure was beginning to crumble.

“Tell me you will!”

I licked my dry lips. “Your Grace, I’m sorry, but I have no notion what—”

“Do not lie to me, miss!” he thundered, leaping to his feet to tower over me, because all at once he was very tall, and I was very much not. He clapped his hands on my upper arms and gave me a wicked shake. “Do not lie, thing! I’ll not have it!”

“Reginald!” Westcliffe was moving toward us, her skirts black wings flapping. “Reginald!”

Everything seemed to slow. Westcliffe was slow, and the duke was slow, but one of his hands was clamped right on my injury and it hurt, so I cried out with my knees buckling and my own hand coming up to pry apart his fingers—

And then Armand was there. Right there behind Westcliffe. Past her, and Reginald was pushed off me and Armand stood between us nearly as tall as his father, his fists knotted into the duke’s satin lapels.

I stumbled back, knocked into the chair. Westcliffe caught me up and released me at once, both of us panting.

“Don’t you hurt her!” Armand snarled. “Ever! Do you hear me?”

“I—I had to tell her—”

“You never hurt her, never again!” He shoved his father back, and Reginald didn’t fight it, didn’t do anything but sort of deflate, all the heat and anger and glittery conviction vanished, leaving him empty as a sack. He sagged back into his chair.

“Good God.” He lifted a hand to his face, hiding his eyes. “Good God, no. I—I—I’m …”

None of us moved. Beside me, Westcliffe stood brittle as glass. Armand had his back to us both, broad and tensed, his fists still clenched. He radiated menace.

A random wild thought came to me, burrowed in: Here is the beast. Here he is.

My arm lifted. I touched my palm to his shoulder blade, and even with his shirt and jacket between us, I felt an electric, snapping shock.

“Armand. Mandy. I’m unharmed.”

He rolled his shoulders to shuck me off, then threw me an unreadable glance.

“My lord,” pleaded Westcliffe, her words trembling. “Lord Sherborne. He meant no ill.”

“No,” the duke was muttering. “No, no, no …”

Armand dropped to his knees before his father, bracing both hands against the arms of the chair to pin him in.

“Reg. Listen to me. Are you listening?”

“Yes …”

“I’ve received news. A wire from the prime minister. I drove straight here as soon as I got it. It’s—it’s tremendous, wonderful news.” Armand’s voice was rough with emotion; he let out a shaky breath. “Aubrey is alive. He didn’t die. Dad, he’s alive.”

The duke lifted his head. His hair had fallen forward and his cheeks were mottled. He flicked back the hair, scowled at his son, and brushed both hands down his crushed lapels.

“That is precisely what I’ve been saying,” he announced peevishly. “Aubrey is alive and captured. And this thing here, this beast named Eleanore, is going to be the one who flies there and brings him home.”

Like a puppet yanked upright by a single jerk of its strings, Armand was standing, staggering a few steps toward me. Our eyes locked. I didn’t know if my expression mirrored his, but I knew my insides did: disbelief, smothered guilt.

That cold, budding fear.

He looked from me to his father to Westcliffe, who had both hands knuckled against her mouth and really, truly appeared as if she might keel over.

Armand tipped back his head and pinched his fingers over his eyes—just like his father had done. “Where the deuce is that wretched doctor, anyway?”

“Kitchens,” I whispered. “Sorry.”