The Deepest Night (11 page)

When we met now at night, I noticed how he kept a firm distance between us. How he would stand at the edge of the cliff and watch me fly, but never touch me again, not even to offer me my clothes.

I was accustomed to his bridled admiration, I admit. I’d come to expect it.

Losing it irritated me.

“Lovers’ quarrel?” Sophia inquired, rising to get more tea.

“We’d have to be lovers for that to happen.”

“You’re blushing.”

“I am not. I am hot.”

“Yes, indeed. Rolling bandages must be such awful exertion!”

“Perhaps you’d care to try it,” I shot back. “Then you could find out.”

She sent me a cat’s smile. “No, thank you. I’m quite content over here with my nice, cold drink.”

I slapped my latest roll on top of the pyramid, destroying its fragile unity. It broke apart into bouncing pieces, bandages unfurling down the table and all across the room.

“Lovers’ quarrel,” Sophia said wisely, and left it to me to pick everything up.

“This time I’m flying with you,” Armand told me that night upon the cliff.

He said it without inflection, without even looking at me, standing with his arms crossed to confront the rising yellow moon.

No mist tonight; the moon threw a flickering path along the waves that led straight back to us.

“I don’t know,” I hedged.

“Don’t argue. It’s past time for it. You’ve done fine for the last two nights, haven’t you? No unexpected changes?”

“That doesn’t mean they won’t come now.”

“And it doesn’t mean they will. What are you scared of, waif?” His eyes glanced back to mine, heavily shadowed; I couldn’t read them at all.

“Killing you,” I said bluntly.

He shrugged. “Everyone dies sometime.”

“Oh, am I supposed to be impressed with that? You’re so brave and noble, willing to leave me with your blood on my hands?”

He looked at me fully. “Is that what you envision will happen?”

Yes. No.
I couldn’t bear thinking about it long enough to decide.

“Tonight,” he ordered, in that cool, distant tone he used with me now.

I turned on my heel, stalking back toward the motorcar. “Fine. Your funeral.”

“We’ll find out.”

I Turned without waiting to reach the car, smoke to dragon, just like that. I stepped carefully around my scattered garments, my talons scraping against the hard-packed dirt.

I had no words in this shape; I’d discovered a while ago that I didn’t have any manner of voice whatsoever. I couldn’t even growl. So I lowered my head to glower at him and thought my dare.

Come
on, then. If this is such a cakewalk for you, come on.

He walked over to me and placed a hand upon my shoulder. Damned if I was going to make it easier for him by bending down. I felt his feet slip for purchase on my scales, some tugging, and then he was up, straddling me.

I wiggled in place, adjusting to the weight of him. His feet hooked in the space behind my front legs and in front of my wings. His fingers entwined with my mane.

“Golden Eleanore,” he said quietly, leaning forward along my neck. “Fairest of the fair. I’m so tired of waiting. Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

My irritation drained away. I flicked my ears at him, took an uneasy step. He remained perfectly balanced.

I opened my wings. I tried a few tentative beats, letting him get the feel of it, of how my muscles would shift beneath him. I didn’t like his grip along my mane but couldn’t imagine how else he was going to hang on; my scales were slick as glass.

Suddenly the saddle didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

“Fly with me, love,” Armand whispered, a warm and urgent pressure upon my spine.

I crouched, bounded, and took us up into the heavens.

Chapter 16

It was a very different thing to fly with another. I learned that right off.

He slipped back some but held on tight, which was good, because if he’d fallen off as I ascended I didn’t think there was much I could do about it. I climbed and climbed so there’d be time for me to twist about and catch him if I needed to, then had the grisly thought that if I went too high, I might suffocate him.

I chanced a look back. Armand was windblown, beaming. He met my eyes and blew me a kiss.

Cheeky, but the relief danced through me light as bubbles.

I leveled out, unwilling to try anything too daring. I felt him adjusting in place; every movement threw me off by degrees, and I had to compensate by tilting this way or that.

I caught a stream of wind and the roar in my ears subsided into something close to silence. There was only the hiss of my wingtips scraping edges off the air. His breathing. Mine.

The sea was a reflective floor, occasional ships adding dollops of light. We skimmed below clouds plated in gold, because the moon was huge and lovely, pulling me toward it with a yearning that tugged soul deep.

Fireheart. Lora-of-the-moon.

I was meant to be here. I was meant to be this way. And even with Armand clinging to my back, I was glad. Up here I was as free to be myself as anywhere in creation. No rules meant to bind me, no gossip meant to make me feel small. No adults chiding me for never being quite what they hoped; no toffee-nosed girls mocking me for what I’d never have or never become.

Beyond the clouds, the stars had been arranged in a high, brilliant lattice of glitter. They were singing without words, a symphony as glad and ferocious as I was.

I gazed up at them and imagined plucking them one by one, wearing them as debutantes did diamonds: a necklace of stars, a coronet, a glinting fan of them trailing behind me like the train of the most breathtaking gown. The queen herself would weep with envy.

There was one star in particular that caught my attention, brighter than all the rest. It blazed with light, a rare green and gold. I’d wear that one over my heart … 

Wait … 

“Jesse?” I gasped, and then screamed.

Because I’d Turned to girl, of course.

We tumbled down together, two bodies pinwheeling, the air sucked from our lungs. For a few long, terrifying seconds—much too long—I was trapped in the black breathless vortex of my impending death. I was senseless, powerless. The words
Turn! Turn!
screeched through my mind with no results.

Then I went to smoke, instantly suspended.

Armand continued his tumble, smaller and smaller against the waiting sea.

I Turned to dragon and plummeted after him.

I’d done something like this once before. I knew to fold my wings as close to my body as I could, to keep myself stiff and straight, a knife blade, a sword. He had his arms and legs spread out, which gave me the only small advantage I had; I was gaining on him, but not swiftly enough.

He toppled upward, his face toward me. His eyes had that same blue glow that had thrilled me days ago, but now only served to fill me with an infuriated fright.

He was
not
going to die. I was
not
going to lose the lone person who understood what I was and liked me anyway—

The sea was so near. I was too far. Armand reached up an arm toward me and in desperation I reached back, my claws flashing.

I felt the pull of him, an abrupt yank of weight. I opened my wings and tried to rise but couldn’t get high enough in time. Armand hit the water and then so did I, but the difference was that I broke apart into smoke as it happened, shattering far and wide.

I didn’t know what had happened to him.

The pieces of me bobbed about, gradually mustering back into one. Seawater splashed through me, atoms of mist adding to my vapor.

Where was he? I funneled up, searching, seeing only pewtered water and slippery waves.

Where
is
he?
I called silently to the stars.
Jesse, help—where is he?

As if in answer, I felt myself beginning to solidify. And even though I tried to stop it, I Turned into girl again.

I splashed down almost gently. It was almost preposterous how leisurely it happened, and how utterly unable I was to keep my head above the water.

My one brief lesson in swimming deserted me. I thrashed about, sinking fast, the entire world sheathing me in smothering dark.

Sophia had been correct. I was useless.

My lungs burned. My limbs had gone to stone.

Smoke,
I commanded myself, but it seemed like such an impossible feat. All my magic was cold and lifeless, already drowned.

My lungs were on fire. My heart was a dying ember. I had to breathe. I had no choice, I was
going
to breathe—

The air rushed out of my lungs just as he found me. I was hauled upward and we broke the surface together and I was able to cough and wheeze and cry, and I did all of them at once.

Armand had slung an arm under both of mine, our sides pressed together.

“Use your feet, Lora,” he was panting in my ear. “Kick your feet, like I showed you!”

I couldn’t feel my feet, but I must have been doing it because I was sort of floating, and he swam about to face me, still holding on.

“I believe—” He kept panting. “I—ended our lessons—a tad too soon.”

I was shivering, aching, mad as spit beneath it all. “
Now
do you understand? I need to do this alone!”

“No.” He shook the water from his eyes. “You rescue Aubrey. I rescue you. See how it goes?”

“You stubborn, brainless—”

He pulled me to him and mashed his lips to mine. It might have been a magnificently romantic gesture, but I knew he only did it to shut me up. Anyway, my face was so numb I didn’t even feel it.

“Turn to s-smoke. Dragon.” His teeth were starting to chatter. “Hang low. I’ll—c-climb up. Fly back t-to shore.”

It was as good a plan as any. And it worked, more or less.

I was able to hover just long enough for him to cling to my front leg. I flew as slowly and steadily as I could and eventually we made it back to land like that, both of us exhausted and chilled to the bone.

I warmed myself by thinking that if he caught pneumonia, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about him coming along to Prussia and ruining everything.

And even though I searched the skies, I didn’t glimpse the gold and green star again.

Chapter 17

Wire transmission from His Grace the Duke of Idylling, Bath, to Miss Eleanore Jones, Tranquility at Idylling

01 JULY 1915 13:04

MY DEAR MISS JONES STOP KINDLY CEASE DAWDLING STOP ALL BEASTS MUST HAVE COURAGE STOP I AM TOLD IT IS IMPERATIVE ARMAND GO ALONG STOP FOR HIS SAKE HURRY STOP

Chapter 18

The cable arrived the following afternoon. I would have burned the damned thing before Armand had a chance to read it, but since he was the one who handed it to me, it was too late for that.

“Whatever does
that
mean?” asked Sophia, peering over my shoulder to make out the typed words. She rattled her glass of iced tea in my ear.

“I don’t know,” I lied, and crumpled the paper in my fist. I directed a look up at Armand, still standing over my other shoulder and my table of miscellaneous bandage rolls.

Why hadn’t he waited to give it to me? Now Sophia would never stop pestering me about it.

His smile was slim and hard as nails. His cobalt gaze seemed more piercing than ever, almost unnaturally vivid.

“The doctor informs me that Reginald’s delusions are as real to him as this”—he gestured to the cramped supply room—”is to us. No doubt you play some mysterious role in them, Eleanore. I’m sorry for it. I’m surprised he was allowed to send this at all.”

“Oh,” said Sophia. She bit her lip. “We don’t have to discuss it, Mandy.”

“No, we don’t,” I agreed. I stuck the wad of paper in my pocket. “Was there anything else? I have to say, you’re looking a bit peaked, Lord Armand. It’d be such a pity if you took ill. Perhaps you should go have a rest.”

“I feel fantastic,” he said, and turned around and left.

Sophia waited until he was no longer in view. “You might be kinder to him.”

“Pardon?”

“His father’s illness isn’t Armand’s fault.”

Empathy from Lady Sophia. Was it snowing in hell right now?

“I know that,” I said.

“It’s a shame you’ve been drawn into it, but sometimes parents do things well beyond our control. Queer things. Reckless things. It’s not his fault,” she said again.

I touched her on the arm. “Sophia. I know.”

She shrugged me off. “Good.”

I returned my attention to the table, to the tiresome, interminable strips of cloth waiting to be transformed into useful rolls. Sophia walked to the tea service and stood there without reaching for any of it.

“They hadn’t any money when he met her,” she said suddenly, not looking at me. “I mean,
none
. Just bloodlines and a bankrupt estate and I must suppose some sort of womanly charm to lure him in. And it worked. He was lured, hook, line, and sinker. And they married and she and Chloe moved in and every day after that became some version of
Of
course
you
must
call
her
Mamá, since she’s your mother now. Just forget about your old one
, and
If
Chloe
prefers
your
room
to
hers, then you must let her have it. Or your riding pony. Or your hair ribbons. Or your favorite necklace. Because we want her to feel like part of the family, don’t we, pet?
”

“I’d kill her before I’d let her have my pony,” I said after a moment.

“Yes!” A hand raised; she wiped at her eyes. “I considered it. But I thought they’d know it was me.”

“Truly? It seems to me there must be any number of people out there happy to strangle your stepsister.”

She let out a watery laugh. “There are two of us, at least.”

“Cheers to that. Pour me some tea, will you?”

“All right.”

The final stages of our plan required a late-night consultation over maps and nautical charts. Armand had managed to procure ones far better than anything I’d discovered at Iverson. We needed maps for England, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the German Empire, which included Prussia. Towns, geography, trenches. He’d even found an etching of the Schloss des Mondes ruin itself in an old travel journal in Tranquility’s library. Apparently tourists a century ago found decaying castles incredibly romantic.

Altogether, the floor in front of his bedroom fireplace and a good deal more beyond was covered in paper. I studied them from my hands and knees, the gray blanket wrapped and knotted at my chest.

I traced my fingers along one of the trench maps, which showed the battle lines of the front, along with inked-in dates. Dotted red lines for us. Solid blue ones for the Huns. The most recent date was five days ago.

“Where did you get this one? Are people just allowed to have these?”

“Don’t ask, and no. But I’m not people. I’m sure the colonel won’t miss it for a few hours. He should have locked his desk.”

My lips wanted to smile; I fought for a straight face. “Larceny. I’d say I fear for the state of your character, but I’m rather too impressed.”

Armand didn’t look up, anyhow. “Thank you very much. But look here, Lora. See?” He poked at some town in Belgium with a name I couldn’t pronounce. “I think that even if we take our time, we can make it to here by the first morning. It’s far enough from the front to probably be safe, and rural enough that we can find a barn to hole up in during the day.”

“A barn,” I said, unenthusiastic. “Sounds comfortable.”

Now he glanced at me. “We could try for an empty house. But if it’s empty, there’s probably a good reason for it. Like Germans nearby.”

“No, I love barns. Horse sweat and all that prickly hay. Let’s do that.”

“I’m only being practical.”

“Can’t we fly it all in one night?”

“No.” His finger drew a new line across the papers, traveling across the Netherlands and most of the German Empire before getting to East Prussia. “We have to get all the way over here, and once we’re there, we’ll need to be ready for whatever comes. Even if you fly at top speed—and I have no idea what that might actually be—you’ll end up worn out and hungry just as we’ve landed in the heart of enemy territory. We’ll need stay alert at all times, but especially then. If you’re too fatigued, it won’t do anyone any good.”

“Speaking of that.” I sat down upon a portion of Berlin, crackling the paper. “I wasn’t jesting before. You look … I don’t know. Not quite yourself.”

“I told you. I feel fine.”

“You don’t look it,” I stressed. “I’d say you look like you have a fever, except you aren’t flushed. But your eyes are strange. They’re too bright. And your complexion is paler than ever.”

“Eleanore—”

“No. If you’re ill, or even just coming down with a cold, it might be the thing that destroys us both. You’re the one preaching about safety. I couldn’t agree more. We need every advantage, and you out of sorts is
not
that.”

He sat back, somehow managing to avoid all of the scattered papers. He sent me a long, level stare; firelight draped him in orange and black, fiendish dancing shadows. “I swear to you. I feel fine.”

I waited but he didn’t back down, so I surrendered, lifting a hand.

“We’ll need—”

Someone knocked on the door.

We both jolted in place, startled, and then the knob turned and the door opened and Chloe was saying, “Mandy?” in a soft, sweet voice.

I Turned to smoke. My blanket fell in a puff across the maps.

“Are you awake?” she asked, coming all the way in, so of course she could see that he was.

She wore a dressing gown of brick-red damask trimmed with jet beads. It was tightly wrapped and belted and covered her from throat to toes, but she still managed to make it look alluring. Her hair had been pulled back into a loose braid, suggesting
bed
and
desire
and
forbidden
all at once.

Armand had climbed to his feet. He, at least, was fully dressed, all the way down to his polished shoes. If she thought that peculiar, she didn’t say so.

I lingered near the top of the hearth, making myself as thin as possible.

“Forgive me,” Chloe said. She smiled, tremulous. “I know it’s frightfully scandalous of me to come up to your room like this. But I—I had to see you.”

Armand threw a nervous glance in my direction. “It’s late.”

“After two, actually. I couldn’t sleep.” She walked closer, noticed the maps on the floor. “What’s this?”

He bent down, scooped up all the ones he could reach, and snapped them into a pile. “Nothing. Just some research.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Chloe.” Exasperation crept into his tone. “Why are you here?”

She went stock still, her hands clasped before her as if in supplication. Her eyes got bigger and bigger; it almost appeared as if she would cry.

“Don’t you know?” she asked, hushed. “After all these years, don’t you know?”

Apparently he did. He took a step toward her but then stopped, shaking his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t say that. Don’t say it.”

“Listen, I—”

“No!” A single tear leaked down her cheek, perfect as a dewdrop. “Everything can still be fine between us. I know you have this—infatuation—with Eleanore. I don’t pretend to understand it, but I can accept it. Temporarily. Gentlemen have all sorts of wants, I realize that. Sometimes they make sense and sometimes they don’t, but even Mamá tells me it is our duty as wives to—to accommodate.” Her fingers began a slow, painful twisting upon themselves. “So I will, Armand. I swear to you I will. You can have me
and
her. And I won’t ask you about it, and I won’t bother you about it. Just—
please
, Mandy. I’ve loved you since we were twelve years old. Since the day we met. The hour. The very minute.” Another tear. Another. “How can that mean nothing to you?”

She was weeping openly now, doing it just as beautifully as she did everything else. Her nose was barely pink and her eyes glistened like jewels, and she never moved otherwise. Just her hands, twisting and twisting.

So he went to her, and stilled her by cupping his fingers over hers.

“Don’t you think you deserve better than that?”

She tilted her face to his. “I don’t want better! I only want you.”

“How could you want to marry a man who thought so little of you that he’d keep you at home while chasing someone else?”

“It’s not
little
. It’s how it
is
!”

“Not for us. Not for me, and, I hope, not for you. You deserve someone who loves you without conditions. Who would never look at another woman for the rest of his life with anything but indifference, because you are the sum of his dreams. The one girl whose eyes shine with all the days and nights he prays will come. His stars and his sun and his moon. His happiness, his true heart.” His voice roughened. “His everything.”

She gazed up at him, her lips trembling. “Is that it? Is that how you feel about
her
?”

“Yes,” he said, and dropped his hands.

She swallowed, looked around. Gave a pained nod. She licked the tears from her lips and turned about, walking back to the door.

Opening it, passing though. Closing it.

He only watched her go.

I hesitated, then poured back into my human shape. I picked up my blanket and held it to my chest.

“Armand …”

“Not now, Eleanore.” He spoke to the wall; I was granted only his profile, chiseled against the shadows. “Let’s continue this tomorrow.”

“I—”

“Tomorrow. Please.”

I nodded, realized he couldn’t see it, and murmured, “As you wish.”

Then, just as Chloe had done, I slunk out of the room.