The Sweetest Dark (11 page)

“Give me time,” I muttered, dropping my gaze to my plate. “I'll come up with something worse.”

“No doubt.” Armand pulled a flask from his jacket and shook it in front of my nose. “Whisky. Conveniently the same color as tea. Are you game, waif?”

I glanced around, but no one was looking. I lifted my cup, drained it to the dregs, and set it before him.

He was right. It did look like tea. But it tasted like vile burning fire, all the way down my throat.

“
Sip
it,” he hissed, as I began to cough. His voice lifted over my sputtering. “Dear me, Miss Jones, I do beg your pardon. The tea's rather hot; I should have mentioned it.”

“Quite all right,” I gasped, as the whisky swirled an evil amber in my teacup.

Chloe's song grew bouncier, with lyrics about a girl with strawberries in a wagon. Several of the men had begun to cluster near, drawn to her soprano or perchance her bosom. Two were vying to turn the pages of her music. She had to crane her head to keep Armand in view.

He sent her another smile from his chair, lifting his cup in salute.

“I'm going to kiss you, Eleanore,” he said quietly, still looking at her. “Not now. Later.” His eyes cut back to mine. “I thought it fair to tell you first.”

I stilled. “If you think you can do so without me biting your lip, feel free to try.”

His gaze shone wicked blue. “I don't mind if you bite.”

“Biting your lip
off,
I should have said.”

“Ah. Let's see how it goes, shall we?”

I felt flushed. I felt scorching hot in Sophia's cool floaty dress, and Jesse's circlet of roses was a sudden heaviness against my collarbone I'd only just noticed. My stomach burned, my eyes itched. I wanted to leave but knew I couldn't. I wanted to vomit and knew I couldn't do that, either.

The duke was still sneaking glances at me and his son was downing his second cup of spirits without even blinking, and then Chloe's song ended and I heard, with a sinking sense of resignation, Mrs. Westcliffe addressing the duke.

“… thought we might have Miss Jones jump to the fore. It happens that she's a fairly gifted pianist, according to Vachon. A natural talent.”

“Indeed,” said His Grace.

Mrs. Westcliffe twisted to find me. “Miss Jones?”

I was on my feet. I was moving dutifully—because I was the perfect charity student, one who did not drink or swear or bite—to the grand piano, and the bench was a hard resistance against my thighs, and the keys shone in the sun like the rest of the room, dizzyingly bright and dark, the same pattern repeated over and over, and I knew that if I did not look away I would become lost in it, perhaps just as lost as the black-and-white duke.

The sunbeam shone directly along my arms. It highlighted the silk sleeves of the dress and the scars circling my wrists, paler rings of flesh usually concealed by cuffs.

My audience had gone obediently silent. Beyond the occasional rustle of cloth against the velvet chairs, the scrape of leather soles against marble, I heard nothing.

No stone song. No metal.

There had to be
something.
The wives wore wedding bands, earrings, bracelets. There was a mass of actual gold pinned to my bodice. There had to be
some
music I could steal. But for the first time in forever, I heard nothing. Even the fiend inside me had nothing to say.

“When you're ready, Miss Jones,” Mrs. Westcliffe said.

I brought a hand to my forehead, feeling the whisky heat rolling off my skin. I searched up and around and at last connected with the eyes of Reginald, Duke of Idylling. He rose awkwardly to his feet, the untouched napkin on his lap sliding to the floor. He looked as terrible as I felt.

That's when I heard it. The call of his ruby.

And instantly, simply and sweetly, it was all that I could hear. My fingers searched out its echo on the keyboard; it became less and less an echo until the ruby and I were completely in concert. We shone as one.

I don't recall much of it. I sank into the rapture of the song and did not emerge until my hands hurt, until my hair had loosened from its pins and my breathing was ragged.

One moment I was playing and the next I looked up and found myself back before all those people. My ears rang with the silence.

Then they rang with the applause.

The duke was still standing. So was his son behind him. They were quickly matched by everyone else, though, because the rest of the guests began to push free of their chairs, still applauding. Even Chloe and her ugly underlings joined in, although they didn't look pleased about it.

For some reason, I focused on Reginald and Armand more clearly than on anyone else, one in front of the other, an older wreck of a man and his younger reflection. They looked more alike in that moment than I'd believed they could: both of them white as snow, both of them aghast.

...

That finished it with His Grace. He wouldn't even look at me as I curtsied my goodbye. He reared back when I approached as if he might actually flee, but since we were already departing he managed to glue his feet in place and stare desperately at Mrs. Westcliffe beside me instead.

He was afraid of me. I knew it in my heart, even without the fiend telling me so.

It wasn't that he didn't like me or that I had failed in my obligation to be the most grateful street urchin ever.

He was afraid.

I'd say the same of Lord Armand, but he'd vanished right after my turn at the piano. No one even offered his excuses.

“That went very well,” Mrs. Westcliffe announced, climbing ahead of me into the backseat of our auto. “Your playing was excellent. Your manners were acceptable. His Grace seemed impressed.” She settled in against the squabs, smiling; her new pet had performed its best tricks for the master. “
Most
impressed.”

“Poseur,” whispered Chloe, walking swiftly past.

Chapter Thirteen

Second letter from Rue, dated January 30, 1809

Darling girl,

Your missive arrived at last. How thrilled I am to have received it. And how your questions have stirred my memories. It has been many, many decades since I worried about my own first Turn.

I'm afraid I cannot tell you precisely when your Gifts will manifest. I can only assure you that they will. And that, in the end, the pain will fade, and you will be magnificent.

I wish that you might have the example of your mother to lead you into your powers, but she was not graced with the Gift of the Turn. Your father, of course, is naught but human. I do not know why the peculiarity in our blood produces, every few generations, a child of your potential. For too many years, it seemed our kind was doomed to extinction no matter how we tried to stave it off.

Then I was born, a girlchild like you: half human, half not. My children were all blessed with my abilities, and theirs less so, and theirs less, and less.

Until you. You, the true heir to my power.

You must continue to be strong in the days ahead. You must think of me, and be strong. Listen to the gemstones; celebrate their music. Imagine how it will feel to stretch your wings for the first time. To taste the clouds. To hunt the moon.

I must rest now, my magical child. I shall write again soon.

All my love,

–Rue

Chapter Fourteen

That night, no matter how I tried, I could not fall asleep.

It seemed to me a far-off thunderstorm roiled the sky, but when I paced to my window to find it, all I saw were stars. The tide had come in, the surf dancing silver along the shore in its own deliberate rhythm, but that wasn't the storm.

I returned to my bed. I got up again. My skin felt too tight; my muscles burned to move. Even my joints burned. I felt as if I could sprint for miles, nimble as a hart.

Instead, I stood at the window and watched heaven turn on its unhurried axis, finally deciding I needed to get outside to the green and then to the woods.

It was an unexpected thought, something I'd never even considered doing before. Curfew was ten o'clock every evening, and breaking it would mean a great deal of trouble should I be caught. Yet once the idea burrowed into me, I couldn't shake it. If Jesse could slink about at night without anyone spotting him, surely I could, too.

Almeda always performed the final check of the evening, usually around eleven. Sometimes she knocked, sometimes she didn't; tonight she'd already been by, so I didn't have to worry about that.

Certainly the forest would be less confining than my little tower. Despite my nagging feeling that there was a thunderstorm—
yes, there is
—there wasn't. The night was clear. I ached to run.

At the very least I'd see more stars.

The tower stairwell ended at my door, so there was no way to slip out but down along the main corridors. I crept along the stony halls of Iverson in my bare feet, boots in hand, grateful once more that Blisshaven had outfitted me in the dullest of colors.

When I got to the hall that led to the wing of the other girls, I stopped to listen. It was very late or very early, depending, but if any of them were up, I wanted to know.

All I heard was muted breathing. A few of them snored.

The suites of the younger students were interspersed with those of the older ones, so a pair of lamps at the end of the hall were kept burning through the night, the better to ward off evil dreams.

As I stole by, they sat cold and dark.

Curious–but not enough to make me turn back.

Eventually I reached the main doors. I fancied they'd be locked, but I'd try them anyway before searching for another way out. If nothing else, the windows of the front parlor had looked promising… .

Yet my hand closed on the wrought-iron latch and it gave at once. It seemed a fairly shocking lack of security, but I reminded myself that this wasn't the city or anything remotely resembling the dodgy streets of St. Giles. Who would bother to venture all the way out here for thieving? We were an island of leftover pin money and probably miserly teacher salaries.

If anyone wanted to steal anything, they'd have better luck simply walking straight into the shambles of Tranquility, where they'd have their pick of priceless, neglected things.

I opened the doors a crack and squeezed through.

My hair swished back over my shoulders. My face lifted and I breathed deep, as deep as I could until it hurt, and then let it all out in a rush. I raised my arms above my head and stretched hard, wind whistling through my spread fingers.

Freedom smelled of wild waters; it glimmered in a path of stars above my head. Freedom tasted like sea salt on my tongue.

It was another amethyst night, like the one when I'd first arrived. There was that long streak of Milky Way, bright in its cloudy curve, but the very heart of the sky was a purple so intense it was closer to jet.

The castle and the woods and I—the whole of the earth—lay bathed in its fey, colored beauty. We were soaked in purple night.

I bent to shove my feet into my boots, hitched up my skirt, and ran.

The green had been shaped by human hands, so it was easy to cross. Wide and smooth, it had been designed to showcase lovely young ladies moving sedately into their well-polished futures. Only when I reached the first shaggy trees of the forest did I have to slow, and even then not by much.

The woods felt instantly better,
safer,
than Iverson's lawn. Secrets could live in here, tucked between tree trunks, hidden in the boughs, and no one would ever see. Secret things, secret hearts, could open up wings and thrive.

Shadows swallowed me in slippery black. The air took on a richer, loamy note. The ground crunched with leaves, and ferns slapped at my shins and knees, painless. I splashed through brooks and left footprints in peat. Crickets called in time to my stride, a steady
chee, chee
that never broke.

I was running swifter than a hart, swifter than even the advancing night, because that was outside the forest and everything surrounding me here was enchanted, as I was. I didn't know where I was going, but it didn't matter. Sooner or later I'd run out of land, and then I would turn back.

But I began to slow before that happened. Not because I was tired, but because I realized I was coming close to something, and although I was sure I'd never been here before—I hadn't, not to this part of the isle—I knew I was getting near to where I needed to be.

Where I'd come out tonight to be.

By the time I reached the cottage, I was walking. I was following a path that seemed like a whisper, a bare impression in the earth, the slightest break in wild grasses bounded by huge, gnarled birches and beeches and mossy logs and flowers that I could smell but not see.

There was a single candle lit in the front window. The door was open and the way stood empty, exactly as it always was in my dreams.

I slowed to a stop, a little winded still, engulfed in the perfume of wildflowers and the fragrance of the candle, paraffin and smoke.

Go on,
urged the fiend, pushing hard from within the cage of my chest.
We're not afraid.

So I finished the last of the whispering path that led to Jesse's door.

I knew what awaited me beyond. The dreams had shown me so many times before that, when I ran my fingers along the frame of the doorway as I passed, I found the protruding knot that was always there, a cat's-eye shape at the height of my shoulder. When my feet met the rug beyond the entrance, I didn't have to look down to see that it would be red and sage and teal, a design of intertwining vines ending in an ivory fringe.

The cups and plates on the shelves along the kitchen wall would all be arranged largest to smallest.

The cast-iron stove would be sooty and scorched. An oversize mug would be placed nearby, knives and ladles poking out of it in a sharp metal bouquet.

There would be a river-rock fireplace to my left and a dining table with four chairs.

And there would be one other door, the only other one in the house. I knew that, too, because it led to Jesse's bedroom.

Dark Fay,
reminded the fiend.
Dark dreams. Dark desires.

A window–no curtains–was shiny with night, directly across the room. Jesse was seated in one of the two armchairs before it, relaxed, unmoving. He appeared to be gazing out at the trees that slept just beyond the glass.

“Lora,” he said. In the reflection of the panes, I might have seen him smile. “I'm glad you came.”

The candlelight hardly revealed him; he was more wily shadows than light. It must have danced along me a good deal more clearly as I lingered there by the front door.

“I don't know why I'm here,” I said, and it was true. Somewhat.

“That's all right.” He nodded toward the chair opposite his. “You still can come in. I won't bite.”

I swallowed, abruptly remembering my idiotic threat to Armand—
biting your lip off
—and fighting a bloom of something in my throat that felt perilously close to panic.

“I'm not giving back the brooch,” I said.

Jesse Holms turned in place to see me. Even by the solitary candle, even from this small distance, I was near flattened by his beauty: hair, skin, jaw and brow, throat and shoulders, every inch of him golden. Every inch of him perfect, as if he'd been sculpted by the gods from some lovely, impossible stone.

“No, you shouldn't,” he said. “That was for you.”

I tore my gaze from his and edged a step toward the free chair, then gathered my nerve and made it all the way. I sat down, feeling guilty, flustered. I'd been braced for at least a token argument. After all, I had no idea how he'd gotten it. It might have been his mother's, or his grandmother's, or he might have spent every last penny he'd ever saved on it, just to offer it to a girl he hardly knew. I hadn't actually expected to keep it, but the words had popped out, anyway.

A round piecrust table, surprisingly delicate, separated the armchairs. A jam jar holding a collection of starry white flowers gleamed square in its middle. I pulled free one of the stems, inspecting it as if it held all the answers to every question I'd ever ask.

It sounds peculiar, but touching that stem, feeling the cool smoothness of it in my hand, made me realize that I truly
was
inside Jesse's home, unaccompanied and unchaperoned and far, far from where I was supposed to be. I didn't even have the debatable comfort of knowing that this was another dream.

This is how girls get into trouble,
I thought.
This is how charity girls end up shunned and starving on the streets. They venture out alone at night to beautiful boys, silly stupid moths to incandescent flames.

The crickets outside seemed suddenly, embarrassingly loud.

“I hope it didn't cost much,” I said at last. “The brooch, I mean.”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“On how you might … characterize cost.”

“Pardon?” I glanced back up, confused.

This time Jesse's smile was aimed straight at me. “Don't fret, Lora. I can easily afford you that brooch.”

“But why?” I blurted. “Why would you just give it to me?”

I knew I sounded ungrateful, but I didn't care. The truth was, the brooch was exquisite. I'd never be able to repay him for it, not with money, and we both knew it.

He tipped his head, thoughtful. “Well, you didn't like the orange I left you. So I tried something else.”

“Didn't
like
it?” I began, but had to stop, because my throat had squeezed closed. I pretended to take in the view beyond the window; all I could see was the faint mirrored image of the chamber behind me, broken into rectangles. Jesse and me, fixed in the glass as if we'd been painted there in watercolors, transparent as wraiths.

I closed my eyes and tried again. “It's not that I didn't like it. It wasn't the orange. It was that …”
You were there in my room. You saw me sleeping. I think you stroked my face.
I managed, “Food is extremely important to me.”

The emotion in my voice discomfited me. I sounded raw, far more pained than I'd meant to. I had to wait to open my eyes again. When I did, he was watching me without expression.

“It's hard, isn't it?” he said.

“What is?”

“Being here. Being around all of them. Knowing that none of them, not one, has ever known what it's like to go without.”

I shook my head, which wasn't an answer really but all I could muster.

I did not want his pity. I did not want to evoke that sweet, melting look in his eyes. I didn't want to feel this unexpected sorrow mixed with trepidation and something else—
desire,
insisted the fiend—that grew with every shared glance between us.

Mad, get mad,
I thought to myself, but it was no use. I didn't feel angry.

I felt … different. Drowsy but wakeful, nervous but lulled, a victim of the soft sliding light and the candle and the calm, patient way this particular beautiful boy, this dangerous flame, was looking at me. As if he was waiting for me to figure out something he already knew.

I wanted to kiss him. I wanted him to kiss
me
.

The thunderstorm chose that moment to save me by rousing again,
boom-boom-boom-boom!
I angled in my chair to find it, but the crickets chirped on, and the woods remained unflustered. No rain, no lightning, no gusts. I glimpsed teasing patches of amethyst through the crowns of the trees but nothing else.

“It's the Germans,” Jesse said. “Airships. They're bombing the coast.”

That
brought me wide awake. I leapt to my feet. “What? Now?”

“They're not near. The channel intensifies the sound. Believe me, no one else around here will even hear them. They won't make it this far west before dawn.”

“Oh, I …” I blinked at him, replaying his words. “What do you mean, no one else will hear them?”

“Just that. Only you and I hear them tonight. I'd guess they're somewhere over Sussex right now. Brighton, maybe.”

Again, I could not speak. Jesse's calm expression never wavered.

“It's all right, Lora. You can relax. You're safe with me, I swear it.”

“What do you mean,” I asked again evenly,
not
relaxing, “that no one else will hear them?”

His gaze angled away from mine; for the first time, he looked uncomfortable. He leaned forward to pull out some flowers from the jar, just as I had done. Long, tanned fingers began to weave the stems together, making a braid of blooms. Drops of water beaded the wood.

“All the world is like an ocean,” he said. “All of it, not only the water part. And nearly everyone skims along on just the surface of that ocean, accepting what their eyes and ears show them as truth, even when it's not. Even when it's merely the bright skin of the ocean covering the truth. Entire lives are spent skimming that skin, person after person bobbing along the surface of things like driftwood, never sensing aught deeper beneath them. To them, real truth remains unfathomable.

“No one else hears the bombs, Lora, because almost everyone else around us is driftwood, basic human. You and I are the only ones right now who break the ocean skin to glimpse the deep. We're the only ones who can hear the bombs because, from here, they're beyond human hearing.”