The Sweetest Dark

Chapter Twenty-One

How did the rest of the evening play out? I’ve no idea. I exited the study after Armand in a daze, in a heart-thumping confusion of shock and incredulity. Even though I’d followed him nearly right away, I didn’t see him anywhere, not in the hallway, not in the ballroom or the gardens after that.

I do remember some of it. I remember the duke on a graveled path with torchlight in his hair, watching me, surrounded by his fellows. I remember Miss Swanston speaking gaily to a man with silver spectacles, her head tipped to the side and him bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet. Sophia and Mittie beneath a tree, sharing glasses of stolen champagne. The colored lights gleaming, the orchestra always playing. An immense tiered cake had been placed on a central table, iced white and yellow and trimmed with garlands of marzipan. The cloying scent of it nearly turned my stomach.

At some point the cake was cut. Toasts were made. I was there for that, standing by myself beyond the bulk of the crowd.

Armand never returned to the party. And all the rest of the night, all the way back to Iverson, one thought kept rattling through my head, obsessive, persistent, offering no solutions and absolutely no peace:

Could it be possible … ?

I fell asleep that night in my tower without an answer.

Tomorrow I would find Jesse. Jesse would tell me the truth.

...

He looked down at the key in his hand and thought of all the reasons why he shouldn’t be where he was, about to do what he was about to do. It was Sunday; he was technically just a visitor to Iverson, no longer a resident; he didn’t want to run into Eleanore or Chloe or Westcliffe or any of them; he didn’t know how believable his lies would be right now should anyone discover him.

He used to be so good at lying. At guile. At deflection. It occurred to Armand in that unlit, desolate hallway, holding that key, that he hadn’t felt like himself in a long while. If he truly considered it, he seemed more a circus-mirror likeness of who he used to be, all wavy and wrong, stretched in impossible directions. Even thinking about it too much made him dizzy, perhaps because so much of who he was now was zigzag reflection, not truth.

So he didn’t leave. His hand moved, fit the dull iron key into the dull iron lock. He was honestly astonished when, after an initial moment of stiff resistance, the tumblers turned. Unless the students had learned how to pick locks, it had to be more than a decade since anyone had tried this.

The door to his parents’ bedchamber cracked open—not much, because the door was heavy, ancient planked wood scrolled with wrought iron, most of it rusted, but enough so that a stale puff of air hit him in the face.

Mandy fought a sneeze. He swiped at his nose, pushed harder at the door, and managed to open it enough to squeeze through.

It was dismal enough, all right. Easy to believe this place had been kept in shadows for nearly all his life. The floral curtains pulled across all the windows looked riddled with rot and moths. Pinpricks of daylight shone through the sagging flowers, tiny spears of sun illuminating motes.

The curtains, the bed coverings, the upholstery on the chairs and settees: all of it decayed, forsaken. He stood in a medieval suite disguised in old chintz and kingwood, and it was just as depressing as he’d expected it to be.

He’d been born in this chamber, right there in that bed. He’d had a crib in the corner, where a grimy dressing table now stood, and then a cot. Only months after he was old enough to join Aubrey in the nursery, Rose had taken her final step from the battlement, and Reginald had abandoned the castle.

They’d lived in London after that, all three of them broken and so … dreadfully quiet about it. All three of them just waiting for Tranquility to be completed, because somehow, somehow, that was going to help.

“Soon,” Reginald would tell his sons, when they begged to return to the sea. Mandy remembered Aubrey crying silently at night, and how the Thames smelled like sewage instead of salt, and how Reginald always promised them the same thing in the same hearty tone: “We shall live there again soon.”

Soon had proven to be a word to last nearly twelve years. Soon meant a succession of nannies, then tutors, in their Grosvenor Square mansion. Soon meant a thumping city rhythm hammering a new tempo into his life that proved so loud and busy that, in time, young Armand barely recalled the blue salty sea. Or the castle. Or his mum.

And when the day at last came that they moved back to Wessex, all three of them again, that glorious, hope-filled day …

How he’d wished at least one of the workers had had the consideration to knock over a lantern and burn goddamned Tranquility to the ground.

But no one had. Perhaps they’d not dared. The duke’s mad vision come to life was a fearsome beast, after all.

Armand dropped his hands to his sides and closed his eyes. He breathed in the musty scent that surrounded him now—still holding the bright bite of salt beneath it—and pushed back thoughts of anything but this room. This place. His mother’s realm.

Reginald hadn’t changed a thing since the night of her death. He hadn’t even bothered with dustcovers.

The soles of Mandy’s wingtips pressed grit into carpet and stone. Dust gathered along the hem of his trousers and covered his fingers as he opened the drawer of the dressing table.

Rose had kept a diary. It was one of the few vivid memories of her he’d retained. It had been of lavender leather with the pages gilded along the edges. As a child the gilding had obsessed him; she’d let him fan the corners with his fingers over and over, trying to rub off the gold.

It wasn’t in the dressing table. Or the writing desk. Or the armoire, the washstand, or the dresser. He found it, incredibly enough, beneath the mattress of the bed.

The mattress. Was Reginald truly that obtuse, that he’d never think to search there? Or had she kept it there as a joke, knowing it was the most obvious place to look?

Mandy glanced around, located a chair, and perched at its edge. He ran a thumb along the diary’s same frayed, familiar corner. Habit.

Then he opened it and began to flip through the pages.

His mother’s voice found him at once.

13 Aug., 1896: Archery Tournament. Second spot. A brisk east wind, else I should have got First.

6 Dec., 1896: So happy! Cannot sleep. Another boy, I am certain of it.

8 June, 1898: Ladies Garden Tour. Ladies Garden Tea. (Make certain Cook knows about the scones!) Ribbon Presentation at Noon. All done by three. Armand viciously fussy. Nanny says colic.

12 June, 1898: A foggy, dreary day.

25 Nov., 1898: Dear Reg says to smile more. A cheery face! That will help.

14 Feb., 1899: Leg of lamb, mint sauce. Peas. Buttered noodles. Speak to Hastings about more candles for the great room.

22 March, 1899: No sleep again. Songs songs songs. I think this latest from the diamond collar he just bought me. It seems like it it seems like it it seems so. I will not speak of how much I loathe the thing.

1 Aug., 1899: She haunts me. I am convinced the answers are there in her letters. Why can’t I find them? Why couldn’t she clearly say? I’ve been so foolish, dismissing her all these years.

3 Oct., 1900: It will not settle. It will not lessen. No peace, no no no not at all.

30 Dec., 1900: Is this what I am to suffer for the rest of my days, this ceaseless Voice? She never mentions such a symptom, only the music and the pain. What is this affliction? So much of my family line remains indistinct. Her words are all I have. Tainted blood. Have I cursed my boys, as well? How willingly I would offer my days for theirs.

15 March, 1901: The sky is so open. I might fly straight into it. no wings but I might i might.

17 March, 1901: I tried. Dear Reg. Found me.

9 May, 1901: Second try. REGINALD.

Mandy slapped the book shut. There were no more entries after that.

She haunts me.

Who was she?

In the dead silence of his dead mother’s room, the motes danced. He sat there in the closed-up tomb of it with the channel seething beyond him, feeling his heart beat. Feeling his lungs, his hands, his feet. The pastel-skinned book between his fingers.

Hearing … songs …

The dressing table, said the sly thing inside. Secret space. Look again.

He dropped the diary. He went to the table, pulled out the drawer once more. Pins, pearls, an Asian-looking fan, a silver-backed comb and brush.

He went to his knees. He reached his hand in as deep as he could and knocked against the end panel.

Hollow.

Armand made a fist and shattered it.

Amid the shards of wood, his fingers found paper. He pulled out a slender stack of folded sheets, yellowed with age, tied with a peach-colored ribbon that was improbably still crisp.

The ribbon fell into a loop on the floor, only a little smeared with blood. He selected one of the sheets at random, opened it, and began to read.

I’ve hidden you well. I hid your entire line from the Council and the tribe, and of all my many notorious accomplishments—I am not so modest as to deny they are many—the secret of your life and that of your progenitors is my greatest… .

...

Jesse was going to be off the isle for most of the afternoon. He’d told me yesterday that he and Hastings would be traveling inland to run errands for Mrs. Westcliffe. But from the instant I awoke, the itching consumed me. I discovered I’d scratched my arms and thighs raw in my sleep, great red furrows dug into my flesh.

On top of that, I felt jangled. Fidgety. Colors that had been ordinary yesterday now burned brash. The morning sky hurt my eyes. The giggly, hectic rustling of five-score girls getting ready for breakfast downstairs grated in my ears as if they had all invaded the tower and swarmed into my room.

Armand had been correct: There were spiders along the ceiling. Their webs shone garish, opalescent. They picked their way from strand to strand, loud as elephants.

Somehow I endured breakfast and chapel, eating, not thinking, not listening. As I walked back to the castle with a hand shielding my eyes from the sunlight that glared along the grass, I considered how cool the air in the grotto would feel on my skin. How very soothing its dimness would be. How just overall damned perfect it sounded, with or without Jesse.

I’d go without him. There was no reason not to, actually. If nothing else, I could sit there in the dark and eat the handful of almonds I’d stolen from the sideboard this morning. He could find me when he came back.

It was still odd to think about the dual nature of his life. The sorcery that ran through his blood, all that wisdom and song … and his public face, the mute, simple boy who worked at the school because his uncle did, who dwelled alone in silence in the uncultured woods.

I supposed his life was no less odd or dual than my own. Both of us understood the safety of a public face. I didn’t want to imagine what might happen should either of our secrets come out.

Another tie to bind us. Another silken bond. If I spun enough of them, we’d be woven together forever, a single tapestry of Eleanore and Jesse.

But for Armand, now the loose thread in my little dream. What to make of him?

“Why, Eleanore, where on earth are you off to in such a rush?”

Sophia. She’d caught me right inside the main doors.

“Oh … the library.”

“Oh,” she echoed, nonchalant. “As it happens, so am I. Shall we?”

I was stuck then. She fell into step beside me, and together we strolled in exactly the opposite direction of where I needed to go.

I tugged my sleeves lower over my wrists to hide the scratches.

“Did you try the fizz last night?” Sophia inquired, not looking at me.

“The champagne? No.”

“I must say, it wasn’t swill.”

We broke through a cluster of prattling sixth-years heading the other way, parting them like sharks moving through minnows.

“I didn’t know we were allowed to have any,” I said.

“Mercy! If you feel the need to ask permission for every little adventure, what a tedious life you’re going to lead.”

“True,” I agreed, matching her drawl. “The absolutely last thing I would want is to lead a tedious life.”

“Well, naturally. I mean, for a girl like you, life has likely had its little excitements already. You’ve come from some hovel near Cheapside, I presume. Some dreadfully squalid place. And now you’re here. You should have tried the champagne is all I’m saying. You would have quite enjoyed it.”

“Perhaps Lord Armand will smuggle some in for tea,” I snapped. To my surprise, Sophia turned and regarded me with sparkling eyes.

“Wouldn’t that be marvelous? I wager he would, if you asked him.”

I laughed, uncomfortable. “Not likely.”

“You’ll never know until you try. It’d be such the coup.”

We’d reached the library. I walked purposefully up to the nearest set of shelves, hoping to shake her from my heels, and pretended to study the titles.

The Ladies of Leicester’s Guide to Successful Housekeeping, 1906.

Charts of the Principal Cities of the World, Including Railroad and Telegraph Lines.

One Hundred Uses for Pigs.

Sophia had lingered at my side, very much unshaken. She leaned her back against the shelves and twirled a strand of flaxen hair around one finger. “You are, after all, Armand’s inamorata of the moment.”

I gave up on the titles. “I’m his what?”

“Inamorata. It means lover.”

“I know what it means.”

She took in my face and slanted a smile. “Dear me. Have I offended you?”

“Only by your ignorance. I’m not his lover. I’m not—anyone’s anything.”

“But you could be, if you wished it. If you looked at him the way he looks at you …”

“You’re imagining things.”

“I’m not. Everyone’s noticed.”

“What does it matter to you?” I flashed.

Sophia’s smile faded; she gazed at me thoughtfully. “It matters to Chloe. Isn’t that enough?”

I glanced around the room. Lillian and Stella were watching us from a table by a window, worry etched along their mouths. Mittie and Caroline stood taut nearby. What was their queen bee doing talking to the worker drone?

I smiled back at Sophia, pleased to etch their worry a shade deeper.

“You’re right. It’s enough.”

“I like you, Eleanore,” she said, straightening. “Believe me, I’m just as astounded by that as you are.” She took a couple of steps toward the others, then paused, sending me a pale-blue look from over her shoulder. “But my head is not tiny.”

...

I laid back against the smooth clamminess of the embankment. Water purled near my feet, the sound a balm against my skin. Without the light of a lantern—I hadn’t chanced carrying one—the entire cavern glowed with its unearthly cool light, as if the moon had sunk to the bottom of the sea and now shone upward at me, silvery and serene.

Better. Much better here. Even the press of stone against the back of my head and shoulder blades didn’t bother me. It felt like relief.

I could try to become smoke again, I realized. I didn’t need Jesse for that. Did I?

As soon as I thought it, the itching returned, ten times worse than before.

“All right,” I said aloud.

… right-right-right …

“Smoke,” I whispered, staring hard at the stalactite directly above me. “Smoke.”

Graceful and thin. Weightless. Less than air, less than …

It happened.

And once again it happened without pain and before I could fully even take it in. One second the stalactite loomed over me; the next I was sliding sideways toward it, rising in curls. No more itch, no more gravity. No more Eleanore, just the outline of my clothing below me, still laid out on the stone.

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to dance! I could see myself, how I’d become like vapor. I could control—mostly control—all the tendrils of me. My density.

I heard that celestial song beckoning again from beyond the roof of the cavern, the summoning of the stars, and I ached to reach them. I coiled and tumbled, wrapped around the fangs of rocks, and searched for a fissure to slip through. I was going to fly so, so far away—

The hidden door inside the grotto creaked open. The boy who stepped through it wasn’t Jesse but Armand Louis.

I churned in place for a moment in confusion, concealed in the toothy pattern of the ceiling.

Armand, not Jesse. Armand, who’d spoken to me once about the grotto, who was likely the only other person alive who knew the secrets of the castle as well as Jesse did.

He saw my garments straightaway, crossed to them, and bent down, lifting my blouse in his hands. I wouldn’t suppose him to think they belonged to anyone but me. He’d seen me wearing them at least twice before, and the mud brown of Blisshaven was distinctive.

The golden flowers of my cuff gleamed up at me like a smile.

“Eleanore?” he called, looking around. But the grotto was echoing and empty. There wasn’t exactly anywhere to hide.

“Eleanore!”

He was searching the water now, so close to the end of the embankment, his shoes were getting wet.

I’m not here, I thought, frantic. Don’t look up; go get help, just go, just leave, so I can come down and get my things.

He was stripping off his coat and then his waistcoat. He was yanking at the laces of his shoes.

Yes! That could work! I could assume my human body again while he was underwater, snatch up my clothes and boots, and dash for the tunnel—

Yet it was only my second time transforming to smoke, and it appeared there were aspects of it I hadn’t precisely mastered. As Armand pulled off his first shoe, I began to thicken.

I could not prevent it. I could not slow it. And I didn’t even make it down to the ground before I was a girl again. I dropped from the ceiling with my arms and legs flailing, a surprised yelp wrung from my throat, and hit the water hard.

It seems almost unnecessary to mention that I was never taught how to swim.