Blythewood (36 page)

AFTER BREAKFAST THE next day it was easy enough
to make sure Sarah and Miss Frost were out of the way while
Daisy stole a specimen. I merely offered to help carry the tray,
silently mouthing that I had a message for her to deliver.

“Another one so soon!” she remarked when I gave her the
sealed note I’d written last night to Raven. “Aren’t you afraid
you’ll seem . . . overly eager?”

I blushed at the thought, but answered, “He won’t mind. I
have important news for him.”
“Really?” Sarah asked. “Have you come up with a plan to
meet?”
“Y-yes,” I stammered, though I hated to lie to Sarah. I had
written to tell Raven that the
tenebrae
were in the dungeons. I
had no idea how to smuggle Raven into Blythewood. After all,
he was quite a bit bigger than a lampsprite.
But it turned out that Raven made my lie true. He wrote
back that very day (Sarah passing me the note at dinner) that
he had a plan to come to Blythewood the next week on the first
day of spring.
“Hold on until then,” he wrote. “The
tenebrae
bring out the

Strange behavior? Like Helen becoming increasingly secretive about her letters from home and Nathan walling himself into his library window seat like the victim in Mr. Poe’s
“Casque of Amontillado”? There seemed to be nothing
but
strange behavior at Blythewood the last week of winter—during which an icy rain fell, turning the snow to slush—as if the
promise of release made the captivity of winter seem even more
unbearable.

“Aye,” Gillie said when I mentioned it to him. “This is the
most dangerous time of the winter, when the scent of greening
stirs the blood. Even the sprites are tearing each other’s hair
out.”

I witnessed Miss Sharp snapping at Mr. Bellows for bringing her violets, Beatrice reprimanding Dolores for being a
“chatterbox,” and Alfreda Driscoll refusing to fetch Georgiana a cup of tea and telling her she was “not her maidservant.”
Georgiana retaliated by starting a whispering campaign that
Alfreda’s mother was the daughter of a tradesman and not one
of the One Hundred at all. I caught myself spitefully thinking
that at least someone else was getting a taste of Georgiana’s
medicine and then felt guilty when I found Alfreda crying in
the same closet I’d found Charlotte in a few weeks ago.

As for the Dianas, they seemed oddly distant and fierce.
One night at dinner old Bertie went to remove a plate from the
Dianas’ table and Andalusia Beaumont snatched it away from
her, sinking her nails so deeply into Bertie’s arm that Gillie had
to be called to make her release her grip.

“They’ve gone into ‘Hunt training,’” Sarah told me on the
eve of the equinox. “Best stay away from them. If I was you, I’d
go into town and visit your fellow,” she added wistfully. I often
thought Sarah wished she had her own “fellow” to visit, and
that she was taking a little vicarious pleasure in my fictitious
relationship.

“He says he’s coming tomorrow,” I confided to her, weary of the secretive atmosphere. I’d begun to fear that Raven
wouldn’t come and that I’d be stuck in this stultifying mausoleum forever.

But when I woke up the next morning, I felt a change in the
air coming in through the window beside my bed. It smelled . . .
green
. Like living things. I sat up in bed and looked out the window. Overnight all the slush had melted from the lawn. The river had broken free of its ice and shimmered in the morning sun.
Even the dark menace of the Blythe Wood was lightened by a
sprinkling of tender green amidst the darker green of the pines.

Daisy and Helen crowded into bed with me and pressed
their faces against the window. “Isn’t that funny,” Daisy said,
her breath steaming up the windowpanes. “Today
is
the first
day of spring. It’s as if the woods
knew
.”

I shivered at the idea of the woods
knowing
anything.
“High time,” Helen said, dismissing Daisy’s fancy with
a flip of her braid. “Daddy sent me a new spring dress from
Paris.”
At breakfast there was a posy of violets at each table, with a
handwritten note that read “Happy Spring! From the Sharps of
Violet House.” While the girls exclaimed over how kind it was
of Miss Sharp’s aunts to send us flowers, I stared at my place
setting. Lying on my plate was a letter postmarked from Scotland. I picked it up with shaking hands and nearly cut myself
with the butter knife I used to open it.
“Ava’s gotten a love letter,” Helen remarked drily.
But this was even better than a love letter.
Dear Miss Hall
, the letter read,

I was most interested to receive your enquiry about
the book A Darkness of Angels, especially coming from
Evangeline Hall’s daughter. I knew your mother well and
I was most terribly grieved to hear of her death. I thought
of her recently when I found a copy of A Darkness of
Angels here at Hawthorn. I believe she would have
wanted me to bring it to you personally. As luck would
have it, I am planning a voyage to the colonies in April.
I think it is best that I bring the book with me. I will wire
to you when I have embarked and make arrangements
for our meeting. In the meantime, I urge you to tell no
one about our correspondence. For reasons I will explain
later I prefer that no one know I am travelling with the
book. I look forward to meeting you in April.

Yours,
Herbert Farnsworth
Archivist, The Hawthorn School

“Ava!” Sarah’s voice at my ear penetrated my daze as I was
reading the letter over a second time. “Dame Beckwith is making an announcement.”

I looked up to see Dame Beckwith standing on the dais
commanding the room to attention with her penetrating gaze.
I caught her eye guiltily and stuffed the letter into my pocket.
She nodded as if she’d been waiting expressly for my attention
to begin.

“I would like to wish you all a happy first day of spring,” she
said. “The weather has certainly cooperated with the calendar.
In honor of the day I have decided to suspend normal classes.”

A great shout went up in the hall, a spontaneous release of
all the tension that had built up during the cold months. Even
Dolores Jager let out a little yip of excitement. Dame Beckwith
waited for the noise to die down before adding, “I’ve asked for
our teachers to hold a class on the signs of spring in the gardens
instead.”

There was a perfunctory moan, but it wasn’t heartfelt. One
class wasn’t much and at least it was outside. Dame Beckwith
looked around the room with that way she had of seeming to
meet each girl’s eyes and see into each girl’s heart.

“I understand that it’s been a difficult winter for some of
you, perhaps especially for those of you who are new here or
have suffered losses.” Her gaze had paused on Nathan. “But I
hope you will take these early signs of spring as a token that the
darkest days are past us. We have survived another winter. As
Cicero tells us,
Dum spiro spero
. While there is life there is hope
of a new beginning.”

She moved her eyes away from Nathan, and I saw that they
were shining with unshed tears. Perhaps she was telling Nathan that even though she had lost a daughter she was able to go
on because she still had him.

“There’s a little ritual we enact here at Blythewood on the
first day of spring to mark that new beginning. We reset and
wind all the clocks . . . ah, here is our clockmaker now.” She lifted her chin and waved her hand to the back of the Great Hall. I
turned with everyone else, my heart thudding. Could it be . . . ?

At first my heart sank with disappointment. A stooped old
man tottered into the hall, his back bowed under the weight of
a heavy toolbox.

“Mr. Humphreys will be making his way around the place
all day. Please stay out of his way, girls, and make him and his
assistant feel welcome.”

Assistant?
Coming in behind old Mr. Humphreys, carrying two more
toolboxes, a tweed cap pulled low over his eyes, was a tall strapping young man in a canvas smock. He glanced around the
room, sunlight reflecting off the round lenses of his spectacles,
until he found me. The smile he gave me felt like sunlight piercing the drear fog of the last few weeks.
“Do you know that
workman
?” Helen asked, her lip curling
on the word
workman
. I looked at her to see if she really didn’t
recognize him. But all Helen saw was a lowly servant sent to
fix something. She would never look past the worker’s smock
and recognize the Darkling we’d met in the woods. I glanced
at Daisy, but she was busy pilfering food for the sprites. Only
Sarah guessed that the clockmaker’s assistant was my “beau,”
but that was all right. She didn’t know that he was a Darkling.
Relieved, I turned back to catch Raven’s eye again and
somehow convey that I’d find him—but I saw that someone
else had recognized him. It was Nathan, who was glaring at
the clockmaker’s assistant with a look of pure hatred. Nathan
glanced from Raven to me, his lip curled in a cruel grimace.
Then he fled the hall into the North Wing.
Raven stood watching him go while Mr. Humphreys talked
with Dame Beckwith. My tablemates were cheerfully discussing what changes of wardrobe they needed to make for the outdoor class.
“Come along, Ava,” Helen was saying to me. “I know your
grandmother sent you a new dress from Paris because my
mother said they went shopping together. We might as well
make ourselves look pretty even if the only males to see us are
an ancient workman and his assistant. Nathan seems to have
disappeared as usual.”
“Someone should go after him,” I said, getting to my feet. I
saw Raven bend down and whisper in old Mr. Humphreys’ ear.
Then with a sharp glance toward me, Raven followed Nathan
into the North Wing. Was he trying to tell me to follow him?
Or had he gone after Nathan to keep him from revealing his
identity? Either way, I had to go find them.
“I don’t need to change,” I told Helen. “I’ll meet you in the
garden later.”
“If you’re going after Nathan perhaps I should go, too,” Helen remarked querulously. “I’ve known him longer.”
Mercifully, Sarah restrained her. “I think it’s better if Ava
goes alone,” Sarah said, giving me a knowing look over Helen’s
head. Clearly she thought I had an assignation with my
beau
.
“Why don’t I help you unpack that dress? You might need help
pressing its ruffles.”
I shot Sarah a grateful look and hurried from the hall into
the North Wing. With classes cancelled for the day it was deserted. I started down the hall but halfway down I heard a noise
coming from Miss Frost’s classroom. Miss Frost hadn’t budged
from her room since the night I’d followed her into the dungeons, so I doubted it was her. I peered cautiously around the
door frame and found Raven standing in front of the specimen
cases, his face drained of color.
“I know,” I said, coming quietly into the room. “It’s awful . . .”
He turned to me, his eyes wide and glassy. “It’s an abomination. What kind of monster would do this to poor innocent
creatures?”
I shook my head. “Miss Frost seems to think that she’s
somehow honoring the memory of her mentor—”
“
Honoring?
” Raven spit the word out of his mouth as if it
were a piece of rotten meat. “Do you honestly think
this
has
anything to do with
honor
?”
“No!” I cried, stung by the way he was looking at me. “My
roommate saved one of the sprites and we brought her to Gillie last week to have her wing fixed. Gillie has been tending a
whole conflagration in his quarters. And a lot of people in the
Order think this is wrong.”
“And yet they let it go on,” Raven said in an icy voice. “Do
you know what happens to a lampsprite’s spirit if her body isn’t
allowed to disintegrate back into the air?”
I shook my head, but Raven wasn’t looking at me. He was
opening one of the glass doors and gently unpinning a sprite.
As he cradled it in his hands a tear dropped from his eye onto
the creature. He crossed to the window, opened it, and brought
his hand up to his lips so close I thought he meant to kiss the
tiny creature, but instead he gently blew on it. The sprite fell
apart into dust that swirled in the air. A bit of it landed on me
and I heard a voice piping inside my head.
Thank you for releasing me, Darkling.
A translucent image of a sprite flickered briefly in the air
above our heads and then vanished into the breeze. I felt a
tremor, as if the earth below my feet was shaking, and then
I
was shaking, trembling uncontrollably. Raven turned to me,
startled, then wrapped both his arms around me and pulled me
tightly to his chest.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured into my ear. “I forgot the effect a
spirit’s passing could have on a human. You’re feeling the space
between the worlds. It will pass in a moment.”
His hands moved over my back and arms, brushing off the
sprite dust and warming my skin. The chill vanished, but his
hands felt so good on me that I didn’t tell him that. Instead,
when he brushed his fingers across my face I covered his hand
with mine and leaned my cheek into the bowl of his palm. I felt
as though he held all of me in his hand—as he had gently cradled the tiny sprite—and as if I might as easily disintegrate at a
touch of his lips.
Then his lips were on mine, and instead of disintegrating, I
felt heat surge though me, from my lips to my toes, lighting up
every molecule in my body. I’d never felt so . . .
whole
.
His hand moved to the back of my neck, gently cradling my
head to bring me closer to him. I wrapped my arms around his
back and felt the soft velvet of his wings straining against his
smock, ready to burst through the thin fabric. I wanted them to;
I wanted him to carry us away from here, back to his nest. But
then I remembered why I’d called him here: the
tenebrae
lurking
in the dungeons. I needed him to help me get rid of them.
Reluctantly, I pulled out of his embrace, put one hand on
his chest and one on his lips. As I did I saw something flicker
over his shoulder. Had his wings broken free?
But then the flicker resolved into a flash of steel—a knife
blade slashing through the air toward Raven’s throat.
I screamed and struck at the blade with my bare hands.
Cold steel sliced into my skin. Raven whirled around, his wings
now splitting his smock and unfurling so fast they knocked me
backward against the windowpanes. My vision blurred for a
moment. When it cleared I saw Nathan holding a blade to Raven’s throat.
“You’ve taken enough of our women, fiend! You can’t have
Ava—and you’re going to give me back my sister!”
“We don’t have your sister, frailing! She wandered into
Faerie.”
“It’s true, Nathan. I saw her there on the solstice.”
“And you didn’t tell me?” Nathan shifted his eyes toward
me without moving his dagger from Raven’s throat.
“There was no point. We’ve been trying to find a way to get
her out—”
“We? You’ve been consorting with this monster? Listening
to his lies?”
“They’re not lies, Nathan. Everything we’ve been told about
the Darklings is a lie! There’s a book that tells the truth—
A
Darkness of Angels
. I got a letter from the librarian in Scotland
today saying he’s bringing it to New York. Raven says it will
prove the Darklings aren’t evil—”
“Raven?”
Nathan sneered, pressing the blade deeper into
Raven’s throat. I saw him flinch and his wings flex. Why didn’t
Raven knock the blade from Nathan’s hands? I knew he was
strong enough. But then I noticed a trail of smoke rising off the
blade and winding around Raven. “I didn’t know you monsters
had
names. But I have learned a lot about you.” He twisted the
blade and the coils of smoke tightened around Raven, making
him wince in pain. “I’ve even learned to use the shadows to entrap you.”
“Shadow magic is strictly forbidden, Nathan. Don’t you remember what Mr. Jager said?”
Nathan sneered. “Do you think I care about the rules when
it comes to getting my sister back? You wouldn’t care either,
Ava, if this monster didn’t have you under his sway.”
“He’s not a monster and I am not under his
sway
.”
Nathan turned to me, his gray eyes clouded over, something
dark writhing behind them. “Then you’re a traitor. You’ve betrayed us,” he snarled, his upper lip curling away from his teeth,
letting out a wisp of smoke.
“You stupid boy,” Raven said coldly. “You’re the one who
has betrayed your kind. By using shadow magic you’ve let the
tenebrae
inside you—and let them into Blythewood.”
“Shut up!” Nathan cried, twisting the dagger. Raven let out
a cry and sank to his knees. “You’re lying. You’re going to get
Louisa back for me. Now!”
“Nathan . . .” I took a step forward but Nathan twisted the
blade and snarled at me.
“Stay back. If you come any closer I’ll make him pay. I can’t
trust you not to try your chime magic on me.” He looked wildly
around the room, his eyes coming to rest on the glass specimen
case. “There.” He waived the blade in the direction of the case.
“Open it up.”
“I don’t know what you—”
“Stop lying! I saw you go in there one night. Open the
case. You can stay down there until I get back with Louisa.
Then we’ll see if you’re just this monster’s victim or a traitor.
Open it, I say, or I’ll make this fiend wish he were dead.” He
twisted the blade and Raven writhed in pain. I quickly ran to
the case and opened it. A dark shape billowed out of it, filling
my mouth with smoke. I turned to beg Nathan to reconsider,
but he was already shoving me into the choking darkness. I
fell to my knees and heard the door slam behind me, sealing
me inside with the shadows.