Chapter 8
The story went like this: Jonathan Abenthy was a brilliant young researcher with untamable curiosity and a penchant for scriptomantic travel. He used it to visit a world infested with the Aldervine, outside the bounds of the known worlds, which was already the highest crime. But then he brought the Aldervine back to Inverly, where it spread more quickly than the morning fog, leaving unfathomable destruction in its wake.
In the weeks that followed, there was a lengthy, public investigation. Journals were discovered in her father’s room that showed an obsession with Molly Blackcaster and the scriptomancers of her time. But the most damning piece of evidence came in the form of a statement put out by the College of Scriptomantic Arts itself, explaining how all scriptomancers were taught about the dangers of the Aldervine. It said that Jonathan Abenthy might have not traveled outside the known worlds with malicious intent initially, but he still made the decision to return to Inverly, knowing full well the risk.
There was no denying it was her father’s fault. In the span of days, every paper in Leyland ran his likeness, calling him a murderer, a vile criminal who deserved to rot. Maeve’s name was printed in several of the articles, saying she perished in Inverly.
She still remembered the moment she’d seen that first article. Headmistress Castlemaine had dragged her to her office at the Sacrifict Orphanage by the earlobe, then swatted her with a copy of the Herald . She called Maeve a bad omen and threatened to turn her out, which she never followed through on. Why would she when the woman received a tidy sum of hallions from the Leylish government for each orphan?
“You will never speak of your father again,” Castlemaine had snarled, pointing to her blackboard. “Now write it in chalk one thousand times.”
“One thousand?”
“Or until your fingers bleed.”
Maeve barely made it to seven hundred before her skin broke. Seven years later and she still had a scar from the blisters.
She picked at it now as she brought that finger to the blotted-out sepiagraph, picturing the dimples that dotted her father’s smile, that hole in his shirtsleeve on their last night together.
The College of Scriptomantic Arts didn’t allow children, but before Inverly, he’d inquired about a pass for Maeve to visit. He wanted her to love this place as he did, to work here beside him and make the name Abenthy as famous as the name Blackcaster.
Now it was, she supposed.
After Inverly, it took a whole month before she began to hate her father for what he’d done. And now it had been seven years—seven years of being alone, of hearing her father’s name spat from strangers’ lips like a curse. Her hatred felt like it was etched with a rusted quill knife into each of her rib bones.
Would proving his innocence ever change that? Perhaps not. Perhaps coming here was a mistake. But then if she wasn’t here, she would be sitting in her sad, lonely flat in Alewick listening to laughter bleeding through the walls while she packed her shoddy suitcase with items from a life she despised. Then she would have fled Gloam, and nobody would have cared, because she never let anybody get close enough to care.
Maeve groaned and pinched a spot on her forehead. There was only so much feeling sorry for herself she could take in one night.
Footfalls echoed. Three young men passed by in the tight hall, the last with a wine bottle tucked beneath his arm. He caught Maeve’s eye and his lips slipped up, showing off an attractive smile.
“You must be one of the new apprentices. We’re heading to the central courtyard.” He patted the bottle. “Want to join us?”
Maeve could say yes. She could follow this boy to his party, drink his wine, maybe even slip into the shadows to whisper secrets in each other’s ears. And maybe, with the wine loosening her tongue, she would whisper the kind of secrets that would make him call an officer of the constabulary. “I can’t. Sorry.”
“Perhaps another time,” he said as he and his friends disappeared down the hall.
“Perhaps.”
Maeve found Eilidh’s room without any more hallway propositions, a dark space dappled by moonlight. She managed to light a candle without singeing off her fingertips, then swept her gaze around the room.
A bed was pushed into one corner, another small bed beside it. There were two dressers and two old writing desks covered in ink splatters. One of the desks was stacked with papers. In fact, that whole side of the room was already stuffed full of books and suitcases, with a pair of lace knickers hanging from a dresser knob. Maeve stepped to the desk and grazed her fingers over the rim of an uncapped inkwell spilled over a copy of the Herald .
It seemed Eilidh P. Hill had a roommate.
Maeve collapsed on the opposite bed, her head in her hands. Her flat in Alewick had been her sanctuary because she had it all to herself. How was she supposed to exist living beside another person?
As she thought it, the door opened, and a tall woman wandered in and flung herself onto the other bed, propping her head in her hand. A waterfall of thick black hair spilled onto the pillow. “Hello there. I’m your roommate, Miss Ferro, but do call me Nan. I can call you Eilidh, right?” she said in a smooth, fashionable voice, then fished a small pot of rouge from her pocket and smeared the bright paste over her lips. “I suppose you’re dying to know all about me.”
“I really don’t—” Maeve started.
“My grandfather was from Barrow,” Nan said, checking her nails. “A sourpuss of a man. It’s why my father moved to Leyland before the doors burned. That’s where my mother’s family is from, though old Mum spent most of her time in Inverly before meeting my father. She used to sit as a model for some of the great painters there. It’s where I got my cheekbones.” Nan fluttered a hand at her face.
Maeve didn’t care where she got her cheekbones. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but…do you think I might be able to switch to a single room?”
Nan’s eyes flew wide. “Have you seen any of them? They have closets the size of two kidney beans squished together, and they’re all already assigned.” She rolled onto her back and put her hands behind her head. “Besides, I think we’re going to be great friends,” she said, smiling to herself.
“I’m not here to make friends.”
“Dear me, you’re a load of fun, aren’t you?” Nan pushed up and adjusted her blouse, then the waist of a pair of men’s wide-leg trousers that looked fashionable on her slim form. She wiped her teeth on her sleeve, then tied a silk scarf around her neck.
“Are you leaving?”
“I’m heading to the Groggery here on the grounds. It’s mostly for couriers who go to have a pint and play knucklenook and barter tools. They don’t like to let in apprentices, but I happened to make friends with the barkeep this afternoon. It sounds like the perfect place to get gossip and forget the fact that my nose will be trapped inside dull books for the foreseeable future.” She stepped to the door, then motioned for Maeve to follow. “Come on.”
Surely she wasn’t serious. “It’s late, and we start classes tomorrow.”
Nan rolled her eyes. “Don’t be boring. I want to introduce you to a few people. You don’t have to say anything. You could sit across from me and stare glumly at the ceiling if you wish.”
She couldn’t believe that Nan was pressing the matter. “I’d rather not sit across from anyone or meet anyone new. I meant it when I said that I’m not here to make friends.”
“Fine. Be a sad potato if you want. But if we have to room together for the next two terms, I’m going to make it my mission to become your good friend, whether you like it or not.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and ducked out.
Maeve pressed her palms to her eyes, thankful that was over.
She wanted nothing more than to let sleep take her for a few hours, but she dragged herself up to survey her side of the room.
A dresser was stocked with a single uniform skirt, a blouse that looked too small, then a camisole fit for a ten-year-old boy. Squeezing her breasts inside would take strategic creativity. She lifted a pair of regulation knickers, wrinkling her nose at the rough-spun wool that conjured images of her life at the orphanage.
Maeve moved to her writing desk. A few packets of sealing wax granules sat on top, along with a quill knife, a bone letter-fold stamped with the bead-eyed pigeon, and a stiff right-handed goose quill that would give her blisters for months. There were drawers filled with papers and a few pots of ink. Maeve uncorked and re-corked all of them, looking for god knew what.
She set the pots aside and pulled two printed sheets of paper from a bottom drawer. The first was titled A letter written by Molly Blackcaster to the first ever apprentice class at the College of Scriptomantic Arts.
It read:
On the morrow, thou shalt begin instruction in the five scribings. A form scribing to produce illuminations in ink, a sense scribing to twist perception, a memory scribing to ignite the mind’s eye, a seeking scribing to find a friend most dear, and a traveling scribing to bring a door to call. Taketh heed and mind thy ash, scriptomancer.
Maeve knew a few things scribings could do, but her father had never categorized them so eloquently. She slid the paper into the drawer, then lifted the second sheet, a curriculum for the fall apprentice term.
She would take four classes during weekdays: History of the Known Worlds, Pigment Lab, Fundamentals of Scriptomancy, and Methods of Chirography. Her nights were reserved for practice in the Scriptorium—the beating heart of these grounds, where her father had spent most of his days and many of his nights.
According to this paper, she was to report there tomorrow at eleven for an introductory lesson.
Tomorrow, she would have to walk into that building and pretend she hadn’t spent the past seven years hoping the place would spontaneously burn to the ground.
Bracing her elbows against the desk, Maeve put her face in her hands, breathing through her fingers from the pent-up nerves. It felt like a river of water was filling her lungs and she was drowning in the very air she breathed. The sensation grew worse when she thought of her life leading up to now—the hiding, the lies, the torturous years of solitude. A life she hated.
A life she could change , so long as she didn’t let her wretched feelings get in the way.
She forced her gaze up. If her old friend ’s name was somewhere in this place, she had to find it, no matter the cost. Yes—she would find it. She would dig the truth out with her teeth if it came down to it.
But what was the truth?
The question lingered in her mind. Was her father a good man? Did he love her until the bitter end? Did he regret what he did? Perhaps none of the articles were true, and he never even made it to Inverly the day the Written Doors burned. Perhaps he was framed—
Maeve’s hands dropped to her sides.
Up until now, she’d been so focused on the exact wording of that letter and whether or not her father was indeed guilty that she hadn’t given much consideration to anything else—or anyone else.
The idea rolled on the surface of her mind like a fresh drop of ink, and a new thought struck her—something that hadn’t occurred to her until this very moment. If her father didn’t destroy Inverly, it meant that someone else was guilty of the crime. Someone else released the Aldervine, destroying an entire world and decimating its inhabitants, then framed her father—an innocent man.
And they got away with it.