Chapter 23
“What do you mean he won’t be back for another two weeks?” Maeve stared at the pretty clerk seated at the front desk of the university in Barrow’s linguistics office.
“I meant just what I said. Professor Claryman is in the south meeting with a few prospective candidates.” The woman picked at her rouged lip.
“But for two whole weeks?”
“Our college is only seven years old. I’m sure you know how hard it is to find anyone with a linguistics background in Barrow that isn’t recruited by well-paying businesses first. It’s a small miracle Professor Claryman found candidates at all.” She pointed to a flyer for the Scriptomantic Exhibition hanging on the wall. “He’ll be back in time for the exhibition. You can try him then.”
Maeve fled the stuffy office, gulping in a lungful of the chill Barrow evening air.
Two weeks was too much time to sit around waiting to speak with Fion Claryman, but she didn’t know how to do a tracking scribing to hunt him down. There was no option but to wait until he returned.
Maeve left the office, then turned south, maneuvering through Barrow’s clean streets until she found herself beside the river Liss. A young man with dark hair and spectacles passed her by, and she tensed, thinking it was Tristan.
She’d left him sleeping in Molly’s Keep just this morning. He would have realized she stole his key by now. She frowned at the thought. Hopefully, it would make him angry enough to avoid her entirely for the next two weeks. She wasn’t sure she could go another hour feeling like she had in the attic room with him. It would drive her mad.
Hoping to push a confrontation with Tristan as far out as possible, Maeve stayed in Barrow until well past suppertime, then returned through her courier door when the moon was high.
Leyland was freezing, a light dusting of snow coating the ground. A deep shiver rolled through her. Her cloak had a couple of small rips from falling through the floor in Eldermoss Hall. Even though she’d managed to salvage it, her favorite material in the worlds was barely enough to keep her warm.
Hugging it tight around her, she left the square, then found the secret opening in the perimeter fence and slipped through, looking forward to her toasty room. But by the time Hawthorne House came into view, she halted, then rushed behind a nearby oak tree.
Tristan leaned one shoulder against the entranceway, a bottle of wine dangling from his gloved fingers.
He wore the same sapphire jacket, but it looked horribly disheveled, and his cloak was nowhere to be seen. His hair was mussed, sticking up everywhere. She remembered how it felt against her palms and clenched her fingers into fists. For a fleeting moment, she simply wanted to be a girl, without the kind of secrets that drew blood.
Tristan scanned the footpath near where she hid.
Before he might see her, Maeve raced into the woods like a coward. She picked her way around another residence hall, then through a copse of oaks. Snow coated her ankles. She had to get inside somewhere before her toes went numb. She could go to the Scriptorium, but it was straight east—clear across the grounds—and Tristan would come looking for her there.
Searching the trees, Maeve caught flickering lights coming from another building close by. She started toward it, then realized it was the Groggery. She’d avoided it up until now, but nobody in their right mind would think to look for her there.
Maeve picked her way through trees and over to the Groggery’s quaint entrance. The scents of ale and sweat wafted through the wooden door. The sounds of voices and bawdy laughter spilled from inside, but she forced her fingers to grip the door handle and turn it. Blessedly warm air enveloped her. The interior looked like an old Gloam tavern, with a dappled walnut bar and small tables in the back made from stacked barrels and partitioned by meager wooden dividers. They were filled with couriers drinking and chattering, their shirt necks unbuttoned, cloaks puddling against the stained floor.
Maeve felt her spirits lift at the sheer merriment, as if every ill thought had been banned from entering the premises. Best of all, nobody looked her way. Instead of panicking at the amount of people, the noise and commotion calmed her. A courier clapped another on the back. A group in one corner whooped over the last move in a heated game of knucklenook. Even the old barkeep had a smile lifting the corners of his mouth.
It seemed a shame now, standing amid such innocent revelry, that she’d allowed herself to be afraid of this. It seemed almost absurd to her.
She scanned the crowd and noticed Nan hunched over a pile of papers and books at a corner table, her back to the bar, tapping a quill nib against a well of ink.
“I thought that was you,” Maeve said, gliding into the chair opposite her roommate.
Nan jolted. When she realized it was Maeve, her eyebrows rose considerably. “I must have hit my head on the way in here, and now I’m in some twisted reality. I’m dreaming, right? I can’t believe my eyes. You’re here. You .”
Maeve gave a sheepish smile. “Surprise.”
“That’s one word for it,” Nan said, then gathered her mess of papers and books into a pile. Yellow slips stuck out from all the books.
They were the checkout slips from the Second Library, the ones Sibilla had shown her. “Have you won your courier key?”
“God, no. A friend checked all these out for me,” Nan said, then leaned toward her. “I’ve taken up the advice you gave me after the bonfire and started writing again—outside of scribing.”
“Poetry?”
She nodded. “And I plan to publish it. Under a pen name, of course. How do you think Murdina Stewart suits me?” She leaned back. “Or maybe Zelda Crawford? I’ve always thought I should have been named something brazen like Zelda.”
Maeve couldn’t believe Nan was writing. “Can I read it?”
Color bloomed across Nan’s cheeks. “Not yet. It’s not ready to share. Maybe in a week or two.” She shoved all the papers and books into her saddlebag, then shot up. “Oh! Let me get you a drink.”
Maeve didn’t want a drink, but Nan was up and speaking to the barkeep before she could get a word in. She returned in no time with a tall glass of honey-colored liquid that foamed at the top and smelled decidedly sour.
“Mead” was all Nan said, placing the tall glass directly in front of Maeve.
She stared at it.
“It’s not going to bite you,” Nan said.
Oh, but it might. Everyone around her, however, was tossing the liquid back, and they all seemed happy enough about it. Maeve lifted the glass and decided to give it a try. She took a small sip and coughed. “It has the flavor of what I imagine a city puddle might taste like.”
“But you’re smiling.”
Was she? Maeve took another sip. The second one went down easier. Her chest warmed pleasantly, and she let her limbs relax.
“So.” Nan leaned forward on her elbows. “Are you going to tell me why you’re here, or should I guess?” A coy smile spread across her painted red lips.
Her roommate was on the prowl for gossip. “I came because I didn’t feel like going back to the room just yet.”
“Does it have anything to do with this?” Nan pulled an envelope from her bag and placed it beside Maeve’s glass of mead.
Key thief was scrawled across the front in handwriting far too elegant to belong to anyone but Tristan.
Maeve lifted the letter. “You spoke to Tristan?”
“I wouldn’t exactly say that we exchanged words. He shoved that in my hand during luncheon in the mess hall. I tried to get information out of him, but he remained as mute as a statue, then stalked away rather swiftly.” Nan craned forward. “What in the worlds did you do to him, Eilidh?”
“Was he very upset?”
“I’ve never seen a man so agitated or worried.” Her eyebrow arched. “And dare I say, a touch heartsick.”
“Tristan is not heartsick.”
“If you say so,” Nan said, and folded her arms in front of her. She nodded at the letter with her chin. “Aren’t you going to open it? I won’t peek. I promise.”
Maeve didn’t believe her for a second.
She drummed her fingers against the envelope. She didn’t particularly want to open it, but then what if Sibilla returned the keys to Tristan and told him everything about dragging her from the room with the Aldervine? Perhaps that was why Tristan looked upset in the mess hall. Maybe this letter was a warning telling her that Sibilla had changed her mind and was planning to turn her in.
She was terrified of what she would find, but she cracked the seal and pulled it out, then braced herself for the furious words that she knew would be inside.
Dear Nobody Interesting,
I thought more about your advice on starting with a single word. After you fell asleep last night, I wrote for a while, which turned into three hours. When my hand cramped, I decided to try mixing a batch of scribing pigments that I haven’t attempted since before Cath. The recipe came to me in a flash of inspiration, and I was able to craft the pigment without touching my almanac once. Honestly, it scared me to death, but it also felt exquisite, like falling into an old chair after years away from home and finding the leather still molded to me. What I think I’m trying to say is thank you.
—Your Faithful Sheep
P.S. I hope my key served you well. Now would you kindly return it, or I’ll be forced to make you re-shoe a horse.
Maeve read it a second time, smiling to herself.
Sibilla wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the letter, and Tristan seemed to be in good spirits—mixing scribing pigments of all things. She wouldn’t believe it if it wasn’t staring back at her in his own handwriting.
Now he was probably worried out of his mind, wondering what happened to her in the library. And she’d acted like a complete fool and run from him.
She should find him and let him know she was all right.
“What does it say?” Nan tried to look over the top.
Maeve pulled the letter to her chest. “Strangely enough, it says that Nan should learn to mind her own business.”
A smirk grew on Nan’s lips. “At least Shea will be glad to know that Tristan likes you too much to murder you. You’ve lost your heart, haven’t you?”
Perhaps there was a way to seal someone’s mouth shut with a scribing. “I assure you that my heart is firmly inside my own chest.”
“Whatever you say.”
“You’re exasperating.”
“I’m aware of that, and you like it. Admit it,” Nan said.
Maeve couldn’t help herself and laughed, then pushed off her chair. “I need to get back.”
“Then I’ll walk you. I’ve been here for hours, and my back is killing me.”
Nan pried at Maeve endlessly about Tristan on the way to their room. Maeve didn’t give an inch. She was determined to keep what transpired between them in Molly’s Keep a secret—locked tightly away until some distant future moment when she wasn’t such a coward.
Tristan was gone from the front of Hawthorne House. The building stood stark against the moonlit oaks, the upper floors all lit up. Maeve checked Tristan’s window to see if his light was also on, but his room was dark. Their room, however, was not. A light flickered from inside their window, silhouetting a figure.
Maeve stepped forward, staring intently at their window.
“Bees in your throat?” Nan asked, nudging her.
“Shh. Not bees.”
Maeve counted the windows again, thinking she had made some error, but it was their room.
The light winked out.
Without hesitating, Maeve flew into the hall, then up the stairs, skidding to a stop in front of her door.
It hung open an inch.
A dull thudding sounded in her ears. She brought her fingers up and pushed the door the rest of the way.
The room was empty.
“What was that for?” Nan raced up behind her, out of breath.
“Someone was in our room.” Maeve lit the stub end of a chamber-stick and sent a spray of candlelight to the dark corners, but there was nothing there.
As quickly as she could, Maeve checked her own side of the room, opening her dresser drawers, looking beneath her bed. It was all orderly. Nothing was out of place like the last time.
Nan made a choking sound.
Maeve turned, her eyes flying wide. Nan stood rigid over Maeve’s writing desk, where a letter sat open. Ink spilled out from beneath the paper, rushing over the side of the desk and dripping to the floor. It looked like a river of blood. Above it, an arm had manifested from Oxblood ink, reaching up from the center of the paper, its liquid fingers clamped around Nan’s neck.
The hand pushed upward, arm elongating in an unnatural column of churning red ink, taking Nan with it until her toes dragged along the floorboards.
She sputtered, gasping for breath.
Maeve ripped off her ash satchel and tossed a pinch of dust at the ink manifestation, the letter. The arm dissolved into a splash of red ink, soaking Maeve’s desk and splattering the floor.
Nan stumbled and slipped in it, landing on her side.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Maeve knelt beside her, feeling around Nan’s windpipe. Nothing seemed broken. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so.” Nan choked out the words. She tucked her knees to her chin, shaking.
Tears streamed from Maeve’s eyes. “Stay put for a minute while I have a look around.”
She stepped over to the letter. The crematory ash had worked to null the scribing, but the paper was now completely covered with ink; Maeve couldn’t see the scriptomancer’s scribing—just like the last two letters. Whoever scribed them all must have been purposefully working the scribings to destroy the paper to keep their true handwriting a secret.
Maeve turned to Nan. “What did the letter say?”
Nan swallowed and winced. “Only one word: ‘leave.’?”
A shiver raced down Maeve’s spine.
“I think it would have killed me if you hadn’t dusted it with ash,” Nan said.
Maeve hugged her arms around her chest, feeling the same dread she’d felt in Alewick when she worried that someone might recognize her and hurt Mr.Braithwaite’s business, but tenfold. It wasn’t an inksmithy that she was risking this time.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Two weeks. She had two long weeks to wait until Claryman returned from the south.
Two weeks would mean more Oxblood letters opened by people she cared about—innocent people. She couldn’t stand to see Nan or anyone else hurt. She wouldn’t.
She had to leave.
Nan stood up slowly, leaning heavily on her bed. “I think my tailbone is done for,” she said, then pinched a wet section of her shirt and made a face. “It looks like someone doused my blouse with a bucket of blood. This will take all night to scrub out.”
“Mix a spoonful of turpentine with small thistle and a few drops of fletching oil, then let it soak overnight. The ink should rinse right out tomorrow morning.” Maeve rattled off Mr.Braithwaite’s recipe, then tossed her saddlebag on the only part of her bed not splattered with ink. She pulled a few smaller items from her dresser and stuffed them into the bag, not bothering with her unwieldy suitcase.
“What are you doing?” Nan asked.
“Going south. To stay with my sister for a little while until I sort some things out. She has a terrible case of gout, and she wrote a few days ago that she needs me.” Maeve said the first thing that came to her. “I’ll be back in a couple of weeks. If you see another blank envelope sitting around while I’m gone, rip it up immediately. Understand?”
“Rip it up? But…we need to tell someone.”
“ No ,” Maeve said. If Nan told the wrong person, she’d be putting herself in grave danger. “If anyone asks, pretend it was me who read the letter, then tore it up before anyone could see it. Tell them I left to visit sick family. Promise me, Nan.”
Nan appeared thoroughly confused, but she nodded.
Maeve exhaled. “I swear to you that I’ll explain everything when I return.”
If she ever returned. Right then, it wasn’t looking promising.
Maeve took a second long breath and swallowed back a wave of guilt. It was mixed with other tangled emotions that she had no time to sort through. She locked them tightly inside her chest where they would just have to remain. It was time to run away again. She tossed her saddlebag over her shoulder.
“What should I tell Tristan when I see him?” Nan asked.
Maeve’s heart lurched. “Tell him I’m sorry about losing his keys.”