Chapter Thirteen
The Tightening Noose
‘A simple stitch that loops back upon itself to form a puckering knot, excellent for securing the start or end of a piece, or for borders and edging, as a way to prevent the fraying of the fabric.’
—An Exhaustive Compendium of Stitches
The morning after the reading, I awoke to Baldbeak tapping at my bedroom window, as usual. He had brought some friends, the whole flock of them from the looks of it, and they were all peering in at me.
I swung my feet out of bed and onto the carpet, aware of the ache in my limbs.
In the small spoonful of sleep I had managed to attain, my dreams had been confused.
Had it really been Patrick last night? If it had been, surely he would have found a way to talk to me?
Could he get me out of here? Or, as had happened when I left Quell with Milady, would I be leaving my situation here for one that was even worse, orchestrated for his own purposes?
My breakfast had been placed on the little table by the armchair before I awoke, but by some miracle, I had finally been left alone, with no maid to be seen.
Honeycakes with raisins and a cup of tea, still hot.
I nursed the tea against my chest and carried the plate of honeycakes across the room.
My stomach was too knotted to welcome food. Baldbeak and his friends could feast.
I opened the casement window, letting in a shimmer of snow-soaked air. Baldbeak hopped from foot to foot.
“Are you cold?”
The nights grow colder. He fluffed himself up.
“I’m sorry you have to stay outside.”
I crumbled a honeycake onto the sill. Baldbeak snapped up the bulk of it, but more ravens swooped down upon seeing it, and they all fought to peck and gulp.
My friends, Baldbeak explained.
“Yes, hello. Nice to meet you, too. There’s plenty. Calm down.”
They shouldered and shoved each other for the crumbs, relentlessly honest in their pursuit of the food. Baldbeak watched them fondly.
I heard the door open and slammed the window shut.
There was no hiding what I had been doing, though—the room was filled with the cold, old-blood smell of snow.
The maid assigned to watch me came in—Cattin; I had asked her name the day before.
Her eyes went to me, then the window, but she didn’t comment on it.
“Filthy things,” she said mildly when she caught sight of the ravens.
“Are all the … guests still here?” I asked her.
“Most of them.”
Most of them? The thought that Ban Morin might still be here, that I might bump into him down one of the long corridors, made me feel sick for reasons I could not quite define to myself. I leaned against the sill and started picking at the skin around one of my fingernails.
“You stop that,” said Cattin. “You want Milady to scold you for not keeping your hands tidy?”
“I can’t help it. There’s a bit hanging off.”
“Here.” She took my hand. “Stop nibbling at it. You’re making it worse.” She drew a pair of scissors from her pocket and snipped off the hangnail. A bright bead of blood spread spiderish legs in the whorls of my fingerprints.
“Ouch.”
“Well, better than peeling all the skin off yourself.” She put away her scissors. “I’m to help you dress and then take you to see Milady. She has engaged a lady’s maid for you. A proper one, all the way from Quell, no less!”
“Oh,” I said dully.
She patted my hand. “It’s a good thing. You will have one companion, rather than the rest of us taking turns.”
I gave her a weak smile. She was kind.
“Now, let’s get you ready. Would you like the green today or the puce?”
“I’d like to stay away from anything with a name like ‘puce.’”
“Green it is.”
I entered Milady’s chambers reluctantly when I had dressed. She sat in her armchair, sipping at a cup of tea. A diminutive figure stood beside her in a plain gray gown.
“Ah, Netta,” she said pleasantly. “I have engaged a private lady’s maid for you, to help with your toilette.”
I had spared the other woman barely a glance, so focused was I on Milady—in the same way you focus on a dangerous animal, to anticipate its next move—but now I looked, just as Milady lowered her eyes to her teacup. Familiar bright brown eyes glinted at me from under a white mobcap.
Mieka!
She put a finger to her mouth, warning me to be quiet.
When Milady turned back to her, she was smiling again.
I didn’t know how she managed to make her sharp, clever face look so bland, but anyone looking at her now would probably have labeled her as being a bit simple.
Milady certainly seemed to have decided so, as she spoke to her a little more slowly than she would normally.
“Perhaps … What was your name again, dear?”
“Matilda, my lady,” said Mieka, bobbing a quick, deliberately clumsy curtsey.
“Perhaps Matilda will succeed where the other maids have not. She comes highly recommended, particularly when it comes to the dressing of hair. Which is what we need most, of course.” She stood and reached out to smooth my Hair from my brow. It flinched from her touch.
“Yes, Milady,” I forced myself to say. I even managed an approximation of a smile. Milady took my hand in hers and patted it.
“Excellent. Now, Matilda will accompany you to your chambers and familiarize herself with your things.”
I felt like I would burst as we walked back to my room together in silence, Mieka a few steps behind. My heart beat against my ribs as if it was trying to escape. As soon as we had closed the door behind us, I spun round and hugged her as tightly as I could.
“Mieka.” I could barely get the words out. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“Where’s your bird?”
I held her at arms’ length, blinking back my tears. “She won’t let Baldbeak in the house,” I said. “He’s living in the trees outside. Oh, Mieka, what are you doing here? How on earth did you get here? You don’t know what she’s like. It’s not safe.”
“Hush.” She sat on the bed and patted a spot beside her. “Patrick sent me.”
I froze.
“Patrick? Why?”
“I know you don’t believe me, but he really does want to help you.”
“Mieka,” I said. “He was fostered into my mother’s family.
There was some kind of fight, a betrayal …
I don’t know exactly what happened, but both Mother and Milady told me that he wants nothing more than to see our family destroyed.
How can I possibly trust him? If he really, genuinely wants to help, why didn’t he tell me any of that himself? ”
Mieka shook her head. “I don’t know about any of that. But he sent me, didn’t he?”
“I don’t trust him.”
She sighed. “That’s probably wise. But in this case, I think he really does intend to help. He paid me handsomely enough for it.”
“Mieka …” I hesitated. “Did you invite me to Plaguenight so that Patrick could talk to me there? Or to get me away from the Book Man’s while the fire was being lit? I have to know.”
“What?” Mieka’s brown eyes grew wide and indignant. “Why in Plague’s name would you think that?”
“You invited me out that one night, and I ran into Patrick while we were dancing, and got back to find the bookshop in flames. It just seemed such a coincidence.”
“What do you take me for?” she cried. “Of course not. I was so sorry to hear about the Book Man. Honestly. No, I didn’t know anything like that was going to happen. Do you have any idea who did it?”
She seemed sincere, but of course I was no real judge of that. “No, I don’t. I found fingernails on the floor …”
“So a mage, then? Could be some spellbook deal gone wrong …”
“You didn’t answer my question about Patrick at Plaguenight.”
“I swear, I didn’t know he would be there.
” She traced a cross over her heart with her finger.
“But he obviously has an interest in you, for whatever reason. He has ways of … keeping track of people. When you vanished, he found out where you had gone and sent me after you. And the woman was looking for a maid, anyway.” She snorted.
“The kind of woman who thinks a fine lady shouldn’t wipe her own bottom without a servant to help her.
I’m here to help you get away—although I’m not sure how, yet. ”
“With him, I suppose.”
“Well, yes.”
I stared at her.
“Don’t look at me like that. I wouldn’t have agreed to come if I didn’t care about what happened to you.”
“And what does Zlata think about all this?”
“Oh, she hates it,” said Mieka breezily. “But she let me go.”
“And you’re really here to help me get away?”
“If I can. Or at least keep you safe until we figure out how.”
I bit my lip. “I still have to find my mother. Or her book, at least. The Book Man told me he might know … have known where it was. In Spire, at a monastery. But Milady has a whole library full of spellbooks here, as well—and a secret room hidden in it. Doesn’t that seem odd to you?
She said she has been looking for Mother for years—maybe she found the book somehow, or …
” I huffed a frustrated breath. “Although why would the Temple be involved, then? Unless she was working with them as well? I just don’t know.
But I have to at least look in that room. I can’t just sit doing nothing.”
“No harm in looking,” Mieka agreed.
“They guard my room at night, but now that you’re here, if you can get me out after dark, we can have a look, and you can read them—at least enough to know what they are.”
Mieka chewed at a fingernail. “All right. I’ll see what I can do.”
There was a knock at the door. We sprang apart, and Mieka strode to the door. Another maidservant stood there, twisting her apron in her hands.
“Milady wants to see you,” she said.
I dressed quickly and scraped a brush through my Hair, Mieka helping me as best she could.
As I walked to Milady’s chambers, I felt the floor beneath me slope uphill, the carpet ruck itself into creases and hillocks below my feet, and the glims flutter and dim as I passed.
All in my head, I knew, but my Hair was tense and stiff as wire, and my empty stomach churned.