Chapter Eight
The little gold bell chimed her wish to exit at the gate, the small sign above it reading: Ring If You Wish to Depart. Alora stepped back as the gate swung toward her.
“Hello!” she said, when the guard was revealed. “I—”
The pinched expression beneath his crimson helm stilled her.
“Pull up your hood, Miss Pennigrim. Hurry! Quicker than that!”
Alora’s fingers fumbled with her hood, catching in her hair. She trembled all over merely because of the trembling she heard in his voice. “Whatever is the matter?”
“You’re late. It’s dusk. And if you don’t rush away now, I’m frightened you’ll never leave.”
“Never leave?” The hood drooped low over her eyes, obscuring her vision, but from far down the lane she thought she saw them. Others like her, dressed in golden cloaks.
“Don’t let anyone see your face. He’ll call you in on breach of contract. Also, thank you for the iced tea. Did you add hibiscus? It was quite nice.”
Alora accepted the empty bottle shoved into her hands as easily as she accepted the mild shove to her back. She'd not had a say in either and both were done with before she could say anything at all.
She hurried down the lane.
Dusk had indeed fallen. Shadows draped across the stones, deepening in the thickness of the forest. They brought with them a cool reprieve from the summer’s heat, but Alora didn’t think the gooseflesh rising on her arms were from any change in temperature.
Golden cloaks neared. Golden cloaks from which extended pairs of arms holding tight to brass lanterns casting circles of swaying light.
Six lanterns, so far as she could see, not traveling together but staying apart, though clearly their destinations were the same.
How would it look to them, she wondered, to see another dressed the same but without a lantern and going in the opposite direction?
Would they question it? Would it even matter?
She allowed herself a glimpse of the man nearing: his fine trousers and pristine loafers, the buttons of his suit jacket reflecting the light of his lantern.
But his cowl was pulled nearly as low as her own, and so she didn’t see his face—just as she hoped he didn’t see hers. She hurried past him, looking down.
The next person she came upon was a woman, taller than her, with black stockings and delicately heeled shoes.
She walked slowly, likely because her choice of shoes were difficult to maneuver on the glitter-spewing stones, and Alora quickly ducked her head when she noticed the cowl of the woman's shift in her direction.
The moths were out. They fluttered from the trees, their tufted white wings beating beneath Alora’s hood until she batted them away, sending them on. They flocked about the lanterns now, the only brightness in an ever-deepening sky.
Three, four, five, six. The last of the lanterns passed her by, the members of Opulence Mansion moving on without questioning her presence.
Alora breathed a sigh of relief—only it caught at its end.
Her steps slowed. She squinted. And then her mouth formed a perfect circle as an infernal sea of bobbing lanterns came into view.
This wouldn’t do. They took up the entire road. If she tried to squeeze through them, would she even manage? She couldn't keep her eyes on her feet and maneuver through a crowd without knocking into at least one person. Why, why, why must she have stayed to watch the dancers’ performance?
Alora hesitated for a heartbeat more, staring at the mob of golden-clad members closing in before doing the only thing she thought might save her.
She abandoned the lane.
She disobeyed every flashy sign—and pushed into the woods.
The trees lining the lane to Opulence Mansion had grown tall—taller than anywhere else in Renwick Forest—and the white canopy was thick, blocking almost all light.
Flickers of it stuttered across her vision as lanterns passed by where she hid.
There were many, many more than she expected, and for the first time, she wondered if there was anyone she knew hidden beneath those draping hoods.
Her hand shifted, coming in contact with something like velvet.
She pulled it away, thinking it only moss, until a cool light began to glow.
Alora tore her gaze from the lane to examine the trunk of the tree she’d hidden behind. To see a Moonflower now open at her touch.
Its petals were softly pointed, silver and shimmering, and when she touched it again, glittering particles rose from a silver center.
She scanned the remainder of the trunk, finding more closed flowers.
She brushed the petals of another and pushed back her hood when it unfurled its cold light.
One by one, she went, tapping her way along the tree until its bark was no longer shadowed but gleaming, lit from blooms claiming residence along its length.
The most enchanting lane, indeed.
A twig snapped in the dark. Alora glanced over her shoulder at the sound. The lane may have been lantern-lit, and the tree beside her glowing with Moonflowers, but the remainder of the forest hadn’t awakened yet. It was still steeped in the coming night.
She squinted into the darkness. Another Moonflower unfurled, this one all its own, deep in the dark. Still, she saw nothing. A stag probably grazed, or an overfed rabbit.
But there were other things that came out in the forests at night, and these were the things she’d been told to fear.
Ms. Merryweather, the stable master, had been the first to inform her.
When Alora had purchased George nearly two years ago, she’d warned about them.
The shadow beasts—specter wolves—that had moved in from the snow-topped Indigo range some years ago, drawn to the enchantment of Enver.
But now she knew it likely wasn’t Enver they were attracted to, but Opulence.
No other place was so thickly enchanted.
She glanced back to see if the lane was safe yet. It wasn’t.
Another twig snapped, this one nearer. And then the gruff exhale of an animal, much bigger than herself. Alora spun toward the noise, eyes scanning wildly. “It’s only a stag,” she whispered, hoping it was true. The crowd had nearly gone; she only needed to survive a little longer.
But fate played its winning hand against her, and Alora barely managed to imagine a knife in her hand when the black creature stepped within the flowers’ glow.
She screamed, stopped, and stumbled back, hands over her heart, the knifepoint somewhere near her ear. It was a horse, only a horse, and hopefully her scream would be mistaken for an owl’s screech and not be investigated. She looked up to the dark rider perched atop it.
They drew alongside her, and try as she might, she couldn’t make out the face beneath the black hood. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears.
“What are you doing here?” demanded the rider, gruff and rasping. “Renwick isn’t safe at night. Or any time for that matter.”
A whisper of pain blighted the shell of her ear. Alora lowered the knife. Inwardly, she tried to match the voice to anyone she might know and came up empty.
“The lane was congested,” she said, rather lamely, her hand lifting and coming away bloodied. More Moonflowers opened. Soon, the forest was aglow with silver light. Alora watched the rider’s hood shift as he glanced up the road.
Masked.
His attention returned to her, and that’s when she knew. She’d seen him before. Or, at the very least, someone just like him.
“It isn’t now,” he said, a clear invitation for her to leave.
One she should have leapt to take but didn’t.
“You were in Opulence Mansion. Speaking with Master Merridon.” A trickle of warmth ran down her neck.
If she was wrong, then he could deny it.
But she didn’t think she was. His build was the same beneath the high-collared coat.
Was he also a part of the guard then? A patrol?
Without warning, the rider swung down from his horse.
Frightened she’d said something she shouldn’t, Alora scurried backward until her back hit the trunk of the tree.
It startled her, though not nearly so much as the masked rider stalking toward her.
He towered above her when he neared, his leather-clad fingers skating along the length of her neck to her ear.
Wincing at the sting, she felt him apply pressure to the small wound.
“What did this?”
Alora made to tuck the knife behind her, but he caught her hand in his, bringing both into the glow.
Silence stretched, one in which she really did hear an owl’s screech. Still his hands remained on her, warm on her wrist and pressed to her ear. She desperately tried—and failed—to make out his features behind the mask and beneath the hood, her heart bounding wild.
“A knife is a poor choice if you don’t have the skill to wield it. Don't leave the lane again,” he said, not verifying in any way he'd recognized her too.
He released her wrist, granting her the courage she needed to step aside, freeing her wound from the pressure of his grip and her body from the nearness of his. She swallowed, relieved he didn’t come after her, and lifted her hood.
“I’ll make sure to learn the use of it before we meet next,” she said, a little bit ominous.
The rider dipped his head, and matching tone for tone, said, “Looking forward to it, Miss Pennigrim.”
***
“So, it was him, after all!” said Alora to Mrs. Flops, relaying all she'd done and seen. “Quite mysterious, isn’t it?” She scratched along the creature’s soft head while they lounged upon the sofa.
She’d eaten dinner, quick and alone, and now she sat, notepad on her lap, creating a list of all she wished to place on order tomorrow.
It wasn’t that much different from how her nights were usually spent, aside from the discomfiting way she kept checking her notes, the measurements of the room sliding right out of her head from one moment to the next.
She'd never had this happen before, and hoped she wasn’t coming down with something.
“But will Miss Sherry have the wallpaper I want? That’s the problem, isn't it? Sometimes her patterns are so busy.” Another pet for Mrs. Flops.
“What do you think he was doing in the woods? Hunting for lurkers?” And finding one.
Her eyes strayed to the knife, where she’d placed it on the mantle. She looked hurriedly back.
Triple checking, she wrote her notes for the carpenter, then the carpeteer.
“I wonder about the gate guard too. Such a funny fellow. You should have seen how bothered he was by my late departure. You might never leave, he said.” She scoffed to the rabbit like it was all a big joke, but really, a bitterness filled her insides at the memory of it.
And she was old enough to know what it was.
Intuition.
“You don’t think...” she trailed. “Those performers. They’re allowed to leave. Aren’t they?”
The clock hanging against her wall chimed, announcing her bedtime with a whittled bird, a flower in its beak.
Alora worried her lip before scooting the rabbit off her lap and heading toward the terrace.
She opened the door to the summer air, stepping out until the breeze rustled her hair and the moon touched her skin.
Her hand lifted to her ear, clean now and scabbed, unable to avoid the memory of the rider’s fingers against it—though, she didn’t try very hard.
Alora smelled flowers all around. Because they were all around.
In pots, in baskets, and climbing up the handmade trellis.
Mrs. Flops had followed her out, already taking advantage of low-hanging berries.
Alora had adopted the creature after discovering her doing the same thing—only those bushes had belonged to a furious woman, and those berries had been reserved for pie. Alora did not bake pies.
She stared off toward the west, to where she knew Opulence Mansion to be, and could just make it out if she really tried.
Lennox had seemed well enough, happy even.
Surely a prisoner, even a paid one, wouldn't be so joyful? And comments like ‘‘remain unseen’’, '’breach of contract’’, and ‘’never leave’’ could be interpreted all sorts of ways.
Even if she’d done everything wrong: remaining within the mansion during operating hours, allowing everyone to see her face and know her name, what could be the worst thing to happen?
She’d lose the account. A blow to her dreams, but certainly not the end of everything.
A poor choice of words by a frazzled guard, nothing more.
Alora climbed into bed that night and, after drinking a concoction to cure the indigestion from which she was sure she suffered, smiled contentedly into her pillow. Tonight, she would dream of her very own shop and nothing—no one—else.