Chapter 47
Chapter Forty-Seven
B riony
My sister remains on my mind for the rest of the day and all through lessons over the next two. At lunch break on Wednesday, we find Clare already in the canteen, hunched over a book.
“What are you reading?” I ask Clare, attempting to twist my head around to read the text.
“Oh,” she peers up at us, blinking behind her glasses, “I’m reading up on past trials.”
“The first trial is ages away,” Fly mutters, “and I don’t want to have to think about it until I’m forced to.”
“It’s not ages away. It’s three days,” Clare says. “And I want to be prepared.”
“How can we be?” I say.
Clare marks her page and closes the book. “I figure the academy trials have occurred every year for over five hundred, correct?” We both nod. “By this point, it must be pretty difficult to come up with anything original. I bet all the trials are just a variation on the very first few they devised.”
“How’s that helpful?” Fly says, grimacing as he chews a particularly tough bit of meat.
“If I can work out what the most common types of trials are, I can prepare for them,” she explains.
“That’s … not a bad idea,” I confess.
She nods. “Of course not.”
I stare at Clare and then down at her book, an idea forming in my mind. I push back my chair and stand up.
“Woah,” Fly cries. “What’s the hurry? Lessons don’t start for another twenty minutes.”
“I’m not going to lessons.”
“Right.” He nods. “Did the alcohol from the other night fry your brain? You can’t skip lessons.”
“I can and I am.”
“Well, sure you can , if you want to face the full force of Madame Bardin’s wrath. I hear she reduced Marcus London – one of the biggest and most hardy of men from Iron Quarter by the way – to tears. And that’s before she doled out his actual punishment for turning up to class ten minutes late.”
“I’m not scared of Madame Bardin.”
“It’s Professor Tudor’s lesson you’ll be missing, though.”
“I doubt he’ll even notice I’m not there.”
“But where are you going to go? What are you going to do? There’s nothing to do around here – especially when everyone else is in lessons.”
“I’m going to the library.”
I leave Fly speechless and gaping into space and hurry out of the canteen.
I haven’t visited the library yet. When I arrive at its twin metal doors, I suspect people rarely do. Inside the place is dark and gloomy, despite the long windows high up near the roof, and the air swirls with a thick mist of dust. It makes my eyes sting and has me coughing almost immediately. The large room itself – almost the same size as the Great Hall – is rammed with stacks of books, lined up like gravestones.
No librarian greets me, but there is a sign pinned to one of the first bookcases which indicates where different genres of books can be located. I run my eyes down the list past Fiction, Nonfiction and academic textbooks. There is nothing specifically about the academy, but I decide the history section may have something.
I weave in and out of the bookshelves, finding them jammed closer and closer together the further I walk, until soon I’m squeezing between them. It’s like a maze – a maze I swear is moving around me – because every time I hit a dead end and turn around, I swear the bookcases are in different places than they were before. I start to panic, fearing I’m going to be lost in this library and will never find my way out, the gloom becoming more oppressive and the dust more suffocating.
The shelves have not been well kept. Some are almost empty, while others have been jammed with books at all sorts of angles. Books also lie abandoned across the floor, discarded like dead birds – dead birds that trip me up and have me stumbling. There’s even a book caught up in the unused chandelier, thick cobwebs entombing the long-forgotten candles.
Finally, by some miracle and a lot of perseverance, I reach the history section of the library and find another sign, breaking the history genre into further sections – ancient, early and modern, and then under each of those more specific topics such as the Crystal Wars of the first century and the forming of the realm in the last millennia. Under modern history lies the history of the academy. The school has stood for the last five hundred years. As long as the realm itself – sorting the young people into their Quarters every year ever since.
I follow the sign’s instructions and find a bookcase dedicated to the academy. There are biographies of famous headteachers, tomes on the architecture and design of the buildings, several books on the most famous – and infamous – trials that have been held at the academy, and then finally something more useful – a book that promises to list every important event that has ever occurred at the academy, from its opening to the present day. Surely my sister would be listed – even just as an endnote, an appendix to more interesting events. Although somehow, I doubt it.
With very little hope in my heart, I pull the thick book from the shelf, dust billowing into the air as I do, and flip over the hardcover, bound in a faded cloth. More dust has me choking and when I can see through the tears, I find the year she was here in the index, and flick to the pages.
Seeing the year gilded at the top of the page has my breath catching in my throat and I am back there, standing at the train station, waving her off, so sure the next time she returned would be with good news, that her talents would be discovered and she’d whisk us all away to better places.
Instead, five months later, my father and I had returned to that train station, two lone figures, waiting for the arrival of her coffin in the sleet, a coffin nailed shut. They said it would be too distressing to see her body, that there was nothing left of her face.
I can still feel the cold rain biting against my face, freezing the tears in my eyes, the stench of alcohol from my father distinct and undeniable. A stench that would accompany him thereafter forever more.
The coffin itself had been plain, the cheapest of wood, rough and awkward, hammered together with little care or consideration. On the lid her name scrawled in dark ink. Amelia Besheba Storm.
It was so ugly. So plain. Swallowing up the most beautiful, the most radiant, of creatures. My sister never stopped smiling, no matter how tough things got, no matter how hungry or frightened she was. Sunshine seemed to pour from every single one of her pores, residing in the strands of her hair. And they placed her in that ugly box as if she was no one special at all.
The truth had hit me. My sister would never again take my hand in hers, never braid my hair, never sing to me, never hug me close and whisper in my ear, ‘it’s okay, Briony, everything is going to be okay’.
Bile sloshes in my stomach.
Things were never the same again. Things were never okay.
I trace my fingers over the numbers that form that year. I wish I could go back there. I wish I could beg her to run away with me, or at the very least advise her to keep her secret quiet, to stay hidden. I wish I could have saved her.
But even shadow weavers can’t roll back the hands of time. All I can do for her now is discover the truth – discover the truth and punish those responsible.
I run my finger down the page, scanning the information for my sister’s name and I see how my hand is shaking, and the hair on my arm is standing on end. Am I frightened? I shiver.
“Miss Storm.”
I yelp, the book flying out of my hands as I spin around and find Professor Fox Tudor glaring right at me only a foot away.
I didn’t hear him. How the hell did he creep up on me like that? Unless he was lurking about in the shadows already – or did he come straight from class? I’ve lost all track of time stumbling about in this library and have no idea whether class should be starting or finishing about now.
Slowly, like I’m not disturbed by the way he appeared out of nowhere and scared the living daylights out of me, I bend down and scoop up the book from the floor. I don’t want to lose it – I haven’t found the information I came here for yet.
“Can I ask why you are here in the library and not in my class?” the professor says, folding his arms over his wide chest and continuing to glare at me with those glowing eyes of his.
I’m tempted to ask him why he is here in the library and not in his class, but I have a feeling that wouldn’t go down particularly well. And besides, maybe class is over? I have no idea what time it is.
“Looking for some information,” I tell him, hugging the book close to my chest.
“And this was more urgent than attending class? So urgent you couldn’t come to the library on your own time?”
“Yes.”
His brows knit together. “Class isn’t negotiable. I expect all my students to attend and to arrive on time.” I don’t speak, adopting that blank expression instead. He considers me. “What information were you looking for exactly? If you’re searching for spells on how to turn three individuals into toads, I’m afraid it can’t be done.” I snort. “Not by you anyway.”
“Could you turn them into toads?” I ask, curious.
The corner of his lip twitches ever so slightly – the movement so fleeting I almost miss it. “Yes, but it would get me into a hell of a lot of trouble. Of course, it might be worth it.”
Do I want the Princes turned into toads? If you’d asked me before last Saturday I would most definitely have said yes. Now my feelings are all mixed up and I have no idea at all.
I shift my weight from one foot to the other, momentarily lost in my jumble of thoughts.
“Something tells me that wasn’t what you were here for though.”
I don’t say anything. He remembers my sister. But I don’t know if I can trust him. Really, I don’t know if I can trust anyone, if I should.
“Tell me,” he says, raising his chin, glowering at me. “I think I deserve to know what is more important than my class.”
Is it me or is he taking a personal affront to me missing his class?
“There’s no point in me attending your class, I’m no shadow weaver. I don’t have any powers. None of us do – we all know it’s a waste of time.”
“Do we?” he snaps, dropping his arms and taking a decided step towards me. “Because you seem to keep forgetting that I was like you, Briony Storm. A boy from Slate Quarter and now I can do this.”
He lifts his hand, shadows dancing forth and the books all rising from the shelves to join them, floating in the air like stars in the sky.
I flip my head back to watch them, transfixed by how pretty it looks, and then just as suddenly as they rose, they fall, clattering down onto the bookcases, the shelves and some onto my damn head. I shield my crown with my arm and mutter a curse under my breath.
“Your protectors aren’t the only powerful ones in this school,” he snarls, his shadows hissing in the air, “and just because you are their thrall does not mean you get to skip my lessons.”
“I didn’t say it did,” I snap. “And I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this, but I am not their thrall.”
He takes another step towards me, and I can feel his shadows against my skin now. They don’t crackle with electricity like Beaufort’s do. They’re cool and smooth, slipping over me like a caress or a touch.
“Then tell me, Briony Storm, why are you in the library and not in my lesson?”
I frown. Does that mean his lesson isn’t over? Then why is he here, chasing me down?
I stare into those eyes of his and decide to take a gamble.
“To find out what happened to her. You couldn’t tell me, so I decided to find out for myself.”
“You already know what happened to her.”
I snort. “I know what they told us happened.”
“It was an accident, Briony. They happen, far more regularly than you’d suspect. We’re dealing with dangerous and unpredictable forces at the academy. She was one of the unlucky ones; that’s all.”
I shake my head.
“No, she was special.”
“Everyone is special to someone,” he says, dismissively with that bitterness he seems to wear like a crown.
“You remember her – she was–”
“Barely. I barely remember her.”
“She was special!”
“Special how?”
I open my mouth but no words will come out. How can I explain it? How can I even attempt to describe what she was? To capture all that she was in a couple of words – words that seem so feeble and hopelessly inadequate. It’s not possible.
“I know something happened,” I say, stubbornly.
“It did. Your sister was killed in crossfire while a group of shadow weavers were training.”
“She wasn’t stupid,” I snap. “She was intelligent and she was careful. Why would she have been anywhere near a group of shadow weavers training? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“You want her death to have meaning,” he says, “because she was special to you. But death never does. Like everything else in this goddamn life, it’s random and callous and meaning less . Searching for a purpose or a reason in it will drive you to insanity.” There’s that bitterness again and I wonder what he can be so bitter about. He got out, didn’t he? Escaped Slate Quarter and became a professor? His life seems pretty damn good to me, especially compared to all those lives being lived back home – to the life I was living back home.
“I don’t believe that,” I say with frustration.
“Believe it!” he barks, making me jump, “and realize that snooping about in libraries when you’re meant to be in class is going to get you into trouble. Fuck, questioning what you’ve been told is going to get you into trouble.”
“With who?”
“You said your sister was clever, I’m guessing that’s a trait you didn’t inherit.”
“You’re saying I can’t ask questions?”
“Not when those questions sound very much like accusations.”
“I’m not accusing–”
“Yes, you are. You’re saying your sister died some other way – at least that’s what you believe – which would have to mean someone lied about it.”
“Yes,” I say firmly.
“Sounds very much like an accusation to me.”
I glare back at him. Maybe it is. And maybe I don’t care if it gets me into trouble. Trouble seems to have followed me around from the day I arrived at this academy.
“Don’t be stupid, Miss Storm. And make sure you’re outside my classroom at 7 o’clock tonight.”
“Why?”
“For your detention, of course. Did you really think you could miss my class and go unpunished? Now get to your next lesson.”
I don’t want to leave, but with him standing there glaring at me, I don’t really have a choice. I could dig my heels in and refuse to go, but he’s much bigger than me and I wouldn’t put it past him to drag me there.
I set off, the bookshelves seeming to part and create a pathway for me this time.
“Miss Storm,” he says, “leave the book here.”
“But I–”
“Books cannot be removed from the library.”
I want to argue that that makes it a pretty shitty library – even the public library back in Slate Quarter lets you borrow books – but I’m really done talking with him. I place the book down on the nearest shelf and storm out of the library, finding the door in a matter of minutes.
I don’t care what he says. I know I’m right. Something happened to my sister. The story they told us was a lie.