Chapter 15 #2
‘And no leads as to the killer?’ Another voice, a female one … oh gods, I realise. It’s Caroline Ivey, the representative of the Crown.
‘Reports are scattered. No fixed pattern has emerged.’
‘What about this person at Hope Hall the other night?’
‘Unrelated, at least Grant thinks so. The usual rivalry, this year rather worryingly more bloodthirsty …’
‘Anyone on the suspect list?’ Edmund interjects.
Parnell laughs darkly. ‘Every tall male hopeful and every strong masquier? Unless of course, it was a strong illusionist, but that’s unlikely.
Doesn’t narrow it down enough. But also, as I said, unrelated.
Let Grant and Caroline deal with that. I thought you called a meeting about the other victims.’
‘We did,’ Edmund says. ‘But it seems we need more evidence. No firm sightings, I presume?’
‘Nothing confirmed.’
‘Any hopefuls showing promise?’
‘Hardly,’ another woman’s voice answers. ‘There’s Alden, obviously. We’re keeping a close eye on him. But the rest, it’s too early to tell.’
‘Not an alchemist among them though, sadly.’ Hess. It’s Hess, I’m sure of it.
I frown, wondering what they mean. Surely they can’t be talking about which hopefuls will make it to become full scholars? As far as I can tell, no one has distinguished themselves in terms of their wielding yet, and certainly not Alden Locke.
‘Grant wants to test them further, and we need to accelerate the training of all scholars.’
‘I agree,’ says Caroline Ivey. ‘Too few alchemists, not enough trained wielders in Kellend, and werewolves are a volatile resource at best. We should be more prepared than this; the warning signs are all there. It’s been eight years. Long enough for them to need to feed in earnest.’
I glance at Tessa, but she seems just as confused as me.
‘And of course Alloway will use any opportunity to invade if Kellend is weakened significantly. We cannot afford to have our numbers decimated like last time. Theine will not and cannot be a buffer.’
‘Those damn monsters …’ Edmund says, his voice low and vicious.
‘The wards on Killmarth will hold. That’s all we can do for now. Give them time to train, time for us to find the wielders who can withstand them,’ Hess replies.
‘And time for research.’ That woman’s voice again.
There is silence for a moment and I believe that perhaps they’ve all left. Then Caroline Ivey speaks, soft and strained. ‘We must make sure it doesn’t happen again.’
There’s a shuffle of footsteps and Tessa swiftly closes the grate as I step down from my chair.
It sounds like the meeting is winding up and we can’t be caught here.
When we slip through the doorway back into the courtyard, I check first that the coast is clear.
But it’s silent, every scholar in the library or at lessons, every hopeful scattered, most likely to fret about the next Ordeal.
I turn to Tessa and whisper, ‘What happened eight years ago?’
‘I guess they mean what happened to Darley?’
‘Hmm.’ We begin walking through the courtyard, towards Hope Hall when I stop her.
‘I don’t like the sound of two killers, let alone one …’ Tessa says, hugging her coat around herself. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t go poking around.’
‘Or maybe, we should be better informed,’ I reply.
It rankles me that I found no mention of my parents in Darley.
It’s the last place I hadn’t checked yet at Killmarth.
But with the mention of pale monsters, and them stalking the Morlagh, I guess there’s more pressing things to figure out.
It was Edmund who mentioned them, Edmund Locke.
Which means that maybe Alden knows more than he’s let on.
Perhaps I’m reading too much into this, but …
‘I’m going to the library to search the archives. Want to come?’
‘Oh, I’d just love to …’ Tessa throws up her hands, stalking after me. ‘If you get me murdered, poking around this place and these secrets, I’ll be so pissed—’
I grin. ‘You’ll be dead.’
‘I’ll haunt you .’
The search through the newspaper archives proves fruitless as the archive room available to us only contains broadsheets, mostly reporting headline news happening in the city.
‘Apparently a few more deaths at Killmarth isn’t worthy of a headline,’ I say, carefully replacing a broadsheet. ‘Find anything?’
‘Nothing,’ Tessa says, frowning as she also closes a broadsheet, placing it back with the others.
‘Which seems strange. No mention of any murders; in fact eight years ago, the whole country was strangely rosy … The Crown welcomed a new baby, the economy was healthy and the only untoward news reports I can find are fairly commonplace.’
The lunch gong echoes up through the floor and we shuffle to the door of the archive room, past the key hung on a hook next to the door, which Tessa grabs to lock the door with, back to the stacks leading to the library entrance.
A few scholars are closing books, placing them back on shelves, moving like us towards the armchairs and main doors.
I nod to the librarian as we leave, a woman wearing spectacles with thick, wavy brown hair pinned back to try and tame it.
She smiles at us both as Tessa hands her the key and she places it with the others, two copies of each door in the lock box behind the desk. ‘No luck in the archives?’
‘Not today,’ I say, hiding my disappointment. ‘But thank you.’
She moves away from us to pick up the discarded books left on the scatter of low tables, her grey slacks rasping against her legs as she moves. ‘Enjoy your afternoon, ladies.’
We join the throng of scholars heading for the staircase that will take us down to Gantry Hall. ‘By the way, how’s Greg doing?’
Tessa smiles and I just catch it, like a flash of sunlight crossing her face.
‘He’s doing better. Complaining a lot, which is a good sign.
He’s meant to be doing this Ordeal now they’re sure he won’t suddenly shift before the next full moon.
He’s got that under control at least, and he’s healed well. ’
‘Good news.’
‘Too right,’ she says as we clatter down the staircase. ‘I honestly didn’t think he’d make it to Killmarth, let alone survive an Ordeal. Thought I’d talked him out of it, then when I saw him at Alabaster House, I could have thumped the idiot.’
‘Sounds like you’re very fond of him.’
Tessa groans. ‘Don’t tell anyone. Really. It’s enough that he’s here being all Greg and a bit useless in that sweet, nice way of his …’
‘Kind of like a puppy?’
Tessa groans.
‘Tessa Godolphin, am I sensing a crush ?’ I ask, mock-shocked, as we reach the landing by the hall.
She laughs, covering her face with her hands. ‘Is it weird that I find him more attractive now he’s a werewolf?’
‘Look if you’re into fur, no judgement …’
She laughs again, pushing open the door to the dining hall and I look up, at the room beyond.
And for a single beat, I swear it’s not a hall at all.
It’s … something else. Something dark with high walls and …
gargoyles? Then I blink, and it shifts back to tables, scattered chairs, the waft of soup and fresh bread …
‘Tessa, wait—’
But I’m too late.
She walks through the doorway and disappears. I stutter to a halt, just before crossing the threshold.
‘Tessa?’ I call out, peering around the doorway.
Silence. Like she walked through the door and entered a room elsewhere.
The room must be under some kind of illusion, meaning this is clearly the start of the second Ordeal.
But does that mean it’s also a portal to somewhere else, like Hess set up for the first, or are all the hopefuls really in this hall, milling about in some kind of odd illusion?
I bite my lip, thinking through what I have in my pockets.
Am I prepared? I shuffle through them, finding my switchblade, a folded piece of paper and a pen. Nothing else.
The one thing I’ve read in my research about these kinds of all-encompassing illusions is that I need something that only I know I have, something to keep me grounded in reality, to know when I’m in an illusion.
I brush my fingers again over the folded paper and the pen and pull them both out.
Then I write a single name, one only I would know, one that could not be altered and manipulated by another’s illusion.
Dolly Love .
Then I sniff, pocket the notepaper and the pen, and face the threshold once more. I need to find Alden, and keep an eye out for Tessa and Greg as well. We promised to look out for each other, and I always keep my promises.
‘ Bona fortuna ,’ I murmur.
Then I step over the threshold into the second Ordeal.