Chapter Eleven #3
Despite that, however, I was not going to stay put in my luxurious room when I had been explicitly told not to wander the house alone.
If Milady had told me I was welcome to explore as I wished, I would probably have felt little need to snoop—but now, having left the Tower and learning that so much of what I had been taught was wrong, I was unwilling to trust anything but the evidence of my own eyes any longer.
Besides, I needed something to distract myself from the weight of grief and endless churning what-ifs that had troubled my sleep all night.
Someone had spirited my old clothes away in the night—hopefully without seeing that I had smuggled Baldbeak into my room—but the wardrobe now contained new ones that would fit well enough.
I stared at the rail of elaborate dresses.
The seamstress in me rejoiced at the rich fabrics and the wealth of intricate detail, but it felt frivolous to care about my clothing when the Book Man was dead and I was no closer to finding Mother. I selected a gown at random.
“You had better go back outside, Baldbeak.”
I want to come with you.
“I want you to, as well, but …” I hesitated. For some reason, the idea of Milady seeing Baldbeak inside filled me with dread. Which was silly, because she wouldn’t hurt him, would she? Not really?
“I think it’s safer if you stay outside,” I finished.
Grumbling, Baldbeak hopped out the window again and stared at me beadily while I closed it behind him.
“It’s for your own good,” I whispered.
I opened the door to my room. Outside was a long, paneled hallway, with yet more roses on the tufted carpet that ran down the entirety of it. I slipped out and ran as noiselessly as I could down the corridor to explore.
I felt intimidated by the size of the house.
It was enormous and rambling, but impeccably clean.
Every piece of wood, brass, and marble was buffed to a high shine, and I was hard-pressed to find so much as a cobweb.
As I walked down the long passages, I pressed the pads of my fingers to the gleaming wall panels here and there, leaving my prints.
It gave me the illusion that I was making some mark on the old house; some small rebellion against its cleanliness and order.
I wished Baldbeak were with me. I knew he was used to being outside, but I had grown accustomed to having him nearby at all times.
Being in Milady’s house, where everything was so perfect, reminded me a little of how it had been in the Tower with Mother.
Everything about my existence had seemed designed to irk her.
Her body had required so little—so little sleep, so little food, so little anything.
She was able to sit for hours almost without moving, seemingly barely even breathing, poring over her books or meditating.
By contrast, I felt restless, twitchy, overflowing with inconvenient life and energy.
I had a hearty appetite and was always hungry, where she could subsist on greens and a boiled egg for days.
We did not eat meat—not on principle, but because I had to procure all the food we ate, from the time I was old enough to toddle out on my own and gather the greens, and I was too squeamish for any form of hunting.
We had eggs aplenty from the ducks and geese, as well as nuts and vegetables, dandelion leaves and green herbs.
The most cookery I ever did was frying an egg or boiling the water to soften potatoes or parsnips.
As I had gone about my chores each day, I had made myself as small and unobtrusive as I could.
Stubborn aspects of myself, however, kept springing loose from my restraint—my Hair, for one, which seemed possessed by a spirit of mischief and swirled about at the most inconvenient of times, disarranging her room.
My footsteps, my voice, even my scent and the warmth of my body were an intrusion on the inert and clinically organized tranquility of her space.
No matter how hard I tried to keep myself contained, I kept spilling over.
Milady’s house felt like that. In the hushed halls, I was a small point of chaos.
Edevane House was rooms upon rooms upon rooms. I supposed I was in a guest wing, because most of the rooms I passed seemed also to be bedrooms—but vacant ones, with the furniture covered in dust sheets.
I found a stair and descended it to the lower level, examining the portraits hung along the wall above the banister.
These might have been my ancestors, I supposed, but I could find no resemblance in the crowd of painted faces.
At the base of the stairs was a foyer, with two further corridors leading from it.
I hesitated, then chose one at random. I had seen no servants yet, nor seen any sign of life …
But now, as I padded along another long stretch of carpet (lilies this time, I thought), I heard voices coming down the hall.
On impulse, I tried the handle of the nearest door beside me. To my relief, it was unlocked, and I opened it as noiselessly as I could and slipped inside. It was so perfectly balanced on its hinges that it made only the softest click as it closed behind me.
I was in the library.
The curved, book-lined walls muffled sound, and the silence fell about my shoulders like a woolen blanket.
All I could hear was my own breathing. The ranked spines welcomed me like old friends, and I was glad for a moment—and then everything came crashing down as I remembered the bookshop and what had happened the night before.
I didn’t expect to cry, but my body seemed to start sobbing without my permission, and I sank to the floor and gave in to it for a little while, stifling the sound in my hands while my Hair wrapped around my shoulders like a warm shawl.
When the sobs subsided, I wiped my nose with my sleeve and rubbed my eyes vigorously.
The grief was still there, but shaken loose, somehow, by the tears.
I took a deep breath and straightened my spine—then started to look around.
Milady’s library in the great house was far more orderly than the bookshop had been, with row upon row of books organized as straight and clean as soldiers on parade.
I walked about the room, and, feeling rebellious, let my fingers run along one row, lightly, barely touching.
I wasn’t really paying attention to the titles themselves, so I was startled when I felt something pulse under my fingertips.
I backed up a step, feeling for whatever had caused that odd little thrum of energy, and found that it seemed isolated to one section of the shelf.
I worried one book from that section free, just enough for it to tilt out ever so slightly and spoil the perfect line of the ranked volumes.
I expected to see the wood of the shelf-back behind it, but instead felt a faint draught.
Putting my eye to the gap, I saw there was an open space behind the shelves.
Curious, I pulled the book out fully, then another, and another.
There was definitely an opening back there, hidden behind the perfectly ordered regiment of spines.
A noise from just outside the door. I started, and the book I was holding twisted itself free from its row and fluttered to the floor with a thump. Pages fluttered out like plucked feathers.
Plague take it. I dropped to my knees and shuffled the pages together again as if the book were a pack of cards.
My hands shook. If someone had been right outside the door, they surely would have heard the book hitting the stone floor.
A priceless, irreplaceable spellbook that would probably be under armed guard anywhere else.
I glanced over my shoulder, but the door remained closed.
How long had I been away now? I had to get back before Milady came looking for me.
Oh God, I prayed to a deity I didn’t believe in, or even like the sound of. Oh, One-Eyed God, save me.
With shaking hands, I managed to get the book looking vaguely book-shaped again and stuffed it back onto the shelf.
The loose pages made it fatter than before, and I had to lean on it with my elbow to get it all the way in.
Perhaps I could sneak back in sometime and rebind it.
When I had succeeded in replacing it, I brushed down the front of my skirt, hoping I wasn’t visibly disheveled, and pressed my hot hands to my face.
The Hair was probably coming loose, too, having seen and seized its opportunity, but there was no time to find a mirror and tame it.
I ran to the door and opened it cautiously, but the corridor was empty.
Just one movement caught my eye—a dark swirl that I couldn’t quite make out, disappearing around a corner.
My treacherous mind, remembering how Patrick could move in the shadows, wondered if it had been him.
But no. Perhaps it had only been one of the servants, after all.
I had learned something useful, however: There was a secret room in the library, containing books that Milady—or someone else—considered worth hiding.
I needed to get back in there somehow, when I had enough time to fully explore, and see if there was anything to point me in the right direction.
For now, I had to find my way back to my room.
The old house was silent—a watching sort of silence.
The lush carpets and wall tapestries swallowed sound.
I retraced my steps along the hall, past the long line of closed doors, until I came to one that was slightly ajar.
The scent of Milady’s perfume was strong from within, so strong that the air felt damp and humid with its weight.
I knocked lightly. “Milady?”