Chapter 18
Present Day
Golden House was tucked between embassies of various nations, in the shadow of Baffin’s glittering, jagged palace in New Harrow. Officially, however, it did not exist. It was on no maps and bore no sign, as stipulated by the Guild’s temperamental concord with Baffin.
The house was not gold, at least not in terms of glittering ore or evident extravagance.
The copper roof of fish-scale tiles had just begun to green with age and the building was cut off from the road by a tall iron fence, ornate and austere.
Elements of New Harren architecture decorated its facade to a limited degree, enough to mark it, to sully the legacy of the Entwined, but not to lend any real beauty.
The grim effect was softened by moonflower ivy—a tactful and symbolic measure on behalf of the Guild gardeners, as moonflowers were an ancient symbol of the Entwined.
The delicate, round white flowers bloomed in the autumn night, resilient to the cold, and lending a thin, sweet scent to the air.
The scent was all memory—memory of the academy where I had spent so much of my youth, and of Kesterlee, where I had labored in the Guild Archives and begun to think of Lewis as more than an ally.
The guards at the gate—no doubt Silver Adepts—were mirrored on the opposite side of the street by a pair of Baffin’s soldiers on permanent assignment. The Entwined guards opened the gate before Madge alighted from the carriage, and bowed as she and I took the short walk to the front stairs.
I did not bolt, however much I might have wanted to. Even without the watching Silver guards and their rifles, there was the looming threat of Madge at my side and Mr. Moran at my shoulder.
I knew I was caught. But that did not mean I could not escape, in due course.
Servants (Affinates of various affiliations) met us in the entryway. They took Madge’s cloak and parasol and Mr. Moran’s outer jacket, and vanished again at a wave of Madge’s hand. They left us in the clock-ticking quiet of a sleeping house.
Where the facade of Golden House might not be noteworthy, the interior very much was.
Out of view of Baffin’s watching eyes, the Guild’s full wealth was on display.
The floors were delicately arranged parquet that resembled twining threads, glossy and dark and interspersed with lavish carpets.
The walls were a veritable museum of treasures, displayed with calculated precision.
I had little doubt that the rooms beyond would be even more lavish. But every door was closed. To the left, to the right, down a short hallway, and up the long sweep of the staircase. Closed doors. Shuttered and curtained windows.
No way out.
Madge exchanged a quiet word with her husband, then led me up the stairs alone. We encountered several more servants, waistcoated or aproned. Every one turned to face the wall as we approached, doing their best to trans form into inanimate objects, and did not move again until we were out of sight.
“A lively reception,” I muttered. “Are there many mages present?”
“A great number,” Madge said. “Come to deal with Baffin’s increasing antagonism. But they are either out or abed at this hour, as we soon will be. Here. These will be your chambers.”
She opened a door and turned the valve for the gaslamps. Their golden light swelled to reveal a comfortably appointed room, with thick carpets that begged for bare toes and a large bed with heavy drapes drawn back. The walls were a deep plum wallpaper printed with obscure gold motifs.
There were no windows.
Madge returned to the doorway. “This will be locked. There are no servants’ doors or stairs in this room, so it will do no good to search for them. A Silver will be set on guard.”
I registered each barrier and threat she listed, but held them at arm’s length. After the shock of my arrest, of seeing Mr. Stoke’s corpse and finally falling into the hands of the Guild, I was inured to further intimidation.
“Does it not say a great deal about the Guild,” I observed, “that you have such rooms at the ready?”
Madge ignored me. “You cannot escape, and Pretoria certainly cannot reach you here. I urge you to reflect on your situation tonight, little sister, and make your peace with it. It is for the best.”
I might have been inured to fear, but not to anger. It smoldered high in my throat at her words, her tone, her presumption. I wanted to snap at her that I was no child, that I was a grown woman with my own mind and a future that was not for her to conduct.
But she would not care. Already she was leaving, with a gentle, “I will see you in the morning.”
She closed the door, leaving me in a beeswax and lavender-scented stillness, as the gaslamps flickered.
* * *
The bed was supremely comfortable. I resented this as I lay there the next morning, cushioned in quiet and shadows. The radiator hissed softly and somewhere beyond the walls, a light female voice laughed.
I tried to hold my mind still, suspended in that solitude, with my cares at a distance. It lasted only moments before I thought of Mr. Stoke, laid out upon the table with his face beaten in and a blackened mark over his heart. Lying as I did now, back flat, hands at my sides.
I sat up sharply. The bed creaked, the blankets rustled, and the door opened.
The mechanisms of the gaslamps clicked with a slow swell of orange light as Mr. Moran stepped in and closed the door.
I was out of bed in an instant. I was still mostly clothed, having slept in my underthings and a robe which I had found in the room, but I felt immediately exposed under his open, critical scrutiny. I felt at once measured and judged.
“What do you want?” I demanded.
“You asked Madge what Entwined can kill with the touch of a hand,” he stated, unruffled by my intensity. “Why? What do you mean by that?”
I resisted the urge to wrap my robe tighter, holding his gaze. Did he truly not know? Had Supford not disclosed that detail of his investigation?
If so, I might have erred in voicing the question to Madge. But I had voiced it, and here I was closed in with a powerful Guild mage of unknown but undoubtedly significant power. I did not have much more to lose.
Might as well prod the bear.
“My friend was murdered. There was a mark over his heart, in the shape of a hand.” I advanced a step towards him, showing him—and myself—that I was not afraid.
“Supford suspected a powerful Silver had done it, but I have never heard of their Leeching being used to such an extent. Are you a Silver, Mr. Moran? It would surprise me, the Guild sullying my sister’s fine blood with your common kind, even if you had such an ability. ”
I looked him up and down, appraising him as he had me. He remained in place, just inside the closed door. There was calculation in his face rather than offense, and a thread of suspicion.
I again felt the knowledge in his gaze, a sense that he knew far more about me, about my past, present, and future, than he had any right to.
“I am not,” he replied. “I am Starlit, as your sister Pretoria is.”
That took me aback, derailing my line of inquiry. Starlight Entwined were as uncommon as Eventides like me. Now their pairing made more sense. It also increased my concern, as it meant that if Pretoria came to rescue me, there was someone here who could see through her magic.
Someone who could, very likely, stop her.
“How have I not met you before?” I asked compulsively. “Your accent is not Harren, but certainly Arrentian. Where have you been hiding?”
He held my gaze for one last moment, then said, “Your sister awaits you in the River Room,” and left without another word.
In the ensuing quiet, I forced three slow breaths into my lungs, then tied my hair in a cursory knot atop my head and opened the door.
Mr. Moran was long gone, but a soldier watched me from across the hall. For the blink of an eye, I could almost have mistaken him for Lewis in his green and grey and stiff collar, but of course, this was not him.
“Take me to my sister,” I said.
Madge was situated at an easel as I entered.
My attempt at rudeness by wearing the robe was mitigated by the fact that she too had not dressed.
But rather than look like a cat freshly shaken out of a bag, as I did, she looked disarming and gentled, with a silk and lace night gown barely covered by a heavily embroidered robe and her hair braided over one shoulder.
The soldier closed the door, but his footsteps did not depart.
I caught the flash of my own reflection in a mirror as I crossed the room. Madge was painting a self-portrait with its aid, poised with her brush in a pool of morning light. There were few details to the portrait yet, all broad strokes and suggestions of shapes, but it was already striking.
“Still indulging in bad habits, I see,” I commented. There was a tray of coffee, toast, cheeses, and meats nearby, and I poured myself a cup of the dark liquid. “What tedious emotion are you killing today? Maternal affection? Common decency? Or is it a memory?”
“Nightmares,” she said mildly.
I paused over my cup. Steam tickled my nose, thick with the scent of coffee. “Nightmares of what?”
She turned her steady gaze to me, and the piercing blue of her eyes looked more soulless than usual.
But her threads, oh, her threads. Golden and lovely, they twined her throat and down her shoulders, spilled up over her jaw and crept out from her hair, across her temples.
Her pale eyelashes were full of light, unlined and unaltered by cosmetics, and just barely pinked by lack of sleep.
“I no longer remember,” she said, adding a shadow to her portrait. “It is already gone.”
There was a stretch of quiet, interrupted only by the passage of her brush. I cleared my throat. “Your husband came to visit me. He questioned me on the manner of Mr. Stoke’s death. I suspect he knows who may have done it. Do you?”