Chapter Two
That evening, after packing up my threads and hoops, I leave my classroom and make my way down Pye Street, heading for the boarding house where I and the other teachers have rooms. The towers of Westminster Abbey are at my back, their needlelike points piercing a low skein of grim cloud.
An early spring chill coils about my throat, leaching the warmth from my skin. Despair sweeps over me in a black fog.
A year. I’ve been put on leave for an entire year. And Mother Bridgid made it clear I would not be given accommodations in that time, suggesting I seek lodging in some country village for the benefit of my health.
I wonder, now, if she expects I will not return. Perhaps she hopes I will settle down into some other life, or perhaps she suspects my condition will worsen.
Clenching my teeth, I press on. I will return, whatever her suspicions. This is where I belong. It is the only place I have ever belonged.
Dirty slush, deposited by winter’s last feeble cough, piles along the wall, heaping in the gutters.
Boys with brooms race each other to push aside more of the stuff, clearing the way for the carriages and carts clotting the road.
A Weaver moves from streetlamp to streetlamp, Weaving quick fire spells with scarlet string to light the wicks above.
He nods to me when he passes by, his gaze flicking to the battered threadkit hanging over my shoulder; it is a nod between colleagues, a wish of good fortune.
Frost clings to the edges of his beard, despite the warming knots embroidered on his collar and hat.
The street is busy, mostly with beggars stumbling back to their corners and bridges, or with furtive men seeking the warm beds of the comfort houses.
Everyone I pass is locked inside their own world of trouble, with little thought or compassion to spare for mine.
We all scuttle on our individual ways, heads down and arms folded, skittish as ghosts.
I have not been so alone since losing my aunt.
For twelve years, the Perkins School has been my home, my sanctuary, an island of surety and hope amid the tossing chaos of London’s unforgiving streets.
It gave me the magic I had always craved, the thread and needles with which I wove my own path through the world, and then purpose when I was brought on to teach after my graduation.
The Order of the Moirai even delighted in me once, the sisters intrigued by my aptitude for patterns and the deftness of my hands.
There was talk of promoting me to some higher rank, moving me to teach at the more prestigious Westminster School.
But then my magic turned against me, fickle as a gambler’s luck.
I try not to think of my students. Of sweet little Carolina, of clever Edwina, of the timid but gifted Anne. They are Sister Agatha’s responsibility now. I can only hope they will still be here if—when—I return.
I sag against the cold wall of an inn, the strength draining from my knees, staring at a patch of flickering light cast by the lamp around the corner.
An illusion of warmth, of sunlight, just enough to make the cold all the more bitter and cast light over a scrap of discarded newspaper under my shoe.
Advertisements shout at me from the page.
A threadshop boasts the strongest silk in England.
A theater invites one and all to an Illusion Spectacle, the likes of which has never been beheld.
The Order of St. Edgitha of the Needle is ordaining a new bishop, a Weaver renowned on the continent for his prayer knots.
“Sister Rose?” says a small, whispery voice.
I turn and see a shivering girl, her ragged shawl clutched around her.
“Carolina? What are you doing out here?”
She sniffs. “Is it true you’re leaving?”
I sigh and take her hand. “Come with me. You’re freezing.”
Her lips are blue. I guide her out of the alley and up the rickety steps to my tiny rented room.
It’s scarcely larger than my narrow bed, and frigid.
Shutting the door against the cold, I pull out the thread and needle I keep in the brim of my bonnet.
It takes three attempts to thread the needle with my cold fingers.
Carolina perches on the edge of the bed while I stab the needle through the hem of her dirty dress, but her shivering makes the job difficult.
The light is weak and my fingers are stiff, but I know these knots too well to make a mistake.
I’ve been stitching them all winter, for my students, for myself, for any shivering soul who came begging at the school doors.
While I sew, Carolina runs her hand over my thin coverlet and sings under her breath, an old song every child knows.
In the shadows ’neath your bed,
She spins her spells with spider’s thread,
Her hair is black, her eyes are red,
And if she sees you, you are dead.
Her song makes me shiver.
“One day,” says Carolina, “I’ll Weave a spell to catch a faerie and wish for it to take me to faerie land, and I’ll learn to fly and never be cold again. Do you believe in faeries, Sister Rose?”
My lips thin; that icy fear returns, crackling over my heart like frost. Like a cold hand on my shoulder. I recall the glimpse I had through the school’s window, of the silver-eyed man, but push it away. “I believe we must make our own magic.”
The spellknot is done. When I channel into it, it glows like an ember on the fabric of Carolina’s thin wool skirt. This time, the magic doesn’t fail me. The light fades after a moment, sinking into the thread and binding to its fibers.
“Better?” I ask.
She nods miserably. “Don’t leave us. You can’t. Sister Agatha’s not nearly so nice as you!”
“You just keep your mind on your work,” I tell her, trying to hide how her words tug at my weary heart. I wrap her hand in mine. “Be patient with your thread and keep your needles sharp. You’ll be a fine Weaver one day, Carolina.”
“But I’ll miss you!” Carolina complains. “Are you leaving because of your gentleman friend? Is he come to take you away and marry you?”
“My—what?”
“Your gentleman friend. The tall one with the white hair. He told me to tell you he’d be along shortly to—ouch!”
I realize I’ve been squeezing her hand tighter and tighter. Releasing it with a wince, I murmur an apology that I cannot hear for the blood roaring in my ears.
“Tall, with white hair?” I ask her. “Are you sure? Was he elderly?”
“No,” she says with a frown, rubbing her hand. “He looked about the same age as you.”
Dread sinks through me like an anchor in deep water.
“What did he say, Carolina? When did he—?”
A knock sounds at the door.
I jolt to my feet, forcing my clammy hands to Weave a quick fireknot for better light. Pulling Carolina close, I watch the door and pray the sound was a trick of my imagination. That there was no knock. That there is no one standing on the other—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
I drag in a ragged breath, the flame dancing over my hand nearly flickering out as my fingers tremble.
“Are you going to answer it?” Carolina whispers.
I glance down at her, then back at the door. I force myself forward, one step at a time, and clear my throat. Pressing my palm to the door, I lean to the crack and speak through it.
“Pardon me?” I say. “Can—can I help you? Are you seeking a spell?”
“I am indeed,” the person outside drawls in a cultured accent, and his voice makes the hairs on my arms rise. “A spell, and clever hands to Weave it.”
Slowly, I rest my forehead against the door and shut my eyes. This cannot be happening. After all this time . . .
“Open the door, Rose.” The command is soft but unyielding, with a faint note of warning hidden between the words. If I do not open it, he will.
I obey, if only to order the person outside to leave at once. As the door swings open on its creaking hinges, I summon my most authoritative schoolteacher’s voice.
But my voice tangles into a knot at the sudden sight of that face.
It is the summation of all my nightmares for the last twelve years.
It is a face I have glimpsed a hundred times in shadowed corners and bustling crowds, only to blink and find my eyes have been tricked again.
How cruel a face it is, with its delicate, almost feminine angles and lovely cold eyes, lips bloodless and sly, high cheekbones angled like a cat’s, so that his features draw to a narrow point at his chin.
He is carved out of winter itself, a creature of snow and ice.
It was him I glimpsed through the school window.
My body goes rigid. The world shrinks away. The pain in my heart suddenly stabs like a knife, piercing my lungs through.
“Hello, Rose Pryor,” says the faerie. A slow, thin smile spreads his pale lips. “How I have missed you.”