Chapter Six #2
“‘A missive’?” she said, her eyes sharpening. “In what language?”
“English,” Rhys told her. “But the old kind. You know that letter that looks like an ‘a’ and an ‘e’ got stuck in the same tube?”
“Ash,” said Hattie. “Yes. A ligature.”
“That,” said Rhys, nodding toward Seph as she produced the invitation and handed it to the other woman. “We already solved the riddle itself, but we did so without translating those words, so we wanted to make sure we didn’t miss anything.”
Hattie nodded, carefully removing the card from the envelope and examining the symbols on the front, her eyes grazing left to right curiously. “These are letters,” she told them. “Sounds. They’re a fortune-telling technique in Scandinavia. They’re carved onto rocks or bones and jostled and thrown.”
“Do they say anything?” Seph asked, scooting closer to peer down at the marks.
Hattie shook her head. “No. I think they are likely just decoration. Or … Wait …” She tilted her head to the side, mouthing sounds to herself.
“While she goes off to the land of Nod,” Rhys said, reaching behind Hattie’s head with another vellum card in his fingers, “you can look at this one. She might be a moment.”
Seph accepted the card, pulling it into her lap and looking down at the sketch of an open timepiece on the cover. Midnight, it read.
Well, she had to hand it to him.
That was pretty unambiguously the time of the meeting.
“Merlin,” Hattie said, so suddenly, Seph startled. “I think it sounds out Merlin. But it isn’t the word ‘Merlin.’ That word wouldn’t exist in runic language.”
“‘Merlin,’” Rhys repeated. “The wizard? Or the illusionist, you figure?”
“Has to be the wizard,” Seph said, blinking. “The illusionist was an old man even when we were children. He’d be ancient now, if he’s even still alive.”
“Oh, I remember,” Hattie said softly, flipping the card open to examine the inside, a soft smile on her face. “He performed at the Grand Pavilion, didn’t he? For many years. I agree, Rhys, he is likely too old to still be around.”
“I still hear tell of him giving shows on the Continent,” Rhys said defensively. “Same mask, same cloak. You never know.”
“A hlaew or a l?w,” Hattie muttered, then she snapped her head up to look at both of them. “This is about Lewes. There is a disagreement about the word that originated the name.”
“Damn,” said Rhys. “It didn’t even take you a full sixty seconds.”
“This word,” she said, pointing to the first one without acknowledging him, “means ‘barrow’ or ‘hill.’ The other, l?w, means … hm. ‘Gash’? A wound.”
“Probably the hill one, then,” Rhys said, scrunching up his eyes. “The Welsh word also means ‘hill.’ Why would it be a wound?”
Hattie shrugged. “Some think it’s the shape of the River Ouse, jagged through the hilltop. Lewes itself had the ash ligature in its original name: Laewe.”
“’Course it did,” said Rhys. “So it’s just more of the same riddle, put in there several times to make it cleverer?”
“Likely,” said Hattie. “Oh. That is funny. A truce be required. And look at the two of you, here now.”
“Is that all?” Rhys snapped, his thick brows arching.
“Well, it’s the wrong loath,” Hattie murmured, tilting her head as she stroked the ink. “Oh, unless that is a joke too. Aha, because of the loathing between you! Very clever!”
“Yes, hilarious,” Rhys said, dry as a stalk of grass.
Seph was still frowning down at the card. At the sketch, a quick impression in smudged charcoal. She looked over her shoulder at the one on the hearth again. The one that read, Brighton.
“Who sent that?” she asked, pointing to it. “It looks like this one.”
There was only silence. A long enough silence that Seph turned back around in confusion, only to find Rhys and Hattie exchanging very loud and meaningful glances.
“What?” she said again. “Who sent it?”
“We don’t … exactly know,” Rhys said, his expression tightening into a cringe. “There is … speculation …”
“Willa,” said Hattie, frowning. “We think Willa sent it.”
“Willa Selwyn?” Seph repeated, deeply confused. “The dead woman?”
“Or someone who wants us to think that, more likely,” Rhys said firmly, shooting Hattie a glare. “We all have our theories.”
“Hypotheses,” Hattie corrected mildly, making Rhys click his tongue.
“Well, all right, but …” She stood up, walking over to pick up the Brighton card and put it next to the Midnight one. She extended the pair toward the Starling wards with her brows high on her face. “Look at them.”
“Does it say something on the back?” Hattie asked quietly. “Like ‘Felicitations,’ perhaps?”
Rhys nodded, a queasy tint creeping up his jaw. “It says, Carpe Noctem.”
“‘Seize the night,’” Hattie echoed, her hand going to the swell of her pregnant belly. “That is … ominous.”
“No,” said Rhys. “It’s cruel. Whoever sent that knows us well enough to know the things Willa taught us. What she saw in us.”
“Did she say that to you?” Seph asked. “‘Carpe noctem’?”
Rhys grimaced. “Yes. I often couldn’t sleep.
She bought me books and tinker projects and little things to paint or sketch to learn to warp perspective.
She gave me things for the long night hours when sleep would not come.
She said if the night didn’t take me, I should take it instead. And somebody knows that.”
“Rhys,” said Hattie gently, taking his hand with her free one. “Willa knows that.”
“Willa is dead,” he snapped, coming abruptly to his feet. “This is a trick and not the good kind. And now I must go to Lewes Priory and find out who is doing this. For all of us.”
“We must go,” Seph corrected. “Whoever sent this wants both of us.”
“Yes, I haven’t forgotten,” he said impatiently, his lip curling. “Brighton’s premiere illusionist, and me, the night boy. I need … I need air.”
Seph watched helplessly as he flew to his feet and swept out of the room, leaving only that faint tinge of coconut and salt scent in his wake. She sagged a little, guilt curling up around the tiny bones of her throat.
Had she done that?
“He will be all right,” Hattie said softly, her big, amber eyes on Seph. “He has always felt things too strongly.”
“I know,” Seph replied, frowning, the two cards still between her fingers. She released a sigh and sat down, putting them on the table, atop Monica’s fabric swatch book. “Is she dead? The baroness? You had a funeral. You all came back here.”
“When you are missing for seven full years,” Hattie said evenly, “the law says you are dead. We came back because her last will decreed it. We all must stay for one full year to retain our inheritances.”
“‘Missing’?” Seph echoed.
“Missing,” Hattie agreed. “She liked to travel. But she has not written or come back. So, yes, she is missing. Presumed dead. I do not like presumptions.”
“Neither do I,” Seph told the other woman. “So after a year …?”
“Yes, we can leave again, if we wish,” Hattie said, nodding. “I do not think any of us wish it. Perhaps Monica. I thought Libba too, but I was wrong. Now that we are home, it is hard to imagine leaving again. Like our time away was merely a season that has passed now.”
“I’m surprised he won’t even consider it,” Seph said, still watching the arch that led to the halls, waiting for his shadow to return. “I thought he was an open-minded sort. Superstitious, even.”
“He said he wants to believe it,” Hattie told her, “but that he knows how easy it is to fake such things. It is funny. He is never so skeptical about fairy circles or cold spots in warm rooms or leaving thimbles of cream in the hallway. But in this, I think he is protecting himself from something that might actually cut him deeply.”
Seph hugged her arms around herself. One of those cold spots had settled upon her, just now. “Hope,” she guessed, an odd aching in her chest. “Hope is what scares him.”
“Yes, I think so,” Hattie agreed. “But he’s never said so out loud. And I am still learning to speak the silent language. It is the most difficult one.”
“Yes,” agreed Seph with a sigh, taking up her tepid cup of tea. “Yes, indeed, it is.”