Page 73 of Boy of Chaotic Making

Gradually, everyone made it back to the sitting room. It was customary, Owein had learned, for the gentlemen to linger behind and drink port or some such after dinner without the ladies. Owein and Merritt always attended, though neither of them drank. (Owein did try, once, and ended up vomiting it up on the carpet. Thankfully, a little chaocracy spell took care of it before anyone noticed.) And Merritt simply didn’t drink; a habit he’d made over the years, to “keep him out of trouble,” he said.

Tonight, however, the port and manly meeting was passed over for the sake of Cora. Merritt and the baron pulled a bench over for Professor Griffiths to use as a table, and Prince Friedrich carried over a chair right across from it for Cora. Everyone else sat around them, as though the reading of Cora’s potential demise was, indeed, planned entertainment. Owein lingered nearby. He could smell Cora’s nerves; they were sour, like bread dough forgotten on the counter. She clasped her hands together and sat upright, proper and Hulda-like, though her fingers wriggled together, trying to escape the cocoon of her grip.

Professor Griffiths, beneath the light of extra candles, laid out several cards, along with dice numbered with lines instead of dots. He accepted a few strands of Cora’s hair as well.

“Give me a moment.” He focused on the table, eyes moving back and forth, back and forth, only occasionally breaking the pattern by glancing up at Cora’s face, smooth and blank save for a distraught line between her brows. Several minutes passed in hushed silence, and thenthe professor inhaled sharply. His eyes stopped moving, taking on that blank look Hulda sometimes got. A few seconds later, it ended.

“I did not see a falling ceiling,” he said carefully, a little too much space between each word. “Which does not discount Miss Larkin’s reading. I believe what I saw was farther in the future; Lady Cora appeared a little older. She stood in a room with a balcony overlooking the Thames. There was a man with her, though I’m afraid he’s not one I recognized. Her grandfather, perhaps, judging by the white hair.”

Lady Helen and Prince Friedrich turned to each other. Mouthed something, then shook their heads. “Neither of Cora’s grandfathers are alive, I’m afraid.”

Owein wondered at this. The old man could be another servant—the family had a lot of those—but servants dressed a certain way, and the augurist hadn’t specified, and Owein couldn’t ask. Perhaps it was him; maybe, in the future, hedidget a body, but it was that of an older man. Better an older man than nothing, he supposed. How old would he have to be for white hair?

Or maybe the vision was far enough in the future for the man to be Prince Friedrich.

Professor Griffiths nodded. “Nevertheless, she did not seem to be in harm’s way. She did prick her finger on a broken clasp to a necklace,” he added with a subtle smile. “That is the worst I see for her. If I am seeing beyond what Miss Larkin beheld, which I believe I am, then I can assure you that whatever happens in the near future, the lady will survive it well.” He made eye contact with Cora then, and tension visibly left her shoulders. The room, as a whole, released a held breath. Even the house seemed to settle.

“Well then,” Baron von Gayl asked in his heavy German accent, “how about that port?”

He was the house again.

It was night, or it was very dark, it was hard to tell. There were no candles to tinker with, no moonlight on his shingles, no mice scurrying beneath his foundation. No eyes, ears, mouth. Only that means of sensing things the way a spirit does, which is almost like a person’s, but subdued and pulled back, as though in a dream.

Somewhere, in the back of his thoughts, Owein felt this was a dream. But in the depths of slumber, feeling something and knowing it were two different things.

The darkness was impregnable. It was heavy and thick, like castor oil. Like thethumps of the mallet as Baptiste brought it down on a cut of venison, flattening it for schnitzel. Like a heavy cough too wet in the lungs, trying to drown every breath of air. Oweinknewthat. He remembered. That was how he’d died. Hot and drowning, tucked in the bed he shared with his sister.

But it wasn’t hot here. It was cold. Cold and dark and heavy, and the darkness shifted in, closer and closer, a box built with long iron nails. Closer and closer, tighter and tighter. It meant to crush him. Itwascrushing him.

The faintest trickle of light flared in his periphery. Desperate, Owein whirled toward it. It was too far to have shape or even color. But it was there. And Owein ran, ran,rantoward it. He ran for hours. Only after hours did he start to get closer, the light bigger.

He blinked, and he was at the cave in the forest. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Kegan’s makeshift bridge had crumbled; there was no way down but to jump, praying his hands caught a shrub, and that the shrub had roots deep enough to hold him.

Hands. He held them before his face. He had hands. They were pale and small. Were thesehishands? He couldn’t remember.

The cave coughed in front of him. Kegan and Fallon were gone. The bridge was gone. The sun was setting, threatening to take its gift of light with it.

Swallowing, Owein stepped into the shadows. He closed his eyes; seeing made no difference, anyway. He was used to not having eyes.

He walked into the darkness, heel to toe, keeping his path straight. Reached out his right hand and felt for the back of the cave. Any moment now he would touch it. He would—

Owein awoke, curled on the foot of Merritt’s bed. Moonlight peeked through the drawn curtains. A few desperate embers glowed red in the fireplace. He lifted his head and saw that everything was as it should be; no furniture had sprung to life and danced around the room, no walls had altered, no additional glass broken.

He blinked. He waited. The night continued onward, still and unthreatening. Peaceful, even.

Dogs didn’t cry. Not really. Not unless pollen, a fly, or the like flew into their eyes. But deep inside, a little boy remembered having hands, and he passed out of the cave and wept for sight of day.

Chapter 26

March 10, 1847, London, England

Merritt laughed at the way Owein bounded through the slow-sprouting foliage the moment he laid eyes on Kegan and the gray hawk, tongue hanging out like it was a warm summer day. Itdidseem a bit warmer today, somewhere in the fifties, though perhaps their long walk out into the forest had helped. Owein had woken that day eager to go out to see the Druids, though they had no official appointment to do so. He’d had a dream that felt like progress, so he’d explained that morning, but for whatever reason, he felt the hawk and the boy would grasp the meaning better than Merritt did.

Merritt did understand, in his own way. He knew the bliss of relief, coming out of darkness.

He found Sean first, tanning the hide of a boar. Merritt wondered if the animal had been hunted in these woods, and if it would have broken the strict poaching laws England had. He assumed the Druids didn’t care either way. Sean nodded a greeting, as his hands were busy. “Good morning to you!”

“Morning,” Merritt offered. “Glad you haven’t moved too far.” It had taken him and Owein a little longer than usual to find them. “How much longer will you stay?”

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