Page 27 of Tomb of Ancients
“Does it still pain you?” Mary asked gently. “I can fetch more balm.”
“The ache is fading,” I said. “Now if only the mark would fade, too.”
“At least it worked. Though I have no idea what to think ofMother.”
I shared her bafflement. Fathom and Dalton had scrounged up more mundane clothing for her as a disguise, and they’d given her a widow’s black veil to hide her unusual hair, skin, and eyes when we were not concealed in the safe house. She kept largely to herself, reading voraciously, studying all the trinkets she could find here and spending long hours regarding us, as if trying to memorize our every gesture. All the stray insects that infiltrated the cellar flocked to her, buzzing at her feet like ready little servants.
“Louisa...”
Mary was watching me with her lip pulled between her teeth, her cheeks dyed dark pink.
“Yes?”
“Louisa, I think we should go to Coldthistle House as quickly as possible. I know the attack on Cadwallader’s shook you, and I know you fear a trap, but I don’t think we should wait any longer. This waiting is driving me mad,” she said, scattering her cards to the table.
“I agree,” I replied, to her surprise. And frustration.
“Really? Then why tarry? We should find a proper carriage straightaway—”
“We haven’t gone because I’m afraid,” I told her, interrupting her excited planning. “I know what it’s like to meet a Binder now, and I’m not sure I can survive it again. It was awful enough lifting a curse from someone else, I can only imagine it will be much harder to undo magic done tome. I’m afraid of what it will cost. I’m afraid I won’t be strong enough to endure it next time.”
She frowned and nodded, then put her hand over mine, the uninjured one, and gave it a gentle pat. “I have seen you accomplish remarkable things, Louisa, and you are not alone. There’s a reason I stayed with you instead of going back to Yorkshire already. You need my help, and Khent’s, too. We are all so much stronger together, Louisa, and weakened when alone.”
I tried to smile, but my doubts lingered. She didn’t know what it was like to live this way. She didn’t know how it was to be afraid of your own mind. Mary might have witnessed the ritual from afar, but she hadn’t seen the Binder face-to-face and withstood its test.
“We will find a way to fix this, I promise you that, and our chances will only get better if we have Chijioke on our side, too. And Poppy!” She gave a short laugh. “And though you do not trust them, I believe in my heart Mr. Morningside and Mrs.Haylam will help you if they can. Maybe with their help it will not be so bad this time.”
I sighed, putting down my cards. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps the not knowing is a prison rather than a shield.”
It was decided. I only needed to convince Dalton, though that proved harder than I expected. He was reluctant to go without knowing the state of things at Coldthistle House, but we had waited long enough, and I appealed to his tenderness for Henry, which was deeper than I had assumed. In this regard, the diary proved a cunning tool.
“Why did you give me this?” I asked him as he took tea that same afternoon alone. Holding up the diary, I—perhaps childishly—waved it in his face. “What is the point of it all if you do not let Mr. Morningside help me? If Mother had done nothing, I might have torn those people in the shop limb from limb. The time for waiting is over.”
He regarded me over the rim of his teacup for a long spell, then he glanced at my healing hand and closed his eyes, pursing his lips. “I know,” he said. “Only I’m afraid.”
“I’m afraid, too,” I confessed. “But that’s not enough anymore.”
Fathom took charge of organizing our escape from London, though she was wary of leaving the safe house even to arrange the carriages. We decided to leave that evening, using the cover of dark to ride to St. Albans and then exchange carriages, riding northeast toward Malton. Dalton assured us he could acquirefaster transport in St. Albans, shortening the normally lengthy trip to North Yorkshire with a bit of help from a holy man and his even holier stock of horses.
This was all explained to Mother, who absorbed the information silently, nodding, that permanent beatific smile growing a little upon realizing we were indeed going to Coldthistle House.
“Good,” she replied. “I should like to see where Father was defeated.”
I said nothing but turned away to hide my frustrations. He certainly did notfeeldefeated.
Chapter Thirteen
Idreamt of a black-and-silver hall, a corridor of stars that went on into eternity. A ram the size of a mountain reared onto its hind legs, towering above me and made of dazzling white globes in little clusters, while a serpent as long as the Thames uncoiled and showed its star-bright fangs in warning. It happened slowly, the clash of these two impossible animals unfolding over hours, and I had almost enough time to count the stars that made up their forms.
When fang touched muzzle, the star creatures came crashing down, falling at my feet and toppling me to the glassy ground. The ram and serpent shattered, broken apart, their radiance scattering around me, like a spilling of jewels or a fallen chandelier, crystals sharp and spinning. I lifted my arms, and they were stars, too, and soon I was floating, lifted, hovering high above it all, something beautifully remade. Something new.
“How can you sleep so much? Those horses and the rocking—so much commotion!Nhugh.”
Yawning awake, I found myself staring at a cross seatmate. As planned, we had changed horses at St. Albans, a kindly man of middle age lending us two teams of sleek mares, their coats and tails yellow as buttercups. They pulled us acrossEngland at alarming speed, and Khent was not wrong about the considerable clatter and crash of their hooves as they churned the roads beneath us. Even the mud seemed not to bother them, and the bad storms had driven most travelers off the paths, allowing us to make each stop well ahead of schedule.
Khent was bundled under a thick plaid blanket, never one for the damp and cold.
“I’m simply exhausted,” I told him. Mary shared that feeling, apparently, dozing next to me, curled up on her side. Mother might have been asleep behind her dark veil, but it was difficult to say. Fathom drove our team of horses, while Dalton and Niles took turns driving a smaller, lighter carriage that we struggled to keep pace with.
