Page 42 of Tomb of Ancients
Someone was holding my hand, but when I tried to sit up I felt the bite of heavy iron chains around my chest and legs. I blinked up at the ceiling, listening to the voices around me fade. The hand in mine was familiar and small.
“She’s awake! She’s awake! And she doesn’t look so mean now.”
Poppy was sitting beside me on the bed; I had another stirring of memory, remembering the times I had woken to her face and voice before. Those times, I had not been strapped down to the bed. My head ached, and I groaned, then accepted a bit of tea from Poppy, who held my head while I sipped.
“It’s very late now,” she said. Mother was there, too, standing at the end of the bed watching over us. She never looked tired, as if impervious to the wear of exhaustion. “The others all got tired and went away, but I said I would stay with you. Bartholomew, too.”
The dog gave a huff from somewhere next to the bed. Restrained, I could only crane my head a little. Blessedly, theyhad changed my gown and done what they could to clean me. At least I did not feel the wretched digging of bugs in my hair.
“Do I want to know what happened?” I murmured. My throat rasped as if filled with nettles.
“I found you before you could take too much of the sap,” Mother told me gently, her hands folded in front of her. She had left her veil somewhere and stood only in a crinkled silk gown. Her bare arms had dune upon dune of muscle. “Even so, one of the Upworlders noticed you among the trees. They... could not withstand your fury.”
“All smashed up,” Poppy clarified helpfully. “Like Mrs. Haylam’s mushy peas.”
“It took all of us to subdue you,” Mother added. Her smile was different now, sad. Mournful. “I will not leave your side. The risk of Father’s influence is too great.”
“The tree,” I wheezed.
“I have seen to it,” Mother said. “I can speak to the heart of a tree, and that one did not go quietly. It left a rotten wound in the earth. When there is more time I will purify it, and soon his ashes will be washed away by rain and wind.”
That ought to have pleased me, but my unease remained. If so much as a speck of him persisted, my control over him was in doubt.
“Even if I remove his spirit,” I murmured, closing my eyes and sinking down into the pillow, “I still have his blood. My father burned a field of captives alive to imprison you. Thatkind of darkness, that madness, will it always come out?”
Mother came around the bedpost, and Poppy made room for her, the two of them side by side, though it was Mother’s turn to take my hand. There was no reason to doubt her power, but her touch proved it, inducing a soothing warmth to trickle up from my hand to my chest, releasing the tightness there.
“He once gave me a bouquet of enchanted snapdragons. When the sun shone on them, they giggled like children, and when night fell they made the dearest snoring sound,” she recalled, her smile brightening for an instant. “That goodness was in him, too, and I know you have it.”
“Perhaps not,” I said, closing my eyes again. “I can’t seem to stop killing.”
“You will, Louisa. When he is gone and your mind is your own again. I can speak to the heart of trees, yes, but I can speak to the heart of my children, too.” She sighed and squeezed my hand tighter. “I only fear that the Dark One will try to harness your power to fight Roeh.”
Poppy leaned over and poked at one of the chains around my legs. “If we take these off, Louisa can help. I want them to go away and stop being so mean so Bartholomew and I can play in the yard again. I hate being stuck inside all day. It isn’t fair! I haven’t even gotten to do my screams because Mary went to stupid old London.”
She pouted, sliding onto the floor to curl up with the dog.
“I may have to unleash him,” I told Mother slowly. “Onemore time. If it means I can see him removed, then I will do it. Please try not to be too disappointed. These are my friends, after all, and I would see them protected.”
Her sad smile returned, and the warmth of her touch narrowly stayed my tears. It was hard to cry when she held my hand. I tried to remember if my own human mother had ever demonstrated such kindness, but no memories surfaced, only shouts outside my bedroom door, and my drunk of a father screaming at her while I hid beneath the blankets.
“Show mercy when you can, Louisa,” Mother said, and reached for the first strand of chains, loosening them, “for the world is far too short on it.”
In the morning, I was invited to take my breakfast with Mr. Morningside, though Mother refused to drift far from me. He allowed her to join us in the sitting room just off the main foyer—the place where he had first taught me to change a spoon into whatever my heart desired—but not before I caught the tail end of an argument between him and Dalton. Waiting outside the French doors, I couldn’t help eavesdropping, putting a finger to my lips to keep Mother from saying anything.
“We made a pact,” Henry was saying. He sounded murderous, cold. “And you broke it! In the moment when it mattered most, you broke it.”
“Because you lied.” Dalton, on the other hand, was passionless.
“THAT’S WHAT I DO.”
The house trembled.
Dalton’s voice came closer; he was just about to leave the sitting room. I backed away, pretending we had just descended the staircase and I hadn’t heard the last of their row.
“I know,” Dalton said, opening the doors but turning his head inward. “To my everlasting regret, I know. And I wished—and Iwish—that you would be more than that. That’s what a man is—more than his parts, more than his history and his destiny doomed him to be.”
Dalton had no words for us as he marched away from the salon, turning sharply to take the stairs two at a time. I hesitated a moment, listening to his retreating steps, and then tiptoed through the doors to find Mr. Morningside gripping the edge of the breakfast table, his back to us.
