“Philon, please…,” I start.
The creature turns its back to me. One by one, like doors slamming, the forest folk turn as well, shunning me. Only Neela acknowledges my presence. As she follows her people from the grotto, she turns back and spits in my face.
Felicity takes me roughly aside. “You’ve been talking to Circe?”
“I needed answers. I needed to know about the Winterlands,” I say. “She was the only one who could tell me what I—what we—needed to know.”
“We?” Felicity looks daggers at me. Ann takes her hand. “Circe doesn’t offer anything without a price. What did you give her?” Felicity demands.
When I do not answer, Ann does. “Magic.”
Felicity’s laugh is brutal. “You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t, Gemma.”
“I needed answers! She got us safely through the Winterlands, didn’t she?” I say, only then realizing how paltry a defense it is.
“She likely killed Wilhelmina Wyatt herself! Did you consider that?” Fee barks, and a terrible coldness snakes through me. I told Circe about Eugenia, about the tree. What if…
“It wasn’t like that,” I say, less sure.
“You’re a fool,” Felicity scoffs.
I give her a shove. “You know so very much about how to run things; maybe you should be the one to hold all the magic!”
“I wish I were the one,” she growls through gritted teeth. “I’d make an alliance with Pip and my friends, not consort with the enemy.”
“Certain of Pip, are you? Where is she, then?”
Felicity’s slap is hard and sudden. I feel the sting to my toes. She’s cut my lip. I taste the blood with my tongue, and I’m flooded with magic. At once, Felicity’s hand is on her sword, and I fling it away like a toy.
“I’m not the enemy,” she says quietly.
My body trembles. It takes every bit of strength I have to push the magic down. It leaves me with a sick, shaking sensation, as if I haven’t slept for days. Fee and I stand facing each other, neither of us willing to apologize. My stomach lurches. I turn and vomit into a bush. Felicity marches ahead on the path to the Borderlands.
“You shouldn’t have said that about Pip,” Ann chides, offering me her handkerchief.
I push it away. “You shouldn’t tell me what to do.”
Ann’s wounded expression is only momentary. Her well-trained mask settles over her true feelings. I’ve won the round, but I hate myself for it.
“I believe I shall walk with Fee,” she says. Head down, she runs to Felicity, leaving me behind.
* * *
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
* * *
PIPPA AND THE GIRLS ARE IN THE CASTLE’S OLD CHAPEL when we return. They’ve a basket of plump berries, which Pippa sorts through, dropping the fruit into a chalice she’s found. The girls seem more worn than usual. Their hair is terribly matted, and if I catch them in a certain slant of light, their complexions are a mottled yellow, like fruit gone bad.
Pippa hums a merry tune. Seeing our long faces, she stops. “What is the matter? What has happened?”
Felicity gives me a hard look but neither she nor Ann confesses what I’ve done. My head aches now, and I have to keep my hands tucked under my armpits to quiet the shaking.
“Creostus has been killed,” I say tersely.
“Oh, is that all?” she says. She returns to her berry picking. Mae and Bessie don’t even look up. Their indifference is enraging.
“The forest folk have shunned me.”
Pippa shrugs. “They don’t matter. Not really.”
“I might have thought that once, but I was wrong. I do need them.”
“Those horrid creatures? You said they used to come into our world and take playthings. Horrid!” Pippa removes a mealy berry with her fingertips and drops it onto a cloth with the other discarded fruit.
“Yes, it’s wrong. And I might not like it. I might tell them I don’t. But Philon has never lied to me. When I needed help, the creature was an ally. All they asked was to have a voice, to share in their own governance, and I have failed them.” I take a steadying breath, and the magic settles a bit.
“Well,” Pippa says, dusting off her skirts, “I still don’t see why you need them when you have us. Bessie, darling, will you put these aside?”
Bessie takes the basket of fruit. She looks longingly at it. “How come them folk turned their backs on you, eh?”
The room feels close. Felicity and Ann avoid my eyes.
“They believe the Untouchables and I had something to do with Creostus’s murder.”
“That’s queer, innit?” Bessie stares at me. “How come they fink that?”
“Gemma’s been having secret talks with Circe,” Felicity announces.
“Oh, Gemma,” Pippa scolds. Her violet eyes flash, and in that moment they lose their color and become the milky blue-white of the Winterlands. The stare sends a chill down my spine.
“’Oo’s Circe?” Mae asks.
“The worst sort of villain,” Pippa explains. “She tried to kill Gemma. She would do anything to possess the magic of the Temple and rule the realms. She can’t be trusted.” Pippa glares at me. “And those who consort with her cannot be trusted either. For there is nothing worse than a deceiver who would betray her friends.”
“I didn’t betray anyone!” I shout, and the power I’ve silenced rumbles in me again, till I am forced to sit.
Felicity moves in beside Pippa, her arms folded. “Where were you earlier?” she asks in a low voice.
Pippa shrugs her off. “Gathering berries.”
“We looked for you in the forest.” Felicity presses.
“Not everywhere, it would seem.”
Bessie steps to Pippa’s side. She towers over Felicity by a good head. “Trouble, Miss Pippa?”
Pippa doesn’t rush to say Now, now, Bessie, don’t be silly, all is well. She lets the threat dangle for a moment, relishing the power in it. “No, thank you, Bessie.” Hands on her hips, she turns to Fee. “I might ask where you’ve been, but I suppose you’ve been busy with your life. Out there.”
“Pip…” Felicity tries to lace her fingers in Pippa’s but Pip won’t have it. She pulls away. “I brought you a gift,” Fee says, hopefully. She offers Pip a slim package wrapped in brown paper.
Pippa’s eyes light up as she opens it. For there are three ostrich feathers.
“So that you might have your coming out,” Felicity says softly.
“Oh. Oh, they are exquisite!” Pippa throws her arms around Felicity, who smiles at last. Bessie lumbers across the room with the basket of berries, nearly knocking over poor Mercy.
“Oh, do help me secure them,” Pip says.
Felicity fastens them to Pip’s hair at the back with the stem of a weed stolen from the altar.
“How do I look?” Pippa asks.
“Beautiful,” Felicity answers hoarsely.
“Oh, how enchanting! That is what we need to lift our spirits—a merry party. And every girl here shall make her debut. It will be a most magnificent ball—the grandest ever! Mae? Mercy? Who’s with me? Bessie, you’ll play, won’t you?”
The girls jump with excitement. Mae rips nightshade from the wall and tucks it behind her ear. A worm drops to the floor with a plop, and I cannot say whether it fell from the flower or her ear.
“Gemma?” Pip extends her hand. “Will you join our debut ball?”
Creostus’s death has cast a long shadow across my soul. For the first moment in a very long time, I do not care for a party. I do not want to forget my troubles or attempt to fill the holes deep inside us with fleeting illusions.
“I’m afraid I’m not in a festive mood. You’ll have to have your party without me.”
I expect an argument. Pouts and tears and begging for me to turn the castle into the Taj Mahal, our skirts into Parisian gowns. Instead, Pippa smiles brightly.
“Oh, Gemma, darling, you rest. I shall do it all.”
She closes her eye
s and reaches her arms forcefully to the castle’s ancient rafters. An ecstatic smile spreads across her lips. Her body trembles, and the castle begins its transformation. The grime clears from the windows till they gleam. The vines recede, clearing enough floor for dancing. Mold vanishes from the walls and the ceiling, and in its place is a dark purple carpet of berries and belladonna.
Awestruck, Ann turns round, taking in the whole of the chapel. “How did you do that?”
“It seems the magic is changing. Gemma isn’t the only one with the power,” Pippa answers.
“That’s extraordinary,” Felicity says, and there’s a hint of sadness in her voice. “Can you gift it to others as Gemma can?”
Pippa reaches into a tangle of berries and selects the biggest, which she eats. “No. At least not yet. But when I am able, you can be certain I will share it without delay. Now, we must prepare for our debuts!”
“Pippa,” I say, more harshly than I mean to, “might I have a word with you?”
Pip gives the other girls a playful pout and rolls her eyes, and they laugh at my expense. “I shan’t be but a moment,” she says. “You might practice your curtsies while I’m away.”
Pip and I travel the winding staircase. A mouse has been caught in the spider’s web. It lies trapped in a shiny cocoon of silk, barely moving, knowing its fate. We reach the top of the stairs and I can feel the chill in the air. In the distance, the shadows of the Winterlands beckon. But I do not feel its siren song so strongly tonight. The sight of Creostus lying on the ground is fresh in my mind.
Pippa stands at the window. Silhouetted by the swirling gloom of the Winterlands, an enigmatic half smile on her lips, she is even more beautiful than usual.
“I must say, Gemma, you don’t seem very happy for me.”
“I’m only confused. How did this power come to you? It’s been days since I—”
“This has nothing to do with you,” she says, and I hear hatred in her voice. “The magic has taken root in me. I can’t explain why it is. But you might be happy. You should be. Now you’re not so alone.”
Should. That word, so like a corset, meant to bend us to the proper shape. Pippa leans out the window arch and stretches her arms wide, letting the wind howling off the Winterlands mountains hold her up.
“Oh, that is jolly!” She giggles.
“Pip, come in,” I say, worried.
Her eyes turn milky white. “Why? Nothing shall happen to me. I’m immortal.”
She steps away from the window. Her hair is a tangle of curls. “Gemma, I want you to know that while I do not approve of your consorting with Circe, I am prepared to forgive you.”
“You…forgive me?” I say slowly.
“Yes. For I’ve been reborn and I see everything so clearly. There will be changes made around here.” She smiles and kisses my cheek, and it makes my skin tingle.
“Pip, what are you saying?”
Those eyes of hers shimmer like a mirage—violet, blue-white, violet, blue-white—till I cannot be sure what is true and what is only a false hope in the desert.
“I’ve had a vision of my own. There will be a new day of empire within the realms. Those who are not with us are against us. And then there is the matter of those who, in truth, are not fit for our new day: the diseased and the poor. The ones who shall never really amount to anything.” Her face hardens. “Degenerates.”
Pippa slips her arm through mine, and I have the urge to shake it off and run. “I confess I don’t know what to do about poor Wendy,” she says with a sigh. “She’s become quite a burden.”
My voice is a whisper. “What do you mean?”
Pip purses her berry-stained lips. “She hears screaming when there is nothing at all to hear. None of us hears a thing. I’ve told her to stop. I even slapped her for it.”
“You hit Wendy?”
There’s a hard determination in Pippa’s voice. “She frightens the other girls, and then no one wants to play. There is no screaming; she’s only being contrary.”
“Just because you don’t hear it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”
Pip’s face eases into one of her childlike smiles. “Oh, Gemma. When will you go with me into the Winterlands again? Isn’t it such fun? To travel the gorge on the ship. To run up the heath and let the Tree of All Souls whisper to us of who we really are, what we could truly become.”
“You sound as if you have been going without us.”
That strange half smile is back. “Of course not. I wouldn’t go without you.”
A chilly gust howls through the tower’s windows. A terrible thought crawls its way into my mind.
“What happened to Mr. Darcy?” I ask in a whisper, and am surprised by how fast and fluttery my heartbeat is.
Pip holds my gaze for a long moment. “He was only a rabbit. Not to be missed.”
Merry laughter floats up the stairs from the floor below. Someone shouts, “Come on, Pip!” and Pippa grins.
“My subjects await.”
She starts down the stairs, only turning back when she doesn’t hear me just behind her. “Aren’t you coming?”
“No,” I say. “I don’t feel much like dancing.”
Pip’s eyes turn the color of the Winterlands. “Pity.”
When I leave the tower, they are in the chapel. Felicity and Pip sit upon the thrones like royalty. Pippa holds a stick like a scepter in one hand, and she’s wearing the cape Felicity gave her a few weeks ago. It seems like years since that happy time. Ann secures Mercy’s train. Mae pulls on her long gloves; Bessie snaps her ivory fan shut. Only Wendy is alone, clutching Mr. Darcy’s empty cage.
“Now you’ll finally have your chance to become true ladies, and no one will tell you you’re not equal to the finest of them,” Pippa calls.
The girls’ eyes shine. Pip wears her ostrich feathers proudly, like the debutante she will not get to be in our world.
“Miss Bessie Timmons!” Fee calls, and the walls groan. Under the illusion, the vines continue their creeping assault.
One by one, the girls glide solemnly toward Pip. They curtsy low before her, and she nods sternly and bids them rise. As they back away, their faces are bright, exultant. They believe with all their hearts that they have become ladies.
And in Pip’s disquieting eyes, I see that she believes without reservation that she is queen.
I run through the dusty corridors of the Temple, brushing past a startled Asha, and head straight for the well of eternity. Circe floats there as she has every time I’ve been.
Every time. I’ve not realized how much I’ve come.
“Creostus the centaur has been murdered,” I say. “Did you have anything to do with it?”
“How could I manage it from in here?” she says, and it doesn’t soothe me.
“I need to know what is happening,” I say, a little out of breath. The air is damp and warm. It makes my lungs ache. “You promised me answers.”
“No. I promised to help you understand your power in exchange for magic.”
“Yes, the magic! Why do you want it? How do I know you haven’t been using it to orchestrate trouble? You could have left the well, for all I know. You could have murdered Creostus. You could be in league with the Winterlands creatures.”
The full force of what I have done rises inside me. With a grunt, I kick the side of the well and a small bit of stone crumbles under my boot.
Circe’s voice is steely. “You needn’t torture the well. It hasn’t done anything to you. What’s the trouble? Is it Eugenia?”
“N-no,” I stammer. I’ll not tell her anything else about Mrs. Spence. That was a mistake. I palm the bit of rock and turn it between my fingers. “It’s Pip. She has magic of her own. I haven’t gifted her for days now but perhaps there are remnants of it—”
“Stop lying to yourself. You know how she has it. She’s made a pact in the Winterlands.”
The truth sinks into me by degrees. “There was a pet rabbit one of the girls had,” I say softly
. “Pip said it went missing.”
“Next time it will not be a bunny,” Circe warns. “But what of our illustrious Eugenia? The Tree of All Souls? Have you found the dagger yet?”
“Not yet, but I will,” I say. “Why did you hate her so much?”
“Because,” she says with difficulty. “She would not look into her own darkness, so how could she possibly understand the hearts of others? I suppose the centaur’s death means there will be no alliance.”
“I suppose not,” I say, only now realizing the trouble ahead. I made a promise I didn’t keep. Now I have enemies. “And you swear you had nothing to do with Creostus’s murder?” I ask again, passing the pebble through my fingers.
“How could I?” she answers.
When I emerge from behind the water, Asha is waiting for me. She bows quickly.
“Lady Hope, I would speak with you,” she says urgently.
“What is it?”
Asha guides me into a room where the Hajin sit on pallets, stringing beads. Red smoke belches from the many copper pots. “Is it true one of the centaurs was murdered and they blame the Hajin?”
“Yes,” I say. “He was found with a poppy clutched in his hand.”
“But we had nothing to do with his murder.” She rubs her thumb against her palm like a worry stone. “We wanted no part of these politics. We only wish to be left alone, to live in safety—”
“There is no bloody safety!” I shout. “When will you realize that? Do your people even know that I offered them a share of the magic and that you refused it on their behalf?”
The Hajin look up from their poppies.
“Asha, is this true?” a girl asks.
“It is not our path, our destiny. We do not extend beyond our tribe,” Asha says calmly. “You know this.”
“But we could have a voice at last,” a Hajin man says assertively.
The smoke has thinned. Asha stands at the pot, revealed. “And would you use that share of magic to change who we are? Here we have accepted our afflictions. We have found solace in each other. What if suddenly we had the power to remove all flaws? Would you find beauty in each other still? At least now we are one caste.”