Ravencliffe

  I took a deep breath. “Miss Corey, Nathan, I’d like you to meet my father.”

  26

  NATHAN’S EYES WIDENED, but he took my father’s hand and said in a firm voice, “I’m pleased to meet you, sir.”

  “And I am pleased to meet a friend of my daughter’s,” he said, giving Nathan’s hand a squeeze that made Nathan grit his teeth. Then he turned to Miss Corey. “And to meet a learned librarian, as well.”

  I explained to him how I had found Blythewood when I returned there this morning. As I spoke, a flock of fledglings gathered on the ledges around us, including Raven, who listened with growing concern in his face. When I finished, Master Quill nodded.

  “It sounds as if your friends have been placed under a musical mesmerism. They’re very hard to undo, but I believe we might have something in the music section.” He snapped his fingers and a young Darkling appeared. “I’ll have one of my pages show you the way. And you, young man,” he said to Nathan. “I can tell by the way you’re scanning the shelves you’re also looking for something. Perhaps . . . ah, yes, here’s someone who might be able to help you.”

  I looked around to see Raven approaching. I glanced nervously back at Nathan, expecting him to make a scene, but instead I saw him whisper something in Raven’s ear, and the two of them went off together. I looked back at my father, who was smiling at me.

  “It looks as if your friends are finding what they are looking for. Why don’t you sit down beside me? Perhaps I can help you find what you are looking for.”

  I sat down on a stool between the two scribes who were transcribing my father’s wings. The scratch of their quills on paper was peaceful, like the sound of pigeons on the fire escape in the apartments I shared with my mother. Where we had lived all alone, cold and often hungry . . . the thought brought to mind the insidious questions van Drood had placed in my mind—or had he placed them there? Wasn’t there a little part of me that was still angry at my father for abandoning me and my mother, no matter what the reason?

  I looked away from him, afraid he’d see the doubt in my face, but then I felt his hand cover mine. I relaxed as the warmth of his hand seeped into my limbs, and I fell into a sort of daydream in which he was there at various times of my childhood—when I had the flu, when my mother was out late delivering hats and I was alone in the cold dark apartment, or when I stood at the service entrance of a Fifth Avenue mansion afraid to ring the bell—there by my side with his hand in mine.

  “You’ll never have to be alone like that again,” he said. I knew that he had been there with me in my daydream, and some of the loneliness that had clung to me since my childhood was dissipated. I wiped my eyes as Miss Corey came back clutching a heavy book to her chest.

  “I think I’ve found what I need, Ava,” she said to me, her eyes on my father’s wings.

  “Please,” Falco said, “you are welcome to look at the book. Perhaps you would like to look at the introduction.” He ruffled his feathers, unveiling a richly illuminated page. Miss Corey leaned forward and peered at the page, her face shining. She read for several minutes and then looked up.

  “This is remarkable,” she cried. “Dame Alcyone was Merope’s sister and a founding member of the Order. She says she will tell here the true story of how the Order began and how the Darklings were cursed.” She looked up from the book at Falco and then at the small crowd of fledglings who had gathered around us. The crowd included Raven, who had come back with Nathan. The glow from the skylight lit up their faces. “I believe she wrote the book to show how our powers, yoked together, could defeat the shadow creatures, and how together we could release you from your curse. If this is true, we must put our enmity aside and join forces. I pledge to do my best to represent your case before the Council and recommend that we negotiate for peace.”

  I saw Raven nodding to Marlin, as if what Miss Corey had said confirmed something they had been speaking about—and then I saw them both look at Nathan. Surprised, I saw Nathan nod back at both of them and then extend a hand to shake theirs.

  “I am glad that my archive has been of assistance to you, Lady,” Master Quill said, bowing his head to Miss Corey. “And I, too, pledge to urge my flock to join with yours. When a great darkness threatens, the small birds must flock together.”

  At his words the assembled fledglings beat their wings together and whistled a low note that sounded like wind moving through trees. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up and my wings strain to break free, but then I saw Nathan staring at me and I realized that even if he knew I was half-Darkling I wasn’t ready to spread my wings in front of him yet. So instead I turned to say good-bye to my father.

  He took my hand in his, and again I felt a weight fall from me, as though his hand lifted me up. He drew his wings around me, and I heard the fluttering of all the pages of the book as he wrapped me in their mantle.

  “We are still bonded, dearling,” he whispered in my ear. “If you need me you have only to call for me and I will come.”

  Then he unfolded his wings and stepped away from me. Even when I turned to go, though, and I climbed down the tower and left Ravencliffe, I still felt the mantle of his wings’ protection around me.

  On the way back to Blythewood, Miss Corey explained what we had to do. “It’s really quite simple,” she said between swift strokes of her skates. “Musical mesmerism works by inserting a series of commands within a musical score. It’s rather like having a song stuck in your head, only the song is telling you to do things you’re not conscious of. What we have to do is disrupt the musical score in their heads by substituting other tunes. It’s similar to how we use our bells to dispel fairies and other creatures. The book lists a series of tunes that are most effective in dispelling musical mesmerism, only . . .”

  “Only what?” I asked, gasping to keep up with her.

  “Only a well-crafted mesmerism spell will contain fail-safes to prevent anyone from dispelling it. We’ll have to try different tunes on individuals until we discover which one will work. Once we find the right tune, we can use it to de-mesmerize enough of us to ring the Blythewood bells to free everyone in the castle.”

  “I can program my repeater to play back the tune,” I said.

  “Excellent,” she replied. “The rest of us can hum it. Nathan, you have perfect pitch . . . right, Nathan?”

  Nathan had been curiously quiet since we had left Ravencliffe, his eyes on the ice below his skates. Now he knew my father was a Darkling. What if my being half-Darkling was one more thing that pushed him into the shadows? What if his stubborn silence was his way of shutting me out, and he was never going to talk to me again?

  But when Miss Corey called his name once more, he pointed to the ice below his feet. We both looked down and saw that there were dark shapes following our passage across the ice—only they weren’t fish. There were shadows beneath the ice—tenebrae—and they were following us back to Blythewood.

  We skated faster, racing the shadows under the ice. I hadn’t realized how long we’d been at Ravencliffe until I noticed the sun going down over the mountains. By the time we reached Blythewood the shadows of the western mountains stretched across the river and crept up the lawn toward the castle. The last rays of the setting sun caught the icicles hanging from the battlements and turned them red so that it looked as though the castle were dripping blood. As we skated across the frozen lawn, I looked back at the river and saw the tenebrae under the ice. Waiting. But for what?

  Mr. Bellows was at the library doors, pacing back and forth and tearing at his hair when we arrived. “Thank the Bells!” he cried. “I was afraid something had happened to you.”

  “Where’s Vi?” Miss Corey asked. She was trying to look around Mr. Bellows, but he kept placing himself in front of her.

  Mr. Bellows raked his hands through his hair. “I only left her for a minute.”

  Miss Corey pushed Mr. Bel
lows aside and strode across the library, her skate blades clattering loudly and scarring the parquet floor. Miss Sharp was standing by the fire—or rather, not standing but twirling—in a long white satin and lace gown. She was also wearing a long veil and carrying a bouquet of pink rosebuds and baby’s breath.

  “Vi!” Miss Corey cried. “Why are you dressed like that?”

  “Oh, Lillian, there you are! I wanted so much for you to see my dress. I’m to play a bride doll. Isn’t it lovely?”

  So many emotions passed over Miss Corey’s face it was like watching a lake during a summer shower, ruffled by wind and alternately darkened by clouds and lit by sunshine—relief that Miss Sharp wasn’t really getting married, horror that she had succumbed to the mesmerism, and then anger at Mr. Bellows.

  “How could you let this happen to her?” she said, whirling on him.

  “I told her to lock the library doors. Someone she trusted must have gotten in—I’m afraid it might have been Helen.”

  “Helen!” I cried.

  I started across the floor, remembered I was still wearing skates, and stopped to unlace them. Nathan was already tearing at his laces and shucking off his skates.

  “Let me try some of the tunes on Vionetta first,” Miss Corey said, laying her hand on my shoulder. “Then we’ll know which one works.”

  “Tunes?” Miss Sharp said, her blue eyes widening. “Do you mean like wedding songs?” She hummed a bit of the wedding march and twirled around, holding her satin train in one hand. “Oh, I do wish this wasn’t only a costume. I would so love to be a real bride!”

  Nathan turned to me. “Are there any bride dolls in Die Puppenfee?”

  “No,” I said. “But Herr Hofmeister’s been adding all sorts of extras. You don’t think—”

  I was interrupted by a jingling of sleigh bells. Nathan and I went to the window. Coming up the drive were a dozen horse-drawn sleighs trimmed with holly and ribbons. The first one stopped at the door, and several men in fur coats disembarked. Gillie was holding the bridle of the lead horse. I recognized Mr. Montmorency and Mr. Driscoll, but there were a number of younger men—in their thirties, I guessed—whom I didn’t recognize.

  “Who are all these men?” I asked.

  “They’re investors,” Miss Corey answered. “Dame Beckwith announced a few days ago that they’d be coming.”

  “Oh!” Miss Sharp cried, jumping to her feet and rushing to the window. “Do you think they’re married? They must be rich to invest so much money in the school. I do wish Gillie wasn’t giving them such an awful look.”

  Gillie was indeed staring at the men as if he’d like to haul them back on their sleighs and send them packing. At least Gillie hadn’t been mesmerized. When the last man disembarked from the sleigh I saw Gillie’s face turn a shade of menacing green, and the sky, which had been clear a moment ago, turned dark. I recognized the last man as the clergyman I’d seen at the Montmorency ball.

  A clergyman who could perform a marriage ceremony.

  “They can’t . . . they wouldn’t . . .” I sputtered.

  “I wouldn’t put it past them,” Nathan muttered grimly. “They might be planning to marry off our girls to the highest bidder. We have to stop this.”

  I wondered if he was worrying about Helen; I knew I was. Miss Corey drew Miss Sharp gently away from the window and back to the chair by the fireplace, where Mr. Bellows urged her to sit down.

  “Oh, but I’ll crease my dress!” she complained. “Will you carry my train for me, dearest Lil? Oh, you can be my bridesmaid!”

  “Over my dead body,” Miss Corey muttered. But in a louder voice she said, “Whatever you like, Vi, but first I’d like you to listen to some tunes. They’re—”

  “Samples of wedding marches?” Miss Sharp asked.

  “Yes,” Miss Corey bit off between gritted teeth. “So listen to each one carefully.”

  Miss Corey hummed a tune.

  “Oh, I think that’s a bit too funereal for a wedding, don’t you, Rupert? What would you like for your wedding?”

  Mr. Bellows blushed from his starched collar to his scalp. “Let’s try another,” he said, his voice cracking.

  Miss Corey hummed another tune, which Miss Sharp pronounced “charming but better suited for a summer wedding,” and another that was for a “younger bride.”

  “I am, after all, over thirty. I thought I’d die a spinster because the Order said I couldn’t marry,” she prattled as Miss Corey tried one tune after another. “Because of Uncle Taddie being crazy, you know. But now . . . oh now! I think everything has changed and I’m hopeful . . . hopeful . . . hope . . . full . . .”

  She stuttered like a wind-up toy that had been wound too tight, her head tilting from side to side, a puzzled look in her eyes.

  “That last one seemed to have knocked something loose,” Mr. Bellows said. “Try it again.”

  Miss Corey hummed the previous tune. I listened to it carefully, as did Miss Sharp, her blue eyes focused on Miss Corey’s face growing suddenly clear.

  “Lillian!” she cried. “You’re back! . . . What . . . ?” She looked down at the bouquet in her lap and fingered the satin of her dress. “Why am I dressed like this? What nonsense have I been spouting?”

  “It’s all right, Vionetta, you were mesmerized.”

  “But I thought I was really going to be married . . . to some stranger! It didn’t even matter to whom.”

  “It was the spell,” Miss Corey said more firmly. “Don’t upset yourself.”

  “But how could I have even thought such a thing”—she leaned forward and took Miss Corey’s hand—“when the only person I ever want to be with is you?”

  Miss Corey turned pink and began to stammer her friend’s name, but Miss Sharp stopped her mouth with a kiss. Which, after a moment, Miss Corey returned.

  I turned away to find Mr. Bellows and Nathan gaping at the two women. “Let’s memorize that tune to make sure we have it right,” I suggested. “I’ve got it right here on my repeater.”

  “Oh . . . y-yes,” Mr. Bellows stuttered.

  I peeked back to steal a glance at Miss Corey and Miss Sharp, holding hands and beaming at each other.

  “Right,” I said, turning to Nathan and Mr. Bellows with a broad smile of my own. “Let’s get to work.”

  27

  OUR TEACHERS WANTED to go straight to the bell tower, but Nathan insisted on finding Helen and the rest of the girls first.

  “I’m not leaving my friends alone with those . . . bounders,” he said.

  Miss Sharp suggested that Nathan and I go to the ballroom while they went to the bell tower. “We’ll de-mesmerize whomever we find along the way until we have enough to ring the bells. But you two stay together. I was converted in an instant. Once you’ve cured Helen you can break off into pairs, but always make sure you work with a partner and instruct whomever you cure to do the same.”

  We looked into the Great Hall, which was full of arriving guests. Long tables were set with steaming punch bowls fragrant with liquor and spice and silver trays loaded with roasts and mincemeat pies. But despite the good smells of food, the room was full of the smoky fug from the men’s cigars. The seven bell maker’s daughters looked down from their stained-glass windows with sadness and shock. But they didn’t look as angry as Nathan.

  “How dare those men come into Blythewood with evil intent toward our girls? The bells ought to be pealing out at their presence!”

  Why weren’t the bells ringing? I wondered as we went up the narrow back servants’ stairs, Nathan following me so closely I could feel his breath on the back of my neck.

  “I’m not going to turn into a monster and fly away,” I hissed at him when he trod on my feet.

  “That’s not what I’m worried about,” he said. “Raven said you might still be weak from your . . . sickness. He said to stick close to yo
u.”

  I was about to snap back that I was perfectly fine, but then, looking at him more closely, I saw that he wasn’t. In the dim light of a flickering wall sconce his skin was a sickly yellow and his hair a dead gray, and his eyes glittered like a fever patient’s. The shadows lurking in Nathan’s soul were rising to the surface, flushed out by the presence of the visitors. That’s why Raven had told him to stay near me—for his protection, not mine.

  “Okay,” I said, squeezing Nathan’s hand. “I’ll stay close.” Before I could finish, we both heard something growl at the top of the stairs. Nathan squeezed past me. I followed close on his heels to find a snarling, razor-fanged, green-skinned imp. Nathan drew out his dagger, and the creature lifted its shaggy dark head and glared out of acid-green eyes.

  “No, wait,” I cried, “it’s Gillie!”

  Nathan stared at me with disbelief, but I crouched down and held out my hand, speaking in the firm voice Gillie had taught me to use with the hawks. “It’s all right, Ghillie Dhu, we’re not here to steal your girls, but to help them.”

  The creature growled low in its throat, but I saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes, which changed now from the acid green of pond scum to the soft green of moss. He stood up, and resumed a more human cast to his features.

  “Hell’s Bells, it is Gillie!” Nathan swore. “What did they do to him?”

  “No time to explain,” I said. I suspected that the threat to the Blythewood girls had triggered a defensive reaction that had turned the peaceful Gillie into a snarling monster. “Are you okay now, Gillie?”

  The caretaker nodded and grunted. “Aye, lass. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “It’s the guests,” Nathan said. “The board members and the investors. We think van Drood is controlling them.”

  Gillie muttered something in Scots that I suspected was a string of curses, finishing in English. “I should never have let them in, but the Dame insisted. But she’s no’ herself, is she?”