She said, “It’s not my fault.”
The silence in the air offered nothing in response.
“I didn’t ask for this! I didn’t do anything!” she protested.
But no one was listening. No one but whoever it was inside her head. And that person, that voice, didn’t care to answer.
“I don’t know enough about what’s happening. I can’t be expected to do something.”
Go home then.
Heloise blinked. At first she couldn’t decide whether that thought had been simply hers or if it was the strange new voice that was almost hers. But she suspected the answer. No voice but her own could speak to her with such condemnation.
Go home then, Heloise. Go bury your head in the straw. Let Evette be lost.
Just like Hélène.
Heloise gnashed her teeth and hugged herself tightly. She had no tears, either mournful or angry, left to cry, but her face wrinkled up anyway in a furious, snarling expression. “It’s not my fault!” she said again.
But she was the strong one, wasn’t she? She’d been the hardy one from the day she was born. She was the one who never got sick or if she got sick always recovered fastest. She was sturdy and energetic, and nothing could bring her down for long. Which meant . . .
Heloise coughed out a sob and turned it into a curse. But it didn’t matter. In her memory she saw that hole again. That deep, deep hole. That hole in which the thin, pale reflection of her own face lay.
“If you don’t fetch back Evette,” Heloise whispered, “then what is the point of you?”
Centrecœur, said the voice in her head.
“Centrecœur,” said Heloise in the same breath. She turned her feet on the road to the Great House. To escape the accusations, to escape that remembered grave, to escape even her own strong self, she set her feet toward Centrecœur and the weird music that played on and on in the night.
Grandmem said she needed a mirror. All right then. She knew of nowhere else in all Canneberges where a mirror might be found. She would have to break into the Great House and . . . and borrow from Master Benedict de Cœur.
By dawn the enthusiasm for Le Sacre had worn down to almost nothing. The four maidens trading places within the innermost circle were stumbling more than dancing; the men in the outer rings clashed their canes with little vim; even the musicians struck more wrong notes than right (though the music of Le Sacre was so strange, it scarcely made a difference).
Dawn came at last. The peasants, their ceremony complete, bowed and curtsied before the marquis’s son on his throne-like chair. Benedict, in turn, did his utmost to suppress his yawns, to assume what he hoped was a lordly and gracious air. But the truth was, he could hardly keep his eyes open.
His limbs quivered in a manner he found all too familiar.
When the last of the peasant folk of Canneberges had left the lawn and vanished through the gate and over the drawbridge, only then did Benedict try to rise. This took more effort than it should have; an embarrassing amount of effort, in fact. He told himself it was because he was stiff. He’d sat up all night, after all, nodding off now and then, only to be rudely awakened by a particularly piercing screech of pipes or a particularly roaring rumble of timpani. Le Sacre Night was not a night for peace or rest, and it was only natural that he should be tired.
But it wasn’t natural that his knees should quiver so. Nor that the bones of his spine should feel like running water. Though he hated to do it, he was obliged to take the arm of his manservant as they crossed the lawn to the big main doors of Centrecœur.
Doctor Dupont stood in the open doorway like a ghoul guarding the gateway to the Netherworld. He watched Benedict approach, his eyes heavy-lidded but keen.
Doctor Dupont was a thin, sallow man whose rumbling growl of a voice never quite suited him, as though he had stolen some other, larger man’s voice in place of his own. He wore humble grey robes and a black mantle which gave him an appearance of pious self-discipline until one noticed that its lining was silk and the stitching exquisitely rendered by the very best of tailors. On his head was a conical hat that fit tightly across his brow, covering his ears and shading his eyes so that they gleamed out from under the brim. Benedict had never seen him without this hat, indoors or out, rain or shine.
“Hmmmmmm,” he said. It was an oddly musical hum and could mean almost anything. Benedict had come to dread the sound in the months since Doctor Dupont had come to Canneberges. “Hmmmm. You are unwell, sir?”
“I’m fine,” Benedict said, letting go of his manservant’s arm just to prove the point. He took three paces on his own, paused, and waited for the world to stop spinning. But he fixed a firm grin on his face and hoped he betrayed none of his disorientation. “I’m tired. It’s a long night, Le Sacre Night.”
Doctor Dupont—who, not being native to Canneberges, had felt absolutely no obligation to stay up the whole night observing a peasant ritual—lifted his brows. The brows themselves could not be seen, hidden as they were under the tight brim of his black, peaked cap. But the cap rose up on his forehead in what would almost have been a comical gesture were the doctor’s expression not so chilly. “Your man informs me,” he said, “that you went riding out the other day.”
Benedict shot a glare at his manservant, who stood with his hands behind his back, staring up at the morning sky, innocent as a wee lamb. Dragons blast him! There was no use denying it, however, so Benedict merely shrugged and continued on his way, mounting the stairs with care and sidling past the doctor. Or trying to, anyway.
Doctor Dupont’s hand latched onto his upper arm. “Master Benedict, you know I have only your best interests at heart. Your father commissioned me, having utmost trust in my judgment and abilities. But if you insist upon such physical exertion, you will only aggravate—”
“I’m fine,” Benedict said again, his voice low but his eyes flashing. “Contrary to popular opinion, I’m not standing at death’s threshold.”
This was a mistake. It was always a mistake to interrupt Doctor Dupont. Benedict felt the full weight of his error the moment the sharp words left his mouth. He felt the stiffness in the doctor’s hand on his arm. He felt silence descend with the force of a thunderclap. He braced himself for what must follow—an extended silence followed at length by a long, slow, “Hmmmmm.”
His apologetic nature leapt into play. “I’m sorry, good doctor,” Benedict said. “I didn’t mean to . . . well . . .”
It was no good. The error once committed could not be taken back. The doctor’s brow lowered, his peaked cap sinking with it. “Away with you, sir,” he said with all the authority of a king. “Go to bed at once. I will come to you anon and see what of this damage I might undo.”
That was it. Spoken as a pronouncement of doom.
Benedict slipped away the moment the doctor’s hold on his arm released. He hastened down the long gallery bright with morning light streaming through the new glass windows, feeling as though the specters of death pursued at his back. He glanced briefly at the staircase leading up to the Great Hall and the family rooms in the west wing of the house. As heir of Centrecœur he should be making his way up there to the grand suite of chambers belonging to him.
But when he came home from university he’d had all his things moved to a single chamber off the long gallery on the ground floor of the house. A chamber that had once been a chapel of sorts, way back when people used to believe in that sort of thing. It was gloomy but spacious, with glass windows that opened and room enough for his desk, his books, an armoire, and a big four-poster bed. Not exactly homey but . . . well, at least he didn’t have to bother with the stairs.
Benedict paused in the doorway to his room, his manservant a few paces behind him. He half wanted to defy the good doctor and, rather than climb into bed, sit down at his desk and begin reworking all those lost and damaged lists of Corrilondian declensions and conjugations which had so recently been blown across Canneberges. It would take him ages to redo the work, and he was
behind enough in his studies as it was, so far from university. But he felt the lightness in his head and the soreness in his chest, and he couldn’t deny that the very idea of sleep was completely beautiful just then.
“Shall I help you undress, sir?” his manservant asked.
Benedict shot him a glare almost worthy of his red-blooded ancestor Rufus. “I think not,” he growled. “I’ll summon you when I want you again, Hugo. That will be all.”
There were probably more scathing remarks he could have made if he’d had the energy to think of them. For now his tone would have to suffice.
His manservant stiffened, bowed, and turned on heel to retreat down the long gallery with an air of affronted innocence. The backstabber! He’d informed the doctor of Benedict’s secret ride why? Because he came home with a few broken hat feathers? The legendary Betrayer of Destan could hardly have been more worthy of shame!
Except . . . dragons eat it, Benedict half wanted to call out an apology. It took every ounce of self-respecting resentment he could muster to shut his mouth and his door without saying another word.
His room was cold, with only a small fire on the grate, hastily set by a housemaid who’d only just dashed in ahead following the conclusion of Le Sacre. Benedict hated to remove any of the warm layers he wore. But he was a gentleman through and through, and a gentleman did not go to bed in his fine jacket.
So he slipped out of his outermost layers and, wearing only his long undershirt, crawled under the heavy counterpane of his bed. Oh, how exhausted he was! He, the lad who had once gone on a three-day hunt with Victor and the other fellows, pursuing that boar o’er field and fen, laughing and never once feeling the need for sleep. He, the student who could stay up two nights running to finish assignments just on the edge of deadlines and still impress all his tutors with his brilliance.
He felt the dull ache in his chest, the blurry numbness of his limbs. He wondered, Is this what Grandfather felt like in those few years before he died? The question spun around his mind a few times and made him dizzy. He closed his eyes and—
Something stood beside his bed.
Benedict felt it with a clarity he could not deny. Something stood beside his bed. Something tall. Something . . . strong.
He tried to open his eyes. He knew he was on the edge of sleep, possibly fully asleep. But he was conscious as well, conscious of the paralysis in his limbs, conscious of the leadenness in his eyes.
Conscious of something leaning down. Of a long inhalation of breath let go in a warm gust upon his face.
“He will do, I think,” someone said. It was a voice of absolute darkness, not a voice he recognized. “If it comes to it, he will do.”
Creeaeeeeeeeeak.
Benedict’s eyes flew open.
She’s coming closer. I can feel the anger in her rising like a red tide of blood on the war-torn Mher Sea. I can feel the fear in her, the fear she does not like to admit but which is the deepest beat of her heart.
I am sorry to see her so afraid. But I am also glad. Fear can be a strong impetus, especially such a fear as hers.
As she returns across these mortal fields, I look down from my tower, and it seems as though I can meet her gaze even across the many leagues. It seems as though she looks up and sees me where I sit.
She is coming to me. I only hope she can make it safely! But first I must help her to find that which she does not know to seek.
The saying is old and fixed in my memory for all eternity: A branch of three parts shall be the key. A branch of silver . . . a branch of gold . . .
FIFTEEN
Grimacing, Heloise stood on the edge of the moat, or at least what passed for a moat. It was really more of a glorified drain with a number of side trenches meant to carry undesirable smells away from the house itself. It was knee-deep, cold, and absolutely foul.
In an effort not to be seen by any of the peasants leaving Centrecœur at the advent of dawn, Heloise had looped around to the north side of the house, opposite the main gate. Most of Centrecœur’s outer walls were built in the castle-defense style with no windows low enough to allow for an easy break-in. But the north side, Heloise recalled, held an old chapel complete with windows all around to let in as much of the holy light of the Spheres as possible. Many of those windows had long since been bricked up or filled in with glass panes. But there still were openings big enough for a girl to fit through.
The window Heloise had her eye on happened to be not only open but also near a convenient tree growing up from the ditch and offering an ideal ladder to the intrepid climber. She had only to cross the ditch.
“Oh, dragons,” she muttered, gazing down at the revolting water. A cluster of false-unicorn stalks bloomed at her feet, the sickly sweet perfume of the horn-shaped flowers only adding to the other stenches assaulting her nose. The air smelled like the dye house. Well, maybe not as bad as the dye house. But close, to be sure.
Find the mirror, child, said the voice in her head. The annoying, insistent voice which, in light of the dawning day, struck Heloise as being a likely indication of insanity or lack of sleep. But after coming this far, she couldn’t prove herself a coward now.
Heloise gathered up her skirts and scrambled down into the ditch. Her toes sank into mud, followed by her ankles. Brown water sloshed at her knees. Holding her breath and willing herself not to trip or breathe or do anything but hasten as quickly as possible, Heloise sloshed across the ditch. Her footsteps made underwater gloop sounds that were as bad as the smell if not worse. Ugh!
The open window on the far side was higher than she had first thought. The foundations of the Great House were deep, so the ground floor itself was well above Heloise’s head. The tree didn’t offer any conveniently low branches. Heloise stood among the tree’s roots, mud and muck oozing from her toes, and stared up at the glass panes winking in the sunlight above her.
“Now what?”
Find the mirror!
It was amazing how quickly she’d grown accustomed to the idea of a strange voice speaking inside her head; nearly as quickly as she’d adjusted to the notion of talking breezes and singing shadows. And, being Heloise, she just as quickly found herself growing short-tempered at it.
“Yes, fine, that’s all well and good! But how exactly do you expect me to do so? I don’t have wings, you know!”
If a silence can be sulky, this one had a definite sulk to it.
Well, it did no good to stand in the cold, glaring at a window that wouldn’t get any closer. Using both the tree and the wall for support, Heloise began to scramble up. She found toe-holds in the stone, finger-holds in the bark, and she thanked Lumé and Hymlumé and all the starry host for the last several years she’d spent scaling the trunks in Oakwood. She was panting by the time she reached the lowest limb, but she managed to wrap her arms around it, dangle a moment, then get a leg over as well. Heaving her own scrawny weight, she gained purchase at last and paused there, her bare legs hanging out from under her hiked-up skirts, her back pressed against the trunk.
The moat seemed rather far down. Heloise swallowed, closed her eyes, and refused to look again. She wasn’t afraid of heights, or of falling either, for that matter. But falling into that water, ending up submerged . . .Ugh, ugh!
At least the smell was marginally better from up here. A sweet spring breeze moved in the bare tree branches, which clicked gently against the window glass. The branch Heloise slid along toward the window wasn’t as thick as she would have liked and bobbed unsettlingly at her slightest movement. But she didn’t have much choice; she had to get to that window. Besides the big drawbridge gate, the only other way into Centrecœur was through the kitchen door, which would mean getting past Alphonsine Millerman and her snooty airs. No. No, that was asking too much of a girl.
With one trembling hand, Heloise reached for the windowsill. In order to catch hold she first had to pull the casement open a bit further.
Creeeeeeeak.
Then, using the window frame to
support as much of her weight as possible, she slid further out along the bough. She was now far from the trunk and from any hope of help should something fall or break.
Gritting her teeth against her fear, she flung out her other hand and caught the sill. The branch waved like an unsteady sea craft under her feet as she stood up on it, putting even more of her weight into her arms and the window frame. It was dark in the chamber within. Using her head, Heloise nudged the window open a bit more.
Creak. Creeeak, creeeeak.
Now she could get her head and shoulders through and have a proper look into . . . a bedroom. Not what she’d expected. Wasn’t this supposed to be the old chapel, with its high round windows on the east and west walls? She looked from side to side, and indeed, there were those round windows. Not very large, to be sure, but just where they were supposed to be.
But the rest of the room wasn’t chapel-like at all. There was no lantern hanging from the center of the ceiling. There was a fire on a hearth where she’d expected an altar to be. And what on earth was a great, unmade four-poster bed doing there, taking up room where kneelers should be kneeling and chantours should be offering up prayerful songs?
It was very odd.
Find the mirror, said the voice in her head.
Heloise scanned the room quickly from this vantage but saw no mirror lying about. She’d have to get inside, take a look in that great armoire standing against the far wall, perhaps. She didn’t have much else to go on as far as plans went. Master Benedict had said he owned a mirror, so she knew there must be mirrors somewhere within Centrecœur. If not in this room, then maybe another?
There was nothing for it. She had to get in.
Taking a deep breath and adjusting her grip on the sill, Heloise jumped. The sensation of her feet leaving the branch behind was like dropping her own stomach. For half an instant she feared her hands would slip and she would fall back into the moat. Instead she hauled herself up so that her stomach landed hard on the windowsill. “Oof!” she gasped. Her feet scrabbling along the wall, she pulled herself over and thudded on the floor below.