Yvan stealthily speaks to me now, asking about the Selkie if we have a brief moment in the kitchen alone, quietly helping me with kitchen tasks when it will go unnoticed. I nearly fall over the first time he gives me a warm half smile, my heartbeat turning erratic.
But we have to be careful. Careful not to show that we’re rapidly becoming friends.
* * *
I’ve decided to put my Gardnerian silks back on, wanting to blend in with my people and remain above suspicion—Marina’s life might depend on it.
Marina watches me, her ocean eyes steady as I pull one of my fine Gardnerian-black, silken tunics over my head for the first time in a long time, my jaw clenched with resolve as I tug at the fabric and mentally beat back a swelling nausea. The shock of seeing myself in the washroom mirror sets me reeling even further.
A true Gardnerian—right down to the silver Erthia orb around my neck.
The very image of Her.
I glance over toward Marina, and the Selkie’s trusting gaze sends shame coursing through me. Tears stinging at my eyes, I turn away from her and struggle to tie up the tunic’s laced back, my fingers fumbling.
I hate Vogel, I want to tell her in a way she’ll understand. I’m nothing like my cursed people, even though I look like this. I don’t want to look like this.
The Selkie’s fingers come over mine, gently taking the laces from my hands and deftly tying them tight as tears spill over and streak down my cheeks.
When I emerge from the washroom, Ariel catches sight of me and flinches back as if struck, then gives me a scathing look of pure hate.
“I have to fit in,” I try to explain to Ariel, my palms out in surrender. “I have to dress like them. You know I’m not like most Gardnerians. But we’re hiding a Selkie,” I gesture toward Marina. “It’s important that I fit in. You must see that.”
A wave of guilt washes over me as Ariel ignores my words and scuttles clear across her bed, huddling against the wall and glowering at me. Her dark look is only mildly assuaged by Wynter taking a seat beside her, murmuring soothing words as Ariel buries her head against Wynter’s chest, the Elfin Icaral’s dark wings coming protectively around them both.
Wynter’s eyes rest on Marina for a moment, the Selkie taking a seat on the floor by the fire, next to Diana. Wynter turns to me, takes in my garb, then nods once, her silver eyes full of steeled understanding.
Diana casually throws her arm around our Selkie and looks me over, a shrewd gleam lighting her gaze. She raises her amber eyes and gives me a wide, sly smile of approval, baring her teeth.
I take a good deal of comfort from this—I can count on my Lupine friend to fully understand strategy in a fight.
I pick up my new white armband and turn to Diana. “Would you help me put this on?”
Her dark, knowing smile doesn’t flinch. Diana gets up and strides toward me. She takes the Vogel band and cinches it securely around my arm.
* * *
Priest Simitri smiles broadly when I come into his History class early, pale rays of wintry light spearing through the windows. He takes in my conservative attire, complete with a white Vogel ribbon pinned around my arm.
“Ah, Mage Gardner,” he observes with obvious relief. He’s been dismayed for weeks by my dark brown, barely acceptable woolen garb, his vocal support for Vogel mirrored by his own ribbon. “You stand now in courage,” he tells me. “Even though you have been forced to labor with Kelts and Urisk, and to live with Icaral demons, you have the courage to stand apart. To let your dress proudly declare both your faith and your support of our beloved Priest Vogel. I applaud you.”
It’s not courage, I think darkly, my stomach now a constant knot. It’s camouflage.
* * *
“The armband, too?” Yvan snipes at me as he loads wood into the stove next to me that evening.
I’m deeply stung by his harsh tone. “Don’t you think it’s smart?” I snipe back.
He stares at the flames, his jaw flexing with tension. “It’s smart.” His green eyes flash at me before he throws the iron door shut and stalks away.
Anger burns at my insides.
I’m not these clothes, I want to yell after him, aware of the newly stoked hatred bearing down on me from all the kitchen workers, Iris’s brazen look of hostility the most open manifestation. I can feel her look clear across the room.
I’m not this white armband, or these black silks, or this face, I continue to rail at Yvan wordlessly as he exits out the back and shuts the door with a sharp slam I feel straight down my spine.
I’m not Her, I continue to rage toward him, an angry flush burning at my cheeks. You know I’m not.
I’ll never be Her.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Tightening Noose
It’s late the next evening when I’m intercepted by a messenger from Lukas’s division, the Twelfth Division River Oak pinned to his tunic.
Apothecary lab has just ended, and Tierney is by my side, a white band now pinned around her arm, as well. “Self-preservation,” she told me when I first took in her white band with no small measure of surprise.
It seems I’m not the only one resorting to camouflage.
The uniformed messenger hands me a long package. “Mage Gardner,” he says with a deferential bob of his head, his breath puffing out from the cold.
There’s a note card affixed to it, my name on the small envelope in neat script, written with an artistic hand.
Lukas’s hand.
A pang of regret rises. After what happened to Ariel, I’ve put Lukas firmly out of my mind, pointedly not responding to his sporadic gifts and notes. I was so mad at him for so many weeks, but guilt has gradually worn that down. I’m just as much to blame for what happened as he is.
I weigh this new gift in my hands, the box not as heavy as I would have thought it would be, given its size. The young soldier gives me another quick bow and sets off.
I sit down on a nearby stone bench. Tierney takes a seat beside me, smatterings of scholars passing by talking quietly, the chill wind picking up in fits and starts.
I hand Tierney the note card and tug at the stiff brown paper, ripping it open, pulling out the black leather case underneath.
A violin case.
Heart thudding, I open the case and gasp when I see what’s inside, nestled in deep green velvet.
A Maelorian violin. Like the one Aunt Vyvian was given temporary use of the night of her dance.
Only this one is brand-new, the Alfsigr spruce varnished to a deep crimson, the edges gilded, the strings gleaming gold in the lamplight. A violin so expensive it could pay for my University tithe about ten times over.
With shaking hands, I take the note card from Tierney and open it.
Elloren,
If you wanted a portrait of me, all you had to do was ask.
Lukas
An incredulous laugh bursts from me, and a warm spark of affection for Lukas Grey is quickly followed by some remorse. I’ve been wrapped up in thoughts of Keltic Yvan while Lukas has been pursuing me from afar, and now this. Chastened, I hold the note out for Tierney to read.
Tierney’s mouth lifts into a crooked smile, her eyes dancing with dark delight.
“It feels bizarre, but I kind of like him at this moment,” she says, her smile growing wider.
I reverently close the violin case, heart fluttering at the sheer giddy excitement of holding such an instrument in my hands. At owning such an instrument.
I become suddenly conflicted—I don’t deserve such attention from a man I don’t plan on fasting to. I resolve to return the violin to Lukas the next time I see him, and to send a note of thanks in the meantime. Lukas deserves at least that.
Feeling eyes on me, I look up.
Gesine Bane and her
friends are all staring at me and the violin in my lap, a nasty gleam in their eyes.
My elation instantly turns hard and sour, fear spiking on its heels.
Once Fallon Bane gets wind of this, I realize, it will be open season on me.
* * *
“She can speak, I’m sure of it,” Diana observes to me that night as I send up a stream of music in the washroom, my fingers sore and unaccustomed to playing for so long. I don’t care. It feels so good to have this violin in my hands.
And what a violin.
It renders my out-of-practice efforts into something heartbreakingly lovely.
Marina’s in the bath, curled up naked under the cooling water, her sorrowful gaze rippling up at us. I finish my song and lower my violin as Diana cocks her head in thought. “She can speak, but she just can’t speak in any form we can understand.”
Marina opens her mouth and forces multiple tones through her mouth and gills, the sound transformed by the water, her multiple tones coalescing into a deep, resonating hum that sounds like an eerily mournful song.
Like she’s grieving.
Our Selkie is a puzzle that can’t be solved. Sometimes her animal-like movements and barking multitones are those of a wild thing, but her eyes are inquisitive and intelligent, and I know that Diana’s right.
She’s more than just an animal. More than a seal.
Jarod and Diana have not been able to find Marina’s skin, and she can’t go back home without it—her strength is sapped to the point where she often seems ill. I’ve written to Gareth, asking for information about the Selkie trade and where their skins are kept, but I know his response will be slow in coming. He’s been gone for weeks with the other Maritime apprentices, all of them out to sea until First Month, when winter digs its claws in and all the ocean passes will start to ice over.
Every night an exhausted Marina methodically runs her fingers through our hair, pulling out the tangles more effectively than any brush as she softly mutters in her multitoned language. It seems to soothe her, and it soothes all of us in turn.
All of us but Ariel.
Ariel despises the attention Wynter pays to the Selkie and flaps her wings agitatedly at Marina and mutters obscenities. Fortunately, Ariel’s attention is mostly consumed by an injured raven that now abides with us, along with the two chickens. The owl is long since healed and freed. The raven perches on the bed next to Ariel, the two of them spooky in their blackness and unspoken understanding, the bird’s leg carefully splinted and bandaged.
And so my days wear on.
* * *
Sporadic notices flap in the bracingly cold wind. They’re affixed to University streetlamp posts and outside building entrances, alerting passersby of the Selkie’s theft and a monetary reward for any information as to her whereabouts.
At first sighting, the notices send a sharp spasm of fear through me. But as time passes, and they’re battered down and lost to the relentless wind, my fears are dulled to a blunt point.
Once, thinking I’m alone in an alley, I tear down one of the last notices still remaining and stuff it in my cloak pocket. I look up to see Ni Vin, the young, scarred Vu Trin. She’s standing across the street and staring at me, a curved sword at her side. She gives a subtle nod of approval to me as my heart skitters against my chest.
Then she turns and strides away.
* * *
“There’s mention of it here,” Tierney tells me, her finger coming down on the paper set before her. The two of us pore over the Council Motions & Rulings every week’s end, late at night, feeding our ongoing sleep deprivation.
She’s right. A small mention of an “escaped” Selkie and the posting of a reward, as well as a renewed motion—put forward jointly by Mage Vyvian Damon and Marcus Vogel, and struck down by a slim margin—to have every Selkie in the Western Realm shot on sight.
I rub at my aching temples. “My aunt’s not going to win any awards for compassion, I can tell you that.”
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Tierney whispers darkly.
I nod gravely. If Vogel wins in the spring, it’s not just Marina who will be in trouble—all the Selkies will need to escape back to the sea or risk being put to death.
We read on, finding there’s been a failed motion brought forward by Marcus Vogel to execute anyone who defaces the Gardnerian flag. Another failed motion brought forward by Vogel to execute anyone who maligns The Book of the Ancients in any way. A motion brought forward by Vogel and five other Council Mages to declare war on the Lupines unless they cede a large portion of their land holdings to Gardneria. Another motion to execute all male Icarals held in the Valgard Sanitorium. A motion to execute anyone aiding Snake Elves in their escape east.
And a doggedly renewed motion, put forward for the sixth time by Vogel, to expand iron-testing for Guild admittance and randomly at border crossings to “root out the Fae menace.”
“He may not win,” I remind Tierney.
“Have you seen how many people are wearing white bands?” Tierney counters, her voice shaky.
“Still,” I insist, clinging to hope, “the referendum’s not until spring. And a lot can happen in so many months. He may not win.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” she relents, slumping down into a crooked ball, looking small and scared and worn. “I hope you’re right, Elloren Gardner.”
* * *
The news comes at the end of apothecary lab.
I glance up as Gesine rushes in. Professor Lorel inclines her head as her Lead Apprentice breathlessly whispers to her and gestures excitedly.
I set down my pestle and study them with curious trepidation.
“Scholars,” Mage Lorel announces, her voice uncharacteristically shaken. She appears to be suppressing some deep emotion. “Our beloved High Mage, Aldus Worthin, has joined with the Ancient One.”
A shocked murmuring goes up.
“We have a new High Mage. By referendum this morning, the Council has chosen Priest Marcus Vogel.” Her face lights up with a beatific smile.
Dread rips through me with devastating force, and I grip at the edge of my desk to steady myself as the other white arm-banded scholars gasp, then break out into expressions of happy triumph. Some laugh and hug each other, some chat excitedly, some cry tears of joy.
Marcus Vogel.
His sly face flashes into my mind. The remembrance of the feel of his hand on mine. His serpentine stare. The lifeless tree and the black void.
Ancient One, no. This can’t be.
Tierney whips her head to look at me—stark terror in her eyes.
“Tierney...” I can only manage a choked whisper and reach out to grasp her arm.
“Please, scholars,” Mage Lorel implores as she gestures for quiet. Her face is streaked with tears. A reverent silence descends. “A moment of prayer for our late High Mage.”
Everyone lowers their heads and brings their fists to their hearts. Tierney’s frozen, her face gone ashen.
The scholars around us bring fists to foreheads, then back over their hearts as their prayer goes up in unison.
Oh, Most Holy Ancient One, purify our minds, purify our hearts, purify Erthia. Protect us from the stain of the Evil Ones.
The prayer ends, and a cacophony of joyous celebration breaks out.
Tierney stumbles to her feet, almost knocking her stool over, and rushes out the back door, her distraught departure barely causing a ripple in the thick jubilation on the air.
* * *
I catch up with Tierney in the washroom. She’s bent over one of the porcelain washbasins, violently retching into it. I wet a cloth and go to her, placing my hand on her heaving, crooked back, my stomach painfully clenched.
Tierney remains frozen in place as she grips at the basin, ignoring the strands
of her hair that swim in it and my offer of the cloth.
“He’ll close the border,” she says, her voice low and coarse. “He’ll make fasting mandatory.”
“I know,” I say, feeling light-headed.
“We’ll have a year at most to find a partner. And if we don’t, they’ll assign us one.”
“I know.”
“And before he fasts us,” she cuts in, still staring into the basin, “he’ll test our racial purity.” She turns to me, a wild desperation in her eyes. “He’s going to test us with iron.”
“Tierney,” I say with hard defiance. Enough dancing around the truth. “I want to help you. You’re full-blooded Fae, aren’t you?”
She continues to stare at me. When she finally speaks, her voice is a strangled scrape. “I can’t. I can’t speak of it.”
“Not even now?” I whisper urgently. “When your worst fears have been realized? Let me help you!”
“You can’t help me!” Distraught, she wrenches her bent frame away from my hand and makes for the door.
“Tierney, wait!” I call out to her, but she ignores my plea and flees the room.
I follow her out, but it’s clear she doesn’t want me to—she weaves quickly through the crowded hall, and I soon lose sight of her amidst the happy Gardnerians with white-banded arms.
* * *
I make my way toward my Chemistrie class, eager to find Aislinn.
I don’t have to search long. Aislinn is leaning against a wall, her eyes searching, her face stricken. As soon as she spots me, she rushes toward me down the Chemistrie lab hallway, jostling around celebratory groupings of Gardnerian scholars and subdued, strained-looking Kelts and Elfhollen. A small cluster of Alfsigr Elves stand apart, surveying it all with their usual cool, aloof indifference, which, at the moment, I find infuriating.
“They’re drawing up their numbers,” Aislinn forces out as she reaches me, her hand clutching my arm. “The Gardnerian Guard. Along the border of Keltania and the Lupine wilds. Vogel sent out the orders this morning. Randall’s been put on draft notice. All the military apprentices have. Vogel’s demanded that the Kelts and Lupines cede most of their land to us. The Keltanian Assembly just sent their Head Magistrate to Valgard to try and avert all-out war.”
The Black Witch Page 45
