She recognized this tree. But it was too small. The twisted trunk rose from the soil and not from an atrium floor. Crooked boughs held up a vast crown dripping with elegant, tapered leaves that were a dull green on one side and brighter on the other. The branches twined around each other, chasing empty space like a halo around the trunk. Its shape was that of something bursting at the seams, exploding outwards and falling back in on itself. Pinpricks of yellow light danced around the spindly offshoots: fireflies.
This was the Summer Tree in miniature. The Arbor Suvi. The Tree of Life. The original was caged in the atrium of the Abbey Library in Bermondsey. This one could have been a model, but unlike normal trees, its roots were moving. Just barely, but enough to draw the eye from the sparkling branches to the gentle twitch of shifting topsoil.
‘It’s growing,’ murmured a voice nearby.
‘It can’t,’ came the urgent, whispered response. ‘If the replica is growing, the original would be too, and that’s not possible. Is it?’
‘But the roots . . .’
The crowd fell silent as all attention fell on the soil. Alice found a ridge of thick moss and clambered onto it for a better vantage point. Her eyes swept left and right, searching the faces in the crowd without success. A small cluster of huddled figures stood a short distance from the glittering tree, but Alice couldn’t quite—
‘Get help!’ a familiar voice bellowed. Tom’s?
And then a scream of terrified agony knifed through the grove, a sound so dreadful it sent a shockwave of revulsion through the waiting crowd. Alice’s foot lost its grip. She slipped from the ridge and careened into the crush of people, gravity pitching her forward into the throng. Bodies pressed against her on all sides, stealing her oxygen. She threw out her elbows and forced her way through, plunging into the clearing with a gasp.
For one dizzying moment, she couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. A shadow play of figures, backlit by the glowing tree, were attending to someone on her knees.
‘Upright. Get her upright,’ shouted a slim man now instantly recognizable as Tom.
‘Give her to me,’ demanded another voice. Lester? ‘I’ll get her back to the House.’
‘No,’ ordered Cecil. ‘Talk to her. It’s the best way to help her.’
There was a jangle of beads and Bea appeared, shifting into focus. ‘She’s going into shock,’ she said. ‘Come on, sweetie. Dig deep. Focus your mind.’
Alice frowned. What—?
Cecil moved towards the assembled crowd, his hands up as though in surrender. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Go back to the House. A false alarm triggered the siren.’
‘But the tree!’ someone yelled, and the grove erupted into murmurs of assent.
‘A false alarm,’ repeated Cecil. ‘Please . . . please just go. Allow the young woman some privacy.’
At this, silence fell like a guillotine, and then, slowly, people turned and began to drift away. Alice watched them leave, indistinct figures moving through the trees, their frantic whispers carrying eerily through the grove.
‘What’s happened?’ asked Alice, moving closer. ‘Is that . . .? Holly?’
Bea’s eyes widened at her presence but she turned away quickly.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ said Cecil, his mouth drawn into a frown.
‘Holly?’ said Alice, sidestepping him. ‘Are you . . .? Is she okay? Tom?’
The blonde was now standing, held steady between an anxious Tom and Lester, whose face was beetroot red.
‘Stand up,’ Lester hissed at Holly. ‘Don’t you dare do this. You remember what I told you. Failure’s a state of mind. Weakness is a choice.’ He spoke at furious speed, punctuating his words with a blast of spittle.
Holly’s eyes were glazed but she was staring straight ahead, the cords of her neck bulging as she swallowed convulsively.
Alice cast around to discover what had happened, and her eyes alighted on a tree stump, polished and inlaid with the crude tree symbol that represented House Mielikki. Was it a table of sorts? On top, there was a round wooden tray served with a half-empty decanter and a roughly carved wooden chalice on its side. A golden-hued liquid oozed from the lip of the chalice, dribbling onto the tray.
A tight, high-pitched moan issued from Holly’s mouth, drawing Cecil’s attention, and Alice grabbed Bea’s arm.
‘Is that the binding draught?’ asked Alice, gesturing at the chalice. ‘Did she take it?’
‘Yes,’ hissed Bea.
‘Have you given her any valerian?’ barked Cecil.
‘Yes,’ said Tom helplessly. ‘It . . . it didn’t work. She can’t just . . .’
‘Get another dose of valerian to ease her pain,’ snapped Cecil, his patience gone.
Tom stared at Holly in shock, as though he’d heard nothing. ‘It was supposed to be routine. Lester said she’d be—’
‘Don’t you dare blame this on me,’ roared Lester, shoving Holly at Tom, who stumbled but managed to keep her upright. ‘If she can’t handle it, it’s not my—’
‘Tom!’ yelled Bea, barging past Lester with a vicious glare. She grabbed Holly and began to loosen her buttons to help her breathe. ‘Get the valerian!’
The technician’s eyes widened and he nodded vigorously. ‘I’ll . . . I’ll just . . .’ he mumbled, and hurried off.
Holly began to keen softly, a sound so pitiful the hair rose on the back of Alice’s neck. A panicked flutter disturbed the air above Holly’s head: her nightjar. Alice glanced at it, but its motions were too fast to see it clearly; in desperation, it jerked and bucked as it circled. Below, Holly’s fingers curled and flexed in spasms. Bea put both hands on the side of Holly’s face and pressed their foreheads together. She murmured to her, frenzied and without pausing for breath, while Alice watched helplessly and Lester stormed off to lean against a tree, his fists clenched.
With a strangled gasp, Holly snapped upright, her spine giving a series of cracks like falling dominoes, and Bea stumbled, caught off balance. Holly stood rigidly in the grove, her elbows slightly bent.
Alice searched the younger woman’s face, frozen in a rictus of horror, but her eyes . . . her eyes seemed to send out a silent plea, and Alice – not quite sure what was happening to Holly – found herself stepping closer to offer her comfort. Alice reached for Holly’s hands, which were still contracting rhythmically. The fingers clenched painfully around Alice’s and she flinched.
‘Holly,’ she whispered. ‘It’s okay. The draught . . . It’s just caught you off guard a bit with the side effects, but this will pass. You just . . .’ She glanced behind her at Cecil, who was staring at Holly, his face lined with regret. ‘Can she hear me?’ she asked. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Taking the draught is as much a test as the test itself,’ said Cecil, his voice faint. ‘You must have the strength to use your legacy, but also to control it. And the binding draught . . . If you can’t exert your power over it, then it will overpower you.’
Alice spun back to Holly. ‘But she is strong,’ said Alice. ‘She breezed her test! I’ve seen her do some incredible things with her legacy. Bea? Haven’t we? She’s . . .’
Bea nodded, her lips pinched. Alice frowned and turned to Lester, who was watching in silence, his face a study in rage and shame. The hairs on the back of Alice’s neck stood up at their reaction – at their lack of reaction. Why weren’t they helping her?
‘Holly?’ Alice croaked urgently. ‘Holly, listen—’
But the blonde shuddered and relaxed her hold on Alice’s hands. Her arms suddenly whipped out as though clawing the air for balance. Jaw clenched, Holly’s eyes widened, giving her a haunted expression. Breath whistled through the gaps in her teeth, and she began to pant, the sound reaching a crescendo in the quiet clearing, filling Alice’s senses so that all she could hear was Holly’s panic.
Alice peered at her, confused, examining her face, her arms, her fingers. Alice’s head darted up to Holly’s in horror. Their eyes locked, Holly boring the m
essage of her terror into Alice’s brain.
‘No,’ Alice whispered.
Holly whimpered and her arm jerked. The gorge rose in Alice’s throat and she couldn’t seem to look away as something small and hard pierced the flesh at Holly’s wrist and pushed through. Long and dextrous, it slithered out from beneath her skin. A bloodied twig, tapered at the end. Alice blinked at it, unable to accept what she had seen. Like an escaped vein, a twig . . . a spindly twig had poured out from Holly’s right arm.
And the other . . . There was something moving under the skin of Holly’s left arm. Something that snaked from side to side, stretching the flesh, a hidden pressure below the surface. The blue veins in her wrist stood out boldly against her pale skin.
Another jerk and Holly moaned quietly as an eruption of needle-like branches burst from her fingertips. She stared at Alice, her face a fixed mask of pain, and Alice’s stomach lurched violently as another branch shot through Holly’s left arm. The bone snapped as the wood smashed through her torn limb. Blood coursed from the punctured wounds, pooling on the long grasses.
Alice’s eyes filled with panicked tears, her heart pounding at the nightmarish sight, her whole body trembling with shock. Holly . . .
‘H . . . help . . .’ Holly rasped through her agony.
Frantic, Alice’s mind fractured into a dozen hopeless responses. What could she do?
‘Save her,’ Alice begged, turning desperately to Cecil, and to Bea, and to Lester, to anyone who could step forward and fix this.
‘Alice . . .’ murmured Bea.
And, of course, she understood. No one could fix this. This dreadful consequence of failing the test of the binding draught. Of being too weak to quash the power of the Summer Tree as you imbibed it and made it part of you: a part of you that shattered bone and mangled flesh. The Summer Tree was life itself, unleashed – the explosive vitality of unhindered growth.
And then there was a flutter, and a pale nightjar appeared on Alice’s shoulder. It churred in her ear and she inhaled sharply as dread slid down her throat and settled heavily in her stomach. Alice’s eyes desperately searched out the air by Holly’s head . . . There. Her nightjar, less frantic now and more purposeful: a sleek, pale brown bird with a curved beak. The cord attaching it to Holly’s wrist was growing thinner, its luminous glow dimming as her nightjar pecked at it, urging it to break.
The cord would snap, and Holly’s nightjar would leave, taking her soul with it. But it was too slow. Holly’s physical body would be torn apart before the cord broke, and she would be forced to feel every moment of it. Every fibre of broken muscle, every shattered bone, every puncture of her flesh . . . She would feel it all before she died.
‘Pl . . . ease . . .’
Holly’s voice was no more than a breath on the wind.
And Alice, without stopping to consider what she was doing, or how, knowing only that she had to end Holly’s pain, turned to her own nightjar and whispered a single pleading word to it.
‘Go.’
The white nightjar shot into the air. It arced around the grove like a bullet, pulling at the cord that bound it to Alice, picking up speed and gaining height . . . and then dived. It swooped towards Holly’s nightjar, its beak wide . . . and sliced straight through her cord. There was a simultaneous gasp from Holly and Alice. A pain tore through Alice’s chest and she clutched her heart as the trees tilted and swam around her.
Her trembling legs sagged and she sank to her knees, her head bowed against her chest and her eyes screwed tight. With every blink she slid further away from the grove – the bloodied grass, the shouts calling her name, the concerned faces of Bea and Cecil, a shocked Tom, downing the valerian to calm his nerves, Lester’s red-rimmed eyes watching her, awash with bitterness.
A ruffle of feathers vibrated against Alice’s cheek and she heaved in a great, calming breath as the pain under her ribs eased. The cord linking her to her bird draped across her face, so bright it pressed uncomfortably against her eyelids. Opening them to a dazzling pulse of light, she rolled onto her back as her nightjar pecked at her hair.
I killed Holly.
Panic seized her, leaving her shivering and cold.
No. I saved Holly.
Pushing herself up onto her knees, her hands clenching the grass, Alice retched and retched.
‘I can’t allow her to proceed.’
Alice blinked. She felt as though she were very far away, sitting at the end of a long room while distant voices argued her fate. She felt indifferent, though she knew that she shouldn’t. Nothing mattered more than joining House Mielikki.
Mentally, she felt completely displaced. She had seen death before. She’d watched her best friend bleed out on a road; she’d seen her work colleagues violently stabbed to death on the London Eye. But watching Holly being torn apart from within . . .
There was a smear of blood on the back of Alice’s hand: Holly’s blood. Or was it Jen’s? Alice was always failing to save people. She hadn’t saved Holly either; she had only ended the girl’s pain, quickened her fate. The test was as brutal as the toss of a coin. But – Alice thought numbly – she hadn’t changed the way the coin landed, only hastened its fall. You either survived the binding, or you didn’t. No one could interfere with destiny. But how had she, even in the heat of the moment, embraced the part of her she’d despised and denied for so long? Where did that leave her?
The voices had stopped murmuring, and there were anxious faces staring at her.
‘Alice,’ Cecil said kindly, as though he weren’t about to ruin what remained of her life, ‘I’ve been forced to reach a decision about your test. Given how drained you were after the practical assessment, I can’t, in all conscience, allow you to . . .’
He trailed away as a figure appeared in the doorway, and some of the tension went out of his face.
‘Governor Whitmore?’ he said in tones of relief.
Alice stared blankly at the new arrival. The governor was a pale man with alabaster skin and blue eyes as dark as the bottom of the ocean. Despite his solid, sturdy build, his movements were graceful as he strode into the room and greeted Cecil with a nod.
‘I thought you were tied up in the chancellor’s meetings all evening,’ said Cecil. ‘We weren’t expecting you.’
‘I wasn’t expecting to be here,’ said the governor, tossing his trilby onto an empty chair. ‘And I certainly wasn’t expecting to find the House in such a furore on my arrival.’
‘You’ve just arrived?’ asked Cecil.
Whitmore nodded, picking up the decanter of left-over binding draught on Cecil’s desk and studying it closely. ‘This very moment.’
‘Then you haven’t heard about the Mowbray girl—’ began Cecil.
‘But I saw you . . .’ Alice interjected, staring at Whitmore.
The governor replaced the decanter on the table and regarded her with curiosity. ‘Yes?’
She frowned and fell silent.
‘Do I know you?’ asked the governor, his eyes narrowing as he drew closer.
Alice didn’t respond, taking the opportunity to observe him. His nightjar wasn’t visible. Had he – like Crowley – learned to hide it? But she didn’t need to see the governor’s nightjar to know he was a liar. She’d seen Whitmore entering the door to the grove, glancing around as though to check for witnesses. He hadn’t arrived in time to find the House in a furore – he’d been in the House before the siren rang out. Either he’d left the grove before the siren sounded or he’d been in the grove the whole time Holly had been dying. Why was he lying about his arrival?
‘This is one of our membership candidates,’ said Cecil. ‘Alice Wyndham. I don’t believe you’ve met.’
Whitmore’s eyes travelled over her face. ‘I see. And did you pass our little test, Alice?’
Little test?
She lifted her chin a nudge higher. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But I’m being denied the chance to cement my pass with the binding draught.’
Whitmore
raised an eyebrow and looked at Cecil. ‘Surely not?’ he said, his voice silky.
‘The youngest Mowbray girl has just . . .’ Cecil cleared his throat and continued more evenly. ‘We’ve just lost a candidate who performed more strongly in her test. I don’t think it’s appropriate to risk—’
‘But the young lady wishes to take the risk,’ said Whitmore, waving blithely at Alice. ‘It’s not our job to tinker with the judgement of the Summer Tree,’ he said. ‘If she still wishes to take it . . . let her.’ He gave her a humourless smile. ‘The young fear boredom far more than death, isn’t that so?’
A muscle under Alice’s eye twitched at his comment. Bea, who had sat watching this exchange in silence, leaned closer to her.
‘Alice, maybe you need a clearer head before you—’ she began.
‘I’ll take it,’ said Alice.
‘Bravo,’ said Whitmore, reaching for the decanter with long pale fingers. In the absence of a chalice, he snatched up a teacup from Cecil’s desk, tipped the contents into one of the flowerpots behind the desk and thrust it into Alice’s hand. He uncapped the decanter and poured the draught into the cup. Then he clinked the glass decanter against the porcelain.
‘Cheers,’ he said softly.
Alice’s eyes slid from his face to the liquid in her hand: it was the colour of oatmeal, with an oily golden sheen. She ground her teeth and glanced up at the governor. Was he trying to help her by forcing Cecil’s hand? Somehow, it didn’t feel that way as he towered over her – too close.
This draught was the first step in binding her to the Summer Tree and, by extension, House Mielikki. If she was dying anyway, wasn’t it worth the risk to bond with the most powerful life force in the world? Wouldn’t this life-giving tincture energize her in a way nothing else could? A life-giving tincture that had just torn apart a woman before her eyes.
The Rookery Page 9
