by Airs
“Do you know, Francis,” Philippa said slowly, “that is something she will not reveal. The secret seems to weigh upon her more than any other.”
“She can write, surely?”
“Yes,” Philippa answered. “But all she has written is the name of her son, so that we would know what to call him. Brandon.”
“Brandon,” Francis mused. “We had an uncle by that name, and a great-great-grandfather. Pamella remembered.”
“He looks just like you and William,” Philippa said. “A true Fleckham.” Her eyes softened, and Francis wondered what it must be like for her, and for all the horsemistresses. If their horses lived out their full span, the women were too old to have children by the time they lost their bondmates. He had no children himself, but he had both time and freedom to have a family. The bonded flyers had no choice in the matter.
“I wish I could see Pamella while I’m here.”
“You can, Francis. When we return from Aeskland, you can go to the Uplands. The Hamleys will welcome you. You’ll like them.”
Francis cast her a surreptitious glance. Something changed in her voice when she spoke the Hamley name, and that softness stayed in her eyes. It was unlike Philippa to be sentimental. Perhaps it was the child Brandon that caused her to have such feelings. Or perhaps it was affection for the girl, her student.
“Well, now.” Philippa stood up abruptly and brushed her hands together as if to rid herself of unnecessary emotions. “You have preparations to make, no doubt. Have you breakfasted? Do you need anything?”
He was about to explain the way he had spent the morning when one of the students burst through a door on the floor above the foyer and came hurrying down the wide staircase. Philippa looked up, and said, “Hester? Whatever is the matter?”
Francis recognized the tall girl as the daughter of the Beeths. She reached the bottom of the stair and whirled to face Philippa, one hand on the newel post. “Mistress Winter,” she panted. “Have you seen Black? She missed breakfast, and now she’s missed our Points drill. Mistress Star is furious, and I’m worried. I’ve looked in the library, in the classroom, on the sleeping porch. I can’t find her anywhere!”
PHILIPPApressed the palms of her hands against her eyes. Curse the girl! Were there not enough problems without Larkyn taking it into her head that she must fly away, without telling anyone, without any warning or message?
It had taken only moments for Francis to explain that he had seen someone circling the return paddock when he went for an early walk that morning. It must have been Larkyn.
Philippa’s stomach roiled with tension. Margareth’s patience was already sorely tested by Larkyn’s various escapades, and Suzanne Star would have every right to censure the child for missing her drill. If she didn’t return quickly, with appropriate apologies, she would be back to practicing her drills on the wingless pony and repeating her first-year studies.
“How long ago did this happen, Francis?” Philippa asked.
“No one else was about yet,” he said. “Except the stable-girl. I was surprised to see someone flying so early, and I stood at the end of the paddock to watch her.”
Hester said, “I’ll go after her, Mistress Winter.”
“Go where, Hester?” rapped Philippa. “You have no idea where she is. And I am not going to send one fool of a girl after another!”
Hester subsided, her face reddening. Philippa regretted her sharpness, but the pressure of the upcoming mission and the utter lack of time to resolve the current crisis were simply too much. “I’ll go, Hester,” she said. “I’ll go immediately, and see if I can guess where she’s got to. You see to Lord Francis’s needs, will you?”
“Yes, Mistress Winter. And I’ll tell Erna to saddle Winter Sunset for you.”
Philippa nodded. “Thank you. I’m going to go change into my winter habit. It will be cold aloft.”
“I hope Black wore hers,” Hester said, as she turned to leave.
“Indeed,” Philippa said. Her neck began to ache. “And I hope the snow doesn’t return.”
TEN
PHILIPPAturned Sunny to face down the flight paddock. In the early morning hours, the sky had been a clear, cold blue, but clouds had rolled in from the mountains, obscuring the low hills to the west, erasing the glitter of the thin fall of snow from the night before. Her heart sank.
“We’d better hurry, Sunny,” she said. “And not to get too far from home.”
Sunny tossed her head and blew plumes of frost. When Philippa loosened her rein, she broke into a brisk canter as if she understood the urgency. She sped to the hand gallop and launched herself well before the end of the paddock. The grass was crisp and a little slippery beneath her hooves, but she ascended sharply, her great scarlet wings driving them upward as surely as Philippa might have climbed stairs.
Flying was good in cold weather, the horses’ wings more efficient. Even in rainy weather, the winged horses could fly long distances, no matter how sodden their manes and tails became, how wet and miserable their riders. But snow was another issue altogether.
Winter birds—the goldfinches and siskins—flew easily through drifts of snow, though Philippa believed they preferred to huddle in the inner branches of the spruce and pine that protected them in the worst weather. She and Sunny had watched from the warm security of the stables more than once, envious of the birds in this one thing. Perhaps, Philippa thought, if Sunny’s wings were feathered rather than membranous, she, too, could fly through falling snow.
Philippa and Sunny had been caught in a sudden snowstorm once, flying to Crossmount for Duke Frederick. That duchy lay south and west of Oc, beyond the mountains, and the season had been early spring. An unseasonable storm blew into the pass without warning, and Philippa had watched with alarm as the expanse of membrane between the ribs of Sunny’s wings filled with snow. Her wings, warm with exertion, melted the snowflakes almost immediately, but as the storm intensified, more snow fell on the chill wetness to create a sort of white mud.
As Sunny’s wings chilled under the weight of the snow, the rhythm of her wingbeats faltered. She struggled, her effort evident in the ripple of the muscles across her chest and down her ribs. Philippa shivered with cold and fear as she did her best to guide Sunny down through the storm. She could only hope there would be a place to come to ground.
They had made a precipitous descent through fluttering snowflakes and emerged from the clouds to find
themselves above a grassy meadow just where the pass opened into the plains of Crossmount. The grass was barely misted with white, the snow already melting on the spring-warmed ground. Skeptic though she was, once Sunny had safely touched down, Philippa thanked the horse goddess with all her soul. She rubbed Sunny’s wings dry and walked her until they were both warm again. Her hands trembled for an hour afterward, and she promised herself she would never again have such an experience.
But now Larkyn was aloft somewhere, with a snowstorm coming, and no experience of bad weather.
Philippa turned Sunny to the west. The air was ominously still. Philippa peered ahead, but as the storm swept eastward, visibility was growing worse by the moment. She twisted in her saddle to look back toward Osham, wondering if Larkyn and Seraph might have turned that way. If so, Philippa had no idea where to look for her. Indeed, searching for one pair of flyers who had left the Academy hours ago was an impossible challenge. They could be anywhere.
Philippa freed one hand to pull her collar higher against the chill. If there wasn’t a student missing, she would never be aloft in this weather. But they were out there, somewhere, possibly lost, possibly needing help.
She lifted her eyes once again to the bank of clouds shrouding the western horizon.
She blinked, and blinked again, wary of wishful thinking. But no, it was true! She could see them, silhouetted against the silver clouds, Seraph’s black wings stretched wide, beating steadily, Larkyn a mere speck in the sky.
Relief made Philippa’s heart skip a beat.
Praise Kalla, she thought, praise whatever icon or fetish it was that Larkyn put her trust in. They were coming back.
She let Sunny fly on, and in moments they were close enough for her to see Larkyn’s face, her cheeks rosy with cold. She signaled to her with her quirt as she circled around and above Seraph, so that she and Sunny could escort the young flyers safely home.
The clouds rolled behind them, surging and curling against the sky. In moments, they were circling the roofs of the Academy. Black Seraph’s wings rippled with exuberant energy, and his tail flickered up and out. Pride, Philippa thought. He was proud to be flying with Sunny, to be high in the cold air with his bondmate, to be making an elegant and smooth descent toward the return paddock. Larkyn kept her eyes straight ahead, her back self-consciously straight, her hands in the perfect low position.
Philippa’s lips twitched. She would have to mete out some suitable punishment, but her relief was greater than her irritation, and there was the gratification of seeing Larkyn in a proper flying saddle. Kalla’s teeth, the child was difficult! And Kalla had bonded her to a difficult horse in the bargain, a horse with an independent spirit and an attitude that would suit a flyer twice his size.
She watched with a critical eye as Larkyn guided Black Seraph over the grove and down into the paddock, as she loosened the reins and balanced for the landing. Seraph reached with his forefeet, neck nicely extended, hind hooves curled and ready to touch the frosty grass. It seemed Larkyn did everything correctly, and yet, at the moment of coming to ground, she slipped in the seat of her saddle, grabbed at the pommel, seemed to stiffen in her stirrups. Seraph’s hooves made an irregular pattern as he began his gallop, but he soon recovered, cantering smoothly up the paddock. He slowed to the trot, and whirled at the far end, head high, ears pricked toward Sunny.
Philippa and Sunny came up the paddock at a posting trot, and when they reached the younger flyers,
Philippa saw that Larkyn’s chin was up, her eyes blazing defiance. Before Philippa could speak a word, Larkyn cried, “I was afraid to come to ground! The Duke was in the return paddock!”
“It was Lord Francis,” Philippa said wearily. “And you have missed your Points drill, to say nothing of worrying us all.”
“I came back the moment I smelled snow in the air.”
“You smelled it,” Philippa said flatly.
“Of course. I know how a snowstorm smells when it’s building.” The girl’s color surged and faded, and she dropped her eyes to her pommel. “Mistress Winter, the Duke wants Tup, you know that. There was no one about, and I didn’t know what he might do.”
“He can’t take Black Seraph from you, Larkyn.”
“He has that magicked quirt—”
“Nonsense. There’s no such thing,” Philippa snapped. “Now dismount, and stable your horse. I will meet you in the Headmistress’s office.”
The girl swung her leg over her pommel to leap to the ground. Philippa dismounted more slowly and followed her through the gate toward the stables. As she watched Larkyn’s slight figure and the elegant lift of Black Seraph’s tail as he pranced away, she felt a pang of compunction. It was true that she did not believe in simples, in magics and spells. But William’s quirt did have strange properties. She had felt them herself, though she had spent months trying to convince herself it was her imagination. She had decided, in the end, it was William’s own strength that made the little whip seem to have a power of its own.
She shut the gate of Sunny’s stall with a decisive click. Such speculation was meaningless. No doubt they all suffered from heightened nerves at the moment, and were ready to believe anything. Nonetheless, while she was away with Francis and the Baron, she would set someone to keep watch over Black Seraph.
And over Larkyn. She sensed, deep in her bones, that William’s fragile sanity was a real threat, with the aid of magic or not, to Larkyn Hamley.
THEnext day Lark, shivering in the cold, stood with Hester to watch Mistress Winter’s departure for the Angles. Chores awaited her in the stables, her penalty for missing her Points drill the day before, but she let them wait.
Mistress Winter’s riding habit was invisible beneath a heavy fur coat, one that Lark had never seen before. Her narrow face was set above the thick woolen scarf wound around her neck.
“Take a blink at those gloves,” Lark whispered to Hester. “’Tis a wonder she can hold the reins!”
“She has a long, cold flight ahead of her,” Hester murmured back.
“She will stay low, won’t she? Where it’s warmer?”
“She’ll have to. But the winds are in her favor.” Hester put her head back to scan the sky. “And at least it’s stopped snowing.”
The flight paddock was buried by an inch of pristine, perfect white, unmarked yet by hooves or boots.
Mistress Winter tested it with her foot before leaping up into her flying saddle, gathering Sunny’s reins in the thick, clumsy-looking gloves.
Lark heard a footstep behind her, and turned. Headmistress Morgan had come across the courtyard and stood with one hand on the rail fence. “Take care, Philippa,” she called, her voice quavering slightly.
“Remember.”
Lark turned back to watch Mistress Winter’s face as she answered, but there was no hint of feeling in her set expression. “I will,” she said. She lifted her quirt in a half salute. “I will be back the moment I can, Margareth.”
Lark found herself gripping Hester’s elbow as Winter Sunset spun about on her hindquarters and began her canter down the flight paddock. Her hooves kicked up sparkling puffs of powder as she ran, and when she launched, her fetlocks glittered white. But her wings were clean and dry, and she rose steadily above the grove, skimming the hedgerow and the lane, a steady arrow of red against the high gray clouds.
“What will she do if it begins to snow, Hester?”
“That depends how heavy the snow is,” Hester told her. “If it’s too strong, she’ll have to come to ground and wait it out.” She patted Lark’s hand. “Try not to worry, Black. We have our own work to do.”
“Aye,” Lark said. “I know.” But as she turned toward the stables, to assist the dour Erna with the mucking out, her stomach churned with tension, and threatened to return the breakfast she had so hurriedly eaten an hour before.
Working with Erna made her miss her old friend Rosellen even more. As she wielded the pitchfork, scattered fresh sawdust, and swept the tack room, she thought of Rosellen’s wide, gappy smile, the way her freckles spread across her round cheeks. She remembered, as she watched Erna splashing water negligently into the stall buckets, how much Rosellen had loved the winged horses, what devotion she had given to them. It made her doubt Kalla’s purpose, that now the Academy should have this sullen incompetent while Rosellen had met such a bitter end.
The early darkness was closing in around the Academy by the time she finished all the chores set for her by Mistress Morgan to expiate her faults of yesterday. She still had studies to make up after dinner. Her bed was hours away yet.
She walked toward the Dormitory to put on a clean tabard before supper. As she went, she cast an uneasy glance skyward. Where would Mistress Winter be now? The snow had returned, sparse, dry flakes that swirled in the darkness. Would it be snowing in Onmarin, too? Lark tried to picture Winter Sunset soaring in over the beaches as she and Hester had done. It seemed a very long time ago now, and yet the memory of those ghastly boats, the snarling wardogs, the screams from the village, was as fresh as yesterday. Lark shivered and hurried on across the courtyard.
Everyone at dinner seemed to share Lark’s mood. The horsemistresses whispered together at the high table, and Mistress Morgan hardly spoke at all. Even the students were subdued. The moment Mistress
Morgan rose, Lark bade Hester and Anabel good night, and dashed up the stairs to the library, her assignment book under her arm.
A lamp had been left on in the small library, but the fire had almost gone out, leaving the room uncomfortably chill
y. Lark stirred the embers with the poker and added two small logs. As she waited for them to blaze up, she stood beside the window, rubbing her arms for warmth.
The snow had thickened, making ghostly shapes of the stables across the courtyard, of the solid bulk of the Dormitory. Just so would the buildings look at Deeping Farm, the farmhouse, the barn, the chicken coop shrouded by drifting flakes. The blackstone fence around the kitchen garden would wear a white mantle along its top, and the empty fields would stretch clean and unbroken in every direction. With a pang, Lark thought of her brothers in the great old kitchen, the close stove blazing, a teakettle whistling, the table set for a winter supper. Cheese and soup, perhaps, and a loaf Nick would have brought from Willakeep. Crooks for dessert, and cups of black tea. Peony was a good cook, and she had Pamella to help her now. Lark hoped they had remembered to lay extra straw for the hens and to be certain the goats were snug in their night pen. She could see, in her imagination, Edmar dandling little Brandon, teasing him to laughter. The little boy had transformed silent Edmar into an avuncular jokester.
Tears of homesickness stung Lark’s eyes. Behind her, the fire began to crackle, and the room to warm, but still she stood by the window, her cheek against the heavy curtain, her eyes gazing unseeing into the blank whiteness drifting past the window.
A blur of darkness passed before the lighted squares of the Dormitory windows. Lark sniffed, and rubbed her eyes. She looked again.
The blur resolved into a dark figure, with swirling coatskirts and a wide-brimmed hat. As she watched, the figure’s head lifted, and seemed to stare at the library window.
Lark sucked in a breath. Too late, she pulled the curtain forward to hide herself. She must be outlined perfectly by the lamplight, by the rising flicker of the fire. She stared in horror as he lifted his arm and pointed something at her, something small and thin and dark against the falling snow.
