Jupiter nodded and reached out to take her umbrella from her. Morrigan held on to it. “Can’t I keep—”
“It has to stay here. I’m sorry.”
Morrigan loosened her grip. As Jupiter hung the silver- handled umbrella over a rail on the platform, she felt a dull, resentful disappointment. It was supposed to be a birthday gift, after all, and she’d made so many good memories with it. Jumping off the Deucalion roof, zooming through Old Town on the Brolly Rail. Unlocking the Hall of Shadows. (When Morrigan had finally asked him about it, Jupiter had admitted he’d thought it would be a bit of fun, that he’d been waiting ages for her to figure out she had a secret key to a secret room. He said if only she’d been a bit nosier, she’d have found it much sooner.)
“Ready?” He took her hand and they stepped over the yellow line to the very edge of the platform. “Close your eyes. Keep them closed.”
Morrigan closed her eyes. The air was still. A long moment passed in silence.
Then she heard a sound in the distance—getting louder and louder—of a train gaining speed very quickly. She felt a whoosh of cool air from the tunnel, heard the train stop directly in front of them and open its doors.
“Step boldly, Morrigan Crow.” Jupiter squeezed her hand and led her inside.
“Can I open my eyes now?”
“Not yet.”
“Where are we going? What’s the Gossamer Line? Will it take us all the way to Jackalfax or do we have to change?”
“Hush.” He squeezed her hand again.
The journey was short—just a few minutes—but Morrigan felt nausea rising inside her as the train rocked from side to side. She wished she could open her eyes.
The train stopped. The doors opened. Morrigan and Jupiter stepped out into cold, sharp air that smelled of rain and mud.
“Open your eyes.”
With an aching dread deep in her heart, Morrigan found herself standing at the front door of Crow Manor. She was home.
This was what you wanted, she reminded herself.
In just minutes, the Gossamer Line had taken her all the way from Nevermoor to Jackalfax. Morrigan turned around; the train had disappeared. Behind her there was nothing but the tall iron gates separating Crow Manor from the woods beyond. She shook her head. It was impossible.
A familiar silver raven knocker glared down at her. She lifted her hand to knock, but Jupiter walked straight through the solid wooden door and disappeared.
“Impossible,” she breathed.
Jupiter’s hand reached back through and pulled her into the dimly lit hallway of her childhood home.
“How did—how—what just happened?”
Jupiter looked at her sideways. “Technically we’re still in Nevermoor. At least, our bodies are. The Gossamer Line is supposed to be decommissioned, but as an interrealm explorer with a level nine security clearance, I have… certain privileges.”
Morrigan wondered if this was the sort of “privilege” he could get arrested for. “How can we still be in Nevermoor? We’re standing in my grandmother’s house.”
“Not exactly. We’re traveling on the Gossamer.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s everything, it’s… how can I explain?” He stopped and took a deep breath, looking up. Morrigan recalled that he’d tried to describe it to her once before and failed miserably. “We’re all part of the Gossamer, and the Gossamer is all around us. The things I can see—your bad dreams, for instance, or the history of a certain green teapot—they all exist on the Gossamer, like tiny invisible threads woven in a vast, hidden web connecting everything together. The Gossamer Line simply gives us a way of traveling through those threads with intent. It was a by-product of interrealm exploration—something the League created about thirteen or fourteen Ages ago. Your body remains safely in Nevermoor while your consciousness travels the Republic undetected. Very clever system, and very much a secret, so for goodness’ sake don’t tell anyone. It was never available for public use. Too volatile. These days even top-ranking military personnel are banned from riding it.”
“Why?”
Jupiter grimaced. “This mode of travel doesn’t suit everyone. Some people who rode the Gossamer Line came back sort of… wrong. Their bodies and minds, once parted, never perfectly reunited. They were permanently unsynchronized, and it drove them to madness. This is a very dangerous business if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing!” said Morrigan, slightly panicked. “Why’d you let me on it?”
He snorted. “If anyone can ride the Gossamer Line, it’s you.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re…” He stopped, seeming to catch himself. “Because you’re… with me.” He looked away. “We can’t be here long. Understand?”
She wasn’t sure whether she felt disappointed or relieved. “But I didn’t want to visit. I wanted to come back for good.”
“I know this isn’t what you were expecting. I just want you to be certain, before—”
“Jolly Christmas!” Ivy swept down the hallway toward them, smiling broadly. Morrigan stepped forward with an explanation on her lips, but her stepmother passed right by in a rustle of satin, leaving a cloud of sickly-sweet perfume in her wake. “Jolly Christmas, everyone!”
Morrigan followed her into the sitting room. It was filled with people, each of whom raised a glass to their radiant hostess. Ivy gestured to a young man behind a piano, and he launched into a lively carol. Corvus—dressed in a tuxedo with a rose tucked into the lapel—beamed at his wife from across the room.
“They’re having a party,” Morrigan observed. “They never have parties.”
Jupiter said nothing.
She watched as Ivy and her father struck up an impromptu dance, spurred on by applause from their guests. One man said something to Corvus as he waltzed by, and Corvus threw his head back and laughed. Morrigan could count on one hand the times she’d seen her father laugh like that. In fact, she could count them on one finger. Including this time.
“Can’t they see me?”
Jupiter hung back, staying close to the wall. “Only if you want them to.”
Morrigan frowned. “I want them to.”
“Apparently you don’t.”
Ivy had redecorated. There were new curtains and upholstery (periwinkle blue) and flowery wallpaper. Every available surface was covered in photo frames, all of them housing pictures of Corvus, Ivy, and the new baby—no, babies. Twins. An identical pair of rosy-faced boys with snowy-blond hair like their mother. A dual silver photo frame was engraved with the names Wolfram and Guntram in fancy lettering.
So Morrigan had brothers. She tried to digest this news as the party swirled around her, but her brain found it impossible to grasp the idea. I have brothers, she kept thinking, over and over, I have brothers. But the words felt as light as air, with no weight or meaning at all, so she let them float away.
Morrigan wondered where her grandmother might be, before realizing she already knew.
The Hall of Dead Crows was dark and still. It was just as Morrigan remembered—cold, empty, and musty-smelling. Only one thing had changed: Her own portrait now hung there.
It wasn’t really called the Hall of Dead Crows, at least not by anyone but Morrigan. Its actual name was, boringly, the Portrait Hall. But the only people who ever got their portraits in there were members of the Crow family, and only if they were dead. For some reason it was Grandmother’s favorite place—she would sometimes disappear for hours at a time, and if you ever needed to look for her, you knew where she would be. Standing in the Hall of Dead Crows, gazing at the grand lineage from Carrion Crow (Morrigan’s great-great-great grandfather—accidentally shot by his valet on a hunting trip) right down to Camembert Crow (her father’s prize greyhound—chewed through a box of soap suds and died foaming at the mouth).
Morrigan was surprised to see that Grandmother had cleared a premium space for her between venerable Great-Aunt Vorona
, who was killed when she fell off her racehorse, and Uncle Bertram, Corvus’s brother, who had died young of a fever. Grandmother was notoriously particular about which dead Crows went where. Morrigan’s late mother’s portrait was all the way down at the far end of the hall, among the lesser-beloved pets and the third cousins twice removed.
The artist commissioned to paint Morrigan had been painting the Crows for more than sixty years. This meant that he was very old, and painfully slow, and Morrigan had to stand still for hours while he tottered about with his paintbrush and occasionally shouted things like “Stop moving!” or “Where’s that shadow coming from?” or “I can see you breathing!” or “Don’t scratch your nose, you beastly child!”
Halfway through the last-minute portrait sitting on Eventide Day, Ivy had come in with a tape measure, holding the telephone between her ear and shoulder while she took Morrigan’s measurements. “Forty-eight inches long… yes, I should think so, at least… Oh no, wider than that, she’s quite broad-shouldered… How much is the mahogany? The pine, then, I think. No—no, Corvus would want the mahogany, we mustn’t look cheap. Pink silk lining, of course, with a ruffled pillow, and a pink ribbon wrapped around the base. And I trust you’ll deliver it to the house? What do you mean when? First thing tomorrow, obviously!”
Then she’d swept out of the room without a word to Morrigan or the artist. Once Morrigan realized what the conversation had been about, she’d spent the rest of the afternoon feeling annoyed that her coffin was to feature so much pink. The result was the portrait that now hung in the hall, of a scowling Morrigan with her arms folded defiantly across her chest.
It was the first time Morrigan had seen the finished artwork. She liked it.
“Who’s there?”
Grandmother stood over by the window in the darkened room, lit only by the glow of lamplight from the hallway. She wore her usual formal black dress, with jewels at the neck and her dark gray hair piled high on her head. The air was fragrant with the familiar, woody scent of her perfume.
Morrigan approached her with caution. “It’s me, Grandmother.”
Grandmother squinted as she scanned the dark room. “Is somebody there? Answer me!”
“Why can’t she see me? I want her to see me,” Morrigan hissed at Jupiter.
“Keep trying,” he replied, gently pushing her forward.
She took a deep breath, squeezed her hands into fists, and thought with all her might—See me. Please see me. “Grandmother? It’s me. I’m right here.”
“Morrigan?” Grandmother whispered hoarsely. Her eyes widened. She stepped toward her granddaughter, shaking her head as if to clear it. “Is that… can it be…?”
“You can see me?”
Ornella Crow’s milky blue eyes focused on her granddaughter’s face, and for the first time in Morrigan’s memory, they were full of terror. “No. No.”
“It’s all right.” Morrigan held up her hands as if she were gentling a spooked animal. “I’m not a ghost. It’s really me. I’m alive. I didn’t die, I’m not—”
Grandmother shook her head over and over. “Morrigan. No. Why are you here? Why have you returned to the Republic? You shouldn’t be here. They’ll come for you. The Hunt of Smoke and Shadow. They’ll come for you.”
Morrigan felt a sliver of ice cut through her. She looked at Jupiter, who was standing back with his hands thrust into his pockets, his gaze on the floor. “How does she know about the Hunt—?”
But Grandmother turned on Jupiter, suddenly furious. “You! You foolish man! Why did you bring her back here? You promised you would keep her in Nevermoor. You promised she would never leave the Free State. You shouldn’t have come.”
“We’re not really here, Madam Crow,” Jupiter said hurriedly, reaching out to run his hand straight through her body. Grandmother shuddered and stepped backward. “We traveled on the Gossamer Line. Our bodies aren’t… it’s a long story. Morrigan wanted to come; I felt she deserved—”
“You promised you’d never bring her back here,” Grandmother repeated, her eyes wild. “You swore to me. It’s not safe, it’s not… Morrigan, you must go—”
“Morrigan?” A voice came from the doorway. Someone flicked a switch, and suddenly the Hall of Dead Crows was bathed in light. Corvus strode into the room, his blue eyes flashing. Morrigan opened her mouth to speak but the chancellor marched right past her, took hold of Grandmother’s shoulders, and shook her. “Mother, what is this madness? Why are you acting this way? Now, of all times—it’s a Christmas party, for goodness’ sake.”
Ornella Crow glanced over her son’s shoulder, her eyes flicking anxiously toward her granddaughter. “It’s… it’s nothing, Corvus. Just my imagination playing tricks on me.”
“You said the name,” Corvus whispered, his voice tight with fury. “I heard it from the hallway. What if one of my colleagues had been walking past and heard it too?”
“It was—it was nothing, dear. Nobody heard a thing. I was just… remembering…”
“We swore we’d never speak that name again. We swore it, Mother.”
Morrigan felt as if her breath had left her body.
“The last thing I need is for people to be reminded of all that, just when I’m making inroads into federal government. If anyone in the Wintersea Party—” Corvus cut himself off, pressing his lips into a thin line. “Tonight is important for me, Mother. Please don’t spoil it with that name.”
“Corvus—”
“That name is dead.”
Corvus Crow turned on his heel, walked straight through the spot where his daughter stood, invisible to him, and was gone.
Morrigan was out of the house and all the way down to the gate before the cold air caught in her lungs. She leaned over, trying to catch her breath.
How could she feel it? she wondered. How could she feel the biting wind on her face and the hard ground beneath her feet, or smell the rain and the mud and her grandmother’s perfume, while her father couldn’t even see her standing in front of him?
She heard Jupiter’s footsteps crunching on the gravel behind her. He stood there for a long time, waiting patiently for her to declare their next move, never giving advice or sympathy or saying I told you so. Just waiting, until at last Morrigan stood up straight and took a deep, trembling breath.
“She knew. My grandmother. She knew I wasn’t dead.”
“Yes.”
“She knew about the Hunt.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I told her.”
“When?”
“Before Eventide. I had to find someone to sign your contract.”
Oh. So it had been her grandmother’s signature, that unrecognizable name. Grandmother who’d slipped the envelope beneath her door on Bid Day. “Why her?”
“She seemed to like you.”
Morrigan choked out a laugh, drawing her sleeve across her nose to hide a sniffle. Jupiter was polite enough to pretend, for a moment, to be very interested in the state of his shoes.
“Come back with me,” he said finally, in a quiet voice. “Please? Your grandmother’s right, it’s not safe for you here. Come back to the Deucalion. It’s your home now. We’re your family—me, Jack, Fen, and the others. You belong with us.”
“Until I fail the Show Trial and get deported.” She sniffled again. “Until you get arrested for treason.”
“Like I said, we’ll blow up that bridge when we come to it.”
Morrigan wiped her face until it was completely dry. “Where do we go to catch the Gossamer Line?”
“Nowhere,” said Jupiter, his eyes lighting up with joy and relief. He clapped Morrigan on the back, and she gave him a watery smile. “It will come to us. That’s what the anchor is for. You must never ride the Gossamer Line without anchoring yourself first.”
“What do you mean? What anchor?”
“The one I left on the platform.” He grinned. “A precious personal object left behind on departure, tethering you to Nevermoor
with a single invisible Gossamer thread. Waiting to pull you back home. Can you picture it?”
Morrigan thought for moment. “You mean… my umbrella?”
He nodded. “Close your eyes and see it as clearly as you can, hanging on the rail. Every little detail. Hold that image in your mind, Mog. Have you got it?”
Morrigan closed her eyes and saw it: the shiny oilskin canopy, the silver filigree handle, the tiny opal bird. “Yes.”
“Don’t let go of it.”
“I won’t.”
She felt Jupiter’s warm fingers close around hers. A train whistled in the distance.
The halls of the Hotel Deucalion were warm and familiar. Exhaustion crept into Morrigan’s limbs as she shuffled to her room, thinking longingly of her many pillows and thick duvet and hoping her fireplace was still alight, somehow knowing it would be.
As she reached out to open her bedroom door, a cold, bony hand grabbed her arm. She gasped and jumped backward.
“Oh! It’s you, Dame Chanda.”
“I didn’t mean to frighten you, sweet girl,” said the soprano. “I’m just heading off to bed myself. Aren’t we a pair of night owls! All that rich Christmas food keeping you up too, I suppose?”
Morrigan smiled awkwardly. In her head she could still hear flashes of that mortifying conversation between Kedgeree and Dame Chanda. At least if he’d failed with the Deucalion, it wouldn’t have mattered so much. “Um, yeah.”
“Well, as I couldn’t sleep, I’ve been doing a bit of digging through my old books and boxes of records.” Dame Chanda pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, unfolding and gently smoothing it. “I thought you might be interested to see this. I knew I had a likeness somewhere. It’s not recent, of course. He must have been in his twenties or thirties. He’d be well over a hundred now. Quite a good-looking young man, was the infamous Ezra Squall, as you can see—although I suppose that’s an unfashionable opinion these days. For goodness’ sake, don’t tell anyone I called a mass murderer handsome—they’ll come for me with torches and pitchforks.” She raised an eyebrow, smiling conspiratorially at Morrigan. “You can keep this one, it’s just a print of the original oil painting. I’m pleased you’ve taken an interest in Nevermoor’s history, however ghastly this particular period may have been. Good night, Miss Morrigan, and a glad Yuletide to you, my dear.” She squeezed Morrigan’s hand as she left, looking at her kindly, as though she’d wanted to do something nice for the poor girl who didn’t have a chance of getting into the Wundrous Society.
The Trials of Morrigan Crow Page 24
