by Jeff Wheeler
The words came as a shock. Had Mrs. Pullman spied on her personally, or had she simply interrogated the servants, like Miss Farnworth? If she could spy on her, then Cettie would have to be very, very careful in what she said and did.
The older woman continued up the steps, the lantern swaying on the chain. Cettie couldn’t take her eyes off it. She scrabbled backward and rose, pressing her spine against the edge of the doorway.
Mrs. Pullman withdrew her keys and opened the door, then gestured for Cettie to go in first and mount the steps. The room glowed with soft light. It was a beautiful, inviting place—warm despite being in a tower. Still, Cettie felt like shivering. She sensed something—a presence—and a horrible shudder went through her. She heard a faint ringing sound in her ears. Memories of past horrors began to churn inside her. She’d felt this before.
“You’ll be sleeping up there,” Mrs. Pullman reminded her. She handed the lantern to Cettie. “You’ll need this. It’ll be dark.” The wrinkles stretched into a smile that sent a wave of foreboding through her.
Cettie grasped the chain and, steeling herself once more, walked to the ladder leading to the trapdoor.
As she started to climb, she heard Mrs. Pullman say, “Remember. Do not come down until you hear the brass bell.”
Worriedly, Cettie climbed to the top rung and shoved open the trapdoor. The smell of wood and must struck her so strongly she nearly choked. She held up the light and saw the dusty boards. There were small boxes and chests littered throughout. It was no larger than a garret in the Fells, a small attic. The only windows were too high to see from, and she could hear the wind whipping against the walls. She climbed the rest of the way up, disturbing the dust, which scattered and spun in the light. There was a pillow and a blanket folded near the trapdoor. There was no bed.
“Go on,” Mrs. Pullman said from below. “It’s more fit for your station.”
How many empty rooms existed in the sprawling mansion? How many beds lay empty? Surely the servants’ quarters were more inviting than this empty, abandoned space. And yet, Cettie knew Mrs. Pullman was purposefully pushing her. She was trying to get her to complain to the Fitzroys.
Cettie climbed into the attic and closed the hatch behind her. She was exhausted, so she grabbed the blanket and pillow and settled onto the floor in an unused corner, her back against the wall so she could see the entire room. She thought about the children who had suffered with her at Miss Charlotte’s and felt a pang of longing for their companionship.
She didn’t know how to turn the lantern off, so she left it there, shining against her face. Perhaps it would be a help. Ghosts didn’t like the light. The sounds of Mrs. Pullman getting ready for bed filtered up to her, but soon the room below grew quiet. Cettie wriggled under the blanket, trying to find a comfortable position.
The lantern went out.
Cettie lifted her head and turned, wondering how it had happened.
She settled herself on the floor, trying to get comfortable enough to sleep. Fitzroy had said there were no ghosts in Fog Willows. No, surely this was just Mrs. Pullman trying to frighten her. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom and the dim light streaming in from the upper windows. There were no scratching noises declaring the presence of rats. Still, she sensed something in the gathering blackness—a . . . presence emerging from the dark. The ringing in her ears grew louder. Her heart began to beat a frantic, wild pace, for she instantly recognized it as a ghost. It wasn’t the tall one. This one was different.
The fear that struck her was immediate and overpowering. There were no children nearby. There was no defense. Cettie pulled the blanket up over her head and shivered with dread. It was happening again, just as it had in the Fells. Were dark beings simply drawn to her? No matter where she went? She’d felt so certain that no ghosts would be able to rise to the manors in the clouds, and yet there was no denying what she sensed.
The ghost was in front of her, looming over her. Tears began to seep through her clenched eyes. She pressed her fists against her face, her heart beating a mad rhythm in her chest. “Go away,” she whispered frantically, shuddering beneath the thin blanket.
The unseen entity lingered, brooding in the blackness of the attic.
“Go away, go away, go away,” Cettie repeated, mouthing the words.
I just want to touch you. Just to touch. You are so warm. So warm.
She could sense things about it, little insights that sputtered to life and jabbed inside her thoughts. Her mind black with terror, she rolled over to face the wall, shivering violently.
“Please go away,” Cettie begged.
You are so warm. So warm. So warm.
She waited, trembling, and then—with a spasm of dread—she felt a clawlike hand reach through her back and come out her front. Everything went cold.
SERA
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE BLOOD ROYAL
Every scullery maid kneeling in grime dreamed of becoming a princess. Every schoolgirl with pigtails, every hungry urchin, every milliner’s daughter arranging feathers on customers’ hats, every seamstress sewing beads into corsets, every baker’s wife gripping a tray of warm buns from the oven, every coughing drudge forced to labor in the accursed cotton mills in the Fells. Every girl alive from one end of the boundless empire to the other, above and below.
Except for Sera.
“Seraphin Fitzempress, get down from the window. You know your mother doesn’t like you daydreaming. Back to your lessons, please.”
“I don’t like it when you call me by my full name,” Sera said, elbows on the sill, chin resting on her hands. The view from her window wasn’t high enough for her to see over the garden wall. To see the rest of Lockhaven and the patch of the City that lay beneath them, she’d need to climb one of the trees again.
“I called you by your pet name three times, and you didn’t answer me even once,” said her exasperated governess Baroness Hugilde.
“You did?”
“I most certainly did. What were you daydreaming about this time? I shouldn’t even ask. You were probably fancying yourself an underservant.”
“You can never predict my fancies. I don’t see why you even try. I was thinking that every girl living below Lockhaven wishes she were me . . . and how terribly wrong they all are. The most desperate one of them has more freedom than I do.”
Sera could hear the indignant clearing of her governess’s throat. “Freedom from hunger? Freedom from ignorance? Freedom from pride?”
“You’re in a saucy mood this morning,” Sera countered, giving her governess a nasty look. “Didn’t you get breakfast?” Hugilde’s forehead wrinkled with displeasure. There were many things Hugilde was not saying, she knew—as usual, Hugilde was trying to stay calm. Sera loved it when she provoked her governess to the breaking point and the older woman started scolding her in her native tongue. That was when the real Hugilde came out. All the other times, it was pretense.
The governess smoothed her skirts and adopted a look of tranquility. “And why does Your Royal Highness want to be a commoner anyway? Do you not stand to inherit the greatest treasure in all the world?”
Sera gave her a wry smile. “Who is to say that my grandfather would choose me as his successor? He has three sons in line for the throne, madame, and my father is the second eldest. I never see him calling on our manor.” She turned back to the window. “I never see anyone.” She sounded a little sorry for herself, and she wrinkled her nose, determined not to lapse into self-pity again.
“Ah, so my little Sera is lonely for companionship. I am not enough. But you must know the emperor does not make social calls. It’s whispered that he prefers your father to his other sons. The emperor can pick whomever he chooses. It’s not about being the eldest.”
“That means he can also choose me. But how long must we all wait? I think Father despairs that he’ll die of old age before he’s given the chance to do anything important. Which is why I’m trapped here. Waiting, waiting, wai
ting. I’m a slave really. And you, Hugilde, are forty years old, and I am twelve. Can you not imagine it might be pleasant for me to spend an afternoon with someone my own age? Or at least nearer to it? Sometimes the only way to escape is through my mind.” Or up a tree, she thought eagerly.
Sera tilted her head sideways, wishing she could penetrate the fog of the city streets with her eyes and actually see the people down below. All her life, she’d lived in the sprawling, mazelike collection of palaces and manors called Lockhaven, but not once had she been allowed to walk its streets. Walking in the City below was doubly forbidden. Of course, she could see plenty of evidence of the world beyond hers. From her favorite tree, she had a perfect view of the chimneys and slanted roofs of Lockhaven. Occasionally, when the clouds were absent, she could see towers rising from below and the distant specks of wagons maneuvering in the crowded streets of the City. The people were too small to see, but she could imagine them.
The view from the window was decidedly less exciting, but at least she could still see the zephyrs and tempests and even hurricanes roaming the skies. Once, she had even seen a Bhikhu alight from one of the crafts and fly into another. She tapped the glass window with her fingers, closing one eye so she could touch the spots and specks of the distant sky ships.
“If we could get back to your lesson,” Hugilde insisted, trying to master her patience once again.
“Why are zephyrs faster than hurricanes?” Sera asked dreamily. “Is it because of the size? Does that really matter?”
“I have no idea, Sera; that’s a question better posed to the Minister of Wind.”
“I would be happy to ask him if he could be brought to my high dungeon.”
“Or do you mean high dudgeon?” Hugilde let slip a little jab.
Sera turned her head, a smile on her mouth. “You’re getting impatient with me.” She bounded off the couch, away from the window, and bent down to kiss Hugilde on the cheek. “I have so many questions, and you never know the answers. Let’s walk in the garden.”
“That is because you ask questions that don’t have any answers, Sera. You always want to know things that no one knows. That aren’t even part of the Mysteries. It’s rather windy outside today. I would prefer we stay inside.”
“Please, Hugilde. I’ll listen better if we walk while we talk.”
Hugilde sighed and relented—just as she usually did. Then she gathered up a book, and the two left Sera’s study room and walked down the turret stairs to the back gardens. Their yard was impossibly small compared to those of other mansions. Only the sturdiest of trees thrived at such heights.
“Do you think Mother will let me go away to school to learn the Mysteries?” Sera asked, chewing on the end of her finger as they walked.
Hugilde gave her a scolding look. “Stop that. Princesses don’t bite their nails.”
“This one does,” Sera answered sweetly.
“If your mother saw you doing that, she would . . .” Hugilde let out a harrumph and rolled her eyes.
The flagstones were set in sand, which was comfortable enough, but they did not go the direction Sera wanted to, so she left the path to wander in the grass, which was softer. It was still a little wet from a cloudburst that had struck the day before.
“I think she would be displeased,” Sera said, still teasing loose the fragment from her nail, intent on goading Hugilde further. The grass felt delicious. “And then you would get in trouble because you are my governess. That’s all you really care about, Hugilde. The possibility of getting in trouble and losing your position. You are so selfish, Baroness.”
It almost worked. Hugilde’s eyes bugged out, and she seemed on the verge of standing up and defending herself . . . except she realized just in time that Sera was once again only trying to provoke her.
Hugilde deliberately smoothed her skirts as she walked, something she often did to give herself a moment of thought. “Shall we proceed with your lessons again, Sera?” she asked with feigned sweetness. “Now that we are outside?”
“I want to go to school,” Sera pleaded. “With children my own age.”
“You are one of the heirs of the empire, Sera. You are not like other children.”
“No, the problem is that I am too much like them.” She wrung her hands and then started to run ahead, going straight for the tallest redwood in the garden. There was a row of them along the outer wall, waiting for her to explore.
“Your Highness!” Hugilde pleaded, starting after her. “Not today! We’ve not made much progress. If your parents saw you climbing that tree, please . . . Sera!”
Sera reached the sculpted tree. When she was little, it had been a struggle to reach the lower branches. She was short for twelve, but she was able to catch the lowest one and pull herself up before Hugilde caught up to her. Sera wriggled her way up the first branch, put her feet on it, and then started up the next. Hugilde reached the tree and lunged, trying to grab her foot, but Sera had moved higher in expectation of her governess’s maneuver. The interior of the tree was perfect for climbing. The sagging branches offered a great shield from prying eyes. She continued to go higher.
“Please come down, Sera.”
“Tell me something useful, then,” Sera said over her shoulder. “Tell me something I want to know.”
An exaggerated sigh came from her governess. “You are stubborn, child. This is not fitting behavior for a princess.”
“It’s fitting for an empress, though,” she replied. “They can do whatever they want.”
“The Mysteries of Law should be your specialty! You love nothing more than to argue.”
“But I’m more interested in the Mysteries of War.” Sera sighed, smiling with the thrill of the climb. She was almost to the highest spot, where she could see over the wall.
“War? Surely you are jesting with me again. Now, if you’ll come down out of that tree and act at least a little like a princess, then I will tell you some gossip I heard from the north.”
“Start off by telling me the gossip,” Sera countered, “and if it is good, then I will obey you.” She was almost there . . .
“You should obey me because I am your governess! In other households they can be quite severe with their students, you should know.”
Sera reached the height of the wall and eagerly looked over. Fluffy clouds spread out beneath her, but her gaze was immediately attracted to an especially fat hurricane approaching Lockhaven from the west. She gripped the tree’s narrow trunk and leaned toward the wall to get a better view of it. What cargo was it carrying from the City below? Or was this one full of soldiers? It looked like it was skimming the tops of the clouds as if they were the sea. Sometimes, she fancied if she could step off the walls, the clouds would catch her like giant pillows. “You wouldn’t do that, Hugilde, because you’re afraid that if I did become empress, I would have you tortured.”
“Well, if you insist on being so headstrong, my only recourse is to tell you the gossip and then plead with you to come down. If your mother caught you standing in a tree again—but you know that she would not be pleased. Neither would your father. The news. Vice Admiral Fitzroy was called on to be a magistrate for a case up near his estate.”
“Fog Willows,” Sera said dreamily, gazing down at the clouds. She wished a strong wind would scatter them so she could have a better view. A few of the palaces in the wealthy neighborhoods of the City had turrets high enough to pierce the clouds. Those people could see Lockhaven clearly. Many of the royal families owned manors both above and below, but most preferred to remain above the soot, smoke, and smog. She leaned forward even more, grabbing the edge of the wall and resting her elbows on it. “What’s interesting about that news, Hugilde? He’s part of the ministry. Isn’t the northern judge here at the moment?”
“Indeed, he is, discussing a labor dispute. Apparently Fitzroy was called in because the case involved children. Ones even younger than yourself.”
Sera turned around, growing more interested. T
he branch she was on sagged under her weight. She felt like bouncing on it.
“Fitzroy said he intends to adopt one of them. A child from the Fells,” Hugilde continued with a scandalized tone.
“That is news,” Sera said, a queer feeling blooming in her heart. “When did this happen?”
“Not long . . . a fortnight ago, I think,” Hugilde said. “He took the poor thing, a common urchin, I tell you, back to Fog Willows with him, and has asked his advocate to seek out evidence of the girl’s parentage.”
Sera didn’t know many of the ministers. It was difficult to judge someone when you were rarely permitted to leave your room to wander the garden. Looking away from the view, she glanced at the hedge maze on the far end of the garden and the small benches in the midst of it. She loved the maze and would sometimes hide from Hugilde inside it.
“Lord Fitzroy is rather eccentric,” Hugilde said.
Sera had heard that Fitzroy was different from the others. He never wore the latest fashions. He never gossiped. He refused to wear gloves—a decision that scandalized some people so much they refused to shake his hand in consequence. He was a distant relation of hers, but she’d only met him once.
“So Fitzroy’s not satisfied to just take her deed?” Sera asked, feeling strange and conflicted about the news. A desire to meet the girl began to bloom inside her. Someone from the Fells would have stories. She would be interesting.
“Exactly,” the baroness said, sensing that she had Sera’s interest at last. “Getting a deed is no matter. Fitzroy has several already, including that young man from Holyrud.”
Sera squinted. “I don’t remember that one. Where is that again?”
“It’s in another kingdom,” Hugilde said, “but still part of the empire. You remember—the family went bankrupt, like so many do these days. All these schemes and risks. It’s a marvel none of the mansions have crashed to earth recently. The last one happened ten years ago. How dreadful. The cottage beneath it was obliterated. It’s all ruins now.” The mere thought made Sera shudder. As much as she wanted to visit the world below, she didn’t think she could live beneath Lockhaven permanently, always beneath the giant mountain’s shadow. “But I think that young man’s estate is still floating. It’s being held by a bank. Fitzroy took the deed for the eldest son and is sponsoring him at school. The boy wants to become a doctor in the Fells.”
