Shana Abe - The Deepest Night

“Armand. Mandy. I’m unharmed.”

He rolled his shoulders to shuck me off, then threw me an unreadable glance.

“My lord,” pleaded Westcliffe, her words trembling. “Lord Sherborne. He meant no ill.”

“No,” the duke was muttering. “No, no, no …”

Armand dropped to his knees before his father, bracing both hands against the arms of the chair to pin him in.

“Reg. Listen to me. Are you listening?”

“Yes …”

“I’ve received news. A wire from the prime minister. I drove straight here as soon as I got it. It’s—it’s tremendous, wonderful news.” Armand’s voice was rough with emotion; he let out a shaky breath. “Aubrey is alive. He didn’t die. Dad, he’s alive.”

The duke lifted his head. His hair had fallen forward and his cheeks were mottled. He flicked back the hair, scowled at his son, and brushed both hands down his crushed lapels.

“That is precisely what I’ve been saying,” he announced peevishly. “Aubrey is alive and captured. And this thing here, this beast named Eleanore, is going to be the one who flies there and brings him home.”

Like a puppet yanked upright by a single jerk of its strings, Armand was standing, staggering a few steps toward me. Our eyes locked. I didn’t know if my expression mirrored his, but I knew my insides did: disbelief, smothered guilt.

That cold, budding fear.

He looked from me to his father to Westcliffe, who had both hands knuckled against her mouth and really, truly appeared as if she might keel over.

Armand tipped back his head and pinched his fingers over his eyes—just like his father had done. “Where the deuce is that wretched doctor, anyway?”

“Kitchens,” I whispered. “Sorry.”

There was no taking tea after that. There was a great deal of fussing from the doctor when he finally showed up, and Mrs. Westcliffe attempting valiantly to pull herself together, and Armand hanging back by me, ensuring that he stood between the duke and me no matter which of us moved.

More doctors arrived, some nurses, everyone exclaiming over the news about Aubrey and worrying over Reginald’s “mild fit.” The tea service His Grace’s personal physician had carried into the cell sat forgotten on the side table by the door.

I edged closer to it. I snatched a biscuit from a plate when no one was watching and ate it in one bite.

Almost no one had been watching.

“Shortbread,” noted Armand, and grabbed two more. “How reassuringly orthodox.” He handed me one, broke the other absently into pieces in his hand. His face was still strained and white.

“Don’t destroy it.” I wiped at my lips. “Give it to me if you don’t want it.”

His palm opened. The biscuit had gone to crumbs.

“You’re bleeding,” he said quietly. “Your arm. The wound. I can smell the blood.”

Of course he could. Dragon senses, supernaturally sharp. I could smell it, too, but my sleeve was loose enough that so far the blood didn’t show.

I kept my voice as low as his. “It’s fine. Don’t say anything.”

“Lora, it needs attention.”

“Yes. Back at the school. First thing.”

His mouth tightened. “Look—”

“I’m not going to let these people touch me,” I whispered, vehement. “I’m not going to their medical chamber and I’m not letting them remove my blouse and I’m not letting them lay a finger on me, I don’t care if my arm festers and falls off, so kindly shut up.”

Mrs. Westcliffe had recovered enough to notice us standing there, our heads together, my heated cheeks. She began to approach.

“Only if you come to me tonight,” Armand said swiftly. “At Tranquility.”

“Fine!”

“Lord Sherborne—” the headmistress began.

“No,” he cut in at once, turning to her. “I’m merely Lord Armand again.”

She stopped before us, blinking. “Oh—yes! Forgive me. Lord Sherborne is—that is, I’m so pleased that your brother has regained his—er …” She flattened a hand against the base of her throat, then tried again. “Lord Armand, I fear our visit has overtaxed your father. Miss Jones and I should leave.”

He gave her a short bow. “Allow me to drive you back to the school, ma’am.”

Westcliffe and I exchanged a look; whatever our differences, we both knew how Armand drove. “A most chivalrous offer, my lord, but we couldn’t possibly—”

“I insist. It’ll be faster than the train, and I could use the companionship.”

”Oh,” she said again, defeated, and summoned a smile. “Why, then, we accept. Naturally.”

Outside the madhouse, back in the cool May air and a lemony, waning light, the lawn a sheared carpet spread before us, I waited for him to hand Westcliffe into the front seat of the auto before muttering, “The train has chocolates.”

“Surely my company is sweet enough,” he muttered in return, and helped me up into the high, uncomfortable backseat.

Armand’s motorcars tended to be roofless and very, very fast. We weren’t dressed for a drive in the open air, so his lordship had politely presented his duster to Mrs. Westcliffe, who had sense enough to accept it. I had her wrap and mine around me, but the wind was relentless, and the dust from passing horses and carriages even more so.

Armand needed the driving goggles to see; Westcliffe and I squinted at the land flying by, the outskirts of Bath swiftly unspooling into fields of grain and flocks of sheep, dogs and hedges and farmhouses.

It was quicker than the train. And it was noisy enough that I didn’t have to endure any uncomfortable questions from Westcliffe (yet), or even worry about holding up my end of a conversation. We’d have to shout to be heard, me most of all, and I had no doubt about how the headmistress of the Iverson School for Girls would feel about that.

Automobiles clearly had not been designed with ladylike sensibilities in mind.

So I sat back and held on to the strap fixed to the door, trying not to slide around too much, studying the sunset to our right, the intense red and pink of the clouds, thin streaky lines drawn just above the horizon. The stars beginning to kindle against the fading blue.

Jesse, are you up there somewhere? Do you visit Reginald in his dreams, but not me?

I swiped at my eyes with my free hand, smearing tears and grit.

The auto slowed, slowed, then rolled to a halt at the side of the road. Armand pulled the brake, and Mrs. Westcliffe twisted to face him inquiringly. Her black hair looked frosted in dust.

“I think perhaps we’ll pay a call on Dr. Hembry in the village before going all the way to the castle,” he said to her.

“Oh?”

“I believe Miss Jones has reinjured her arm.”

They both looked back at me, and I looked down. The seam of my fitted white cuff had a wet, growing stain, crimson as the clouds.

He waited for her in his bedroom.

He would have chosen another room, but this was the only place in all the mansion he could be certain a servant wouldn’t enter without his express permission first. And it was the only place Eleanore had ever visited him before.

As smoke. As her true self.

Armand paced a circle from one end of the Turkish rug to the other, examining his surroundings for the hundredth time: the bed crisp and tidy, the cushions on the chairs straight, his dinner tray already taken away—minus the dessert he’d requested but kept for her. He’d already pulled all the curtains safely closed. A wineglass had been left on his desk, a gleam of Bordeaux at the bottom. He paused by it, uncertain. Should he have finished that? Should he have saved the bottle to offer her some? Did she even like wine?

It seemed incredibly, deeply stupid that he didn’t know.

But then the fire in the hearth popped and the log fell apart in a splendor of sparks, and Mandy found his gaze tugged to that and his regrets about the wine falling and dying with the light.

He resumed pacing.

The room was large and sparsely furnished. Years ago, because it’d been easy and because he could, he’d picked what furniture he’d liked from Tranquility’s other chambers and hauled them up, piece by piece, to his own. Aubrey’d thought it funny and Reginald had been too drunk to notice—all this time, and Mandy was fairly certain he still hadn’t sobered up enough to notice—so nothing matched, but that was fine.

He didn’t care about that. It wasn’t as if he was going to host a soirée in here. Only Eleanore, and he doubted very much she gave a damn about matching furniture, either.

But where was she?

On his fifth pass by the big window he paused again, parting the curtains with the side of his hand. Country darkness loomed past the glass, unbroken but for the stars over the sea, glistering and humming, whispering their soft and silken secrets.

He dropped his hand, shutting them out.

Bugger them. He didn’t want to hear them now.

He was just … waiting.

In the far, unlit corner of the room, buried in the drawer that held his ascots and a handful of formal scarves, was a ring, and if he was going to be perfectly honest with himself, that’s what he was trying not to hear—that more than anything, more than even the stars.

It was a ruby ring, set in gold, and the ruby was big and round and clouded, and its song never, ever ended.

How he hated that sodding song.

He wasn’t expected to wear the ring yet, thank God. He considered himself more the guardian of it, because it was the ring of the duke, and Armand wasn’t the duke. Reginald was. Slipping it over his knuckle and wearing it outside this room it would be the same as declaring to the world that Reginald was as good as dead, which he wasn’t.

It was like he was dead, all right. Stuck in his madness, stuck in that godforsaken asylum: like it. But that wasn’t the same.

Mandy’s feet stopped; he was caught up short by a sharp, internal jerk of reality.

The ruby ring wasn’t going to be his, and he’d never have to wear it. Aubrey would.

Aubrey.

He sank into a chair by the fire, scrubbing his hands over his face, feeling rough evening whiskers and the sullen heat of the flames.

He should have taken the time to shave for her. Why hadn’t he done that?

Mandy tipped his head back, staring up at the ceiling. Seeing her.

Eleanore, pale and pinched, so almost-beautiful.

Reginald this afternoon trapped in his cage, calling her a thing to her face. Ranting.

she’s coming, whispered the stars. That one particular, infuriating star, louder than all the rest. she’s here, louis, let her in.

Mandy stood. He grabbed the blanket he’d set aside for her and went to the door. He had his hand on the knob before she even knocked.

The door opened just as my hand was lifting. I supposed he felt me there beyond the wood, maybe sensed my Turn from smoke into flesh. The door didn’t open all the way; Armand’s arm emerged through the crack to offer me a soft gray blanket. I caught it up to my chest, then shook it out and flung it over my shoulders like a cape.

The perils of Turning. It would have been convenient if my clothing somehow made the transformation with me, but it never did. Nothing ever stuck to me when I Turned, not even rain or blood or dirt. I’d spent a lot of time naked recently.

“You made it,” Armand said, opening the door wider. He sounded relieved, as if he’d thought I wouldn’t actually come.

“You seemed to require it.”

I spoke softly. It was late and I didn’t think there was anyone nearby, but Tranquility was a decaying mess of a maze, to put it kindly. It’d be easy to overlook a hidden servants’ door. Armand gave a quick glance up and down the empty hallway before stepping back.

“Come in.”

I did. I was glad to see he hadn’t turned on the electric lights, so the shadows of the room danced strictly from the fire. I didn’t like electric lights. I didn’t like electricity in general, not after Moor Gate, but even the fashionable stained-glass chandeliers here made me feel ill when they were lit. Like bees in my head, buzzing and buzzing.

I was curious if it was the same for him, but I had never asked.

“How’s your wound?”

I shrugged. “It’ll heal. Again.”

“Let me look.”

I freed my upper arm from the blanket. His touch felt light against my skin, gentle. His fingers were cold and long, like mine.