Bayne sat very, very still, his jaw working with tension. He stared at some distant point below them, as if he could see through the floor.
“Yes,” he said finally. “Yes, we do.”
CHAPTER 25
The Imperial Matchmaker advises that the wedding take place in a fortnight, else the stars won’t be aligned properly again for another two years. I wonder how much Lucy paid her to say that.
My days are so filled with wedding planning that I should think of nothing else. But my terror and rage is uppermost in my mind, such that I seldom speak at all, for fear I will burst into tears. There must be a way. Every moment I can, I open the magic books to see if they’ll reveal their secrets to me. I’ve even snuck into the Virulen library deep in the night, hoping some forbidden book remains there that will tell me what to do. But I found nothing. I carry the Ceylon Codex from the museum for comfort, but there’s little else it’s good for.
Charles and Lucy seem to have grown quite fond of each other. Every afternoon, he joins us for tea in her sitting room and he acts as giddy as a girl over invitation styles and wedding favors. Lucy will, of course, wear the ancestral wedding gown of the Virulens, but there is still much to decide—bridesmaid gowns, the buffet menu, musicians to hire for the wedding masque.
Charles is there through all of it. There’s scarcely a time now when Lucy and I are alone together, despite Charles’s earlier assertions that he is here doing an experiment for Father. The one time I’ve been alone with Lucy, I try desperately to tell her what he’s done, but I can only stutter and stumble, as if my lips had truly been sewn shut. Lucy, of course, thinks I’m having fits and sends me to my room with a posset and strict admonitions to see to my health.
No utterance against Charles can I make, nor any warning of the desperateness of my situation. One day, in sheer frustration I manage to pour tea on Charles’s hand. I watch in horror as the skin parts for a moment, revealing only to me the dark, scaly second skin beneath. Definitely not human. But what is he?
No one is amused, and I’m banished to the corner to knit doilies with the other maids, still unable to say a single word.
And every night, the Manticore’s silver song rises through the broken Refinery and pierces my heart.
Today, I try again to write a letter to Father. I can speak about the weather, the wedding plans, even inquire about his work. But the moment I begin to beg him for help or to speak against Charles, the ink runs away across the page in meaningless dribbles. I can no more write the words than I can say them.
I throw the pot of everink against the wall in frustration and watch it bleed down the faded wallpaper. What can I do? How can I help myself? I’ve waited in vain for Syrus to return, but there’s been no sign, no word. I should have known better than to rely on him. I swallow, realizing that I’m only thinking these things because I can’t accept the fact that Charles may have gotten him, after all. Syrus’s soul may already be in that nasty jar.
I must attend Lucy soon, for the Grimgorns will arrive tonight. I wish there was some way to magically fortify myself against the sight of Lucy and Bayne together, but the magic seems to have gone away as fast as it came. I am a witch without spells.
The maids come to dress and powder me. Only Lord Virulen has a wardrobe wight—they’re extraordinarily expensive. I’m glad enough for that. I don’t think I could stand for a wight to touch me again, knowing what I do about their origins. I endure their ministrations, but all the while I’m thinking about what I can do, what I must do, to break free. I consider that if I could somehow wrest the neverkey from Charles, I could get in to see the Manticore. But Lucy has kept me close by her late into every night, and there are men watching everywhere.
I will figure this out.
In the parlor, I serve tea to Lucy, Lord Virulen, Lord and Lady Grimgorn, and Bayne. Charles is thankfully absent; I would guess he’s afraid of what Bayne might do to him. Bayne watches my every move. I look up once to see Lucy frowning, and after that, I keep my eyes lowered. I must pretend that I’ve never seen or spoken to him. They talk mostly of the wedding tour, and how delicately that must be achieved considering the growing Waste between New London and Scientia. Bayne doesn’t involve himself in any of it, but lets his parents, Lucy, and Lord Virulen sort out the details.
I slip over to the window seat while they continue to talk. I slide the Ceylon Codex out of my pocket and turn its old pages. Although I can’t make out the symbols, at least my eyes don’t sting when I look at them. The strange Dragonlike creature has a golden heart. I’d never noticed that before.
“What is that you’re reading?” Bayne says.
He’s come up behind me without my realizing it. I twist to look up at him, and see his eyes on the book.
I pass the book to him, trying to modulate my voice as if I’m speaking to someone I barely know. “It’s called the Ceylon Codex. It’s full of Dragons. My Father used to study them at the Museum.”
He takes it very delicately, as he once took my hand. He turns the pages with the very edges of his fingers to keep from smudging them. “Fascinating. What do you think of it?”
“I think . . .”
Our eyes meet. “Bayne . . .” I whisper. My voice trembles.
Just at that moment, I turn and see that everyone is looking at us. The room has fallen deathly silent.
“Vespa,” Lucy says, her voice snapping with frost, “remove the tea things, please.”
I take the tray and head toward the kitchen. I hear Bayne excusing himself. I try to hurry and disappear down the kitchen corridor before he can catch up to me, but to no avail.
“Miss Nyx,” he calls after me. I haven’t heard him call me that since the first day we met.
I stop, but I don’t turn.
He comes up beside me. “I beg a word with you.”
“My lord.” I bow my head. “I have errands for your impending wedding.” I close my eyes. The tray is so heavy my arms shake.
He takes the tray from me and sets it on the floor. “I do not know why you did what you did,” he says. “I want to believe that you didn’t understand. But you have bound me now with shackles tighter than any signed contract or brokered promise.”
“If you had only told me,” I say. “If I had only known, I would never have—”
“Release me, then. Unbind me from this charm. Only you can undo this. I cannot break this spell on my own. Your strength, unschooled as it is, is greater than any I possess.”
My teeth chatter with tension. “I can’t! I—”
The door opens, and his mother pokes her aristocratic nose around the door frame looking for him.
“Bayne, we need your signature now,” she says, eyeing me.
He turns away without another word or look.
I make my face as cold as I can. I bend and pick up my tray and say icily, “Good day, my lord,” as I make my way to the kitchens. But it is as though I am walking on a thousand teacups all made of the pieces of my heart.
On the day of the wedding, I am up before dawn being trussed and pinched and perfumed. My hair is so tall I’m afraid I won’t be able to get through the doorway. I’m exhausted because I haven’t slept at all between Lucy’s tantrums over a fault in the wedding favors, avoiding Bayne and Charles, and thinking about what I might do to free myself of these wretched, wretched spells. Short of trying to sneak away after this wedding, I have no solutions. And somehow, with both Charles and Lucy watching me like hawks, I have the feeling I won’t get very far.
The maids cluck at the circles under my eyes, my puffy eyelids. They powder my face even whiter than usual to account for it; I look like a ghost.
But there’s no time to worry over it. I must help Lucy in her chambers with the ancient Virulen wedding gown and escort her down to the chapel, as she has no mother of her own to do so. We have this loss in common, but with so many maids at her disposal, I’m hard-pressed to see why Lucy even has need of me. Except that I’m the reason she’s getting married in the first place.
I sigh. Last night, a note was slid under my door, eversealed with the Wyvern seal of Grimgorn. I threw it in the fire unread. It’s bad enough that I am a witch without magic, but even the accusation of being my new lord’s
