Chime

are looking after Rose, will wonders never cease?

This is Briony Larkin.

I deserved a holiday, and I deserved to dispense with the laces and trusses expected of a clergyman’s daughter. I wore my oldest frock, which looked remarkably like a potato sack, and I wore very little beneath. I should never have imagined how lovely that feels. It’s most freeing, and it gives you the delicious sense you’re on your way to moral degeneracy. I shall soon be painting my lips and drinking gin.

The first meeting of the Fraternitus Bad-Boyificus was also to be my first fighting lesson. I made a fist and showed it to Eldric.

“Fistibus Briony.” I shook my fist. “Eldric terrorificorum est?”

“Terrific? I’m terrific!”

“Not terrific!” I said. “Quite the opposite. Listen carefully: terrorificorum.”

“Hmm,” said Eldric.

“Grant me patience, O Jupiter Magnificum!”

“Not terrified!” shouted Eldric at last. “Never terrified of Briony’s fistibus!”

We laughed and laughed. I was aware that I didn’t hate myself, which left me in a philosophical dilemma. Should I hate myself for not hating myself?

Briony destere Briony.

It doesn’t quite have the same ring.

I initiated conversation, like this:

“Do you think you’ll return to London?”

I found myself truly interested in what the answer was to be.

“Not for some time,” said Eldric. “Father intends to find another tutor willing to spend at least a year in the Swampsea. I feel it my obligation as a bad boy, and a founding member of the Fraternitus, to complain whenever he speaks of staying on. So please don’t mention how very glad I am to stay.”

“Mumibus wordium,” I said, although I knew that Mr. Clayborne knew Eldric was fond of the Swampsea, and that among the three of us—Mr. Clayborne, Eldric, and me—each of us knew the others knew. There’s an example of the Clayborne family language. It’s a silent language, but dead opposite to Father’s. And I, Briony Larkin, was beginning to pick it up. I learn languages quickly. Have I perhaps mentioned that?

“Speaking of tutors,” said Eldric, “I wonder that your father let you go without lessons since that Genius Fitz of yours left. I hope I’m not being a nosy parkerium.”

“You can’t blame Father,” I said. “Or, rather, you can blame him, and I certainly invite you to do so, but it will have to be for something else. Father intended to send me to school. It was all arranged, and my trunks were packed, but Stepmother fell ill and I stayed to care for her.”

“Surely there were other suitable people who might have done so?”

“It’s difficult to explain.”

It was impossible to explain. Stepmother fell ill.

But that wasn’t quite true. Stepmother also fell. Stepmother fell. Mucky Face smashed her, and she fell. Which made her fall ill.

I made Stepmother fall and she fell ill. I made Rose fall, and she fell ill.

I hadn’t known what I was doing at the time, but I remember both incidents entirely. My life changed in the few minutes it took for Stepmother to tell me about them. I couldn’t leave her then, of course, not the Stepmother I’d injured. I couldn’t leave her ill, and alone, to care for Rose, whom I’d also injured.

I may be wicked, but I’m not bad.

Eldric turned toward me on soft lion’s feet. Some witchy antenna picked up waves of indignation: Eldric was ready to pounce. “So you sacrificed—”

“Not sacrifice!” I hate that word. Father used it in his one-sided arguments with Stepmother. Is it fair that Briony sacrifice her life for you and Rose?

Father lost control of his voice when he and Stepmother argued. It was no longer the crisp, laundered voice of the clergyman, or even the curling ribbons of his irritated voice. Instead, he shouted. The Reverend Larkin actually shouted.

But in this particular argument, Eldric was the quiet one and I was the one with a throat-full of shouting. Shouting is angry, and Briony plus anger is dangerous. Briony plus anger results in something like Mucky Face.

I ought not to shout. I ought to forget that I’d been longing to go to school after Father dismissed Fitz. That I’d have seized the chance to go anywhere, but especially to London, and school!

Eldric and I had stopped walking now. We had stumbled into an argument.

“You don’t understand,” I said. “Father and Stepmother told me to go, but I refused. I unpacked my trunks.”

I’d sat that day at Stepmother’s side in the sewing room. She couldn’t manage the stairs, not with the injury to her spine. Her beautiful black hair streamed over the pillow. She smiled her generous smile—how could she bear to smile after what I’d done? She’d be in pain for the rest of her life.

Fitz was not always kind about her; he said her teeth were too big. But he was jealous, I think. We’d been the best of companions, he and I, but when Stepmother came into our family, she became my best friend and Fitz second best.

“I know things are done differently here in the Dragon Constellation,” said Eldric. “And I know that when in the Dragon Constellation, it’s wise to do as the Dragon Constellationers do. But I can’t help bringing up a tradition from my native Earth. Parents there are expected to give their children opportunities. Not every parent, of course, but parents like your father, and mine. We expect them to open doors for their children so they can march forth into the world.”

March fourth. Eldric’s birthday.

March forth!

“But I told you, Father gave me opportunities.”

“And your stepmother?”

“I told you that too. I was the one who wanted to stay—who decided to stay!”

Stepmother had taken my hand in her own cool one. She was always cool, and that day, the sewing room was positively chilly. She disliked fires, even on the coldest nights. “You do see what happened,” she said. “Don’t you, darling?”

I did see, much as I wished I didn’t. She laid out the events, like puzzle pieces. She never told me what happened. She left me to draw my own conclusion.

Puzzle piece number one: Stepmother had been sitting under the parlor table with Rose, helping her with those infernal collages.

Puzzle piece number two: I’d stood in the parlor door, watching, and I said something about not understanding how Stepmother could bear the tedium.

Puzzle piece number three: I stood gazing across the river, to the swamp. Stepmother came into the garden, Mucky Face rose from the water.

I did see what I might have been thinking. I knew exactly what I’d been thinking. I was jealous that Stepmother had spent such a deal of time with Rose. My jealousy had called up Mucky Face.

“If your stepmother really wanted you to march forth,” said Eldric, “she shouldn’t have accepted your—well, I won’t say sacrifice.”

“Except that you just did,” I said. “And in any event, you don’t understand.”

But my argument was slipping away from me. I knew I was right, but I couldn’t explain why. We turned toward the bridge. Our feet whispered over the silvered wood. The lion-boy was quiet; the wolfgirl was quiet. I’ve been training the wolfgirl, running her up and down the stairs, when no one’s about to see. It’s marvelously exhausting.

In May, the mud has melted into slush. The peat moss is emerald and the sundew plants show their bright, yellow faces. You might think they resemble happy schoolchildren, until you learn of their flesh-eating habits. We cut across a corner of the Flats, oozed across scrub and moss, trod on bright, carnivorous smiles.

I’d forgotten how wolfgirl could change direction mid-stride, how within the space of a heartbeat, she could turn from the Flats toward the estuary. Eldric did the same, wolf and lion, shifting quick as wind.

“You’re fast,” said Eldric.