“Neither did mine, unless I was doing as she commanded,” Valentina said, with a crackly, dry-paper laugh. “My family places a great deal of value on beauty,” she continued, then shook her head. “That’s not exactly right. They put a lot of value on appearances. For instance, my father detests Archie, really. Can’t stand him. But they’re part of the same cause, working for the Brotherhood to protect the Iron Land from the Fae and anything else out there, so he pretends they’re great friends to keep the other members thinking he’s a genial old man, when really, it couldn’t be further from the truth.” She sighed. “What you must think of this place—a kid who grew up like you did. You must find me unbearably bourgeois.”
Valentina was making it harder and harder to completely dislike her, and that just made me feel even crankier and more exhausted than I already did. I wanted things to be simple—she was the evil stepmother, I was the neglected daughter. Her being nice and friendly and normal made things much less cut and dried. “My father’s family isn’t poor,” I said. “But I don’t think my father is like yours.”
“The Graysons have family money,” Valentina said. “But your father and your uncle Ian didn’t do much besides working with the Brotherhood, so Grayson money’s not the fat stack of cash it once was. Another mark against him, from the Crosleys’ perspective. They’ve got that Rationalist work ethic, even if they don’t believe in any of the teachings.”
“It’s really strange,” I blurted, unable to think of a polite way to say it, “hearing about my family from you.”
Valentina drew a hairbrush from the bag as well. “Come over here,” she said, patting the seat of the dressing table.
I drew my brows together, suspicious of her again. “What for?”
“Just come,” Valentina said. “And trust me a little. I may not be an ace engineer like you, but I know what I’m doing here.”
I sat, but slowly.
Valentina sighed. “I’m not going to bite you, Aoife.”
“Maybe I’m just not ready to be best friends yet.” I kept one eye on her in the mirror as she opened the bag and pulled out a Bakelite case.
“Just as paranoid as your dear old dad too,” Valentina said. “For two people who never talked but once before today, you have a lot in common.”
I dropped my eyes at that, unaccountably pleased that someone had confirmed what I’d been thinking— Archie and I were alike, if only in that we were both stubborn and cranky. But it made me feel warm inside, warmer than the cool air of the house could make me.
Valentina opened the case top, revealing twin rows of ceramic rollers, with a connector in the back to allow a small steam hob to heat them. “Your hair is a travesty,” Valentina said. “I’m going to fix it, and we’re going to talk.”
“Do I have a choice?” I asked. I wasn’t entirely opposed to the idea of a makeover, but talking seemed like it might be strained. What could someone like Valentina possibly want to talk about with me? I wasn’t rich and I wasn’t cultured. I didn’t even know the right fork to use at a fancy dinner party.
“No,” Valentina said as she picked up the hairbrush and a small tin tub of pomade and tilted my head down so I was looking at my lap. She yanked the brush through a section of my hair, and I hissed at the sting.
“Where did you meet Archie? You seem a little young for him.” If she was going to push and pull at me, I decided I could at least control the talking part.
“We met when he came to consult with my father on a matter of importance regarding the Brotherhood,” Valentina told me. “I was seventeen then—and yes, that’s very young. Archie was a gentleman, and he waited for three years, until I could return his affections freely.”
“You didn’t like boys your own age?” I asked, looking up at her from under my eyelashes. She didn’t blink, just laughed lightly, as if nothing I said could bother her.
“Your brother told me downstairs you had a smart mouth.” She’d separated my hair into a dozen or so sections, each a sharp tug and sting on my scalp. She tested the rollers with her finger. “Nearly heated. And no, Aoife. Boys my age bored me, although there was no shortage. I was pretty, and my father was rich. That’s how it goes. But they were fools, and I’d never met a man I could love until I met Archie.”
I swallowed, and then decided this might be my one chance to get an honest answer, even if it wasn’t the one I wanted. “Are you and my father going to get married?”
“Marriage is an antiquated construct,” Valentina said. I tucked that away—no straight answers on that score from her. That made me like her a little bit more. Under her manners and clothes, she was just as out of place as Conrad and me.
“What about you and Dean?” she asked, changing the subject.
My face flushed, and the heat of the rollers didn’t have much to do with it. What about me and Dean?
“Do you like him?” she tried again. “You two seem very fond of each other, from what I saw.”
“You know, it’s not very polite to ask me questions and not answer mine,” I told her, almost smiling. It was nice to know that Dean’s feelings for me showed.
Three more rollers and three more hot spots. Valentina’s hands were much stronger than their delicate bones implied. My head in the mirror was rapidly becoming a beehive of black and silver.
“When you’re a little older, Aoife, you’ll understand that answers aren’t always black-and-white or easy,” she said, as if she were confiding in me. “I feel like I live two lives a lot of the time. Good, demure Crosley girl, who’ll marry someone appropriate, who plays piano and knows how to fix hair in the new fashions and wears all the right clothes.”
She had used up the rollers, and she handed me a rubbery pink cap emblazoned with cabbage roses. “Put this on. In the morning you’ll have a good proper set, and we can style it.”
I pulled the cap over my head, hiding the mountain of hair sausages that my usually unruly mane had turned into. My scalp felt a bit itchy and claustrophobic under it, but I kept still and pretended my head wasn’t stinging, for Valentina’s sake. She
“A member of the Brotherhood,” she said. “Even if I don’t have an ability like you and your father do, I can do my part. Now more than ever, with what’s happened.”
She must have seen her words hit home, though I tried not to flinch.
“Oh, I don’t blame you,” Valentina said. “You were manipulated. It happens more than you’d think, among those who know the truth about the Gates and the Thorn Land. The Fae are very persuasive.”
“I didn’t do it for them,” I whispered, my face hot with the kind of shame unique to being misunderstood. “I did it for—”
“For your mother, I know. Try not to drown yourself in your guilt, Aoife,” Valentina said. “We’ve all done things we wish we could take back.” She looked at her shoes for a moment, then back at me, as if she’d decided to confess. “I used to have terrible nightmares about the things I saw after I joined the Brotherhood. Some choices I had to make for the greater good.”
“And now?” I whispered. I had to admit Dean was right—I had misjudged Valentina. The pain written across her face mirrored my own in that moment.
“Now I don’t dream at all,” she said, and smiled. It was genuine, but sad. “It does get better, Aoife. Try and get some sleep. Things will seem brighter tomorrow.” She started to shut the door and then leaned back in. “And try not to squash your rollers in your sleep. You’ll look so grown-up tomorrow.”
I didn’t want to burst her bubble on that score, but I knew my unruly hair. I just nodded. “Good night. And … thank you.”
Valentina gave me another one of her sad smiles before she backed out and closed my door, the latch catching with a click. So different from the clanging doors of Graystone and the heavy, creaking hinges of the Academy. A normal house sound, for a house full of normal people. What a joke.
I sat for a long time, listening to the house tick and settle. There was a draft coming through the windows, and I burrowed under the covers of the tiny bed. It was like being back at the Academy, in my drafty dormitory
