The Deepest Night

with my farms manager about some cows or something, so let’s get this over with. Did you bring the shovel?”

I rose to my own feet, lifting a hand to indicate the shovel, obviously just beside me.

He grabbed it, said, “Let’s go,” and moved off without another look.

I collected the lantern and the picnic basket and followed him. Neither of us really needed illumination to find the place where I’d buried my chest of gold a few weeks before, but I didn’t want to leave any evidence of our meeting behind.

Like me, Armand heard the music of the metal and strode straight to it.

I’d chosen an area that looked like any other in the woods, littered with decomposing leaves and pine needles, a few handy ferns growing lush and random around it. Oak roots pushed through ivy and peat, sinking gnarled tendrils all the way down into the bedrock.

There was a gap in the root system exactly wide enough for the chest. A little too far in any direction, and a treasure seeker would end up just slashing at wood.

Armand sank the shovel into the perfect center of the proper spot.

I would have done the digging myself, but he’d insisted. I hadn’t told him, but the truth was that burying the chest in the first place had made me so ill I’d actually passed out. I kept forgetting I was supposed to be on the mend.

“I’ve counted every piece,” I warned him, watching the shovel jab in, lift out, great mounds of moss and dirt piled to the side.

He didn’t glance up. “You think I’d steal from you?”

“Only once.”

“Your faith in me is gratifying.”

“Not especially wifelike, I presume?”

The shovel stabbed extra deep; his voice came ironic. “No. Not especially.”

Minutes later the blade thunked into the lid of the chest, and all the gold song within went sharp in response. Armand straightened, tossed the shovel aside, and clambered out of the shallow hole.

“All yours,” he said with a sweep of his hand.

I lay flat on my stomach at the edge and reached down. The chest had no lock—I hadn’t thought there’d be a point to locking it, and anyway, I’d nicked it from Jesse’s cottage and didn’t have the key—so all I had to do was lift the iron tongue of the latch to raise the lid.

It was hard not to gasp. My treasure was beautiful, it really was. Gold glimmered and sang and gleamed up at me, magnificent even in the feeble light. But since it had come from Jesse, not pirates, it wasn’t anything ordinary like ingots or doubloons.

It was a jumble of solid gold branches and acorns and leaves, pinecones and flowers. It was the work of a naturalist, of an alchemist who had lived amid nature, who had appreciated the unspoken splendor of the wild.

Jesse’d been able to transform any living thing into gold, another secret he’d taken to his grave. The contents of this chest had been his final gift to me.

So technically I wasn’t impoverished any longer. I had all this. And I had it out here in the forest because there were maids and enemies and no locks on any of the doors at Iverson, and no reason on earth for an urchin like me to possess anything of value, much less a collection of sculpted golden objects.

Armand kept his distance. I could hear his heartbeat, though, how it had quickened at the sight of the treasure, a cadence that matched my own and the precise tempo of the music that lifted from the chest.

“Hurry,” he urged, low.

I picked up one of the pinecones. It was on top of the tangle, a cool and heavy weight in my hand. I scrambled back from the edge and held it out for Armand to see.

“Will this do?”

He nodded, not even looking at it. “Done?”

“Yes.”

He bent down and grabbed the shovel again.

It wasn’t until the hole was filled once more, the music muted, and we were on our knees carefully rescattering the old leaves and needles that Armand sat back on his heels and spoke.

“Jesse’s gone, Lora. Gone forever. Nothing can change that.”

“I know.” I crumbled a clod of dirt between my fingers, watching it dissolve into dust. “But we can’t help whom we love.”

Armand sighed, bitter. “No. We can’t.”

I awoke the next morning in time for breakfast, which was a relief. I was always hungry, and oversleeping meant I’d have to wait until luncheon for food. By then I’d be seeing spots from lack of nourishment.

Apparently my drakon metabolism wasn’t quite as ladylike as might be hoped. Respectable young Englishwomen barely bothered to eat; the other girls at Iverson only nibbled at their meals and whined about their too-tight corsets. I, on the other hand, ate so much I had to hide it from Mrs. Westcliffe, and half the time I snuck about with no corset at all.

That fact alone was probably enough to get me booted from the school.

Did you hear about that tramp Eleanore? It turns out she was running around stark naked beneath her clothes!

Well, not entirely. I did usually bother with a chemise, because otherwise I got cold.

I rolled from my bed. My feet hit the stone chill of the floor and I hastened to the wardrobe, pulling open the doors to survey what I had to wear today.

Five white long-sleeved shirtwaists, all identical. Five dark plum slender skirts, also identical. Five sets of plain black stockings; ten garters. One pair of black buttoned shoes.

We all wore the same uniform at Iverson, society girls and slum girls alike. To be frank, it was a relief not to have to don my shabby Blisshaven clothes for class, even though I did still have to resort to them for the weekends. Sometimes it was just easier to mix with the herd.

A hard rap sounded on my door. It opened before I could respond, and Gladys, the maid appointed to my room, walked in with a pitcher of fresh water.

“Oh,” she said, unenthusiastic. “You’re up, then.”

I smiled at her. She brought the pitcher to the bureau and plunked it down hard, sloshing water across the wood.

“What time is it?” I asked sweetly.

“Sorry, miss.” She dried her hands on her apron, avoiding my eyes. “Been so busy, I forgot to look at the clock.”

One of Gladys’ tasks was to ensure that I was awake before breakfast was served. So far, she’d not managed it once, and that was not an accident.

Scholarship students were never local girls. I could have tried to explain to her that it wouldn’t have mattered even if the duke hadn’t set that rule; that a slippery combination of destiny and magic had brought me here to the castle, not just dumb luck.

But Gladys was skinny and hostile and too old inside for someone who was only about twenty. I’d wager she’d lost any last faith in magic the day she’d needed money badly enough to take this job.

Should she and Chloe ever join evil forces, I might be in real trouble. Fortunately, Lady Chloe stooping to converse with a common housemaid was about as likely as Kaiser Wilhelm showing up bearing roses at our door.

“Thank you,” I said brightly to Gladys’ back as she stomped out of the room.

I tried to be nice to her. Usually. I’d hate working here, too.

What Iverson lacked in electricity, enough water closets, and proper heating, it made up for in grandeur. The chambers were all done up in burnished fixtures and sinuous furniture. The staircases were of carved marble, the rugs were plush, the paintings massive and ornate.

Our dining hall was the original great room of the castle, a space so huge that the sunbeams slanting in