The Deepest Night

stench of rancid grease from his hair pomade nearly flattened me.

Westcliffe was shaking his hand, introducing us both. I nodded at the right moment, then eased behind the headmistress and tried to breathe shallow breaths.

This, then, was the duke’s personal physician. This fidgety, fat, smelly man.

For the first time ever, I think, I felt a thread of sympathy for His Grace.

The doctor led us through the doorway, talking all the while.

“ … that you made it here in all haste. It will please the duke mightily. He’s been adamant that he speak with you—that is, with the young lady—as soon as possible. We’ve been utterly unable to reason with him about it.”

“I see,” said Westcliffe faintly.

Richardson Home on the inside was nothing whatsoever like a real home. We were walking down a corridor lined with sulphur-glass sconces, passing no parlors, no drawing rooms, only closed doors, most inset with small, barred windows. The reek of pomade had become overwhelmed with that of bleach and morphine and sour human waste.

Faces popped into view from behind the bars. Hands reaching up, fingers clawing, palms slapping at the doors. Voices keening, moaning—one man actually barking—all the prisoners feeding on the noise, an awful chorus of desperation bouncing against the barren walls.

Westcliffe’s feet began to drag. Her skin had blanched, but I …

Oh, I had seen all this before. I had lived this before.

I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek, tasting blood. There was a sound building up inside me, a hot hopeless pressure inside my throat, but I wasn’t going to moan back to these people. I wasn’t.

A woman’s hand with dirty, chipped fingernails poked out from a window as my head went by. I ducked out of the way just in time, leaving her fingers to scratch at empty air.

“Jeannie,” the woman shrieked, now her cheek pressed against the bars, one rolling eye. “At last! Come visit! Jeannie, Jeannie, where have you been all this while? Come visit your mother!”

“Pay them no mind,” the doctor called from over his shoulder. “Pitiable, of course, but one does grow accustomed to the everyday sights and sounds of their sickness. They’ll quiet after we pass. Er—avoid the cell windows, please. Some of the younger children have a fair reach.”

“Children,” repeated Westcliffe, still faint, but the good doctor had heard her.

“Oh, yes,” he enthused. “At Richardson we utilize the most modern medicines and methods for every manner of patient. Weakness of the mind acknowledges no boundaries of age, and I’m pleased to say that neither do we. All who are in need are welcome here.”

For the right price, I finished silently for him.

Moor Gate, asylum of the indigent, hadn’t used nearly this much bleach.

And that wasn’t the only difference, I soon saw. When the doctor unlocked the door to the duke’s cell, I had to stop in place and stare.

Here, then, was the home part of Richardson Home. Here was the gracious space, the luxurious surroundings, a peer of the realm would expect. There were rugs and tables and chairs, a writing desk, a silk folding screen, and a hulking canopied bed done up in royal blue damask. There were even windows set up high along two walls, letting in the sun past the bars, something I’d never glimpsed once in my year spent in the bowels of Moor Gate.

A fireplace held a crackling fire—no chill in here—and Reginald, Armand’s father, was seated before it in a smoking jacket with a blanket over his lap and a cup of something in his hands.

His Grace took in the three of us at his door with an air of mild astonishment. Then he set the cup aside and rose to his feet.

“Look, my lord,” said the doctor in a chipper tone. “Only look and see who has come to call on you.”

“Yes,” said the duke. “How kind.”

Mrs. Westcliffe slid an uncertain step toward him. “Your Grace.”

“Irene.” A brief smile lifted his lips. For a heartbreaking instant he looked so like his handsome son. “Lovely to see you.”

She sank into her curtsy, and I copied it. Reginald’s gaze jumped to mine.

“Miss Jones. I am glad you’ve come.”

I couldn’t think of a polite response to that—Blimey, I’m not!—so I only nodded.

“Timothy,” said the duke, sounding abruptly like his old, imperious self, “we’ll need tea. Some of those scones with the currants in them, fresh ones. See to it, old boy.”

“My lord, I don’t think—”

“The ladies shall be perfectly fine in my care,” Reginald interrupted. “I can assure you of that.”

“Yes,” agreed Westcliffe, forceful. “We shall be.”

“Indubitably true, my dear woman! The Duke of Idylling is a model patient, a paragon of a patient. But I cannot—”

“Do go,” I said, stepping in front of him, drawing his eyes to me. My voice slipped soft and smooth. “Go and see to the tea in the kitchens yourself.”

There is another drakon Gift I’ve not mentioned yet, and like all the others, it’s one I hadn’t mastered in the least. Occasionally—rarely—I was able to induce people to do what I wanted simply by darkening the tenor of my voice. There were times I tried it and failed miserably; I ended up sounding like nothing more than a cheap fortune-teller at a carnival sideshow.

But this time it worked. I hadn’t even meant to attempt it, but it had happened, and it worked.

The duke’s physician offered me a few more squinty blinks, but they were slower now. Baffled.

“Yes. I’ll … go to the kitchens.…”

“Splendid,” said His Grace.

I let them reunite with my back to them, hands clasped before me, studying the curtains that draped so stylishly from the canopy of the bed.

I pretended I didn’t hear them at all.

I pretended I didn’t hear the moans that still ricocheted down the hallway past the open door, and the woman weeping, “Jeannie, my Jeannie,” from behind the walls of her cell.

“And now, Irene, if you don’t mind, I’d like to speak to Miss Jones.”

I turned around. They were seated a nice proper distance from each other, the fire glowing between them.

Westcliffe pursed her mouth.

“Privately,” added the duke.

“Well … I …”

I looked at her. I said nothing.

“Certainly.” She stood and went to the door. “I’ll wait here for the doctor to return, shall I?”

I approached the empty chair. The duke lifted a hand to it—and there was Armand in him again, sweeping a hand at me in the forest to inspect the hole he’d dug.

I settled gingerly against the cushions. The heat from the fire caressed the left side of my face and lit the right side of his, highlighting the deep hollow of his cheek, the sallow skin. Reddish glints danced in his lank brown hair.

“I know what you are,” Reginald said quietly.

I froze, then made myself relax back and cross my ankles.

His Grace had never seen me as a dragon. Not only that, but Armand’s drakon blood had come from his mother’s side, and even she hadn’t known what she was. She’d died not knowing, so I didn’t see how Reginald suddenly could.

“Oh?” I murmured.

“Yes, Miss Jones. I do.”

“If you mean that I am the very grateful recipient of your scholarship to Iverson, Your Grace, you are