“I’m borrowing this,” was all Eliot said as he reached the hallway.
“Don’t you got enough maps already?” called Ilsa, but the door was already closing behind him.
Fyfe let out a long breath and collapsed back into his chair.
22
Following the incident in which Pyval Crespo nearly lost an arm, it was decided by all involved that he should cease attending Ilsa’s lessons. So Ilsa was unprepared to step into the drawing room and find him standing there, hands behind his back like a military man, sullen expression staring through her as if she were nothing.
But she refused to show him any weakness. She folded her arms and looked only at Alitz. “I ain’t doing jack with him here.”
Alitz raised a placating hand. “Pyval is here at my request to ask your forgiveness.”
“He can’t have it.”
“Let him swallow his pride, anyway. You might find it amusing.”
Gritting her teeth, Ilsa let out a slow breath and faced Pyval.
“I apologise that my teaching methods are too much for you,” he said in his reedy, delicate voice.
Incensed, Ilsa turned back to Alitz. “That ain’t an apology!”
Alitz’s eyes bored into Pyval, and Ilsa could imagine the scathing content of her reproach. But Pyval did not relent.
“I was under the impression you wanted to learn to protect yourself,” he said, “not play children’s games. So I apologise that I misconstrued your intent.”
“Go to hell and burn there, you hateful—”
“Alright!” said Alitz. “I see this may not have been the best course of action to take.”
Pyval was dismissed without another spoken word and stalked from the drawing room like nothing in the world could keep him there. Good riddance, Ilsa thought, as she glared daggers at his back. She hoped to never see him again.
“What are we doing today?” she asked Alitz.
Alitz almost smiled. It must have been a relief for her too that Pyval’s loathing would not mar their lesson. “I’m quite satisfied that you are able to guard against mind reading as well as you ever will, as long as you maintain your practice. So we are turning our attention more thoroughly to the second matter: this afternoon I am going to test what you are capable of.”
Someone had laid out tea for them as always, and Alitz poured. “You and I are going to talk,” she said, “and as we do, I will attempt to manipulate your thoughts. You have fared well since the first time Pyval tried to control you, but be warned, I shan’t make it easy to resist.”
Ilsa eagerly accepted a cup and saucer. She knew how to make the most of a good prop, and sipping and stirring would buy her time to concentrate. She piled in four lumps of sugar – a move that usually earned her a look of unrestrained disgust from Alitz, but today resignedly amused her – and took a long drink to fortify herself, relishing the heat as it singed down her throat.
“Now.” Alitz arranged herself in a chair, straight as a rod, and stirred her tea. “Tell me, how are you acclimatising?”
“Slowly, I s’pose,” said Ilsa. “What with discovering there’s a whole other universe under Westminster Abbey, and that some people can walk through walls or magic themselves from place to place, and that all them times I felt like the fortune teller in the theatre across the street was reading my mind, well, she just bloody might’ve been. S’cuse my French.”
Alitz smiled restrainedly. “I meant, how are you acclimatising to being a Ravenswood?”
“Oh.” Ilsa had been cracking jokes because she was nervous about the exercise, but a new anxiety crept in, unbidden. “Fine, mostly. It ain’t like they expect all that much of me. ’Cept that I don’t run off and get myself killed.”
“I understand the wealth and privilege they enjoy here at the Zoo is starkly different to the life you used to lead. It’s somewhat jarring, I imagine.”
Alitz watched her with patient, probing eyes, but Ilsa let the silence linger, a weight sliding off her as she realised what the Whisperer was doing. It was a classic pickpocket’s trick; draw the mark’s eye with one hand and pilfer their pockets with the other. Alitz knew enough of Ilsa’s mind and memories to unsettle her with just the right question, and if Ilsa got lost in her thoughts – thoughts about learning to be part of Camden’s ruling family, for example – she would not notice Alitz slipping in.
Ilsa smiled sweetly. Alitz could borrow a pickpocket’s tricks, but Ilsa had been one, and she knew how to watch her back without looking like it.
“Well, I can’t say I find it ordinary that when I leave my petticoats and stockings all over the floor, someone comes and puts them away.”
There it was. An errant thought. The sudden and inexplicable urge to look over her shoulder, like someone might be standing right behind her. Ilsa caught it, bent it until it broke. The corner of Alitz’s mouth twitched before she could disguise her surprise.
“And I’d prefer to dress myself than have a maid help me. Call me old-fashioned, but I just think it’s a valuable skill.”
Another: the glint of metal in the mirror above the console. Ilsa’s intellect told her it was Alitz’s magic. Her instinct still made her look. There was someone behind her, stepping away from the wallpaper where he had been camouflaged, drawing a blade. Ilsa felt her skin prickle as the leopard begged to be let out. She felt around the edges of the image and found the seam where it had been stitched in between her senses. But could she be sure? He could be a Wraith…
No, the Zoo was warded against such intrusions, and Ilsa’s own thoughts were stronger than these. The image was wrong;
