Chapter 19

C HAPTER 19

It was a grim party that assembled for dinner. Cordelia almost didn't attend, in case her mother was there, but then it struck her that if her mother had gone so far as to make someone obedient, she might do it to someone else, and perhaps Cordelia could spot the signs.

And what would you do if you did? You don't know how to break the spell or you'd have done it for yourself already.

She didn't have an answer, but she dressed for dinner anyway. Alice did up the tiny buttons at her sleeve and watched her with a faint, concerned frown, completely devoid of her usual chatter. Cordelia wanted to reassure her, but she had no real idea what to say. "It's all right," she said finally. "I'm all right." And then, realizing that a servant probably wasn't particularly worried about the person they were waiting on, except as it pertained to them, "Are you all right?"

Alice's eyebrows shot up. "Yes," she said. "Everything's in a muddle, since what happened to poor Mrs. Green, and the gossip belowstairs would curl your hair, but it's nothing that won't pass."

"I'm sorry it's such a muddle," said Cordelia, and went down to dinner, still clinging to her strange, hopeless calm.

Neither Evangeline nor Lord Evermore attended, and though the former's absence was unremarkable under the circumstances, everyone seemed surprised by the latter.

"Saw him riding out at noon," said Master Strauss. "On that big bay hunter with the white socks. Going hell for leath—"

"Jacob."

Master Strauss flushed. "Begging your pardon," he mumbled. "I didn't mean to swear in front of ladies."

Hester let out a long sigh. "And at this point, Penelope would say something bright and obscene to break the tension." She took a gulp of wine. A gloomy silence fell over the table.

"Did Evermore say where he was going?" asked Lord Strauss, one big hand covering his wife's.

Everyone looked at Hester, which didn't seem to surprise her. "He had something urgent to attend to," she said. "He promised he'd be back in a day or so." She looked over at Lady Strauss. "I realize that this house party has become rather more dreadful than anyone expected. If you wish to return home, no one could blame you."

"Don't be absurd," said Lady Strauss. "I'd hardly leave you at a time like this. What kind of friend would I be? I'm shocked at Richard, frankly."

"No, no," said Hester hastily, "don't be. It really was urgent. He didn't want to go."

That was something of an understatement. Cordelia had been present as Hester practically begged Richard to track down Mr. Parker. "It has to be you," she said. "You're the only one with enough clout to walk into a prison and have someone listen to you."

"It seems like a wild-goose chase," Lord Evermore said, glancing at Cordelia. "Interrogating a murderer because of… what, exactly?"

"I hardly know myself," said Hester. "Just ask if he knows Lady Evangeline."

It had occurred to Cordelia that the magic that had been laid on Ellen's father might have included something to cover her mother's tracks. She wouldn't just leave him able to blame her, would she? Even if no one believes in real sorcery anymore, she wouldn't want someone listening to him and asking questions. But how far would that go?

"You might ask him about his cabriolet," she said. "If he doesn't seem to know m-my mother. I think he might remember that."

Evermore's eyes were full of questions, but he bowed over Hester's hand. "If this is truly important…"

"It is," Hester said firmly. "I promise I'll explain everything when you get back."

"I hate to leave you," muttered Evermore. "Particularly at a time like this."

"I hate for you to go. But I need this question answered. After that we'll figure out what to do." Her gaze had strayed to Cordelia and Cordelia had nodded, hoping that this, too, was a problem that Hester could solve.

Someone touched her hand and Cordelia jumped and let out a squeak. "Oh!" she said, immediately apologetic, "I didn't mean to—I'm sorry, I was—"

"Don't fret, my dear," said the Squire, who had rather clumsily patted her hand. "You were miles away, and who can blame you? Worried about your mother, I expect."

Cordelia dropped her eyes, hoping that would be taken as answer enough. Through her lashes, she could see the Squire nod. "Don't fret," he repeated. "She'll be right as rain in a few days. Just the shock, you understand, and who can blame her? Not the sort of thing a gently bred lady expects to have happen."

"Unlike gently bred men," said Hester, in dulcet tones, "who have assassins leaping out of every bush."

Lord Strauss had a sudden coughing fit. The Squire sputtered something and Hester shook her head, lifting a hand. "Forgive me, Samuel. That was in poor taste. It's just…"

He took his sister's hand and squeezed it. "We're none of us doing so well," he said.

"It's not as if any of us have much experience with this," said Lady Strauss. She waved off a footman who was attempting to replace her sliver of meat and sauce with a second, slightly different sliver. "All those classes on proper etiquette for hostesses and they never mentioned what one is supposed to do after a murder."

Cordelia wrung the edge of the tablecloth between her hands. Two murders. It was two. She looked up and found Hester watching her. The older woman gave an almost imperceptible nod, and lifted her wineglass, and the pressure in Cordelia's chest eased a little. Hester understood. Hester might even believe her.

She wasn't completely alone.

The footman took her plate away and put another one in front of her. Some kind of braised greens. Cordelia managed to eat several bites, and it was not until the meal was over and the dishes removed that she realized that she had not once worried about which fork to use.

"I'm sure your mother would be glad of a visit from you," said the Squire, as they stood. He patted the air near her shoulder, perhaps not wanting to touch her, for fear that she would jump and squeak again.

Cordelia's heart sank. Her calm felt like a sheet of ice and she could already feel cracks forming in it. She'll be able to tell. She'll take one look at my face and know that I told Hester that she was a sorcerer. I know she will.

But of course if her mother was upset, she should visit. That was what a normal mother would want, and what a normal daughter would do. Not visiting would look suspicious.

"I was… I didn't want to bother her. If she was resting."

Lady Strauss came up on her other side and gave her a quick squeeze with one arm. "It'll do her good to see you," she said. "If I'd been through something frightening, I'd want to see that my children were alive and well. Even if I knew they were fine, there's nothing quite like seeing. And mothers aren't quite rational about these things, you know."

Cordelia bit back a hysterical laugh. No. Not quite rational. Lady Strauss meant well. Likely she still thought of Evangeline as a rather obnoxious fellow guest. Hester wouldn't have told her, not without some sort of proof.

Please, god, let Lord Evermore find Mr. Parker and find out something. They need to believe me.

"I'll go and see her," she murmured, and fled the parlor, feeling the ice cracking beneath her feet.

A stone-faced maid let her into her mother's suite. She was a good deal older than Alice, her eyes downcast. Cordelia wondered what she had suffered in her mother's employ. Not that Mother will do anything that you could complain about, not really. But I doubt it's easy either.

She certainly had enough to say about my cleaning back home.

A pang of longing swept her at the thought, for the little room in the ramshackle house, the windows barred with wunderclutter, the two boards that squeaked when you stepped on them, but in different notes, so that you could stand with your feet apart and bounce and draw a creaky call-and-response from the bones of the house.

She had not been happy there, but she had only had herself to worry about. Worrying about other people was becoming exhausting.

The suite was a mirror of Cordelia's, in rich greens instead of blues. "Who's there?" her mother called from the bedroom, in a trembling voice that still carried remarkably well.

"It's only me." She went to the doorway and looked in.

Evangeline lay propped up in the bed, pale and wan, her hair artfully disheveled around her face. She wore a dressing gown that looked too big for her, making her look small and fragile in the vast expanse of dark green damask coverlet.

She tilted her head to look at Cordelia and didn't bother to hide her disappointment. "Ah." Her gaze went past her, to the maid, and then she stretched out a hand. "Come here, my darling. Mildred, will you fetch us a fresh pot of tea?"

The maid, presumably Mildred, dipped her head and turned away. Evangeline waited until the outer door had clicked shut, then sat up, scowling. "Close the door," she said, "and lock it. I still don't trust these servants. They all answer to that dreadful butler."

Cordelia closed the door and stared at the lock. It was the simplest kind of lock, a little bent hook that dropped into a metal eye. She had never locked a door before. She had never been allowed to lock one. There were no locks on the doors at home.

"Hurry up," said her mother, voice no longer trembling. "The Squire's promised to come by later, and I don't want him to be standing around waiting."

She lifted the little hook. She could not shake the feeling that it should have been enormous, a weight that she could barely lift with both hands, instead of a little piece of iron that she could pinch between her thumb and forefinger. She fed the hook into the round metal mouth and it made the softest clink, barely heard over the sound of the ice breaking inside her, cracks running in every direction, ready to split apart at the slightest pressure and cast her into an icy sea.

She schooled her face to dull amiability before she turned back. Mother can't read my mind. She can't. Even though it felt as if her guilt must surely be emblazoned on her forehead in foot-high letters, if she kept her expression quiet and didn't run off and tell Falada, there was no way that her mother could know that she had confessed everything to Hester.

"Well?" said her mother, carefully tugging the neck of the dressing gown aside to reveal the slender length of her neck. Her skin was as pale as her familiar's, her ice-blue eyes picking up the green of the bedclothes. "How do I look?"

False. Wicked. Sly. "Like Falada," Cordelia blurted.

Evangeline sat up, dressing gown forgotten. "Like a horse ?"

"No! I didn't mean…" She swallowed, trying to fumble forward. "Pale. And graceful. And beautiful. Like him. And your eyes look green because the fabric…"

"Oh, I see. Hmm." Evangeline sat back, carefully re-mussing her hair. "I am trying to look waiflike. It's not easy when you're over thirty-five."

Cordelia relaxed infinitesimally. "The Squire sent me to see you," she said cautiously. "He seemed worried about you."

"That's good. That's very good. Mind you, you should have come on your own." Her eyes narrowed.

"I didn't know if that's what you would want."

"Mmm." That was a worrisome sound. It meant that judgment had been deferred, not forgotten. "What is happening out there?"

"Errr… well… everyone is very upset, of course…"

Her mother's eyes speared her. "Upset that I was nearly killed, or upset that woman is dead?"

"A little of both, I think," said Cordelia, wondering how much she could express without putting someone in danger. "They aren't saying which out loud. And the Squire keeps saying what a shock you've had." There, that ought to be safe.

"He's the one that matters." Her mother took a small hand mirror from the bedside table and checked her appearance in it. "What about that dreadful sister of his?"

"I think she's just generally upset," Cordelia said carefully. "She kept saying that she couldn't believe Mrs. Green would do that."

"Not without a great deal of work, she didn't." Evangeline set the mirror back on the table. "Miserable creature. She couldn't even die politely."

Blood roared in Cordelia's ears. She missed the next few words. She just admitted it. I didn't think she would just admit it.

Why not? She admitted what she'd done to Mr. Parker. She's proud of it and you're her audience. Who else does she have to brag to? Falada?

Her calm failed her. The ice had broken apart at last and her chest was full of shards. Penelope had died and the maid she'd never met had died and Ellen's family had died and her mother had done all of it and nothing Cordelia did, not now, not ever, would bring any one of them back.

"… look so stricken," her mother was saying. "I would have been perfectly happy if she just left, but you saw how that worked. I try to upset her, have Falada lurk where she can see him, and she makes a damnable story over breakfast of it! And you couldn't find any information worth having on her. No, it was obvious that I had to take matters into my own hands."

Cordelia swallowed. "You… you could have tried again. With Falada. Couldn't you?"

Evangeline rolled her eyes. "And she'd find a way to become the center of attention again if I did. The Squire kept mentioning her as it was." Her face softened suddenly and Cordelia braced herself. "Perhaps you're too young to know. I suppose it's the sort of thing you only learn with time. If a man keeps bringing up another woman's name, be on your guard. He'll tell you that they're friends or that it's over between them, but if her name's on his tongue, it means she's in his thoughts. Remember that, won't you?"

"Yes, Mother," whispered Cordelia, thinking, Who the hell cares what some hypothetical man is thinking about, you murdered a woman last night!

She wanted to be the sort of person who said it out loud. Penelope Green would have. But if she did, her mother would just wave her hand and make her obedient and it wouldn't help anyone.

Cordelia had no idea what she could do that would help anyone. She'd told Hester everything. What else was there? She lifted her eyes to her mother, who was inspecting her nails with a slight frown.

I could try to kill her myself.

The thought arrived, seemingly from nowhere, and squatted on her heart like a toad. She could not look at it. She could not look away from it. It was huge and impossible and fascinating.

She can't read my mind. If she could, she would have known right away what I told Hester. I could get a knife from the kitchen and stab her from behind.

She pictured it vividly, the knife going in, her mother falling to her knees, blood pouring down the pale fabric. Then she almost snorted at her own thoughts. You've never stabbed anything, except potatoes. The neighbor lady kills the chickens, and even cleans them for you. You cannot simply stab your mother like she's a potato. Do you think a knife just goes into somebody's back like that? With all those ribs in the way? You'd end up cutting her, maybe, and then she'd turn around and see you with the knife and make you obedient for the rest of your life.

The outer door opened, startling Cordelia so badly that she jumped. "That will be the tea, I expect," her mother said. "Don't just stand there staring. Open the door!"

Cordelia fumbled with the latch. In the outer room, she heard the maid's voice, and then another, deeper one. Her mother's breath hissed in with excitement. "The Squire!" she whispered, and fell back against the pillows, arranging her hair with a few swift motions. "Open it, quick!"

"I—oh, hello, m'dear." The Squire smiled at her. "Is your mama awake? Just wanted to check in on her."

"Samuel?" Her mother's voice was tremulous again. "Is that you?"

"Large as life." The Squire gave Cordelia an apologetic look as he slipped past her. "Didn't mean to interrupt. Just came to see if you're feeling any better."

"Samuel," her mother said, in a soft, tremulous voice. "I'm so glad you're here. I know you're terribly busy with all that's gone on—with more important things—"

"Nonsense! Nothing more important than your recovery, m'dear."

She reached out a hand and laid it on his arm, her eyes shining. "It means so much to me. I can't tell you… somehow I only feel safe when you're here…"

Cordelia quietly let herself out. When she went back to her room, she looked out the window and saw a white shape moving in the distant trees. Even from this distance, she recognized Falada.

He passed out of sight, moving from right to left. She waited there, holding her cup of tea while it cooled. She could hear Alice moving in the next room, laying out the next day's clothes, and wondered if the maid could see him too.

A little while later, she saw him again, still moving at an easy trot, circling the Squire's house like a carrion-eater waiting for someone else to die.