Chapter 36

C HAPTER 36

"Easy," Richard said. "Easy, love."

Hester opened her eyes to the face she loved most in the world, which was, frankly, a horror. The knife had opened up his cheek, and if there hadn't been so much blood, she expected that she'd be looking at his molars. But his eyes were still familiar, brown and deep-set and full of concern, and she clutched at his arm and let him help her to her feet.

For once, her knee wasn't the thing that hurt most. It was her throat. She'd sung the water-note somehow—or something like singing—exhaled it, maybe, or had it pulled out of her. While it had been happening, she hadn't felt it, but the instant the strange wind dropped, she felt as if she'd drunk boiling lye. She rubbed her neck, not that it did any good. God, if only I could grab the inside of my neck…

She noticed that Imogene was doing the same. Cordelia and her mother had been knocked flat by the wind—if it had been a wind—and Willard was crawling toward them.

"I guess it worked," Richard said.

Hester rasped out a laugh, which only hurt worse. Yes. It had worked. She'd felt it work. She'd felt the wind lashing out, stripping away magic in great ragged sheets and sending it flying like shingles in a hurricane.

Willard got Cordelia to her feet. Evangeline was still lying crumpled in the grass, but not like a corpse. Hester could see her ribs moving as she breathed.

And what are we supposed to do with her now? Maybe Imogene was right, maybe we should kill her and dump her down a well—

The geese screamed. Richard spun around, dragging Hester with him, and she had a confused impression of the flock scattering, feathers erupting as they fled, not fighting but shrieking in absolute terror as they went.

Then she saw it.

Him.

Falada.

No longer a horse at all, but something else. He still glowed the same too-bright white, and his eyes were still green, but there were too many eyes and his legs had too many joints and his rib cage had cracked apart and the rib bones jutted up like teeth set in a jaw and then a tongue licked across them, rubbing lovingly across the points.

Richard laughed, the short, disbelieving laugh of a man witnessing the impossible.

Falada laughed back.

Evangeline sat up.

The familiar ran toward them. His leg joints rippled like a centipede and if Hester had had any time to think, she would have been sick, but it was all happening so fast. Now Falada was becoming strangely transparent, his skin turning to milky glass, and she could see the shadows of viscera inside, pulsing.

Evangeline thrust her arm out in front of her, the same gesture she had made at Hester. Falada did not miss a step. "NO!" the former sorcerer shouted. "Go back! I command you! I banish you! I— "

Bones crunched as Falada struck her. Hester twitched in Richard's grip. The sound was so loud and so wet and it kept happening because Falada did not stop. He was dancing on top of the dead woman now, his hooves—if they were still hooves—hammering her into the dirt, as if determined not just to kill her but to bury her forever.

At last, he stopped. The dawn light streamed through him, casting strange, bobbing shadows on the grass. He might have been a stained-glass-window monster, the sort that lay brooding and defeated under the sandals of a saint.

The familiar swung from side to side, perhaps looking for his next target. Cordelia hung limply between Willard and Alice. Imogene had, perhaps wisely, gone flat against the ground.

Sickly green eyes locked on Richard and Hester.

There was no fear left in her. The wind had driven it all away. All she felt was a brief pang of regret that she had been such a fool about Richard. She could have spent every night of the last decade in his arms, and instead she'd been afraid of what? That he would stop loving her when she grew old?

Doesn't seem like either of us will get the chance now, does it?

Richard pushed her back, trying to interpose his body between her and Falada. A brave, generous, utterly futile move. She suspected that he knew it as well as she did.

Falada stamped one many-jointed leg. She could see the grass rippling through it, only slightly distorted.

Was the familiar fading somehow? Had Evangeline managed, at the end, to banish him after all? Or was this some kind of further transformation, into a monster made of teeth and crystal?

Please, god, let him not become invisible on top of everything else. None of us will stand a chance.

Falada moved. He was fading, Hester was almost sure of it. Parts of him were little more than suggestions of light in the air. But not fast enough.

Richard squeezed her hand fiercely and let it drop. He took a step forward, as if to meet the monster, and put up his fists in a useless schoolboy boxing stance.

"No," Hester croaked through her raw throat. "Don't— no —"

Falada charged.

Something honked. Loudly.

The fading familiar shied back as the short-legged gander flew into his face, wings beating madly. They struck the clear-glass legs and passed through them, as if Falada were made of jelly. The monster reared up, striking out with things that might have been mandibles or teeth or tongue. One caught the gander's wing and sent him spinning out of control, to crash in the grass with a graceless squawk.

Falada turned back and his rib-cage mouth cracked even wider, and he lunged forward, a fraction too late.

His last cry turned to a whisper as daylight poured between his jaws, and the familiar was gone.

One Week Later

"So was that thing a demon, then?" Lord Evermore asked, as they all sat in the parlor together. The windows were open and the air of late spring—or possibly early summer—shone through. Cordelia could hear birds and, distantly, the shouts of the laborers restoring the road to the manor house.

Except for the massive scar down Evermore's face and Hester's new wheeled carry-chair, none of them looked different. Cordelia found that surprising, somehow. She felt about a thousand years old, and had been surprised that the face in her mirror still only looked fourteen.

Alice and Willard had a very brief scuffle over who was going to pour the tea, which Alice won, because butlers—even butlers officially on holiday—did not pour tea for maids.

"I don't know if Falada was a demon," Cordelia said, when the tea had been passed around. "He might have been. I'm afraid I really don't know very much about sorcery, when you get right down to it. Moth… Evangeline… never told me much. I think she was afraid I'd try it myself."

"Reasonably so," said Imogene tartly. "If a ghost could see you, that probably means you had some kind of gift."

"It's gone now," Cordelia said. "It went away along with everything else in the ritual." She suspected that Imogene had not quite forgiven her for not telling anyone about Penelope's presence. A week ago, she might have cringed away from the notion. Now she simply sipped her tea. She'd apologized, and there was no way to make amends now. She hoped that Imogene would forgive her someday. She owed the other woman far too much.

"At any rate," Cordelia continued, "she did say that the spells on familiars were layered like an onion. So my guess is that the ritual pulled away the one that kept him looking like a horse, and then the one that made him obedient, and then finally the one that kept him here."

"The last one took its own sweet time taking effect, then," said Hester.

Cordelia frowned into her teacup. "Maybe," she said slowly. "Or maybe Falada was trying to stay here as long as he could, and just ran out of strength." She thought of Penelope trying to communicate with her, and how sometimes she would simply drop out completely, unable to stay in contact.

"For revenge," suggested Imogene. "Well, I can see why he'd want all of us dead, particularly Richard. You did chop off his head."

Richard smiled, then winced as his scar pulled a little. "I did."

"What I don't see is why he wanted to kill Evangeline so badly. He was her pet."

"That was why, I think." Cordelia set her teacup down, and was pleased that her hand barely shook at all. "I hated being obedient, but she only did it to me sometimes. Falada was obedient all the time. Maybe not quite the same way, but he was completely under her power. Not even his shape was his own." She shook her head. "I hated him, but I feel sorry for him, too. I think he enjoyed some of the things she had him do, but he always wanted to get away. He just wanted to do as much damage as he could before he went."

Hester grimaced. "I can't feel sorry for him. That thing I saw at the end…"

"I was unconscious for that bit," Cordelia admitted.

"Whatever it was, it sure wasn't from around here," said Alice. She shuddered. "I'm never going to stop seeing that thing. Those teeth—or whatever they were—ugh."

Imogene snorted. "I imagine he thought we looked just as horrible, poor devil. Or demon, or whatever he was." She shook her head. "I don't know. I'm going home tomorrow, to sleep in my own bed and listen to my own son talk my ear off about horses."

"And what are you going to tell Lord Strauss?" asked Hester, smiling into her teacup.

"As much as I can without sounding like I'm raving. God knows how much that will be." She shook her head. "Hester, my dear, the next time you throw a house party…"

"Leave you out of it?"

"Certainly not. But do invite another card player, will you?" She brandished a card menacingly. "Otherwise I'll insist you play with me, and it won't be for penny stakes this time."

"What troubles me," said Willard, clearing his throat, "is how little we knew about what we were doing. It seems to me that we came extremely close to disaster." He tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair. "I wonder if the world might benefit from an updated monograph on dealing with sorcery?"

"Willard," said Richard warmly, "you are a man after my own heart. I was just toying with the notion myself. Granted, my previous writings have all been on the subject of culvert design, which is perhaps a specialized field, but I do know one or two publishers who might be willing to print up such a monograph, if you and I were to write one."

The butler considered this. "Well," he said. "As it seems that I have been rehired at Chatham House—and the Squire was clearly puzzled as to why I left at all—I do not know how much time I will have to devote to such an endeavor. Nevertheless, I might be able to make a start." He lifted his teacup. "I am, after all, on holiday."

"Is there room for another here?" asked Evermore, later that day, joining Hester on the patio. She was sitting in her new carry-chair, experimenting with how far she could move herself. She still required someone to push the chair any great distance, which galled her, but she could manage to get around a room, slowly. And there was no denying that her knee hurt less.

"By all means." She waved to the other chair. "Though I'd keep hold of your glass. I keep ramming into the table on accident."

"The doctor assures me that this is the very latest and most maneuverable model."

"Possibly, but that doesn't mean it corners very well." She huffed. "Perhaps I'll get a very small pony and hitch it to the front."

"Your entrance to the assemblies in town would be extremely dramatic."

"Assemblies. Lord." She rubbed her forehead. "It seems so unreal, after everything we've been through, that we might go and stand around and drink weak punch and watch people being cutting to each other. What's the point?"

"What was ever the point?"

Hester grunted. On the lawn, the geese waddled past, led by the short-legged gander. His wing had been broken and despite bandaging, he was unlikely to fly again, but that did not seem to bother him much. She'd already seen him mount a much taller lady, who seemed quite pleased with the attention.

I suppose the bloodline will simply have to endure being shorter. If anyone asks, I will tell them that I am breeding for heroism.

"I had a question for you," said Evermore finally.

Hester felt a knot of tension build under her breastbone. Something about the way he asked seemed important.

Is he going to ask me to marry him again? After everything?

What will I say if he does?

She suspected that Samuel had seen it coming. When she had spoken to him last, shortly after the hurried funeral, he had implied as much.

"Odd sort of thing," Samuel had said. "That horse of hers! Who'd have thought it? Such a well-mannered beast, and then to turn on her like that."

"I know."

"Never a word about it, and then what should she do but get a flash of women's intuition or some such and demand we come home by the next ship. And then she went haring off to Evermore's without telling me, and look what happens."

Hester stroked his cheek. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Oh, well." Her brother made a hrrrmph sound and looked away. His eyes were a little too bright, but that was all. "Whole thing seems like a dream now. A few beautiful months, and now I'm right back here, same as I always was." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "Feels like it would hurt more if we'd had longer together. Now it's just like she left at the end of the season. I miss her, but nothing's changed here. Does that sound very bad of me?"

"I think it sounds very sensible."

"Bah. You've always been the sensible one, Henny." He smoothed down his mustache. "And you needn't worry I won't do my duty by the girl. She's a shy little thing, but she's my stepdaughter now, and I'll see that there's a dowry settled on her that won't shame anyone. Since it seems like Evermore won't be coming up to scratch after all." He gave her a sly look. "Or am I wrong?"

The version of the story that had spread was that Evermore had been wounded protecting Hester from the maddened horse that had killed Lady Evangeline.

Not that the wound was that significant. Hester studied the side of Richard's face. The edges had only just started to heal, and it would certainly be a raw pink slash, but his eyes looked just as they always had, and who would notice a scar on anyone with eyes like that?

Richard raised an eyebrow at her, tilting his head. "Admiring my war wound? I'm told women find such things irresistible."

"If you're going to ask me to marry you again, in hopes that I'm overcome with pity because of your injury…" Hester began.

"Perish the thought. No, I've finally learned my lesson." He lifted his hands. "It may take a decade, but even my thick skull will eventually yield."

"Good," said Hester, telling herself that she did not feel the tiniest stab of disappointment.

"Actually, it was about Cordelia."

"You can't possibly still mean to marry her."

"Heaven forfend! She's a child." He shook his head. "Actually, I was thinking about adopting her."

Hester blinked. Several times. "Adopt," she said.

"Well, her stepfather is bound to be distraught for some time, isn't he? As an old family friend, how could I fail to step in? And I do owe her a debt for saving my life from that mad horse that everyone saw rampaging about the place."

"I suppose that's true," said Hester.

"Of course, you'd hardly want a girl to grow up alone in a bachelor's house. She might learn all sorts of bad habits."

"That's definitely true."

"Do you know, I thought that her aunt might make a fine chaperone?" asked Richard musingly. "Assuming she'd be willing to relocate to Evermore House for a few years, of course."

Hester swallowed. Possibilities, sudden and glittering, opened up before her. A way, maybe, to be together, that didn't require her to give everything up.

Hester reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. "I think," she said carefully, "that that could be arranged."

"Who knows?" said Richard. "Perhaps by the time Cordelia's ready to leave the nest, her aunt might not be thoroughly sick of me."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

"Mmm. Would it be getting too ahead of ourselves for me to kiss the aunt in question, do you think?"

"Well," Hester said, "I think that could probably be arranged too."

The grave of Lady Evangeline Chatham was still raw earth, the headstone hastily erected at the top. The Squire had been unable to decide on garlands, angels, or flowers for the stone, and so had settled on all three, lending a decidedly baroque air to Cordelia's mother's final resting place. Cordelia barely gave it a second glance. She wore mourning black, but she knew who she was really in mourning for.

Her destination was deeper in the city cemetery, in an area less fashionable and thus less expensive. That was fine. Fashion was unimportant. What mattered, after all, was style.

One grave was older, the edges softened by grass. The headstone read simply "Silas Green—Husband" with two dates underneath. The newer one was very new, though in the same sleek, unornamented style. Moss had not yet gained a foothold on it, and the lines were sharply etched.

PENELOPE GREEN

"Tell Everyone I Said Goodbye"

Cordelia laid flowers at the foot of the stone. She was pleased to see that she wasn't the first person to do so. Someone had left a dozen red roses in a fan across the grave, and someone else, not to be outdone, had left a single white rose with a long poem attached to it.

She read the poem. It wasn't very good. I suppose not much rhymes with Penelope, does it?

She sat back on her heels and looked at the sky overhead. "I have no idea what I'm doing," she told Penelope. "Hester says she'll hire someone to teach me deportment if I want, but I don't have to. I think I might want to, if only so I'm not constantly worried that I'm doing something people will laugh at."

A cloud drifted overhead, white and puffy, the sort of cloud that no one paints in landscapes for fear of looking trite.

"Hester thinks we might be able to track down who my father was. I don't know if I want to know or not. Lord Evermore's settled some money on Ellen and her sister. I'm going to go see her next week. I don't know if I should tell her what really happened or not." She stared at the distant cloud. "I suppose I'll decide after we've talked. She might like to know it wasn't her father's fault. Or maybe she wouldn't believe any of it. I don't know what to do. I wish I could ask you for advice."

She already knew the answer, though. Cordelia got to her feet, dusting off her skirts. Penelope would tell her that whatever she did, she should do it with style.

"I'll try," she promised. She turned away and wound her way between the graves, to the high wrought-iron gates, where Hester and Lord Evermore were waiting.

Overhead, the cloud drifted on, brighter than any horse's white coat, and cast no shadows in the dazzling summer sky.