Shana Abe - The Deepest Night

He walked away from me before I could think of a response. He didn’t just leave me alone there in the cavern, though. He placed his hand on the concealed lever that would open the hidden door, but he didn’t leave.

“You’re not a fly,” I muttered.

“A mosquito, then.”

“Mandy, you’re the only person in the world who’s like me.” I spoke quietly, to defeat the echo. “Perhaps a little too like me. And I—I don’t care to learn how to swim. The sea is cold.”

“Tranquility,” he said, without turning around. “There’s a heated swimming bath inside.”

I paused, astonished. “There is?”

“Yes. And a bowling alley. And a gymnasium. Didn’t you know? Nothing but the wildest extravagances for the mad duke.”

“I never called him that.” Out loud.

“You don’t have to. Everyone else does.”

“What do they know? He’s the only one of us gifted with the future by the stars. The only one Jesse talks to.”

“Yes,” said Armand. “The only one.” He sent me a look. “We should go back up.”

“You first. We don’t want to be caught alone together in some deserted dark hall. Westcliffe’ll use any excuse to keep me from you.”

“She can try,” he said.

We weren’t caught, though. Armand vanished into the warren of tunnels, and about five minutes later I did, too, and I didn’t see him again.

The flood of families exiting the castle had slowed to a trickle. There would be a few girls like me who stayed on another night or so, but most of the student population was already gone. The air was choked with the pong of diesel and perfume and sweat, stale beer (from the servants?) underneath. I stepped outside to escape it, walking past the final few automobiles idling on the drive.

Bored chauffeurs puffing on cigarettes looked me up and down. A seagull slung a high, leisurely loop overhead, wings open wide, a hard white chip against the blue.

The motorcar at the front of the line was bright yellow and huge. It needed to be, I presumed, to hold all the stylish Pemingtons and their liveried driver, who was struggling to tie off the last cord binding the trunks in back.

“There you are!”

Sophia crunched across the gravel to me, holding out both hands to take mine like we were the most devoted of confidantes. Chloe and her mother, already seated inside the auto, eyed me suspiciously, probably expecting me to pick her pockets.

“Smile,” she whispered. “They’re watching, aren’t they? Smile like you’ve just won all my money at whist.”

I did, and Sophia smiled in return, laughing, and drew me into a hug.

“How do they look?” she breathed into my ear.

“Like you’ve shamed them for all eternity.”

“Wonderful!” She made a show of touching her lips to my cheek.

“Time to go, pet.” Lord Pemington ambled up from behind, placing a meaty hand on Sophia’s shoulder.

“Yes, Papa. Oh, have you met Miss Jones? Eleanore, my father, Lord Maurice Pemington, Earl of Shot. Papa, Miss Eleanore Jones. She’s the one who’s going to be with Armand all summer.”

“At the hospital,” I added hastily.

“Of course.” Lord Pemington granted me a cursory nod; clearly he had other things to do besides be introduced to a girl from the ghetto, even with Lord Armand’s name invoked. “How do you do, Miss—er—miss. I’m afraid we really must be going, Sophia. You know how your mother dislikes to travel after sundown.”

“I’ll be right there.” Much softer, as he walked to the auto: “And she’s not my mother.”

Sophia glanced back at me, unsmiling now, her blue eyes pale as glaciers.

“Have a grand summer,” I said, because she’d called me friend before, even if it wasn’t true.

“I hope to,” she replied. “I suppose we’ll just have to see.”

She went to rejoin to her family without another look.

Three lives shine below me. Of the nearly two billion mortal souls churning and sowing and reaping atop the curve of the planet below, most are muddy, lost to me. Only three shine up this far and high, tenuous as candle flames, bright as stars … which is funny, if you think about it.

I do. Think about it, that is.

I can’t deny that I’m lonely without her. I can’t deny, even a little bit, that I wish we were still together, me there below or her up high here, at my side. I never knew that mortal love could be so binding. That having her blocked from me would be so painful.

I try whispering to her, but she doesn’t hear. I try shouting, but that doesn’t work, either. Her dreams remain closed to me, and I don’t know why.

The other two dragons in my care, males who haven’t even mastered the Turn yet, who’ve come nowhere near her glory or power—they hear me. Even their sire does.

Lora doesn’t.

It breaks my heart. It would, I mean, had I a heart still.

But I’m not going to stop singing to her. I can’t. It would be like ceasing to be myself, or plain ceasing to be.

I tell myself that someday she’ll hear.

Gods grant me this prayer, this one hope beyond our celestial realm: Lora-of-the-moon, stop looking down. Lift your eyes skyward. Turn your ears to me. With all the magic I can summon, I command you to hear this serenade. Feel my love, falling rose petals, white-hot tears, comet-tail sparks. All for you.

I miss you, too.

Play a game with me. Imagine your most perfect home. Imagine everything you could ever dream for it, anything at all. It’s going to be modern and expensive—because you’re filthy rich—polished and fancy, all imported marble and mahogany and stained glass and hand-stamped copper trimming. It’ll be wired for electricity in every chamber, even the servants’ quarters. Its gardens will be tiered and grandiose, its motor stable as cavernous as a cathedral. It will be as huge as you could hope it to be, almost more rooms than you can count, with spires of limestone and wings that go on and on. It will dominate everything around it, and you yourself will have personally designed and presided over every square inch.

Oh, yes. One more thing: Imagine that you, the designer, are insane.

And that war comes before it’s finished.

And all the men who used to be working on it are gone, dying in trenches in countries far away, so what there is of your dream sits half done and rotting through the seasons.

Tranquility at Idylling. My happy home for the next three months.

When I called it a monstrosity before, I wasn’t exaggerating.

I climbed slowly out of the motorcar Armand had sent to Iverson for me, my suitcase clutched in both hands.

“No, I’ll keep it,” I said to the chauffeur when he tried to take it from me. He tugged at his cap and backed away to the front of the car again.

My feet seemed heavier than usual, dragging their way along the crushed-shell drive that left a pinkish residue on my boots. It was close to twilight, with a brisk evening wind that plastered my skirt to my legs and skittered through the grit. Tranquility was an elaborate sandcastle silhouette against the deepening blue.

Tranquility’s butler, who always held his mouth in a flat, folded way that suggested he had something scandalous to say but never would, awaited me on the steps leading to the front doors.

“Miss,” he greeted me, with a bow. “Lord Armand is in the west drawing room. Shall I take your case? … Are you certain? Very well, miss. This way, please.”

The atrium was an elegant oval of space, with slick checkerboard tiles and smooth plastered walls and a curving, serpentine grand staircase that led to nowhere, because there was no top-story landing built for it yet. Leaping from that uppermost stair could possibly land you on the giant glass-and-wrought-iron chandelier suspended from a chain (it resembled a series of connected lanterns, or perhaps a bat), but then you’d still have a long drop back to the floor.

I’d seen it all before, but couldn’t help gazing up and around until I felt a little dizzy. I wondered, briefly, if the maids had to dust and mop all the way to the top of the staircase, even though it could never be used. (They did.)

The butler led me to a door on the right, opened it, and indicated I should walk past him into the chamber.

“Miss Eleanore Jones, my lord.”

“Thank you, Matthews.”

Three people were seated before a low table, each holding a drink. One of them was Armand, but I didn’t know the other two: a sandy-haired bloke about his age in a khaki officer’s uniform, and an elderly woman in a beaded frock and long gloves and a colossal diamond-and-topaz brooch. Light from the sconces danced along the brooch, gold and white and yellow. I marveled that it didn’t blind her.

Armand and the officer put down their glasses and stood. The woman didn’t bother to move other than to aim at me a scowling look.

“Who is this person?” she demanded, querulous.

“Miss Jones, Aunt Lottie,” replied the officer, speaking very loudly. “The girl we’ve been expecting.”

“She is holding up dinner,” the woman grumbled, sipping from her glass.

“I—”

I had been about to recite my standard apology to people of power, then cut myself short. I reckoned I’d done enough begging of pardons to last me some while, and anyway, I hadn’t even known about the bloody dinner.

“I hope I am only fashionably late,” I said instead, which still seemed a bit too groveling, considering, but the words were out and there was no calling them back.

Armand smiled. “Not even that. Please, join us.”