The door to his parents’ bedchamber cracked open—not much, because the door was heavy, ancient planked wood scrolled with wrought iron, most of it rusted, but enough so that a stale puff of air hit him in the face.

Mandy fought a sneeze. He swiped at his nose, pushed harder at the door, and managed to open it enough to squeeze through.

It was dismal enough, all right. Easy to believe this place had been kept in shadows for nearly all his life. The floral curtains pulled across all the windows looked riddled with rot and moths. Pinpricks of daylight shone through the sagging flowers, tiny spears of sun illuminating motes.

The curtains, the bed coverings, the upholstery on the chairs and settees: all of it decayed, forsaken. He stood in a medieval suite disguised in old chintz and kingwood, and it was just as depressing as he’d expected it to be.

He’d been born in this chamber, right there in that bed. He’d had a crib in the corner, where a grimy dressing table now stood, and then a cot. Only months after he was old enough to join Aubrey in the nursery, Rose had taken her final step from the battlement, and Reginald had abandoned the castle.

They’d lived in London after that, all three of them broken and so … dreadfully quiet about it. All three of them just waiting for Tranquility to be completed, because somehow, somehow, that was going to help.

“Soon,” Reginald would tell his sons, when they begged to return to the sea. Mandy remembered Aubrey crying silently at night, and how the Thames smelled like sewage instead of salt, and how Reginald always promised them the same thing in the same hearty tone: “We shall live there again soon.”

Soon had proven to be a word to last nearly twelve years. Soon meant a succession of nannies, then tutors, in their Grosvenor Square mansion. Soon meant a thumping city rhythm hammering a new tempo into his life that proved so loud and busy that, in time, young Armand barely recalled the blue salty sea. Or the castle. Or his mum.

And when the day at last came that they moved back to Wessex, all three of them again, that glorious, hope-filled day …

How he’d wished at least one of the workers had had the consideration to knock over a lantern and burn goddamned Tranquility to the ground.

But no one had. Perhaps they’d not dared. The duke’s mad vision come to life was a fearsome beast, after all.

Armand dropped his hands to his sides and closed his eyes. He breathed in the musty scent that surrounded him now—still holding the bright bite of salt beneath it—and pushed back thoughts of anything but this room. This place. His mother’s realm.

Reginald hadn’t changed a thing since the night of her death. He hadn’t even bothered with dustcovers.

The soles of Mandy’s wingtips pressed grit into carpet and stone. Dust gathered along the hem of his trousers and covered his fingers as he opened the drawer of the dressing table.

Rose had kept a diary. It was one of the few vivid memories of her he’d retained. It had been of lavender leather with the pages gilded along the edges. As a child the gilding had obsessed him; she’d let him fan the corners with his fingers over and over, trying to rub off the gold.

It wasn’t in the dressing table. Or the writing desk. Or the armoire, the washstand, or the dresser. He found it, incredibly enough, beneath the mattress of the bed.

The mattress. Was Reginald truly that obtuse, that he’d never think to search there? Or had she kept it there as a joke, knowing it was the most obvious place to look?

Mandy glanced around, located a chair, and perched at its edge. He ran a thumb along the diary’s same frayed, familiar corner. Habit.

Then he opened it and began to flip through the pages.

His mother’s voice found him at once.

13 Aug., 1896: Archery Tournament. Second spot. A brisk east wind, else I should have got First.

6 Dec., 1896: So happy! Cannot sleep. Another boy, I am certain of it.

8 June, 1898: Ladies Garden Tour. Ladies Garden Tea. (Make certain Cook knows about the scones!) Ribbon Presentation at Noon. All done by three. Armand viciously fussy. Nanny says colic.

12 June, 1898: A foggy, dreary day.

25 Nov., 1898: Dear Reg says to smile more. A cheery face! That will help.

14 Feb., 1899: Leg of lamb, mint sauce. Peas. Buttered noodles. Speak to Hastings about more candles for the great room.

22 March, 1899: No sleep again. Songs songs songs. I think this latest from the diamond collar he just bought me. It seems like it it seems like it it seems so. I will not speak of how much I loathe the thing.

1 Aug., 1899: She haunts me. I am convinced the answers are there in her letters. Why can’t I find them? Why couldn’t she clearly say? I’ve been so foolish, dismissing her all these years.

3 Oct., 1900: It will not settle. It will not lessen. No peace, no no no not at all.

30 Dec., 1900: Is this what I am to suffer for the rest of my days, this ceaseless Voice? She never mentions such a symptom, only the music and the pain. What is this affliction? So much of my family line remains indistinct. Her words are all I have. Tainted blood. Have I cursed my boys, as well? How willingly I would offer my days for theirs.

15 March, 1901: The sky is so open. I might fly straight into it. no wings but I might i might.

17 March, 1901: I tried. Dear Reg. Found me.

9 May, 1901: Second try. REGINALD.

Mandy slapped the book shut. There were no more entries after that.

She haunts me.

Who was she?

In the dead silence of his dead mother’s room, the motes danced. He sat there in the closed-up tomb of it with the channel seething beyond him, feeling his heart beat. Feeling his lungs, his hands, his feet. The pastel-skinned book between his fingers.

Hearing … songs …

The dressing table, said the sly thing inside. Secret space. Look again.

He dropped the diary. He went to the table, pulled out the drawer once more. Pins, pearls, an Asian-looking fan, a silver-backed comb and brush.

He went to his knees. He reached his hand in as deep as he could and knocked against the end panel.

Hollow.

Armand made a fist and shattered it.

Amid the shards of wood, his fingers found paper. He pulled out a slender stack of folded sheets, yellowed with age, tied with a peach-colored ribbon that was improbably still crisp.

The ribbon fell into a loop on the floor, only a little smeared with blood. He selected one of the sheets at random, opened it, and began to read.

I’ve hidden you well. I hid your entire line from the Council and the tribe, and of all my many notorious accomplishments—I am not so modest as to deny they are many—the secret of your life and that of your progenitors is my greatest… .

...

Jesse was going to be off the isle for most of the afternoon. He’d told me yesterday that he and Hastings would be traveling inland to run errands for Mrs. Westcliffe. But from the instant I awoke, the itching consumed me. I discovered I’d scratched my arms and thighs raw in my sleep, great red furrows dug into my flesh.

On top of that, I felt jangled. Fidgety. Colors that had been ordinary yesterday now burned brash. The morning sky hurt my eyes. The giggly, hectic rustling of five-score girls getting ready for breakfast downstairs grated in my ears as if they had all invaded the tower and swarmed into my room.

Armand had been correct: There were spiders along the ceiling. Their webs shone garish, opalescent. They picked their way from strand to strand, loud as elephants.

Somehow I endured breakfast and chapel, eating, not thinking, not listening. As I walked back to the castle with a hand shielding my eyes from the sunlight that glared along the grass, I considered how cool the air in the grotto would feel on my skin. How very soothing its dimness would be. How just overall damned perfect it sounded, with or without Jesse.

I’d go without him. There was no reason not to, actually. If nothing else, I could sit there in the dark and eat the handful of almonds I’d stolen from the sideboard this morning. He could find me when he came back.

It was still odd to think about the dual nature of his life. The sorcery that ran through his blood, all that wisdom and song … and his public face, the mute, simple boy who worked at the school because his uncle did, who dwelled alone in silence in the uncultured woods.

I supposed his life was no less odd or dual than my own. Both of us understood the safety of a public face. I didn’t want to imagine what might happen should either of our secrets come out.

Another tie to bind us. Another silken bond. If I spun enough of them, we’d be woven together forever, a single tapestry of Eleanore and Jesse.

But for Armand, now the loose thread in my little dream. What to make of him?

“Why, Eleanore, where on earth are you off to in such a rush?”

Sophia. She’d caught me right inside the main doors.

“Oh … the library.”

“Oh,” she echoed, nonchalant. “As it happens, so am I. Shall we?”

I was stuck then. She fell into step beside me, and together we strolled in exactly the opposite direction of where I needed to go.

I tugged my sleeves lower over my wrists to hide the scratches.

“Did you try the fizz last night?” Sophia inquired, not looking at me.

“The champagne? No.”