She wasn’t succeeding. With Vachon tapping his wand hard into his palm, she repeated the same passage again and again, and the world went fuzzy and my head dipped down to my chest.

I awoke to my classmates’ giggles and monsieur’s wand whacking me upon the shoulder.

At least he hadn’t hit me across the knuckles. I fancy it was that he didn’t want to risk bruising them; the duke might ask for an encore any day.

I staggered through the rest of my classes. I took notes; I conjugated verbs. I sketched pomegranates and limes in fat, crumbly strokes of charcoal on Bristol board and earned a word of praise from Miss Swanston, who seemed to think my simple lines were the product of modernist inspiration, instead of I just want this done.

I listened for Jesse’s music, which came to me finally during supper, floating up from beyond the windows of the dining hall. He would be standing out there in the dark, I knew. Standing in the moonlit gardens, looking up at the glass.

We had no better reliable means of communication. Paper notes could be intercepted; I might get caught at any time whenever I tried to sneak to the grotto or out to the green. But if Jesse was near enough for me to hear him, I could understand him. Intricate music, dulcet music, his silent symphony moved from brio to lullaby with such effortless beauty, Vachon would weep. And every bit of Jesse’s song was meant for me, a one-way message only I could receive.

Tonight it said, Rest, love. Sleep.

That seemed a fantastic suggestion. But I decided to drop by the library before I made my way up to my tower.

The truth was, despite what I’d told Sophia yesterday, it was the one place I tended to constantly avoid.

Imagine a man crawling through a desert, dying of thirst. He needs water; his parched dreams are of water; only water is going to save him.

And then at last help comes. A bloke walks up to him and says, “Sorry, chap, no water for you. But here’s a lovely glass of powdered sugar. You can have as much as you like!”

Books had always been my lifeline. Even at Moor Gate, they’d offered me books to keep me biddable, and I’d plunged into worlds I’d never guessed existed. Fiction or fact, it hardly mattered; books transported me beyond my own mental borders. Maybe they even helped preserve my sanity. What there was of it.

Iverson girls were not exactly encouraged to dream beyond their borders. There’d be no tales of amazing submarines or folklore of the Fay found here. Mrs. Westcliffe didn’t even subscribe to a newspaper.

However, if I wanted to read about needlework or making cheese, I had my pick.

I don’t think I was the only one unimpressed with the selection. After supper, the library always filled with students, most of them from my class and Chloe’s, but all they did was sit around and play games and chat about things like fashion and boys until curfew—until I would have been blue in the face with boredom. Usually a teacher or Westcliffe sat with them, I suppose to ensure no spontaneous moment of meaningful conversation erupted.

It was yet another part of life at the school in which I would be considered an interloper, and on any other night I’d walk past the library entrance without a second thought.

But …

Armand had mentioned that he had a book of peerage at Tranquility. All these blue-blooded girls mucking about: I thought it a good chance Iverson might, as well.

Perhaps I could riddle out the mystery of Rue and Kit. Perhaps I could find them before Armand did.

Perhaps … I could find my own family somewhere in there.

It was a notion I’d not allowed myself to surrender to until now, but it had been boiling inside me for hours, bubbling up against the thin wall of my resistance. It was feverish and stubborn and full of absolutely stupid hope, so of course I’d tried to ignore it.

Armand was a dragon. I was a dragon. Armand’s genealogy could be traced. My genealogy …

We might be related, even distantly. I didn’t have any familial feelings toward him, really, but for the first time ever in my memory, I had a place to start.

The library itself was just as anyone might picture a library in a castle would be, jammed with tables and overstuffed chairs, long and very tall, with shelves and shelves of books that reached so high—at least two stories—that there were sturdy wooden ladders affixed to hooks on every wall. The ladders were on rollers, and the hooks attached to brass rails, so in theory one could slide from one end of the room to the other without having to descend.

In practice, though, we were forced to climb down again if we had to move over even one shelf. It was tedious and likely yet another reason why there wasn’t a great deal of reading done in this place.

Somewhere up there, shelved away, might be the answers I sought. There might even be some forbidden Poe or Wilde or Stoker hiding amid the many uses for pigs, crouched back in the shadows and hoping for the light.

No one paid me any mind as I made my way to the catalogue bank. I flipped through the handwritten cards of authors and titles; the only way to find something here was to know at least one of those things. The shelf number for the book would be inked in beside it, but each shelf contained about fifty books, so you had to hang there on the ladder and read every spine of every one until you came across yours.

Let it be said that nothing was ever accomplished in haste at Iverson.

I didn’t know either the author or the name of the tome I wanted. I couldn’t even remember the title Armand had mentioned last night. I tried looking under Peerage, but the only book listed there was Peerage of Royal India, circa 1835, which I doubted would help.

Yet there I was ten minutes later, perched high on the ladder of the eastern wall, perusing shelf number 229, which probably no one had gone near in decades, the dust was so deep. I found India’s peerage right away; the spine featured ornate lettering stamped in real gold foil and what looked like a sapphire affixed near the top, but it was only paste.

All the rest of the titles seemed geared toward specific family lines, especially ancient Saxon kings.

Not useful.

Below me, the tables were all rimmed with girls. And there was Mrs. Westcliffe in a chair cozied up to the fireplace, a trio of eighth-years at her feet. She had a book in her lap and was reciting what sounded like a sonnet to them. I was near enough to catch a few lines and realize I’d read it. It was one about love and a noble knight whose sacrifice for his pure maiden grants him a place of honor amid the constellations forever and ever.

Right.

I was getting filthy up here. I’d have to be careful not to touch my shirtwaist before washing my hands or I’d catch hell from Gladys about the marks.

A small commotion began at the door. Almeda hurried in, trailed by two other maids and a man in a khaki riding uniform, who had taken off his black-brimmed hat and was holding it under one arm. The chevron markings of an officer were stitched onto his sleeves.

All the girls at all the tables fell silent. I doubted anyone recognized the man, but we all recognized what he meant.

Mrs. Westcliffe found her feet. She handed the book of sonnets to one of the eighth-years and went to meet the man. They conferred for a moment, his head to her ear, and then she stepped back again and gave a terse nod. Her gaze searched the room.

“Miss Bashier,” she said.

Everyone looked around. Mittie sat, unmoving, at a table beneath a stained-glass window. A lion with a mane flaming outward like the corona of the sun pranced behind her, locked in the glass.

Sophia was sitting next to Mittie, and she finally gave her a small bump with her elbow, so Mittie got up. Sophia stood, as well, but only Mittie walked around the table and crossed the rug to the newcomer and the headmistress.

“Come with me, my dear,” said Mrs. Westcliffe, and put her arm about Mittie’s shoulders and drew her from the room.

The man offered a bow to the rest of us, then followed. Almeda followed him, the other maids followed her, and then there were only students left, staring at one another with round, round eyes.

...

Mittie’s father had worked for the office of the prime minister. He wasn’t even a soldier. But he’d been in Paris, consulting with a general there, when a bomb from an airship blew him and his hotel to pieces.

...

Two more days passed, and Jesse still hadn’t let me know it was time to meet.

Unsurprisingly, I hadn’t heard a peep from Armand, either. When a boy tells you to bugger off, it usually means he’s done with you. For a while, at least.

I leaned out my window on my third night alone and studied the stars. With some effort, I’d been able to pry open my thousand-diamond window far enough so that if I pressed my body to the wall and let the stone take my weight, I could fit my head and shoulders through to the open air.

A night of patchy clouds and moon. A night with a tinge of purple but not that full, amazing saturation of color it sometimes had. The clouds were mauve lined with platinum, drifting against the tinsel stars.

The sea sloshed against the island bridge, regular as a heartbeat. It was oddly comforting to think that it would always do that, always be like that, no matter who won the war.

But it was the stars that fascinated me. I heard them singing now. Rather, I’d always heard them singing, but since Jesse, since I’d Turned to smoke, I heard them singing to me. Before it had always seemed as if they were just another chorus in countless strange choruses troubling my life. Now I heard the words.