Chantress (21 page)

Most of my hours, however, were spent working with Lady Helaine.

After my moments of terror on the rooftop, I had redoubled my efforts to master each new lesson, no matter how tedious. I did not want to be caught at such a disadvantage again.

All day long, I practiced, and sometimes well into the night—a punishing schedule not only for me, but also for my godmother. Although she still held herself absolutely upright, her face became ever paler and more drawn, and her critiques became ever more biting.

At last, thoroughly worn-out, Lady Helaine took to stealing naps in the afternoons, leaving me to practice in solitude. This, I found, was infinitely preferable to practicing while she was around.

† † †

For a full week, I was diligent even when Lady Helaine was asleep. On the eighth day, however, I reconsidered. Lady Helaine
was snoring away in the back bedchamber, with two closed doors between us, and I knew from experience that nothing would wake her for at least another half hour. She would never know if I, too, took a break from our crushing regimen.

I decided I was entitled to a rest.

It was only when I sat down before the firebox, however, that I truly realized how tired I was. Tired and lonely and discouraged. It was early January; Nat had been gone for almost a month. And what progress had I made in all that time? I was better at scales, better at trills, better at breathing and sustaining a tone. But I did not seem to be one jot closer to magic.

A soft knock at the door made me leap to my feet. Wrapping my mantle close, I stepped forward as the door swung open. To my disappointment, however, it wasn’t Nat who stood on the other side but Samuel Deeps, his lace in disarray, his buttons done up wrong.

“Chantress, a favor, I beg of you.” Deeps’s hands shook as he bowed to me; he was all entreaty. “One of our men is lost. A cousin of mine by the name of Josiah Quicke. He left the city a fortnight ago, bearing important news for our allies in the North. He was supposed to return on Thursday, but we have heard nothing from him. We think he may be in hiding, but we have no idea where. Can you find him?”

“Me?” Did the IC want me to go out in the open and search for him? “I’m not supposed to leave Gadding House—”

“I would not dream of asking you to,” Deeps said quickly. “I ask only that you use your magic.”

“My magic?”

“Your mind-reading powers. Unless you have discovered better magic since then?”

“No, I haven’t.” It made me blush to admit how little I’d learned. “But—”

“Never fear,” Deeps said. “The mind-reading is enough. That should tell us where Josiah is.”

“You don’t understand,” I said. “I can’t do that. I can’t read minds.”

“That’s what the Council said—that it’s not allowed anymore. But what’s the point of having a Chantress if she doesn’t do magic? Josiah needs you, madam. We
all
need you. And I’ve brought everything you require: hair from his own brush, and one of his handkerchiefs.” He ran agitated hands along the fastenings of his cloak, and pulled out a vial he’d secreted in its lining. “And moonbriar, of course.”

Put that away.
That’s what I ought to have said. But when I saw that glass vial and the shadowy outline of the seeds within it, a strange silence came over me—a silence borne not only of fear but also of longing, I realized with a shock. After weeks and weeks of nothing but tones and scales, something at the very core of me raged to feel the power of magic—and almost any magic would do. Even Wild Magic. Even moonbriar magic.

“Well, Chantress?” Deeps said, his eyes pleading. “Will you sing the moonbriar song?”

As I stared at the vial, the door swung open again. I reeled around. “Nat!”

He still had his traveling cloak on, and his boots were muddy; he was glaring at both of us equally. Yet whatever hold the moonbriar seeds had over me, it broke at the sight of him.

“You’re back,” I said.

“And none too soon, it seems.” His voice was dangerously level as he pointed to the vial. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Moonbriar?” Deeps said. “Yes. She’s going to sing—”

“No,” I said to Deeps. The lure of Wild Magic had faded. “I told you I can’t. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is.”

“I should think so, after what happened last time,” Nat said, but his manner toward me gentled.

“Just because she had a bit of trouble when she went into Scargrave’s mind,” Deeps began.

“A bit of trouble?” Nat repeated incredulously. “She nearly died, Master Deeps.”

Deeps suddenly looked rather ill himself. “Nearly died?” he said to me. “Dear lady, I did not know. Sir Barnaby told us only that there had been unforeseen difficulties.”

“He thought it best not to discuss her weaknesses in too much detail,” Nat said.

“He hasn’t wanted to discuss her at all,” Deeps said, and there was real grievance in his voice as he turned to me. “We are to leave you alone for six months, he said, so you can learn proper magic. As if you weren’t doing proper magic already! It’s a waste, a dreadful waste.”

“I thought the IC told each other everything,” I said to Nat.

“The details of every mission? No,” Nat said. “We could not survive that way. And you, particularly, are a well-guarded secret. Only a few of us even know where you are. Deeps is one of them.” He gave his colleague a reproachful look. “We thought you could be trusted.”

“Of course I can be,” Deeps said heatedly. “To the last breath.”

Nat pointed to the vial again. “Then why have you brought that stuff here?”

“I wish only to ascertain the whereabouts and condition of my cousin Josiah. Nothing more.”

“I heard he’d gone missing,” Nat said. “I’m sorry. But you know as well as I do that such things have happened before, without us looking to magic to solve our problems.”

“But matters are so much worse now,” Deeps argued. “Have
you noticed how many more Watchmen Scargrave has on patrol? And how many people he’s sent to the Feeding Room this month alone? He’s drawing his net tighter and tighter around London. If he captures Josiah, we’ll be the ones netted next, and the Shadowgrims will feast on our every secret. We have to keep my cousin safe.”

“Not at Lucy’s expense.” Nat’s voice was quiet, but there was iron in it.

“But surely there’s no real risk,” Deeps said. “It’s Josiah we’re talking about, not Scargrave. And we know it’s his hair on the brush, and his handkerchief, so there can be no mistake there.”

“And what if Josiah is dead?” Nat asked. “Or what if he’s been captured? What if he’s become one of the Ravens’ Own? What happens to Lucy then? I tell you she could die.”

There was an uncomfortable silence as we all contemplated this.

“She’s the only Chantress we’ve got,” Nat said.

“Poor Josiah,” Deeps said with a sigh, but without another protest, he tucked the moonbriar back inside his cloak.

“How did you get hold of those seeds, anyway?” Nat asked. “It’s hard to believe Sir Barnaby would allow you to bring them here.”

“They aren’t his. They’re mine.” Deeps blushed. “I, er . . . kept a bit back after one of our expeditions.”

“What?” Nat looked aghast.

Tugging at his rumpled lace, Deeps defended himself. “I was curious. And it was only a very little bit, you understand. But then my cousin disappeared, and—”

“I can guess at the rest,” Nat said.

“I was quite careful with it,” Deeps said, still red-faced. “And as you see, no harm was done.”

“And no harm will be done,” Nat said, “because we’re going to give it over to Sir Barnaby right now.” He went to the door.

Deeps looked flustered, but he reluctantly followed Nat’s lead. At the door, he bowed to me. “Madam.”

“I’m sorry.” I hated how feeble the words sounded. He’d come to me hoping for help, and I was turning him away with nothing. “I hope your cousin comes home safe.”

“I hope so too,” Deeps said mournfully. “But we can’t risk your life on it, dear lady. I do see that.”

Nat put a hand to the latch. “I wish I could come again this week, but I can’t,” he said to me. “I have to go out again right away. I should be back before the month is out.”

Away again, so soon? I tried to cover up my disappointment. “Lady Helaine is sleeping,” I said. “If you can get out before she wakes . . .”

There was no need to finish the sentence. Nat was already ushering Deeps out the door. Just before he closed it, however, he looked back at me.

“The seeds didn’t hurt you?”

“No. Not at all.”

Another searching look, and then the flash of his smile. “Good.”

The door shut, and he vanished from sight.

† † †

Minutes after Nat and the others had left, Lady Helaine strode into the room, her manner as regal as ever. Despite her nap, not a single silver hair was out of place. “I heard voices.”

“That must have been me.” It would do no good if she found out what Deeps had asked of me.

“It sounded much lower than your voice,” Lady Helaine said suspiciously.

“I was . . . practicing my low tones. And doing some extra breathing exercises.”

Practice. Exercises.
No words were more magic than these, not for Lady Helaine.

Her harsh voice lightened. “Indeed? Let me hear what you have been doing.”

I didn’t please her that time, or the next. “Very close is not good enough!” she scolded. “You must be flawless.”

The day after that, she became more irritable still, for Samuel Deeps disturbed our morning practice, saying he had come to check the firebox was operating properly. Although Lady Helaine did not let him linger, on his way out, he managed to whisper in my ear that his cousin Josiah had returned to London unharmed.

The news buoyed me up, for Josiah’s fate had been preying on my mind, and I went back to the drills with renewed determination. Aboveground, people were risking their lives to oppose Scargarve; I wanted to try and match their dedication. When Lady Helaine, still visibly annoyed by the interruption, demanded that I run through the full set of exercises, I attacked each one with vigor.

Three very long days later, I executed all the exercises perfectly. What’s more, I managed to repeat the feat not just once but every time Lady Helaine called on me to perform it. Elated, I beamed at her.

“You have mastered these, it seems.” From Lady Helaine, the dry words qualified as warmest praise. “I think we may perhaps attempt a song-spell next. A very simple one, for kindling flame.”

Proven Magic, at long last! Yet something worried me. “What kind of flame?” I asked. “Is it anything like the Shadowgrims’ fire?”

“Absolutely not.” Lady Helaine looked insulted. “Even if it were within my means, I would not teach you such a thing. The songs I know are for kindling ordinary, useful flame, the kind that lights a candle or a hearth.”

I was so relieved that I forgot to modulate my breathing as a Chantress should.

Lady Helaine noticed the slip. “Do not grow lax, goddaughter,” she warned. “When a Chantress sings, she must strive for exactitude in every measure, down to the smallest tremor or the slightest breath. Otherwise, the song-spell will not work—or worse yet, it will work differently than she intended.”

“I will be diligent, I promise,” I said, subdued.

“Very well, then,” Lady Helaine said. “We shall begin.” She set a candle on a wide shelf of stone. “Let us see if you can light this.”

“How?” I began.

“I am about to tell you. Listen.” She raised her hand as if to hush me. “Stand before me, and clear your mind.”

I took up the position I had been taught, feet slightly apart, arms resting at my side. Lady Helaine took up this stance too, and within seconds, we were breathing in tandem.

“Here is the first line of the spell.” Lady Helaine eked out a melody, her rough voice harsh on the ears but precise. “Sing it back to me.”

“I don’t understand the words.”

“There
are
no words, at least not in the way you mean. All you need to remember is this: Each sound is part of the whole, and the whole is worthless unless every part is there.”

“But how can I learn the spell if I don’t understand what I’m singing?”

“You learn them by rote, like every other Chantress before you,” said Lady Helaine. “Song-spells are many-layered and complex, and even a gifted Chantress may take years to understand them fully. Most never do. But the song itself is enough to work magic, even with imperfect understanding. So listen again, carefully, and sing it back to me exactly as I have sung it to you.”

For the second time, her rough notes grated on my ears. My voice wobbled as I repeated them.

“Your breathing needs work,” Lady Helaine said. “Try again.”

The kind of singing she wanted from me was nothing like the Wild Magic I had done before. It made my head buzz, my eyes smart, and my throat burn. But I persisted, singing the phrase again and again and again, as many times as she ordered me to.

At last Lady Helaine’s face lit up. “Sing it exactly that way. Again!”

I sang gingerly, straining for the same intonation.

My godmother’s pale lips split in a smile. “We’ll make a Chantress of you yet.”

† † †

Lady Helaine’s words gave me confidence that day. In the fortnight that followed, however, that confidence dwindled to nothing. Despite countless hours of practice, I failed to master the kindling song-spell. By late January, Lady Helaine and I were both growing desperate.

“Again,” Lady Helaine said grimly, four hours into our fortieth lesson. “Again.”

I sang the spell once more. Resonance and intensity and intonation: I knew everything had to be correct for magic to happen. But there was a quaver in my breath, a shortness to my phrasing, that I couldn’t seem to fix.

“I don’t understand it,” Lady Helaine said. “It is the simplest spell in the repertoire. This ought to be child’s play.” She shook her head at me. “You aren’t really trying.”

I flushed. “I promise you I am.”

“I find that difficult to believe. And if it is true, then we are lost. The song-spells we need to accomplish the task before us—the song of concealment, and the song that will destroy the grimoire—are far more challenging.”