Turnstone’s eyes flicked from Rexim to Crake. Both he and Brigantess Osprey seemed as eager to leave as Rexim was to be rid of his guests.
“As am I,” Rexim said, flashing eyes at his guards. They moved toward the Crakes, preparing to escort them. “I shall see you out to the gatehouse myself.”
“Let me,” said Vercha, who was already near the door.
Rexim’s face betrayed a flicker of relief as his eldest daughter strode out behind the visitors.
Llir, scrubbing a hand through his tan hair, joined Catua at the window to watch them leave. Emment sat down heavily, a goblet in his hand. “Gods,” he said to his father, “what was that all about?”
Rexim’s sideburns were damp with sweat. He opened his mouth, then seemed to remember we Orha were there. “You,” he snapped at us. “Out. Now.”
As I returned to my chores, I passed Vercha in a hallway. Her eyes were narrowed and her face was pinched in thought.
A man who wants to send all our Orha to the front.
I shivered, remembering Crake’s dangerous smile, the flat stare of his battle-hardened son.
As much as I disliked—almost despised—Rexim Shearwater, after today I was beginning to suspect that the Brigant of Bower Island might be the lesser of two evils.
11
Autumnbedded in over the week that followed. The air crisped, and I found myself in need of my cloak. Gold and bronze leaves littered the lawns and pathways, and I helped Tigo harvest giant squashes from the kitchen gardens.
I made sure to excel at anything and everything Miss Haney tasked me with. In the face of my nagging uncertainty about Zennia, here, at least, was something over which I could exert glorious control. I polished the floors until they shone like mirrors, scrubbed the linens so hard my palms turned pink. My voice went hoarse from cajoling the water—and I even tackled jobs no one had mentioned to me at all. One morning I sent fountains up over the glasshouses, washing the panes down inside and out. When I showed Miss Haney the gleaming results later, her face glowed, and I knew I was getting there. Gradually.
All the same, as the days ticked by, I woke in the mornings under a growing shadow of unease. I’d long since burned the scrap of parchment with the details of my meeting in my room’s narrow grate, fearful it would be discovered, but its mysterious instructions were brandedon my brain. The fourteenth was creeping nearer and nearer, and I spent my days dwelling compulsively, anxiously, on whether I’d make it and what awaited me there.
Zennia’s letter I couldn’t bring myself to burn, so I scrunched it tight and returned it to its crevice. Occasionally I watched the castle at night, but had seen no sign of the lights she’d mentioned.
In the wake of the Crakes’ surprise appearance, the family was jittery, particularly Rexim. He walked the halls distractedly, head bent over his correspondence, or shut himself up in his study for hours. I glimpsed the siblings speaking quietly in corners and caught a new frown line etched between Miss Haney’s brows.
Ever since I discovered that Emment Shearwater had been the last person to see Zennia alive, I found myself noticing him, distracted by his presence. He, in turn, avoided me for the most part, so much so that it began to seem pointed. There was a certain tensing of his features when he spotted me, a tendency to change direction rather than pass me, and the suspicion seeded itself in my mind that the sight of me reminded him of my predecessor; of the accident he’d witnessed in the bay.
Vercha, by contrast, I had totryto avoid. She’d begun to seek me out, seemed to have taken a shine to me. In the mornings, she often requested me especially to bring her bathwater instead of her lady’s maid, Debry. She brushed dust from my uniform. Corrected my poor posture.
“None of this ‘my lady,’ ” she said. “You must call me Miss Vercha. And if you ever need anything, you must comestraightto me. Miss Haney is so stretched, poor thing, she’s sure to neglect you.” I soon saw how she delighted in new things, in appearances and perceptions, in society and tradition.
The day before my meeting, drear clouds rolled in and the islandwas curtained in a thin, misty drizzle. With Tima marching on, the tidal range was shrinking, the waterline beginning to encroach into the bay. At pallwater proper, the sea would settle at the bay’s midpoint: the little stone harbor I’d seen on my crossing. Then, I gathered, there’d be barely any difference between high tide and low tide—much safer for sea travel. Gentler waves already greeted me each morning when I visited the ocean before starting my chores. And I didn’t know if I was imagining it, but I was starting to sense some of its fierceness, its frightening remoteness, ebbing away.
Vercha cornered me as I was collecting laundry, beckoning me out into the haze of gray rain. “Come,” she said. “I’m hunting for Father. I’ve had a letter I must speak to him about right away. This velvet, you understand, it simplycan’tget wet…”
I trailed after her nervously, tugging up my high collar.
Rain was notoriously tricky for all Floodmouths. There were so many tiny, disparate drops, and they all seemed to have minds of their own. Generally, the smaller the body of water, the easier it was to coerce it to our will. But beyond a certain point, the tinier it got, the less it seemed able to hear our words. It was as though its capacity for connection dwindled and it became more chaotic—slow-witted, almost. Like a mayfly compared to a dog or a horse.
As Vercha strode across the puddle-strewn ward, I breathed out, long and slow, then whispered to the rain. It half heeded me, just sparing her hair and velvet bodice, but damp patches slowly appeared on her skirts. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to notice as she hoisted her hem high above the mud.
Rexim soon appeared, coming in the opposite direction, a sheaf of papers clutched in his hand.
“Ah, there you are,” he said. They stopped out in the open. I pleaded with the rain in a desperate undertone and managed to persuade it notto soak Rexim’s hat. “News just this morning.” He held up the papers. “Dunlin’s succumbed—died night before last.”
He flicked a glance over me, only now registering my presence, but I avoided his eyes, concentrating on the rain.
“How terrible,” Vercha said, not sounding as if she meant it. “And sooner than we’d thought—has the vote been arranged?”
“Ballots to be cast in just a few weeks,” the Brigant said. “I’ve been speaking to Ferda about organizing a coach. I must go to Pen Aryn. I’ve been away too long.”
My eyes flicked across the ward to the stables. Ferda was the island’s stablemaster, though he also performed countless other odd jobs.
