It was a strange prison, this lovely room with the quiet company of my soulless sister, but it was a prison indeed.
I had just finished pinning my hair around a form when Mr. Moran entered. As he had with my chamber, he did not knock, but simply appeared.
This time, however, he did not close the door at his back.
“Everard,” Madge greeted him.
“Margaret. We must speak privately.” He gave me a pointed look and nodded to the hallway. “You will be escorted back to your room, Miss Rushforth.”
Madge paused, but whatever she wanted to say, she chose not to do so in front of me.
My gaze drifted back to Madge’s portrait, then to my sister herself. I nodded slowly, murmured a lackluster farewell, and left the room.
As I was escorted back to my chamber, I turned over Madge’s offer. My sister had painted away so much of herself. I almost envied that, just then. I wished I could forget Mr. Stoke and his horrific, butchered face. I wished I could give away the unrequited affection I harbored for Lewis, and perhaps even my attraction to Harden. I wished I could evict the thread of responsibility that tied me to the artifact and Baffin’s research.
Still, I would not submit to Madge’s brush, not willingly. Yet I understood that willingness might no longer matter. A childhood promise not to paint me, not to manipulate me in that way, might no longer hold now that I was back in the Guild’s grasp and Madge had so… changed.
I would not be the first malcontented mage to find their rebelliousness culled by a Glim’s brush. The method was imperfect, but it struck me now that Madge’s portrait itself was a statement: a lovely, beautiful warning.
At what point would her offer turn to a threat?
I saw Mr. Stoke’s face in a flash of grief and guilt, and closed my eyes for half a breath.
I had to stay focused. Find the artifact. Claim the reward. Meet Lewis.
Escape.
Madge came to me sometime later. There were no clocks, and no windows to see the sun by, but I felt the passage of time in the emptiness of my stomach.
“Come with me,” she said, and led me downstairs with a Silver mage at our heels. She said no more, and try as I might I could not read any clues from the perfect lines of her posture and her lovely, caged face.
Down the stairs. Across the foyer. I felt a shock of trepidation, then a shudder of confused hope as a servant opened the door and we swept outside.
That hope surged as I saw a carriage waiting at the gate. The city was calm in the dusky half light and my threads openly twined, creeping above my collar and over my jaw and temples.
“I am sending you to Kesterlee,” Madge said, gesturing me towards the carriage. “Matters in Harrow are growing increasingly unpredictable, and there is no need for you to remain. These mages will ensure your safety on the road.”
I noted several Silver mages standing beside the carriage in fine but practical travelling clothes. They would present a challenge, but I could not have hoped for less.
Kesterlee was a long journey, a day and a night. We would need to stop to rest, to at least change the horses.
There would be a chance to escape. Or to be rescued.
But Madge had to know that. So why was she taking this risk? Was it truly to keep me safe, or simply to have me out of the way?
I eyed her. “Why are you doing this?”
She looked down her nose at me, white lashes thick around her blue eyes. “Pardon me?”
“What has changed?” I asked.
She glanced from me to the waiting mages. That was her only movement, other than a twitch of her hand. Her hand that bore her wedding ring.
It might mean nothing, but I remembered how Moran had looked at me that morning—the interest, the appraisal—and instinct whispered a fresh warning in my ear.
“Be safe and well.” Madge produced a smile. It was a strange, unhealthy thing, a studied turn of lips, like a puppet. “I am glad to have you back, Ottilie.”
I could not force a smile in return, no matter how hard I tried. So I simply stepped up into the carriage. “Goodbye, Madge.”
