Anything that is even remotely familiar, I do not own. They are the sole property of Libba Bray.
Day, night's notoriously hopeless suitor, has turned out cheerfully before England in his best turquoise suit.
Fine, gossamer whispers of grey-gristled cloud streak and weave joyfully across his vast, timeless face like so many jaunty old men's whiskers, beneath which, a smile of untold warmth and brilliance beckons each and every wistful passer-by to return it with a gay, cheery doff of a hat, or a small, affectionate nod.
I daresay I shan't be one of them.
"What the bloody hell are you shining for?" I glower unkindly at the Sun, and it is affronted enough to glare back.
Chagrined, I cast my gaze elsewhere, letting my stung eyes fall to the trodden ground, where they begin to trace the many dark footsteps there... like fallen soldiers, wholly unidentifiable, and over and top of one another in their interminable silence.
We shall take the greatest discretion.
Right. And I shall take rat poison straight from the vial, you detestable woman. For surely, that is the only feasible way I could be expected to keep yet another a foul, insidious secret from Gemma Doyle without deriving the faintest hint of suspicion. Of hurt...
A secret, that with every passing hour, it seems, is starting to feel more like a mill around my neck, than a harmless means to a worthwhile end.
End. Gemma's End.Her skin is the sheer, unearthly white of spectres, her eyes open and hollow like the yawning mouth of jars. Her mouth is split wide into a sad, ferocious smile, her pale fingers twined fiercely with mine like ribbon as if they shall never release their punishing grip. Her death. You will be her death.
The joyous, infectious peal of girls deeply enthralled shakes me very much like an insistent hand from the unsettling gloom of my thoughts. I am devoutly thankful for it.
The beautiful, oddly hypnotic sound swells over the thick, gnarled boughs in eager degrees, soon shaking awake its many furry, winged inhabitants, who, I note with a small, rueful smile, are not so easily amused or delighted to cries by wickedly spun tales of the latest scandal, or the newest boasting of priceless, hideously expensive fripperies bought abroad.
"Spence at last." I mean to evoke the sweet, elated relief of having finally returned to a marvelous, enchanting place held infinitely dear to one's heart, but I fail rather spectacularly.
Instead, I approach the Spence Academy for Young Ladies with an exceedingly sombre and mournful expression quite stolen from a man who is mere seconds away the murderous yank of the gallows.
The school's tall, gothic spires pierce the achingly pristine blue of the sky with all the terrific majesty, and silencing command of a grand old dame.
Syrupy giggles, and tremulous wails float like distinct, dizzying scents from every conceivable nook and crevice, and I find myself leaning out farther and farther from the crook of my collar… my ears like the hands of mudlarks, careful, thorough, spelled with a rigorous attention, searching with fever for that one, particular-
"Look out!"
My neck stiffens immediately to a likeness of a pole. I whirl about in a rush of panic, beholding, quite possibly, the most bizarre spectacle I've ever seen.
Gemma Doyle.
On a rogue bicycle.
Clad in bloomers the size of wind sails.
Quite right, then. It is the most bizarre spectacle I've ever seen.
I've only a split-second to jump out of the way and into the clear of safety before Gemma hurtles like a fast, angry comet a short distance away, the spindly bicycle throwing her off its seat like a wounded, reproachful horse.
Gemma is a groaning, miserable tangle of grazed, too-long limbs, and bruised pride the moment I reach her, and I offer her the small, pitiful consolation of my outstretched hand, already hating myself wretchedly for what I must do.
"Let me help you—are you hurt?"
Gemma's cool fingers find mine, and she pulls them into a grip that is astonishingly fierce.
"You might have been more careful, Sir," Her voice is cold with the effort to veil her embarrassment, and my lips stretch into a smile made small and frail with the promise of misery.
"You might have been looking out, Miss Doyle."
As though bitten by a wayward spark, Gemma starts with a surprising violence, raising her face to mine in a look of disbelieving shock. The sun catches her face full like cupping hands, setting her coppery red hair ablaze. The light swims into the shifting, mercurial pool of her glass green eyes, and I am silenced, not for the first time, by the sheer unnaturalness, the undecided mystery of her beauty.
When I have come back to myself, I find that Gemma has been closing, and opening her lips repeatedly as though choking on something large and unseen. She struggles to settle her mouth into a tight, thinning line of what is meant to be outright disapproval—though her unabated earnestness quite gives her pleasure in seeing me away—and in a tone breathless and stifled as though it too is restricted in a callous corset, she says, evenly, "How good it is to see you again."
I flit my eyes momentarily to the slightly twisted back wheel of her bicycle, and nod.
"You've taken up bicycling, I see,"
"Yes," She spits, her eyes narrowing impossibly to the fineness of thread, "Much has happened these months." If you only knew…
"You're angry," It is a lame observation.
"I am not," She lies, endeavoring a light, merry laugh that comes out as acrid, and bitter as appleseed.
"I do not blame you for it," I say, fighting hard to keep the accursed, telltale quiver from my voice, and I am suddenly glad for the bicycle that sits, injured, between us.
"I wondered if the Rakshanna had…" Gemma trails off, uncertain, her coldness at my long disappearance quickly melting away into concern. "If you were…"
"Dead?" I finish, happy to relieve her of her discomfort, "… It would seem not."
Gemma seems especially keen to keep me this way, for she inquires in utmost haste, "Are you hurt? Have you eaten?"
"Do not worry on my account," I can scarcely bite back the insistent please that seeks immediate release from my throat.
"And the realms?" I ask urgently after a moment's consideration, "What news of them? Have you returned the magic and formed the alliance? …Are the realms secure?" Secure from her.
"I have it well in hand," Gemma's voice is the extraordinary hardness of flint, and I suppose I've injured her with talk of business. But there is one other pressing matter that I must pose a dire question to...
"And…" I begin again, the desperation I feel inspiring tremors to wander, up and down, the length of my words, "Have you seen my brother in your realms? …Have you seen Amar?"
"No, I haven't," She is speaking so softly, and with such a tender solemnness, I nearly suspect her of lying. "So you were not able to come sooner?" She adds, with the discernible, hopeful anticipation of some fanciful, adventurous tale… one where I might regale her of my numerous, miraculous scrapes from the clutches of the evil and dastardly Rakshanna, my thrilling triumphs, how I perhaps outsmarted them, what manner of trickery did I employ to fool them into thinking me a dead man.
Then I would say, to her decided confusion, that I might as well be dead. For it is only the base bond of blackmail and ulterior motives that keeps me shackled to this thin, feeble existence. An existence where she is neither friend, or something more, but merely pawn, a bargaining tool, a stepping stone.
A means to an end.
"I chose not to come," The disgust is so thick in my throat, I feel as though I may choke upon it.
Gemma is painfully puzzled.
"I—I don't understand," she stammers, and I am callous, eager to afford her the sharpest clarity.
"I think it would be best if we parted ways," I state, denying my tone of any heart or feeling, aware only of Gemma's paramount need to leave... to go.
"You have your path, and I have mine. It would seem that our fates are no longer intertwined."
Gemma is a small swallow away from the spill of tears, and I must force myself to look elsewhere lest a sudden weakness overtake me, a momentary crack in my resolve that will grant me permission to pull her into this cruel game where she can only lose.
"B-but you said you wished to be a part of the alliance. To join hands with me—" Gemma's voice breaks beseechingly at me, and my hands curl into bolted fists within my trouser pockets. "With us—"
"I've had a change of heart," I cut through her hope with a single, unfeeling stare, and to my bitter relief, someone from beyond the swell of the hill calls after her,
"Gem-ma! It's Elizabeth's turn!"
It is Felicity Worthington. I hasten to keep her from discovering us.
"They're waiting for you. Here, I shall help you with that," I make to grab the bicycle handles, but Gemma wrenches the bicycle from my reach with such an unnecessarily brutal force the ill-treated thing rattles.
"Thank you, but I don't require your help," Gemma draws breath to inflict a nasty wound of her own. "It isn't your fate."
Her voice drips with a scalding sarcasm, and I draw back silently in willing acceptance of her blow, left to gaze at her swiftly departing figure as I wrestle inwardly with the need to call her back, apologize, grip her hands inside my own, run the pad of my thumb gently over her knuckles, a wordless assurance that I am on her side.
But this, I realize with the throb of a most familiar ache, is my testament to that loyalty, my allegiance to her.
I will make it my mission, my bloody life's work to have her abhor me, through and through.
And judging from the choices I've made just solely within the last week, I daresay I am already well on my way to that path.