“Muffler,” I prompt, through clenched teeth.
“That he has the muffler from Christmas and that she must live happily without him. That is all.” She makes a high moaning sound and falls slumped against her chair. Seconds later, she “awakens.”
“The spirits have spoken, and now I must rest my gifts. I thank you all for coming this evening and remind you that I will be communing again in Covent Garden next month.” As the audience applauds, Sally “Madame Romanoff” Carny leaps from her seat and retreats off into the wings, where her confused lackeys wait for an explanation of tonight’s deviation from their plan.
“I knew you were up to something!” Cecily whispers, taking my arm. “Was it extraordinary?”
Elizabeth cuts in. “Did you see the spirits enter Madame Romanoff’s body? Did her hands go ice cold? I’ve heard that can happen.”
I am suddenly the most popular girl at Spence.
“No. I saw no spirits. Her hands were warm and far too moist. And I’m fairly certain her rings were paste,” I say, walking quickly, putting as much distance between Mademoiselle LeFarge and me as possible.
Elizabeth pouts. “But what shall I write my mother of tonight’s experience?”
“Tell her to stop wasting her money on such nonsense.”
“Gemma Doyle, you are an absolute horror,” Cecily grouses.
“Yes,” I say, ending my one-minute reign as Queen of Spence.
“What a fake,” Felicity announces as I join the throng making its way out of the lecture hall. “She believed that bit about Sarah being your mother’s name. And then instead of the real Sarah Rees-Toome we get some lovesick Reggie calling for his Polly.”
“Whatever is the matter with Mademoiselle LeFarge? I thought by now she’d be threatening to give us forty bad-conduct marks each,” Pippa whispers.
“She’s probably waiting for the ride home,” Ann says, looking terrified. “She’ll most likely tell Mrs. Nightwing what we’ve done and we won’t be able to attend the tea dance next month.”
This makes even Felicity blanch, and I’m certain to end up in the stocks or the equivalent. Mademoiselle lags several paces behind us. She doesn’t seem particularly grim. Instead, she dabs at her eyes with a handkerchief and smiles at Inspector Kent, who offers to escort us to our carriage.
“I think everything will be just fine,” I say.
The crowd is a thick knot of people all trying to get to their carriages without getting wet. I’m separated from the rest of them when an older couple charges ahead of me and slows down to a near halt. I can’t get around them and I can just make out Felicity’s blond head moving farther away.
“Can I help you, miss?” The familiar voice is followed by a familiar hand yanking me into a small alley beside the grand house.
“What are you doing here?” I ask Kartik.
“Watching you,” he says. “Care to tell me what tonight’s little stunt was all about?”
“It was just a laugh, that’s all. A bit of schoolgirl fun.”
My name is shouted out on the street.
“They’re looking for me,” I say, hoping he’ll let me go.
He grips my wrist tighter. “Something happened tonight. I could sense it.”
I start to explain. “It was an accident. . . .”
“I don’t believe it!” Kartik kicks hard at a stone on the ground, sends it flying.
“It’s not what you think,” I babble, trying to defend myself. “I can explain—”
“No explanations! We shall give the orders and you shall follow them. No more visions. Do you understand?” His smirk is contemptuous. He’s waiting for me to tremble and agree to his terms. But something inside me has changed tonight. And I cannot go back.
I bite his hand and he yelps, dropping my wrist.
“Don’t you ever speak to me that way again,” I snarl. “I am no longer content to be the scared, obedient schoolgirl. Who are you, a stranger, to tell me what I can and cannot do?”
He growls at me. “I am Rakshana.”
I laugh. “Ah, yes—the great and mysterious Rakshana. The powerful brotherhood who feel threatened by things they cannot understand and have to hide themselves behind a boy.” The word hits him as if I had spit. “You’re not a man. You’re their lackey. I don’t care about you, or your brother, or your ridiculous organization. From now on, I shall do exactly as I wish and you cannot stop me. Do not follow. Do not watch. Do not even attempt to contact me or you’ll be sorry indeed. Do you understand?”
Kartik stands, rubbing his wounded hand. He’s too shocked to say anything. For the first time, he’s utterly silent. And that’s how I leave him.
Mademoiselle LeFarge never does reprimand us. She sits silently the whole ride back, her eyes closed, a sad smile on her face. But in her fingers is the inspector’s calling card. Between the jostling of the carriage and the long evening, everyone has fallen into a twilight sleep. Everyone except me.
I’m on fire with what I’ve seen tonight. Everything in Mary Dowd’s diary is the truth. The realms are real, and my mother is there, waiting for me. Kartik’s warnings are nothing to me now. I don’t know what I’ll find through that door of light, and truthfully, I’m a little afraid to find out. The one thing I do know for certain is that I can no longer ignore whatever power this is inside me. The time has come.
My hand is on Felicity’s shoulder, shaking her gently awake.
“Wh-what is it? Are we back?” she says, rubbing her eyes.
“No, not yet,” I whisper. “I need to call a meeting of the Order.”
“Yes, lovely,” she says drowsily, closing her eyes again. “Tomorrow, then.”
“No, it’s important. Tonight. We must meet tonight.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I AM NOT SUPPOSED TO USE MY POWERS. I AM NOT supposed to go willingly into a vision. The realms have been closed for twenty years, since whatever happened with Mary and Sarah changed it all. But if I don’t travel that path, I’ll never see my mother again. I’ll never know anything. In the pit of my stomach, where intentions bloom into decisions, I know I’m ready to start down that uncertain road.
This is what swirls through my head as I sit in the darkened cave with the others. It’s sticky and wet. The night’s rain has done nothing to cool the air. In fact, it has only made the lingering heat stale and unbearable.
Felicity reads the latest installment from Mary’s diary, but I can’t take in much of it. My secret is coming out tonight, and every part of me is taut with waiting.
Felicity closes the diary. “All right, then, what’s all this about?”
“Yes,” Pippa says sullenly. “Why couldn’t this wait till tomorrow?”
“Because it couldn’t,” I say. My nerves crackle. Every sound is amplified in my ears. “What if I told you the Order was real? That the realms are real?” I take a deep breath. “And that I know how to get there?”
Pippa rolls her eyes. “You pulled me out into this horrible muddy night for a joke?”
Ann snorts and nods at Pippa, showing her solidarity with her new best friend. Felicity catches my eye. She can tell that something has changed.
“I don’t think Gemma is joking,” she says quietly.
“I have a secret,” I say at last. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
I don’t spare any of it—my mother’s murder; my visions; what happened when I held Sally Carny’s hand and ended up in the misty woods; the temple and my mother’s voice. The only part I hold back is about Kartik. I’m not ready to share that yet.
When I’ve finished, they look at me as if I am insane. Or wonderful. I’m not entirely sure. And now I understand that truth casts a spell of its own, one I’m not sure how to hold on to, though I’m desperate to try.
“You have to take us,” Felicity says.
“I’m not certain what we’ll find there. I’m not certain of anything, not anymore,” I answer.