Iris wandered deep into the library, where the oldest books sat on heavily guarded shelves. None of these volumes could be checked out, but they could be read at one of the library desks, and Iris choose a promising tome and carried it to a small table.
She flicked on the desk lamp and carefully turned the pages, which were so old they were speckled with mold and felt like silk beneath her fingertips. Pages that smelled like dust and tombs and places that could be reached only in the dark. Pages full of stories of gods and goddesses from a time long ago. Before the humans had slain them or bound them deep into the earth. Before magic had begun to bloom from the soil, rising from divine bones, charming certain doorways and buildings and settling into the rare object.
But now Enva and Dacre had woken from their prisons. Eithrals had been spotted near the front.
Iris wanted to know more about them.
She began to write down the lore she had never been taught in school. The Skywards, who had ruled Cambria from above, and the Underlings, who had reigned below. Once, there had been a hundred gods between the two families, their individual powers fanning across the firmament, land, and water. But over time they had killed each other, one by one, until only five remained. And those five had been overcome by humankind and given as spoils to the boroughs of Cambria. Dacre had been buried in the west, Enva in the east, Mir in the north, Alva in the south, and Luz in Central Borough. They were never to wake from their enchanted sleep; their graves were markers of mortal strength and resilience, but perhaps most of all were rumored to be places of great enchantment, drawing the ill, the faithful, the curious.
Iris herself had never visited Enva’s grave in the east. It was kilometers from Oath, in a remote valley. We’ll go one day, Little Flower, Forest had said to her only last year, even though they had never been a devout family. Perhaps we’ll be able to taste Enva’s magic in the air.
Iris bent over the book, continuing to search for the answers she craved.
How does one god draw another?
Dacre had started the war by burning the village of Sparrow to the ground, killing the farmers and their families. And yet such devastation had failed to attract Enva to him, as he thought it would. Even after seven months of conflict, she remained hidden in Oath save for the moments when she strummed her harp, inspiring young people to enlist and fight against her nemesis.
Why do you hate each other? Iris wondered. What was the history behind Dacre and Enva?
She sifted through the book’s leaves, but page after page had been removed, torn away from the volume. There were a few myths about Enva and Alva, but no detailed records of Dacre. His name was mentioned only in passing from legend to legend, and never connected to Enva. There was also nothing about eithrals—where they came from, what controlled them. How dangerous they were to humans.
Iris sat back in her chair, rubbing her shoulder.
It was as if someone wanted to steal the knowledge of the past. All the myths about Dacre, his magic and power. Why he was furious with Enva. Why he was instigating a war with her, dragging mortal kind into the bloodshed.
And it filled Iris with cold dismay.
{4}
Dustbin Revelations
Her mother was asleep on the sofa when Iris got home that evening. A cigarette had burned through the threadbare cushion, and the candles on the sideboard had almost melted into stubs.
Iris sighed but began to clean up the empty bottles and ashtrays. She removed her boots, wincing to see that the blisters had bled through her stockings. Barefoot, she stripped her mother’s wine-stained sheets off the bed and then gathered a few garments to launder, carrying everything down to the common area. She paid a few coppers for water and a cup of soap granules and then selected a washboard and bucket and began to scrub.
The water was cold, pumped up from the city’s cistern, and the soap turned her hands raw. But she scrubbed away the stains, and she wrung out garment after garment, her anger fueling her long after her stomach ceased groaning its emptiness.
By the time Iris had washed everything, she was ready to write the This isn’t Forest person back. She returned to the flat and hung everything up to dry in the kitchen. She should eat something before she wrote them, or who knew what might come out of her. She found a tin of green beans in one of the cupboards and ate it with a fork, sitting on her bedroom floor. Her hands ached, but she reached for Nan’s typewriter beneath the mattress.
She’d kept the note she’d received last night, and it sat open by her knee as she furiously began to type a reply:
You claim who you are not, but without further introducing yourself. How many of my letters have you received? Do you make it a habit to read other people’s post?
Iris folded the paper and slid it beneath the wardrobe door.
* * *
Roman was reading in bed when the paper arrived.
He had come to know the sound of Iris’s letters well, how they slipped like a whisper into his room. He decided he would ignore this one for at least an hour, his long fingers hidden in the pages of the book he was reading. But from the corner of his eye, he could see the white patch on the floor, and it eventually bothered him so greatly that he rose from bed, shutting the tome with a sigh.
It was late, he realized as he checked his wristwatch. Shouldn’t she be in bed? Although if he were honest … he had been waiting for her reply. He had expected it last night, and when it failed to appear, he halfway believed she would cease sending letters.
He didn’t know if it would be more of a relief or a regret, to no longer have her letters mysteriously arrive to his room. He blamed this estate—it was an old, sprawling house, rumored to be built on a ley line of magic. Because of that, the Kitt mansion had a mind of its own. Doors opened and closed of their own volition, the curtains drew back at sunrise, and the floors shined themselves until they gleamed like ice. Sometimes when it rained, flowers would bloom in the most unexpected places—teacups and vases and even old shoes.
When Roman was fifteen—a year that he hated to remember—he had struggled with insomnia. Nearly every night, he would walk the dark corri dors of the house, choking on heartache until he came across the kitchen. A candle would always be lit on the counter beside a warm glass of milk and a plate of his favorite biscuits. For that entire year, he thought the cook was the one leaving the meal out for him, until Roman realized it was the house, sensing his troubles and seeking to comfort him.
Roman now stared at Iris’s letter on the floor.
“Still trying to amuse me?” he asked the wardrobe door. Of course, the house would not only seek to console him at his lowest but also be fond of mischief.