Jill’s face fell. “Oh,” she said. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how much she was hoping Jack would have changed her mind; would be waiting, penitent and hungry, on the stairs.
Let Jack throw away the chance to be a princess and live in a castle. Jack already knew what it was to be treated like royalty, to have the pretty dress and the shining tiara and the love of everyone around her. She’d realize her mistake and come crawling back, and would Jill forgive her?
Probably. It would be nice, to share this adventure with her sister.
“The Master is waiting, miss,” said Mary. “Are you ready to see him?”
“Yes,” said Jill, and no said something deep inside her, a still, small voice that understood the danger they were in, even if that danger was shadowy and ill defined. Jill stood up a little straighter, raised her chin the way she’d seen Jack do when she was showing off a new dress to their mother’s friends, and swallowed the fear as deep as it would go. “I want to tell him that I’ll stay.”
“You haven’t a choice now, miss,” said Mary. Her tone was cautioning, almost apologetic. “Once your sister chose to go, you were set to stay.”
Jill frowned, the still, small voice that had been counseling caution instantly silenced in the face of this new affront. “Because she chose, I don’t get to?”
“Yes, miss. I don’t mean to speak out of turn, but you may wish to approach the Master with deference. He doesn’t like being selected second.”
Neither did Jill, and she had been selected second all her life. In that instant, hot, fierce love for the nameless man in the lonely castle washed over her, wiping any remnants of caution away. The Master was second-best for no good reason, just like she was. Well, she would make him understand that it wasn’t true. She’d chosen him before Jack had even known her stupid Dr. Bleak existed. They were going to be happy together until the door home opened, and they were never going to be second-best again. Never.
“I chose him first. Jacqueline skipped breakfast so she could look like the star,” said Jill, all bitterness and cold anger. “I’ll tell him so.”
Mary had seen many foundlings come and go since her own arrival in the Moors. She looked at Jill, and for the first time, she felt as if, perhaps, the Master might be pleased. This one might live long enough to leave, assuming the door home ever opened at all.
“Follow me, miss,” she said, and turned, and walked down the stairs to where the Master waited, still and silent as he always was when he saw no need for motion.
(How the children who tumbled through the occasional doors between the Moors and elsewhere couldn’t see that he was a predator, she didn’t understand. Mary had known him for a predator the second she’d seen him. It had been a familiar danger: the family she had been fleeing from had been equally predatory, even if their predations had been of a more mundane nature. She had been comfortable in his care because she had known him, and when he had revealed himself fully to her, it had come as no surprise. That was rare. Most of the children she walked through these halls were terribly, terribly surprised when their time came, no matter how often they’d been warned. There would never be warning enough.)
The Master was sitting at the table when they stepped back into the dining hall, sipping moodily from a silver goblet. He looked at Mary—and hence, at Jill—with narrow, disinterested eyes. He lowered his drink.
“I suppose we’re stuck together,” he said, looking at Jill.
“I chose you,” said Jill.
The Master lifted his eyebrows. “Did you, now? I don’t remember seeing you in front of me before your foolish sister left with that filthy doctor. I seem to recall sitting here alone, no foundling by my side, as she came down those stairs and declared her intent to go with him.”
“She said she didn’t want to stay,” said Jill. “I thought it would be better if I ate my breakfast and let her go. That way, I’d be ready for whatever you wanted me to do today. Skipping meals isn’t healthy.”
“No, it’s not,” said the Master, with a flicker of what might have been amusement. “You swear you chose me before she chose him?”
“I chose you as soon as I saw you,” said Jill earnestly.
“I don’t care for liars.”
“I don’t lie.”
The Master tilted his head, looking at her with new eyes. Finally, he said, “You will need to be washed and dressed, prepared to live here with me. My household has certain standards. Mary will assist you in meeting them. You will be expected to present yourself when I want you, and to otherwise stay out from underfoot. I will arrange for tutors and for tailors; you will want for nothing. All I ask in exchange are your loyalty, your devotion, and your obedience.”
“Unless her door comes,” said Mary.
The Master shot a sharp, narrow-eyed glance in her direction. She stood straight and met his eyes without flinching. In the end, astonishingly, it was the Master who looked away.
“You will always be free to take the door back to your original home,” he said. “I am bound by a compact as old as the Moors to let you go, if that’s truly your desire. But I hope that when that door eventually opens, you might find that you prefer my company.”
Jill smiled. The Master smiled back, and his teeth were very sharp, and very white.
Both girls, through different routes, down different roads, had come home.
7
TO FETCH A PAIL OF WATER
DR. BLEAK LIVED OUTSIDE the castle, outside the village; outside the seemingly safe bulk of the wall. The gates opened when he approached them, and he strode through, never looking back to see whether Jack was following him. She was—of course she was—but her life had been defined by sitting quietly and being decorative, allowing interesting things to come to her, rather than chasing them through bracken and briar. Her chest felt like it was too tight. Her heart thudded and her side ached, making speech impossible.
Once, only once, she stumbled to a stop and stood, swaying, eyes fixed on her feet as she tried to get her breath back. Dr. Bleak continued onward for a few more steps before he stopped in turn. Still, he did not look back.
“You are not Eurydice, but I won’t risk losing you to something so trivial,” he said. “You need to be stronger.”
Jack, who could not breathe, said nothing.
“We’ll have time to improve what can be improved, and compensate for what can’t,” he said. “But night comes quickly here. Recover, and resume.”