What?
“You said I couldn’t! You said it was the book keeping me here!” My fingers itched to snatch the pin anyway. Even if this was a trick, I valued freedom more than I valued my dignity in that moment. And if it were true, if I could recover the books from under my bed and take them to trade . . . Only now he stood between me and my room, and the small fortune hiding under the mattress.
“That’s still true. But these pins have always been used to navigate away from the binding ritual. Even those who bound themselves willingly occasionally needed to do work for us elsewhere, and this is what allows their passage.” He pinched the pin, holding it up, waiting for me to extend my hand.
And I did. God help me, I did. I wanted to believe it was true, that I really wasn’t tied forever to a place of murder and darkness. Even without the books to sell, I might be free. Coin could come later. The pin fell into my palm, unnaturally warm and unnaturally heavy.
“Careful; that warding pin belonged to Kit Marlowe. The Catholics didn’t much care for his work for the Unworld. Stabbed in a bar fight, my right foot. He liked to eat and blaspheme. My kind of gentleman.” Mr. Morningside cackled to himself, as if anything he had just said made a lick of sense. “The playwright,” he clarified, arching a brow. “Doctor Faustus? The Jew of Malta? Massacre at Paris? Good Lord, I thought they educated you at that girls’ school.”
“I know who Christopher Marlowe is,” I muttered, staring at the gleaming pin in my hand. “I simply don’t believe you.”
“Shall I show you the foot trick again?” He chuckled, watching my expression crumple. “Believe me, Louisa, the pin was his. That I own such a pin and you now hold it is the smallest absurdity and wonder of the Unworld.”
“Unworld . . . I saw that word in your book,” I said, taking the pin and holding it close. “You’re part of it, and so is Poppy with her screams and Mary with her spells.”
“Just so.”
“And this . . .” It still felt ridiculous, but I rolled the pin in my palm, studying it, looking at the small characters stamped into the gold and the serpent emblem behind the phrase. “I am Wrath.”
Mr. Morningside’s smile deepened, a faraway look misting his eyes. “That’s from Doctor Faustus. Quite proud of that speech—even let Marlowe use it for free. Well, for an ale, but that seems a cheap price, all told.”
“You’re having me on,” I murmured, fastening the pin to my apron and feeling its weight more keenly. “You . . . You must be, yes? How old are you?”
“Still so full of questions even as you hold the key to your freedom.” He sidestepped the question with a wink, eyes flitting to the door behind me and all that it symbolized. Then Mr. Morningside leaned in, so close that I could feel his warm breath on my chin. “But what will you do? I thought your new friend was innocent. Will you stay to prove as much or take this gift and never look back?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
I ran. Hard. Fast. Testing my legs. Testing my strength. I am not proud of it, but God help me, I ran.
In that moment I flew. I flew out the door, between the topiaries, over the paving stones, across the lawn. Books forgotten, murder forgotten, Lee forgotten. Running farther, harder, faster, ignoring the stitch in my side and the twinge in my wrist as I pumped my arms, abandoning all dignity for the chance to escape. And the rush of excitement carried me far—far beyond the drive and the fence. The fence! I ran right past it, feeling no pain at all. Nothing and no one stopped me.
Nothing until I was perhaps a mile down the road, retracing the path I had taken to arrive at Coldthistle House just a scant few days ago. It felt like a lifetime had gone by, and more than that, it felt like so much had changed. I had changed. When the manse was simply a looming silhouette in the distance behind me, I slowed down and then walked, drinking deeply of the crisp, cool air.
I thought your new friend was innocent.
No . . . I had to push Henry Morningside’s words out of my head. In fact, I had to shove his entire existence and memory out of my mind. My fingers, still scarred from touching the book in the attic, brushed the cravat pin stuck to my apron. I didn’t dare remove it, afraid that without it the pain would come back. Must I wear it forever now? What would happen if it were stolen or lost?
Such thoughts—such doubts—must be eradicated along with all remembrance of Coldthistle House. What I had seen, I had not really seen. What I had felt was just the work of an overly enthusiastic imagination. What I had read was silly falsehood, a collection of dark madness written by a lunatic. None of it was real. It couldn’t be. If it were, I would remember and I would hurt, and I would think of Lee’s kind face as he said, “I believe you.”
The clouds hung low above me, the terrible winds of yesterday now just a gentle breeze that ruffled my skirts and the long grass beside the road. I would not turn back, not now, not when I had this one chance to go. I would be better. I would be good. I would find some way to travel to America and start fresh, where not even the shadow of this place could linger in my mind. Distance would do the trick.
And so I walked. Midday came on, warming the fields. Nobody traveled the road, and the solitude felt wonderful. I wrapped my arms around myself and marched like a prisoner out of her cell.
. . . He belongs here and he will meet his end here; that is all but woven into the tapestry of fate.
I shut my eyes tightly, scolding myself for letting that monster’s words creep back into my skull. And if he was right? If Lee’s death was certain, then what could I do? How could I possibly prove what a crofter did or did not bake, or what nuts were or were not used with intent to kill? This was, firstly, none of my affair and, secondly, far outside my ability to settle.
Yet you didn’t tell him everything, did you? You didn’t tell him he, too, was marked for death.
None of my affair. Not my spill to clean up. I walked on, determined, trying to think instead of what I would do now that I had escaped. Food and shelter had to come first, but I was still a long way from Malton. I veered off into the fields, hopping the nearest fence, and followed the curve of the hill until it dipped back down into a shallow valley thick with violets. If I looked back I would see Coldthistle, and so I stubbornly turned my head away from it, traveling diagonally toward another rise in the landscape and what appeared to be a tiny cottage perched upon it.
As I neared, I watched a giant herd of sheep roll in from the far side of the cottage. They swarmed the house, kept in a near perfect circle by a dog nipping at their perimeter. The barking and bleating were almost soothing, a sweet pastoral counterpoint to the nightmare I had been living.