Page 80 of The Ordeals
She leans back with a sigh. ‘You don’t have the raw power of Knox or Alden. You haven’t been training all your life like Tessa, so you must use what you have. Whatyouhave in your arsenal. If it only came down to backbone, you would breeze this, but I won’t sugarcoat it for you. It’s going to be tough. As with any of the Ordeals, you may not succeed. There’s no right or wrong answer in the final Ordeal, Sophia. You either succeed, or likely die.’
Cold creeps over me as I weigh her words. She’s giving me the stakes, plain and simple. Instinctively, I reach for my wrist and close my fingers around it, imagining the vice-like grip of that bracelet encircling it. I can’t leave. I can’t go back to who I was before. The only way, as with anything in my life, is through.
‘Thank you for your time. For sharing all this with me, professor,’ I say, scraping my chair back, readying to rise.
‘Hester,’ she says quietly, smiling at me. ‘Call me Hester, Sophia. Let me give you a piece of advice, look to the past. Search everything in your arsenal. I saw something in you that day when you turned up for the Crucible. Don’t prove me wrong.’
I pinch the bridge of my nose, parsing through her words.Search everything in your arsenal…look to the past… ‘Why are you helping me?’
Hester Lewellyn smiles. ‘Because I was in your shoes a few short years ago. Not knowing who to trust, whether I’d still be here the following semester as a scholar. I see myself in you. And Iwantyou to succeed. I want you here next semester, sitting in my history classes. I want to be the mentor to you thatIneeded. I want you towalk into the final Ordeal with your eyes fully open, and find the strength that will get you through.’
‘Professor … Hester …’ I blink quickly, overwhelmed suddenly. To have a mentor who cares, whowantsme to succeed, who wants to continue teaching me, who is honest … I tentatively reach my hand towards her. For a moment, she grips my fingers, then releases them with a sharp sigh. ‘Bona Fortuna, Sophia. You walk into that final Ordeal, and don’t you dare look back. We will need women like you in the days ahead.’
When I leave her office, I walk straight back to Hope Hall. Her words linger and I realise I haven’t been paying enough attention. I haven’t delved into the depths of my arsenal. There’s one place, something that’s followed me from my past to here, shoved in the corner of my bedroom that I’ve barely checked at all.
The trunk.
After swiftly closing my bedroom door, I pull it into the centre of the floor and kneel down before it. Opening the catch, I find it just as I left it a few weeks ago, devoid of my personal belongings, which I placed in the armoire. I’ve barely given it a second thought since. But I know the Collector, I know how his mind works. He taught me to observe, to listen, to learn … I smooth my fingertips all around the lining inside, feeling for a lump, or a bunching in the fabric.
He asked me about the trunk; he wanted to ensure it had arrived at Killmarth. And it wasn’t just so I had spare clothes; it was more than that. It was a clue, a puzzle piece. He told me at the masquier’s ball to look for the initials, and I didn’t pay enough attention, not until tonight. I reach the bottom of the chest, spreading my fingertips over the lining at the back and as I press down hard … a catch clicks. The whole bottom of the trunk lifts up along the back edge, and I prise it away quickly from the lining and gasp.
There’s a false bottom to the trunk. And underneath, a collection of faded photographs, letters, ephemera from a past life. And a notebook – no, a journal. My pulse quickens as I pull it from the trunk, a slim journal bound in dark green leather. The edges are curled, the cover battered, but there are gold letters picked out in one corner.
E.D.
The same initials as on the outside of the trunk, his initials. It’s what he told me to follow; it was his only clue.
My heart thumps faster as I flip open the first page of the journal and as I begin to read, my life, every moment leading up to this point, everything I thought I knew …
Tumbles and shatters around me.
Chapter 27
E.D.
The Ordeals Day 67
Thirty-one of us left. The final Ordeal is soon. Everyone making alliances. Wondering if I’m strong enough, if just being an alchemist is enough. It better be. Dede and Harvey are already so sure in their magic, Dede creating those illusions, Harvey making portals out of almost any material. Maybe if I combine both forms of magic, I can track them all. Finish first. It’s every man for himself at this point and no Darley fails.
Winter and Locke are tipped to lead us all in the final Ordeal. I heard the rumours that they’ll send us to the slaughter in pairs. Hard to know what to believe. Dede will pair with Winter. I found her scribbling her name and his last name in the back of her notebook the other day. Promised I wouldn’t tell him, but De Winter has a ring to it. De Darley doesn’t. I don’t care if she stays with him, I just want her to live. Godolphin won’t show his hand until the final hour. Harvey will go with Locke, even though Dorothea won’t like it. I’ll be left with Caroline. She is an awful snob but at least she can wield. Calls me Eddy for fuck’s sake. The rest of them have started using it, even Dede. I have to put up with it. Wish they would use Ezra. I don’t want to die being called fucking Eddy.
The journal drops from my hand to the floor. The room spinsaround me, tilting sickeningly, and suddenly I can’t breathe. Can’t think.
Calls me Eddy for fuck’s sake…
Banks used to call the Collector Eddy sometimes. Maybe the nickname stuck, maybe he’s had it all this time, since attending Killmarth. It says he’s a Darley, and the trunk and journal are monogrammed with E.D. I shake my head. Am I jumping to conclusions? I can’t be.
Sifting through the photographs, I find one of a man and a woman, standing together in front of what looks like a church, all dressed up, and my heart lodges in my throat. Turning it over with shaking fingers, I read, Luc and Dede Winter. There is no date, but when I turn it back over, scrutinising the pale smudged features in the sepia photograph, I see they are smiling.
Dede Winter.
DeWinter?
She … is Dede my mother? Is this the record I’ve been searching for, her mark in this place, her real story … was Winter our family name? Has it been hiding in plain sight, woven into the history of Killmarth all this time? I reach once more for the trunk, this trunk that has lived in the Collector’s antiques shop, the one I stored my tea set and teddies in as a child and trace my finger across the gold lettering of the initials. There was only one name in that class roster in Darley Hall with those initials.
Ezra Darley.
It’s him. It has to be him. Ezra Darley is Eddy.
