Page 24 of The Ordeals
And all hell breaks loose.
‘Oh, shit,’ I murmur as Gideon’s eyes bulge. He tries loosening his shirt, pulling uselessly at his collar, as his face turns a violent puce, his throat bulging sickeningly. It happens so fast, no one is even up before Gideon Mallory chokes out a final wheeze … then face-plants into his plate of devilled eggs.
My eyes dart to Alden’s as all around us, gasps and screams fill the room, people scraping back their chairs, spitting out their food. One woman retches and runs through the doors whilst others stare wide-eyed at their full plates, no doubt contemplating their near brush with death. Alden’s eyes meet mine and a shiver whispers up my spine.
He’s a botanist. He can detect the properties of living matter and depending on how strongly he can wield, manipulate them. There are salad leaves on our plates. Did he somehow know? Could he have changed the properties?
‘It seems as though this is an opportune moment to remind youall that murder between the Ordeals themselves isstrictlyforbidden. The first Ordeal will be in two days’ time,’ Professor Grant says, utterly unaffected by the chaos surrounding her. ‘You will all go through the Ordeal of Poisons. Prepare yourselves.’
Prepare yourselves.
Two days to be ready for whatever this Ordeal of Poisons is, and how it will test us. I intend to prepare in the best way I know how. By gathering information to arm myself with.
Starting in the library.
Before dawn the next morning, with only the odd kerosene lamp set in a wall sconce to light my way, I move along the corridors like a phantom. And when I reach the main library, I see why so many wish to study magic at Killmarth. This library isn’t just one room, but a series of connecting chambers. As I walk in, there is a librarian desk on my right under the diamond-paned, floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out over the ocean. They are painted in pearly shades of navy and midnight, the glow of the moon in one corner.
Before me is a reading space, scattered with sofas and leather armchairs. Low tables are dotted between them, all perfectly polished, bearing table lamps. Only three are lit, and the stacks beyond are drenched in impenetrable darkness. I swallow, feeling like I’m disturbing a hallowed space, but close the door softly behind myself.
I reach for a lamp, to carry with me through the stacks. The books are all on tall bookshelves, reaching for the ceiling, and at the back are reference and archive rooms. When I try the handles, I find they are all locked, so I turn back to the stacks. The most obvious place to start is the letterP, for poisons. And from looking at thesmall brass plates on the end of the stacks with letters etched into them, I will need to walk some distance along the third corridor between the stacks.
As I tread across the dark herringbone floor, each footfall cracks like thunder. I wince at the noise I cannot help but make, hoping it won’t have alerted anyone else to my presence. With the death of Gideon Mallory last night at dinner, I am all too aware that an unscrupulous hopeful may mark me, or anyone else as their rival, and therefore the next victim of an attack. Especially if they care little for the rules, and can so clearly get away with it in plain sight.
Holding the lamp aloft, I run my hand along the books in the stack and marvel at the grounding of the written word, thousands of voices all babbling around me, striking up a melodic timbre of certainty. The air is hushed and flavoured with the taste of time, with the slow trickle of hours and days and the scent of caramel-coloured parchment, crisping slowly in their cases of bound leather and boards.
I breathe it all in, my heart calming to a steady patter. I could spend the rest of my life in this very library with its winding walkways of books and lose myself in all these thoughts and stories. This –thisis the life of a scholar. And now I have tasted it, seen this place and imagined myself here, researching, reading, absorbing … I am ravenous. And I understand for the first time why we are called hopefuls. My hope, for this life, to inhabit this place and tread the path that many others have walked before me, is suddenly luminous. I never imagined that beyond freedom, there would be so much in this world I could unlock.
The Serpentine library where I would attend lectures, but also peruse the stacks to borrow books, is nothing compared to this. There, many shambling bodies would hunt through the dog-eared, meagre collection and I would dodge between them, weaving inand out of the low shelves to snatch up a romance novel for Dolly she hadn’t read yet, a book on wielding for me. My borrower card would only allow for two titles at a time, and Dolly would never go herself, so it was really a one-book limit. I smile now, the memory of the rasp of her fingers brushing mine as she’d snatch the latest novel from my hands, mouthing the words under her breath as she’d always turn to the last page first.
Dolly! You’ll spoil the ending!
She’d give me that knowing look.I already know how it ends, darling girl. Happily ever after.
Happily ever after.
I close my eyes for a moment, reluctantly allowing the memory to slip from my grasp, and turn back to the stacks and the waiting words surrounding me.
I suppose it isn’t just about what Idon’twant anymore. Becoming a scholar isn’t an escape route from a life of working for the Collector, ever longing for my freedom, or grieving a childhood that never was, without stability or fond memories beyond the moments with Dolly. It’s more than that. It’s finding who I am, what I am capable of beyond the clutches of the Collector. And being here now, in this library, I realise I desire this above all. That I will fight for my place here, and if I must, beutterlyruthless. I may not come from the right kind of background, haven’t been traditionally schooled. I may not have had the stable grounding of some of the other hopefuls in magic. But I know what it is to fight, what it is to beat every odd and walk away with a mark secured.
I’m still wondering as well if I’ll find some indication of my parents’ time here beyond the photograph Banks gave me. I’ve already searched the walls of each hall after looking in the trophy cabinets for the name ‘DeWinter’, but there’s not an obvious echo of them here. I don’t even know my mother’s maiden name to search forthat and the photographs on the walls are all sepia-toned, so I can’t even look for eyes that are the same bright shade of green as my own. There are group portraits dotted around with the sea in the background or the castle proper, but none of them are similar to the one I lost. And I can’t start asking questions, not when they could fall on the wrong ears. Perhaps my parents were out of favour here, so I cannot ask the professors, and indeed if they were powerful with a lasting reputation at Killmarth, I don’t want any eyes turned towards me as a potential threat, not after what happened to Mallory. I must bide my time and feel out the rhythm of Killmarth so I do not stumble into any unseen traps. But I hope I find something of them here, some tangible, lasting legacy.
Reaching the letterP, I hold the lamp closer to the books, squinting at the titles.Ptakes up a huge section of the stack, and it takes me a while to find anything of note. The only reference guide I can find is by a professor studying the effects of poison ivy, and as I thumb through the pages, I realise it’s not nearly enough information. I stuff it back into its space on the shelf and huff out a short, exasperated breath.
‘You’re looking in the wrong section.’
I whirl around, switchblade in hand to find a figure a few feet away. He is also carrying a lamp, and I must have been so absorbed in my own reverie and searching for any works on poisons, I didn’t hear him at all. Although Alden probablymeantto startle me. Something tells me he’s still getting even for my leaving him in that bar with only a kiss, and he still believes I only did that to get information from him about Killmarth. Which is only partially true. ‘Do you make a habit of skulking around?’
He grins, an unnervingly cute dimple appearing in his right cheek as he leans against the opposite stack. There’s a predatory air about him, but it’s almost contained here, in this world of booksand paper and learning as he flicks those brown eyes slowly over my face, like he’s drinking in every inch. A flush rises up my throat, and his eyes widen, delighted. ‘I would hardly call itskulking. I cleared my throat twice. It can’t be helped if you’re utterly unobservant.’
I wince, inwardly cursing myself, knowing he’s right. I let my guard down. ‘This is the wrong section anyway.’
‘Of course it is. Any works on poisons will be listed—’
‘UnderBfor botany, I realised. I just like to be thorough.’
A hungry glint lights his chestnut and mahogany eyes as they roam my body. ‘Oh, I do hope so.’
I shoot him a look, tossing back my hair. If he’s trying to unnerve me, two can play at that game. ‘Just limbering up, Locke,’ I purr. ‘Myonly hope is that you can keep up.’
