Page 45 of The Ordeals
‘I like your thinking.’ Tessa nods. ‘I reckon we could be stealthy enough.’
I don’t want to say, but I have an ulterior motive beside curiosity and potentially gaining an edge. I’ve scoured the halls of Killmarth for any mention of my parents, and come up empty. I only had that photograph that proves they were at Killmarth, and the knowledge that they met here. But perhaps in Darley, I will find answers. It’s the only stone left unturned.
‘If we think we’re going to get caught, you wield and become a professor. I’ll wield and cast an illusion to hide.’
Tessa smiles at me. ‘It’s a risk, but …’
‘Yes. Exactly,’ I say. We’re risking our lives every day at Killmarth. I can’t get caught, I can’t get thrown out, but equally, I can’t fail an Ordeal if there’s a chance I could find something to help me succeed. It’s a calculated risk, and one I’m willing to take.
We move quickly, keeping our heads down, and reach the door to Darley. I sweep my gaze over the courtyard, checking for any watchful eyes as Tessa tries the door handle, finding it’s locked. Frowning at me, she tries it again and I sigh, nudging her gently out of the way. Luckily, I know my way around a locked door. Another skill in my rather alternative childhood training, something that, in fact, Dolly taught me. I smile now, remembering her painstakingly explaining how the mechanism of a door lock worked, how the inner chambers could be shifted with two hair pins and a little concentration. I remove two from my hair that I have taken to wearing, shifting the inner workings of the lock until I hear it click.
I nod to Tessa and we slip through, into Darley Hall.
Chapter 15
Darley Hall
We are bathed in thick, cloying silence. I can’t hear the noise from the courtyard at all, as though the hall itself has been spelled and muffled. If we can’t hear anyone outside, we’d better not run into any trouble in here. No one would hear our screams.
Tessa points to the dining hall to our right, set out much the same as Gantry, door slightly ajar revealing rows of tables and a platform at the back. I step towards the door, peering through, and catch the scent of parchment and dust, with the faintest whiff of mildew. It seems unlikely anything or anyone would be in there. Tessa gestures to the staircase and tilts her head towards them. I bite my lip, wondering what we’ll find here. If there’s anything, perhaps, to help us get through the Ordeals and any hints about my parents.
Or if we’re about to stumble upon something best left alone.
I point to the staircase and Tessa nods. Harder to escape down a lone set of stairs if we’re caught, but more likely to contain something interesting. In for a flor, in for a floren.
We ascend slowly, testing the sound of each footfall. It’s a spiral staircase like the one in Hope, walls whitewashed over rough plaster. Dust and cobwebs gather at the few arrow-slit windows, edged in the original stone. This is an older part of the castle structure, still intact after alterations and extensions made it into a college for wielders.
We arrive on the first-floor landing with a corridor and a set of three doors across from us. I nod to Tessa and we move to the doors first, listening at each one before stepping inside. The first two are set up like classrooms, with desks and chairs and even blackboards. In the second one, half-stubs of chalk still sit in the sill under the blackboard, the faintest trace of old lessons on the board itself.
‘Where’d they all go? There’s nothing here,’ I whisper to Tessa. It seems less forbidden and more just abandoned. Like everyone got up and left one day, leaving it frozen in time. So far, there doesn’t seem to be anything that could help us in the Ordeals as we’d hoped.
‘I wouldn’t be so sure … look.’
I turn and see she’s standing at the wall by the door, looking at framed certificates and notices of some kind. Keeping my footsteps as quiet as I can manage I go to the certificate she’s standing in front of. It’s in old, copperplate lettering with flourishes in dark ink. The Killmarth crest is at the top, and beneath …
‘Dorothea Goode?’ I say softly. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Goode is old Parnell’s maiden name. She went to school here, alongside my father and Harvey Parnell.’
I frown, looking at Tessa. ‘The groundskeeper?’
‘Yes, her husband. Last seen entering Darley Hall and never leaving eight years ago. Apparently, it was closed the next day, all the scholars assigned to the hall redistributed to Gantry, Fetlock and Godolphin.’
‘So she was a scholar in Darley.’
Tessa looks at me. ‘Yep, an illusionist, but Darley was mostly made up of alchemists back then. Every intake since, there have been fewer and fewer. That’s the reason that’s been bandied about for never reopening this hall. I’ve heard my father and grandmother discussing it.’
‘Doesn’t explain why it’s forbidden now though,’ I mutter.
My gaze strays from the certificate to a black-and-white framed photograph next to it. Sepia-toned, the picture is still crisp, as though taken and hung only yesterday. It seems to be a class photograph, staged in front of Killmarth College with men and women sitting in a row, and another row standing behind them. I move closer, scrutinising the list of names beneath and the year, exactly twenty-five years ago:
Oliver Locke
Harvey Parnell
Dorothea Goode
Ezra Darley
