My newfound joy lasts through the practical Alchemy lesson that takes up the rest of the evening, through wishing my dorm-mates goodnight and realising how much more comfortable my bed here is than the one I’ve slept in the last two weeks. I wake early the next morning, still smiling, and study a little before breakfast.
Then I get my usual portion of porridge and settle down to eat with Edward. And that’s when it ends.
Edward wordlessly hands me the newspaper and gestures to its headline: CAVENDISH SENTENCED TO DEATH.
I stare numbly at it. It’s as if I’ve been punched in the face.
It’s not that I particularly care about him. It’s not that I would have tried any more to save him after what Mildred did to me. It’s not even the lingering sense of failure.
It’s the knowledge that Lord Blackthorn bargained with a desperate girl for her father’s life, and then as soon as he had what he wanted he threw all of that away.
“It might not be his fault,” Edward says. “Mildred might have decided to drop the charges on her own. Or he might have just failed to persuade the King.”
“Do you really believe that?”
He doesn’t answer me. He doesn’t have to.
“Have… have you seen Mildred this morning?” Despite everything, I can’t help feeling sorry for her now. I know what this must have done to her.
Edward shakes his head. “I don’t want to.”
Nor do I.
In fact I don’t see her at all that morning. That’s at least partly because I spend the free period that begins the day in a study room catching up with Magical Theory. But it also turns out she’s switched to the other class, the one that’s set up to work around students’ other commitments.
She’s now a Member of Parliament, having inherited her father’s title, and can’t exactly arrange Parliamentary debates around her studies. It’s a strange feeling, knowing a desperate, ruthless sixteen-year-old is now part of the body that does as much as the King to govern the country. Though Edward is half-convinced she’s avoiding us as much as we’re avoiding her.
We have another student move into our class from the other to make up the numbers; to my surprise it’s Robin.
“I think she only wanted to be in the other class to avoid Mildred,” Edward tells me quietly. “Those two really hate each other.”
That would explain why she’s so much friendlier with me now.
She fits in well with our little group, taking Mildred’s customary seat next to Elsie. She’s quiet but knowledgeable, which is probably why Edward likes her, and seems to get on well with her desk partner. That’s a relief; I was worried that Elsie would be stuck on her own now, but didn’t want to sit with her instead of Edward. I learn a lot more from listening to him.
Robin joins Edward and I for lunch. I thought that would be horrifically awkward, but it’s not. She doesn’t flirt at all, just talks about different ways of charging enchantments. I don’t understand half of what they’re saying, and I stop trying to follow the conversation pretty quickly. Edward seems happy to be talking to someone who actually understands magic, at least; he’s soon scribbling notes on a napkin and showing them to her.
She leaves halfway through the break to work on the latest Magical Law and Culture essay, making me feel a little bad about not studying when I’m still behind and she isn’t.
“Sorry about that,” Edward says. “I didn’t mean to get into the technical details so much.”
I laugh. “I’m not surprised you did.”
“It is a little predictable, I suppose,” he admits.
“Anyway. Do you want to talk about…”
“What is there to talk about? He committed treason, he was given the punishment for treason. That’s that.”
I know him well enough by now to recognise when he genuinely doesn’t care about something and when he’s pretending he doesn’t to hide his real feelings. This is the latter. “You should talk to him.”
“He won’t have time.”
I remember thinking that about my own dad, so many times. There was always another case, he was always spending more time at the office, he wasn’t there to talk to until it was too late. But then he came and sat by my hospital bed. He visited me as soon as he could when I was isolated.
“It’s important. If he cares about you, if he cares about being a good father, he will make time.” I realise as soon as I’ve spoken that I’ve said the wrong thing. If Edward is already doubting his father, I’ve just made it worse. “I’m sorry – I didn’t mean – “
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“You did,” he says. “And you’re not wrong either. I’ll send him a message.”
I realise after lessons finish that I have library books due back. I can return them without setting foot in hyperspace, but I don’t want to be afraid of hyperspace. I don’t want to be afraid of a library. “So,” I say to Edward with exaggerated casualness as we escape the Spells classroom. “I’m going to the library. Do you want to come with me?”
He narrows his eyes. He knows what I’m really saying: I don’t want to go alone. Please come with me. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“No,” I admit. “But – I’m not staying away from the library for my entire time here. So I might as well get it over with.”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind looking at the section on spell combination theory, now you mention it…”
So that’s our next expedition, after a stop at my dormitory to collect the books I’m returning. I was hoping to see Rosie to apologise about breaking the door last time I was here (and possibly to have an excuse to stall) but she’s not on duty today; instead there’s a gruff bearded man who notes down our names and takes my books with the fewest words possible.
The door is the same make as the one I destroyed, though obviously it’s not the same one. I step to one side for Edward to go through first, but he shakes his head. “After you.”
It’s silly, being so scared. It’s a library. Libraries are safe, quiet places that aren’t at all dangerous. Well, the hyperspace part is dangerous, but only if I don’t take the right precautions. Nothing is going to go wrong.
I reach out, take the doorknob, twist. The door swings open. Beyond it are shelves of dimly-lit books and that dreadful empty greyness of a place no person is meant to be. If I don’t think about it, it’ll be fine. I’m just going to get some history books. That’s all.
I take a step forward into nothing, and it holds my weight. I step fully inside and move aside so Edward can follow.
“Okay?” he asks.
I nod shakily, and then make myself say “Yes. Fine.” I am fine. Completely fine. Charles First-King.
“Shall I shut the door?”
No. Don’t. “Yes. Go ahead.”
He does it slowly, watching me. I don’t feel the signs of a Malaina episode, not even at the last moment as the door slots into its frame.
Right. History section. “You can go and look for your spell combination books,” I tell Edward. “I’ll be okay.” I’m not going to have an episode just because you’re not here. At least, that’s what I tell myself.
“If you’re sure…”
“Go on.”
“Call if you need anything.” He sets out across the nothingness without hesitation.
I stay by the door for a short while. Edwin the Just. Thomas the Defender. I continue my mental recital until I reach Richard Blackbeard, and then his successor Lucy the Fair. Remembering her helps a lot.
I take a step, and another, and soon I’m walking normally as if there’s normal ground beneath my feet. The history section isn’t far, a couple of dozen paces at most. I settle down and pick out the first book that catches my eye, a discussion of the Border Wars. Next to it is –
Maria the Seafarer. Interesting. Mildred’s voice plays in my mind: it’s the same biography I was reading the last time I was here.
Lucy the Fair’s successor was her son Alfred the Short, I recall quickly. His name always makes me laugh, even now; I imagine a man who would hate to know that he’s remembered for his height rather than any of his great works. Not that I’ve found any of his great works: history has little interest in him. Historians are much more interested in his children, because his daughter was Isabella the Pious, whose death marks the beginning of the First Civil War.
Elizabeth the Martyr. Lucius the Usurper. Alexandra Snow Queen. Philippa the Bright.
Some of the most dramatic decades in the country’s history are passed over in four names. I reach out and pull the biography off the shelf. Its cover feels very real. Mildred was right, it was interesting. I was enjoying it before she arrived. Or maybe I just want to banish the memories of that incident. Either way, I intend to read it.
And that collection of essays on the Temple’s influence on the succession next to it is definitely joining the pile next to it, and so is the book on early Sirgalese history – I don’t know as much as I should about the history of countries other than Rasin, but it’s hard to track down good books on the topic – and then…
“Tallulah?”
Oh, right. Edward. I’ve lost track of time again, haven’t I? And I’m surrounded by stacks of books, far more than I can take out at one time.
It’s a wonderful feeling.
I spend the rest of the day catching up with things I should have done before and resisting the temptation to dive straight into my newly-borrowed books. I’m only one lesson away from being caught up by dinner-time, and after that I write to my dad.
It takes me half a dozen drafts to get it right, not committing secrets to parchment or letting him know how much the Cavendish sentence bothers me. In fact, realising there’s a chance my mother will also read the letter, I don’t mention the isolation or the hearing directly at all. If Tara delivered my message like she promised, she’ll be able to answer all his questions about that anyway.
I’m not the only one writing to my father this evening: Edward and I run into each other in the post room. He has a note for his own father, which he shows me before sealing it: I want to talk about the Cavendish case. It’s important. Thank you.
I guess that is the way they communicate: short and to the point.
Lord Blackthorn writes back the next morning. I waited until the last possible moment to offer Mildred a deal, since desperation would make her less likely to mistrust me. With Tallulah safe I saw no reason to spare Cavendish. Please pass my apologies to Tallulah for the loss of two weeks; I will make it up to her at a future point.
That’s it. That’s the whole message. I should count myself lucky I got the apology.
“He doesn’t understand,” Edward says.
That’s one way of putting it.
“He doesn’t understand,” repeats Edward.
And I realise how much that hurts him. He wanted an answer to the question he actually meant rather than the one he wrote down. He wanted to believe that his father at least feels guilty about this.
Lord Blackthorn doesn’t. He does what is best for the country, regardless of things like guilt or even his son’s feelings.
Edward crumples the note into a ball and shows me the front page of the Herald. Lord Cavendish’s execution has been scheduled: this Saturday, on Traitors’ Hill. Public.
“You want to go,” I say.
He nods. “Come with me?”
I don’t want to go. I want to curl up with a book and pretend it’s not happening. But this is important to him – it must be, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked. It’s a form of closure, I suppose, putting all this behind us. A way of understanding what our choices, what his father’s choices, have led to.
“If you want me to,” I say, “then of course I will.”