I took my leave of the family, and despite her pain Alis managed a smile, while Lord Faraday shook my hand firmly and insisted upon my swift return to dine with them again.
Thus began my fall in earnest. I need not go into great length over my descent. Know only that as snow blanketed the countryside and Christmas neared, I loved her. I loved her truly, with all my being. While sometimes at night, alone in my bed, I would lie awake, thinking of the Desiderata and dreading the wrath of the Seekers, when I was with her such thoughts were driven from my mind. I could think only of her finespun beauty, her angelic voice, and her peculiar variety of humor and liveliness, which never failed to brighten my spirits on the darkest winter days.
“So who is she?” Rebecca said on one of the rare occasions when we dined together. Of late I had seen her little, for she had been absorbed in her own investigations for the Seekers.
“I beg your pardon?” I said, looking up from my wine.
“Who is she?” Rebecca repeated. “The woman you’re in love with.”
I stared, and she laughed.
“Come, now, Marius, don’t deny that you’re in love. I know what it looks like on you. I saw it once myself, though not so dewy‑eyed as this, I must say. She’s absolutely turned your head. Who is she?”
“No one,” I said. “It’s a passing thing. I have no time for such fancies.”
Rebecca coiled a hand beneath her chin. “If you say so, Marius,” though she appeared anything but convinced. “Now tell me, how is your current research going?”
I spoke briefly, in a detached manner, and I offered no particulars. Everything would be in my reports, and if the Philosophers wished Rebecca to know the details, then she would have read them. Despite being madly in love, I had managed to write regular missives to the Philosophers, describing how Alis suspected nothing of her heritage, how she was usually intelligent and sensitive, as well as bold and inquisitive, though of a fragile constitution, which prevented her from engaging in travel and other activities that might have helped reveal her nature.
As for replies and further directives from the Philosophers, I received none. I was on my own. Thus there was no one to catch me as I fell.
I saw her most days, and if a day did pass when I failed to walk with her in Westminster Abbey, or ride out to the Faraday estate, then my mood was bleak and oppressive, and so it would remain until next I saw her.
For her part, Alis seemed to enjoy all my attentions, which only encouraged me further, as did the apparent approval of Lord Faraday, who found my position and respectable manner more than acceptable. And Lady Faraday–propelled, perhaps, by a bit too much wine–proclaimed at dinner one night that surely I was the most handsome and agreeable young man she had ever met.
Alis, of course, was duly embarrassed by her mother’s outburst, though the blush that touched her cheeks made her all the more lovely–like a rose so near to white that the palest tincture of its petals, once detected, rendered it more striking than the most vivid flower.
“What’s the matter?” I murmured, when we were gathered in the hall after supper, bending over the back of her chair where she sat with a book. “Do you not agree with your mother that I am the most handsome and agreeable young man she ever met?”
“Without doubt,” Alis said crisply. “But Lady Faraday is already spoken for, so I’m afraid you’re quite out of luck in that regard.”
“Then I’ll just have to make do with her fair daughter.”
Alis bent back over her book, but not before she could conceal the smile on her lips.
As weeks passed, the Seekers seemed content to leave me to my own devices, even as the length and frequency of my reports to the Philosophers dwindled. Every day I become further ensconced in the Faraday household. My life on the streets of Edinburgh seemed more than a lifetime away, and I felt a deep certainty that Master Albrecht would be pleased for me–that this was what he had meant when he said he wished for me to live my life.
There was only one thing that marred my happiness: As my feelings for Alis grew stronger, she herself was growing weaker.
One day in February, when the unusually balmy weather emboldened us to stroll in the little wilderness outside the Faraday manor, Alis suddenly slumped against me, and when I lifted her into my arms she was as light and trembling as a bird.
“It’s nothing,” she protested. “All I need is to rest for a moment. You may put me down, Lord Albrecht.”
“I will not,” I said, and carried her into the house.
By the time we reached the hall, her protests had ceased, and her trembling had become a violent spasm. She was cold, and her eyes hazed with pain. I set her on a couch and duly retreated to the far end of the hall as Lady Faraday and a swarm of servants descended upon her. It was best for me to stay out of the way, though I wanted nothing more than to be at her side, to hold her hand, and to take away her pain–as if I actually had some power to do so.
She let out a moan, and I clenched my hands into fists. Words escaped me. “I cannot bear this.”
“ ’Tis she who cannot bear it,” a soft voice said.
I turned and found I was not alone in the shadows at the end of the hall. An old woman dressed all in gray stood in a doorway, a weary look on her face. It was Sadie, Alis’s beloved servant.
“You’re right, of course,” I said, cheeks afire with shame. “I should be stronger, for her sake.”
The old woman laughed. “You help her more than you know.”
“Not as you do. They tell me you brew teas that ease her pain.”
“And love eases pain that teas help not.”
I sighed. “Would that I knew what afflicted her. If I did, then I would take it away. I would make her as strong in body as she is in spirit.”
The old woman’s gaze moved across the hall. “It runs more truly in some. ’Tis their blessing, and their curse, for they feel all things more keenly.” Her green eyes turned to me. “Yet in the end, all such folk will feel the same burden.”
These words sent a chill through me, though I did not understand them. Or did I?
“You know something,” I said, moving closer to her. “That’s how you can help her as you do. Tell me, please, what’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing is wrong with her. ’Tis the world that’s wrong. This Earth. ’Tis harming her as it harms all like her. In the end it shall be too great. It cannot be defeated.”
I staggered. These words were a knife to my heart. At last I managed to speak. “That day I first came to the gates, you said she favored sun. But I found her in fog.”
“Favors it, yes. But bears it? Not well, I fear. Not well at all. It burns her, the sun of this world. She is like a figment born of the night mists, one that can only vanish in the light of dawn.”
A sickness filled me. I had taken her outside because the day was fine. What a fool I was! What a miserable fool. Yet despite my agitation I felt a spark of curiosity, and for the first time in many days I remembered I was a Seeker. Who was this old woman? How did she know such things?
“I must go make Miss Faraday’s tea,” Sadie said, and before I could speak she turned and vanished through the doorway.
Alis was soon resting comfortably, and I made my farewell, which she was too weary to protest. When I returned the next morning she was sitting up in bed, and the day after that I found her wrapped in a blanket in a chair in the hall. She continued to grow stronger, even as outside the weather turned chill and gloomy, wet with the rains of March.
All the while, I could not forget the words spoken by Sadie. Did she know something of Alis’s true nature? I had not gained another opportunity to speak to the old servingwoman, but all the same I was sure of it.