This was a veritable Ark-floating torrent, and no wonder the coachman had wanted them to get out and on the road so quickly. It drummed on the coach roof and streamed past the windows, and Reggie let out a yelp and a curse as a lightning bolt sizzled down with a crash far too near the road for comfort. There was a sideways jolt as the horses shied, but the coachman held them firm and kept them under control.
The coach slowed, of necessity—you couldn’t send horses headlong through this—but they were near home now. The lights of the village loomed up through the curtains of rain; not much of them, no streetlights at all, just the lights over the shops, and the houses on either side of the road all veiled by rain—a moment of transition from road to cobbles and back again, splashing through enormous puddles. Then they were past, the lights of the village behind them, and they were minutes from Oakhurst. Over two hills, across the bridge, climbing a third—
Then the lights of Oakhurst appeared through the trees and just above them, although the rain was showing no signs of slackening off. Marina peered anxiously through the windows; lightning pulsed across the sky, illuminating Oakhurst in bursts of blue-white radiance. The coach slowed as they neared the front and pulled up as close to the door as possible, and servants with umbrellas dashed out into the downpour to shelter both of them inside and fetch the parcels.
To no avail, of course, with the rain coming as much sideways as down; Marina was soaked to the skin despite the umbrella held over her. Once inside the door she was swiftly separated from Reggie by Mary Anne and chivvied off to her own—warm!—room to be stripped and regarbed from the skin outward. For once Marina was glad, very glad, of the tendency of her room to be too warm for her taste, for she was cold and shivering, which combined with her headache made her ache all over. The flames in her fireplace slowly warmed her skin as Mary Anne rubbed her with a heavy towel then held out undergarments for her to step into.
“Madam’s got a bit of a surprise for you,” Mary Anne said, lacing her tightly into a brand new corset, which must have been delivered that very day. “Seems she found something in the attics she thinks you’ll fancy. She must have been that bored, to send someone to go rummaging about up there. Been raining all day, though, so perhaps that was it.”
“I didn’t even know there was an attic,” Marina ventured, wondering if she dared mention her splitting head to Mary Anne. She decided in favor of it. “Now I wish I hadn’t asked Reggie to take me to that pottery—I’ve such a headache—”
Mary Anne tugged her rustling silk trumpet skirt over her head with an exclamation of distaste. “I shouldn’t be surprised!” she replied. “Nasty, noisy, filthy places, factories. I’ll find a dose for you, then you’re to go straight to Madam. She’s in the sitting-room.”
The dose was laudanum, and if it dulled the pain, it also made her feel as if there was a disconnection between her and her thoughts, and her wits moved sluggishly. It occurred to her belatedly that perhaps she shouldn’t have taken it so eagerly.
Well, it was too late now. When she stepped out of the door of her room, she moved carefully, slowly, more so than even Madam would have asked, because her feet didn’t feel quite steady beneath her. She was handicapped now.
But I must look at her—really look at her, she reminded herself. I must know for certain if she has anything to do with that vileness. It seemed days, and not hours ago, since this morning, weeks since her encounter with what lay under the pottery, months since she had vowed to investigate. She had gone from utter certainty that Madam was behind it to complete uncertainty. She kept one hand pressed to her throat, trying to center herself.
As she passed darkened rooms, lightning flashed beyond the windows; the panes shook and rattled with rain driven against them and drafts skittered through the halls, sending icy tendrils up beneath her skirt to wrap around her ankles and make her shiver. The coachman had been right to gallop; it was a tempest out there. It was a good thing that it had been too cold for buds to form; they’d have been stripped from the boughs. The thin silk of her shirtwaist did nothing to keep the drafts from her arms; she had been warm when she left her room, and she hadn’t gone more than halfway down the corridor before she was cold all over again.
The sitting room had a blazing great fire in it, and by now Marina was so chilled that she had eyes only for that warmth, and never noticed Madam standing half in shadow on the far side of the room. She went straight for the flames like a moth entranced, and only Madam’s chuckle as she spread her icy hands to the promised warmth reminded her of why she was here.
“A pity the horses were slow,” Madam said, as Marina turned to face her. “Reggie has been complaining mightily and swearing I should replace them.”
“I don’t think any horses could have gone faster in the dark, no matter how well they knew the road, Madam,” she protested. “Before the rain started, Reggie was angry that he was going so fast, actually. And the coachman could hardly have made the train arrive any sooner,” she added, in sudden inspiration.
“True enough.” Madam’s lips moved into something like a smile, or as near as she ever got to one. “True, and reasonable as well. So, my dear, you have begun to think like a grown woman, and not like an impulsive child.”
Marina dropped her eyes—and took that moment to concentrate, as well as she could through the fog of the drug, to search her guardian for any taint of that terrible evil.
Nothing. Nothing at all. Magic might never exist at all for all of the signs of it that Madam showed. Never a hint; marble, ice showed more sign of magic than she.
Not possible then—She didn’t know whether to be disappointed or glad. “Mary Anne said you had found something you wished me to see, Madam?” she said instead.
“Not I—although I guessed that it might exist, given who and what the people your parents had sent you to stay with were.” The words were simple enough—but the tone made Marina look up, suspecting—something. What, she didn’t know, but—something. There was something hidden there, under that calculating tone.
But as usual, Madam’s face was quite without any expression other than the faintest of amusement.
“So,” she continued, looking straight into Marina’s eyes, “I asked of some of the older servants, and sent someone who remembered up to the attic to find what I was looking for. And here it is—”
She stepped aside and behind her was something large concealed beneath a dust-sheet. The firelight made moving shadows on the folds, and they seemed to move.
Madam seized a corner of the dust cover and whisked it off in a single motion.
The fire flared up at that moment, fully revealing what had been beneath that dust-sheet. Carved wood—sinuous curves—a shape that at first she did not recognize.
“Oh—” Of all of the things that she might have guessed had she been better able to think, this was not one of them. “A cradle?”
“Your cradle, or so I presume,” Madam said silkily. “Given your name and the undeniable marine themes of the carving. Not to mention that it is clearly of—rather unique design. An odd choice for a cradle, but there is no doubt of the skill of the carver.”
Marina stepped forward, drawn to the bit of furniture by more than mere curiosity. Carved with garlands of seaweed and frolicking mermaids, with little fish and naiads peeking from behind undulating waves, there was only one hand that could have produced this cradle.
Uncle Thomas.