Our second course of food arrived, distracting us, and slowly, I became more comfortable, but I never let my guard down. If I was honest . . . I enjoyed Nura’s and Olivette’s company. Perhaps more than I should.
“You’ll give us a warning if Phelan decides to go madcap, won’t you, Anna?” Olivette asked suddenly.
From the corner of my eye, I watched as Phelan nearly choked on his wine.
“I’m not going madcap, Oli,” he said tersely, as if they had argued about this before. “I told you. I’m not leaving Bardyllis or my streets for a long time.”
Madcap.
Vulture.
I slid my gaze askance to look at him.
“You say that now, but you hear the gossip among our kind,” Nura said. “The curse of the Seren Duchy has stood for a century, tempting every warden in the realm. An empty throne, a fortress cursed full of nightmares. Which of us wouldn’t want to experience it?”
“It sounds dreadful,” Phelan said in a flat tone. “And if the curse breaks . . . we’ll all be without a job, won’t we?”
The new moon curse dictated so much of our lives it was almost impossible for me to imagine living in a realm where nightmares didn’t hold such power over us. But Phelan was right; if someone managed to open the mountain doors and ascend to the fortress in the clouds, and then furthermore break the century-old curse, the new moon would become a peaceful night. There would be no need for wardens.
“How can the curse be broken?” I asked. Not even the mountain descendants in Hereswith had truly known themselves, and their stories had been passed down to them from ancestors who had lived through the sundering.
“There are only rumors,” Nura said. “But most madcaps believe it will come down to defeating a nightmare in the fortress.”
“Phelan, I’m telling you,” Olivette warned, pointing a speared olive at him. “If you so much as dare run off to the mountains without telling me and Nura, I’ll kill you.”
“You have nothing to worry over,” he said.
“You talked about it once.”
“Yes, once! When we were ten years old, Oli!” Phelan countered. “Do you even know how impossible it would be to reach the mountain summit? The doors are enchanted, and no one has been able to open them.”
“It would be an adventure—”
“That would see us all killed,” Phelan concluded.
“Anyway, Anna,” Olivette said with a sigh. “You’ll let us know if he changes his mind?”
“I promise,” I said, and to her great delight, I clinked my goblet to hers and Nura’s.
When Phelan and I left the tavern, it was half past eight and deeply dark, and while the storm had ceased, the streets were slick with water, shining like obsidian in the lantern light. A chill had crept into the air; it finally felt like October.
“Are you cold, Miss Neven?” Phelan walked in stride beside me. He kept his gaze fixed ahead of us, because the streets were still busy, but I sensed that he missed nothing. Not even a slight shiver of mine.
“I’m fine,” I said.
We continued onward in awkward silence, but I was pleased to discover that I was beginning to recognize the crosshatching of streets. We took a turn onto a quiet lane; oak trees stood as sentries along the curb and it smelled like moss and damp leaves and musty stones. We were nearly to his town house.
“May I walk you home?” Phelan asked, just before we reached his gate. He finally looked at me. A thread of dark hair had escaped his customary ribbon. I wondered how he would look with his hair loose, unbound. As if he knew my trail of thoughts, he frowned. I smiled in return.
“No, but thank you, Mr. Vesper.” I took a step backward, but my eyes remained on his. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”
He said nothing, but the rain returned, a cold whisper through the oak boughs.
I was seven full strides away from him when I heard his boots on the cobblestones, chasing after me.
“If you won’t let me walk you home, take my jacket, or let me call you a cab,” he exclaimed, and I pivoted in surprise. “At least take the umbrella.”
He withdrew the small trinket from his pocket and uttered the charm to return it to its natural size. And when he extended the umbrella to me . . . I accepted it, my icy fingers brushing his.
I didn’t want it. For all I knew, he had ensorcelled it with awareness, and the umbrella would track me all the way home. But nor could I refuse it, not when the rain turned earnest, drenching my hair and blouse in mere moments. Not when he was staring at me with such intensity, as if he feared I would catch a cold and die on him.
“Thank you,” I said, clearing my throat to hide how rusted those words sounded. “That is kind of you. . . .”
“If you think I’m kind, then I’ve fooled you,” he said tersely. Shocked by his admission, I watched the rain drip from his top hat. “I’m no better than all the other nobles at court, and all of us play a game, Miss Neven.”
For one heady moment, I feared that he had seen through me. I thought I might have fractured, due to feeling soft at dinner with his friends. I resisted the urge to touch my face, to ensure my disguise was sound.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said in an abrupt tone.
I left him standing in the middle of the street, keen to be gone. I waited until I was two blocks away before I hailed a coach, grateful to be out of the rain. My mind whirled, off-kilter from the strange words Phelan had said to me.
If you think I’m kind, then I’ve fooled you.
I closed the umbrella and propped it against the bench.
When the coach was three streets away from my mother’s home, I disembarked. And just in case my suspicions were true . . . I left Phelan’s umbrella in the cab.
16
Word soon came of a nightmare, something I had been anxiously awaiting as the days were beginning to pass and no sinister dreams had emerged. I was in the library, watering Phelan’s plants, when he brought the letter to me.
“Do you feel up to collecting a nightmare, Miss Neven?”
I set down the watering can. “Indeed. Am I to go alone, then?”
“It’s one of the duke’s nightmares,” said Phelan, holding up the letter. Its wax seal was like a drop of blood. “Lord Deryn has heard of my new partner, and so this is an invitation to meet you. I would accompany you, but my mother has called me to one of her council meetings on the west side of the city, and I fear it will take me most of the day.”
“I can collect the duke’s dream on my own,” I said. And then I realized that Anna Neven wouldn’t know how to divine a nightmare, and I made myself hesitate. “What if his nightmare needs divination? I don’t know how to do that yet.”
“It won’t require divination,” Phelan replied, leaving the duke’s letter on the tabletop. “His Grace always recalls his dreams with sharp precision. All you need for this visit is the book of nightmares, ink, and a quill. Does that sound acceptable to you, Miss Neven?”
“Yes.” I started to gather what I needed. My hands trembled, and I was struck with an unexpected bolt of homesickness. I could almost deceive myself, pretending I was back home in Hereswith, packing what I needed to visit the Fieldings. A day that was only weeks ago, and yet how distant it felt now.