The library is sunlight and polished wood, a row of windows that reveals a sky hazed with summer clouds. The walls are lined with shelves, shrouded in dust cloths. At the center of the room, Arien and Clover sit together at a large table that’s cluttered with papers and books and ink pots and pens.
Arien gets to his feet when he sees Rowan and me come in.
“Come and see what I’ve done!” He takes hold of my hand, his face alight with a pleased smile, as he pulls me farther into the room. “Clover taught me how to draw sigils. She’s so clever.”
Clover laughs. “Arien, you’re delightful. It helps that you are a very good student.”
Arien rifles through the piles of papers on the table. He finds a notebook and pushes it eagerly into my hands. I leaf carefully through the pages. The book is filled with intricate, beautiful illustrations drawn in delicate ink. I recognize the same interconnected symbols as the ones marked on Arien’s wrist and on Clover’s arms.
“Look.” He touches his fingers to the edge of a shape. “That’s iron, and this is gold, and this is salt…”
“All these elements are part of the magic that makes the world. The Lady’s light, separated into individual pieces,” Clover explains. “Every spell we cast draws on different elements. The more difficult the spell, the more elements you need, and the more complicated the sigil becomes.”
“And that’s how you channel the magic?” I ask. “You combine the elements to make a sigil?”
“That’s right.” Her eyes drop to her wrist, and she brushes her fingers idly over the markings. “And it’s forever marked onto your skin after.”
It makes a grim sense—the permanence of the sigils. Alchemy is so wondrous, so terrible. The enormity of that magic should leave a scar. Arien touches his wrist in an echo of Clover’s gesture, then turns back to the notebook and points to a new page. “And this one is my favorite…”
Neither of us knows how to write more than our names. Mother never showed us, though she taught us to read, so we could learn the litanies. But Arien has always loved to draw. He sketched patterns on fogged-over windows or in the dust between rows of the garden. He hoarded scraps of paper and the slate pencils Mother used to mark down invoices. Kept the leftover wood and remnants of paints she rarely gave to us, and guarded them like treasure.
He made pictures to match the stories I told him. Leaves and flowers and birds. Girls in silver-hued dresses with gossamer wings. Boys with long-lashed eyes, crowns on their waved hair. Now he shows me his notebook full of alchemical sigils with the same shy, proud expression.
“They’re beautiful, Arien.”
And they are. But as I look over the pages, a heavy ache settles in my chest. Because these sigils are another irrefutable marker of his new life and what awaits him.
Rowan is still standing in the doorway. Arien smiles at him. “Did you want to see?”
“Oh.” He hesitates a moment. “Yes, of course.” He walks slowly toward the table and sits down. Arien sits beside him and smooths the notebook open.
Rowan leans close, listening intently as Arien tells him about the symbols and reads their names. At one point, he rests his hand on Arien’s shoulder. As though he truly cares. I thought these lessons were only to serve his own means. That Rowan only wants Arien to be trained so they can use his magic. But there’s no artifice in the way he listens. His expression, softened from his usual scowl, is gentle and … sad.
Clover notices me watching them. With a smile, she comes over to show me her own notebook. She opens the pages to display a larger, more complex version of the spell on her wrist. “This is the spell we’ll use at the next ritual.”
“But it didn’t work last time.”
“It did work. It’s just that Arien couldn’t hold the magic long enough for it to mend.” She looks at him and goes on hurriedly, her voice reassuring. “Of course, that doesn’t matter! We have a whole moon left to prepare. I’ll draw samples from the lake, we’ll practice the spell, and next time he’ll be perfect.”
Arien pages through his notebook, his enthusiasm fading. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do it before.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about. Especially when you had no warning of what was asked of you.” I look pointedly at Rowan, but he avoids my gaze, his eyes fixed on Arien’s book.
“Don’t be hard on yourself, Arien,” Clover says. “In the Maylands we train almost constantly to learn how to cast these types of spells. And you’ve only just begun.”
“The Maylands?” Arien’s face lights up, his eyes full of interest. “What’s it like there?”
“It’s beautiful. The houses are all built in a circle, with a meadow at the center full of herbs and flowers. This time of year, it stays light until almost midnight, and when the wind blows from the coast, you can smell the sea.”
“That does sound beautiful,” he sighs wistfully. I think of him gone to the commune where all the alchemists live and train. A life full of books and ink and arcane knowledge. A life far beyond anything I could imagine. “Did you love it there?”
“Well … I was good at what I did there. My research.” Clover pulls at the end of her braid, chews her lip. “But I never fit in. It’s not a popular occupation, in the Maylands, to be a family alchemist. To live at an estate and help the village healers and tend the gardens. There’s no glory in this.” She blushes and darts a glance at Rowan. “But it’s what I wanted. I’m not ruthless enough to succeed in the Maylands. But here, I can make a difference.”
“You’ve certainly made a difference in the amount of peculiar teas I’m forced to drink.” Rowan laughs, then grows serious. “Of course I’m glad for your help, Clover.”
“I told you to put honey in the tea. But anyway, thank you.” She grins, pleased; then she turns back to me. “It’s strange that you don’t have magic, too, Violeta. Generally it runs in families. But you don’t?”
“No. I don’t.”
I go over to the window and look down at the grounds. There’s the narrow space of the garden, the wall covered in vines, the other side hidden by trees. Far in the distance I can see the black line of the shore and how far the Corruption extends beyond the lake. There’s a gray expanse of skeletal branches woven through the forest beside the water. As though the poison has trickled in and devoured some of the trees.
A shiver goes through me. The room is warm—lit by hot, afternoon sunlight. But I suddenly feel cold.
I turn away from the windows and the view of the lake and start to inspect the bookshelves. A swirl of dust fills the air when I pull the nearest cloth loose. The shelf, unveiled, is empty. I move on to the next one. Then the next. I take down each cloth until the air is a haze of motes that sparkle, amber in the sunlight.
I run my fingers through the dust on the shelves and laugh in disbelief. “Why doesn’t your library have any books?”
Rowan shrugs. “I packed them away.”
He turns back to Arien and the notebooks, ignoring me.
I walk around the room, past shelf after shelf. They’re all bare, and it looks so forlorn. We had no books in the cottage aside from a small, well-worn collection of litany chants. All of the stories I’ve told Arien were ones I’ve held in my memory, told to me by our parents. And now that I’m faced with this stripped-bare library, I’m full of longing. The same eagerness that lit my hands when I looked into the trunk of dresses.
There’s one final cloth that I haven’t taken down. I grab hold of the edge. Rowan looks up suddenly as I pull the cloth.
“No!” He starts to get up from his chair. “Not that one.”
But the cloth has already fallen free. And instead of another bank of empty shelves, there’s a portrait set high on the wall in an ornate golden frame.
Rowan stands, wordless, frozen in place with his eyes fixed on the portrait.
It shows a family. Two boys, young, just tracing the last edges of childhood. They both have the same tanned skin and wavy hair, much less unruly than my own curls. The taller of the two, the elder, has a serious expression that I recognize instantly.
“Oh, this is—you.” I take a step back. “This is your family.”
His father. Lord Sylvanan, who smiled at me and Arien on that long-ago tithe day. Tall and handsome, with tawny skin and neat, dark hair.
His mother. Small and willowy, with white skin and large brown eyes—the same color as Rowan’s. And her dress … It’s pale and delicate, with gossamer skirts and a ribboned sash and crescent moons embroidered on the collar. It’s my dress, the one I’m wearing now.
Rowan didn’t even want me here, but he gave me all of his mother’s beautiful clothes.
I look over to him, expecting that he’ll be angry at me. But he isn’t. His expression is one of clear, raw shame. I twist the dust cloth between my hands, wanting more than anything to undo this moment. “I didn’t mean…”
He rakes his hand through his hair and heaves out a tense breath. I take a step toward him, but he storms out of the room.
I throw down the cloth and run after him. The corridor is empty, dark and quiet. I go past the closed doors, back toward the staircase. He’s there, on the landing, framed by the carved balustrade. One arm braced against the wall, his head slumped forward, face hidden by the fall of his hair. Florence is beside him, a tray of tea things balanced on her hip.
When she puts her hand on his shoulder, a memory rises, dim and blurred. My mother and me curled into a single chair beside the fire. It rocked, that chair, and she hummed as it swayed back and forth. Her fingers combed through my curls. Gentle, gentle.
Florence puts her hand on Rowan with that same kind of gentleness and leans closer to him, speaking softly. Rowan shakes her off. He looks up, and our eyes meet. His face is stricken, flushed and tear streaked. Everything goes still for one awful, endless moment until he turns away.
He pushes past Florence and goes down the stairs. She sighs. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what that was about?”
“He didn’t say?”
“No.”
I listen to the sound of Rowan’s retreating footsteps, trying to make sense of what just happened. “I upset him.”
“That much is obvious.” Florence sighs again, then continues along the hall with the tray balanced carefully.
I follow her, and we fall into step as we walk. Once we’re inside the library, she looks from me—in my new dress—to the unveiled shelves. Then she sees the portrait.
“Well.” She sets the tray on the table. Her expression is stern, but there’s a flicker of sadness in her flinty eyes. “No wonder he was upset.”
“But why was he upset? Does he regret what he did?”
Florence gives me a sharp look. “What he did?”
I gesture toward the window. Outside, the lake lies far in the distance, a shimmer of sunlit water beside the black expanse of the shore. “He told me that the rumors were true.”
“Listen to me, Violeta. He is no murderer.” She curls her fingers around the keys on her necklace, sliding them back and forth restlessly on the silver chain. “The stories people tell about Lakesedge have a lot of fear and very little truth.”
“But he admitted they were true. He said…” A sliver of doubt begins to prickle at me. There’s another truth, hidden between his words. His scars, his desperation to mend the Corruption. His reaction when I uncovered the portrait.
His family—could it be possible for him both to have killed them and mourn them?
“I’ve been here since before he was born,” Florence says. “His mother, Marian, and I grew up together. When she was handfasted, I came with her to be the keeper of Lakesedge Estate. We were friends.”
Were. The word hangs, loaded and low. “How did she die?”
“She was the second to drown. Kaede, Lord Sylvanan, was the first. They found him dead on the shore the morning after Rowan’s thirteenth birthday. Marian died the year after. And then, last year … Elan.”
Her eyes go to the portrait. Rowan’s brother has a sweet smile and rounded cheeks. I can so easily picture Arien at that same age. His scraped knees. His demands for stories. The elaborate plans he made for a playhouse we could build in the orchard.
Elan. I’ve heard his name before.
The cries in the dark, on my first night here. It was Rowan. Clover told me he drinks the sedative-dosed tea to help him sleep. The sounds I heard that night, echoing through the halls, tangled and tortured … It was him, calling out for his brother.
“I know Rowan,” Florence goes on. “And I know he isn’t capable of such a terrible thing. Whatever happened, it was an accident.”
“Three members of his family all drowned in the exact same place.”
“Four,” Clover murmurs.
Florence turns to her abruptly. “He told you about that?”
“Not exactly. But … people sometimes get conversational once you’ve given them a sedative.”
“What do you mean, four?” My pulse starts to beat a hard, panicked rhythm.
“When Rowan was five years old, he vanished for an entire day. At sunset we found him in the water. And at first we thought he was dead, but then he opened his eyes.” Florence pauses as she gathers herself, her face toward the window. The afternoon light streaks gold through her pale hair. “And when he did, the lake turned black. That was the start of the Corruption.”
I sit down heavily, landing in a chair before my knees give out.
When we were small—when Arien’s dreams brought their first wisps of shadows—Mother warned us about the Lord Under. If you step too close to the darkness, then he can touch you. Touch you, and send you back into the world, corrupted. I didn’t want to believe it. But it made sense, in a terrible way.
He’s the lord of the dead. He comes at the end of our lives and guides us into the world Below. And if he came to you, if he left you alive … then all the years you lived, marked by his touch, would bring him so much more power than a simple death.
“He—he was dead,” I stammer out. “Rowan was dead, and the Lord Under—”
Arien takes my hand, his brow notched with concern.
“Leta, he didn’t die. I mean, obviously. He’s still here.” He gives my shoulder a little shake, trying to tease me. “Or maybe you’ve spent all this time arguing with a ghost.”
“The Lord Under tends the souls in the world Below,” Florence says. “He doesn’t bring them back. I’d have thought you’d know not to believe that superstition.”
But in spite of her words, she draws her fingers across her chest.
Clover pours out the tea and passes me a cup. I slump back in my chair and clasp my teacup tightly. Let my face be washed by the rise of bergamot-scented steam. All I can think of are the shadows in my room. The water that poured down and the whispers that spoke my name. Then a deeper memory pulls at me.
The Vair Woods in winter. The voice I heard as the darkness gathered between the trees.
What I saw, it wasn’t real; but when my eyes shutter closed, I see Rowan, five years old and pale and still. Black water streaming from his mouth, his eyes, as the earth turned dark beneath him.
Could it have only been a dream, those things I saw in my room? The water on the walls, the whispers in the dark. Maybe my thoughts just tangled themselves into those hideous visions of voices and shadows. Only dreams.
It’s like there are two stories about Rowan, about Lakesedge, written side by side in a single volume. The ink from one bleeding through to mar the words on the opposite page. A boy who almost died. A boy who did die. A boy who drowned in a lake and came back as a monster.
But which story is real, and which is just a ghostly specter of rumor and fear?
We finish our tea in silence. I help pack away the notebooks and the inkpots and pens. The sunlight fades, and we trail down the stairs to dinner. Outside the kitchen window the waning moon hangs luminous in the twilight sky.
It’s an unavoidable reminder that soon Arien will have to go back to the lake and to the dark, hungry ground that tried to consume him. It’s only a few weeks until the month of Midsummer and the next full moon, when they’ll perform the ritual again.
But before then, I’m going to find out the truth about Rowan Sylvanan.