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PARAGONS OF ETHER
Kingdoms of Ether Book 3
RYAN MUREE
Paragons of Ether © 2019 by Ryan Muree
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or
mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without
written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a
book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the
products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is
illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary
gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a
fine of $250,000.

First Edition

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 ALSO BY RYAN MUREE

The Last Elixir Series Boxed Set

The Last Elixir (Book 1)
The Fallen Gate (Book 2)
The Shattered Core - Zoi and Aramil's prequel novel
What Blooms in the Dark – Shenna’s prequel novelette

Fairytale Retellings
In the Garden of Gold and Stone - Beauty and the Beast

Kingdoms of Ether Series

Kingdoms of Ether (Book 1)
Architects of Ether (Book 2)
Paragons of Ether (Book 3)
 C ON T E N T S

Map of Izan

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Epilogue

Author Notes
About the Author
Pronunciation Guide
 To Mom & Dad,

I promise that none of the parents in this series were based on you.
Pinky promise.
MAP OF IZAN
 CHAPTER 1
N E E R I A — R EVE L

E meryss watched the sea oracle , Callo, comb the beach below her
cliffside perch.
The old woman with frizzy black hair decorated with colored
stormstones had been at it all morning, mumbling to herself and
scaring the sea spiders away.
Better them than Emeryss.
Callo had been trying to catch up to her for weeks, but Emeryss
had successfully dodged her questions and nudges to speak with
her. It wasn’t clear if Callo knew she wasn’t a Scribe anymore, if that
was something she could sense, but Emeryss wasn’t willing to test it
and tempt the wrath of her parents questioning her motives for
being home.
Maybe it was from cowardice, but the longer her parents and her
people went without knowing the truth, the better. They couldn’t
help in a war the size of Ingini and Revel. They couldn’t face what
she’d seen.
The chilly, morning sea whispered with soft lapping waves and
crisp gusts. Low clouds cast violet and blue shadows across the pale
green surface of the water. With autumn nearly over, it was about
time for her to ditch the gauzy, short linens she wore for fur and
boots.
Other than a few birds cawing overhead and picking off the
straggling sea spiders Callo hadn’t shooed away, it was quiet, and
she was alone.
 Perfect time as any to practice.
She held a small pile of sand in her right palm and closed her
eyes to center herself. She wasn’t on those waves or in the sky or
leaping off this cliff. She was the observer of a beautiful world of
ether.
When she opened her eyes, the veil of the ethereal plane lay
over her own—bright blue-green in the ocean, pristine white and
gold across the sky, deep greens and coppers in the sand, soil, and
plants. Ether was everywhere and in everything.
She dragged her index finger over the sand in her palm into the
shape of a simple sigil.
Bronze-colored ether danced between the grains. It twisted and
writhed, and as she pulled her fingers upward as if tugging on a
string, the grains of sand began to stack on top of each other. First
into a mound, then into a cylinder, and finally as a tiny humanoid-
shaped… thing.
It wobbled on her hand.
“Jump,” she told it.
It turned on its own—or by her will—and dove off of her hand
into the soil next to her thigh. It broke apart and didn’t move again.
She swallowed.
It was becoming easier, and Lana, Clove’s childhood friend in
Ingini, had been right.
Things she’d come up with didn’t always manifest, but when she
took the time to practice and work with them, she had more success
casting whatever she wanted. She didn’t need grimoires; she didn’t
even need predetermined sigils. She seemed only limited by her
imagination.
Something Revel, Stadhold, and Ingini would fear and want very
much.
“I know your secret,” Issolia said behind her.
Emeryss jerked her head. “You almost scared me to death.”
“I was sneaking up on you. That was the point.” Issolia sat next
to her, legs dangling over the side of the cliff like they used to do
when they were younger. Her sister’s eyes were a little swollen these
days from being tired all of the time. Taking care of a brand-new
baby did that. “I thought you were coming up here, and I was right.
Is Hellina too much to live with?”
“No, not at all.” She’d never be ungrateful to her sister and her
husband for letting her stay with them until she figured out how and
where she would live in Neeria. She’d been hoping Grier would have
come by now and she wouldn’t have to make that decision on her
own.
“So, I was right, and you thought you could keep your secret
from me.”
Excuses, lies, fibs… What should she say? How would she explain
—
“It’s a boy, isn’t it?”
Emeryss looked at her. A boy? She hadn’t seen her cast the little
golem?
Issolia shrugged. “Call it big sister intuition, but you’re up here
pining for a boy, right?”
“It’s just my favorite spot is all,” Emeryss said.
“Right.” Issolia crossed her arms around herself. “Want me to
pretend I believe you or do you actually want to talk about him?”
She didn’t want to talk about him, but if she didn’t offer
something, Issolia would make her own assumptions and it’d get
worse. Mother had been looking at her strangely since she’d arrived.
Father had been asking questions.
Still, it hurt too much to admit.
“You’re avoiding everyone,” Issolia continued. “We all see it.”
“There’s nothing.”
Issolia shook her head. “I know that look, Emmy. Don’t lie to me.
We promised.” She bumped shoulders with her. “What’s his name?”
She couldn’t say it.
“Come on. I’m going to keep asking until you give it up.” Issolia
poked her arm repeatedly. “What’s his name? What’s his name?
What’s his name—”
“Okay, ow!” She rubbed her shoulder. “You’re supposed to be an
adult.”
“Trust me, I’m an adult all the time. With you, I get to be me
again.” Issolia stretched out her legs and wiggled her toes.
 Emeryss smiled at her.
“What’s his name?”
Emeryss took a deep breath. “Grier.”
Issolia’s smile widened. “There is a boy! I knew it.”
“He’s not a boy—”
“Right, sorry. And?”
“And what?”
“Well? Who is he? What’s he like? What does he look like? Have
you guys—?”
“Oh, come on, Issolia. I’m not discussing that.”
She gasped. “You have! I’m so proud of you.”
“He wasn’t my first…”
“I know, but he’s clearly important to you. So, why are you up
here all torn up about him? What happened?”
What happened? Nothing happened.
Nothing happened.
What was she supposed to say? That she had been home for two
months, and there hadn’t been so much as a letter from him? She
knew what it meant. She’d always known. She’d even predicted it
before they left and said goodbye.
“Come on, Emmy.” Issolia bumped her shoulder again. “You can’t
hide this from me. I’m special, remember? You tell me everything.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. “Grier is home dealing with
his responsibilities.”
“Who is he?”
“A… Keeper.”
Issolia giggled. “Obviously not if he’s not here with you.”
Emeryss glared at her with a grin.
“Bad joke. But, seriously, I have no idea what a Keeper is.”
“The guards of Stadhold.”
Issolia leaned back and gave a long Oh as she did. “Let me
guess: he was a guard, and while you were there, you two fell in
love, and now he has to stay and do his job, and you got to go
home. And you’re mad he didn’t come with you?”
“It’s worse than that,” Emeryss confessed.
Issolia’s face lit up.
 “He was my guard, my protector. They’d assigned him to me.”
Issolia squealed. “That’s romantic.”
“We worked together for a year, and then… a… few things
happened in Stadhold and Revel, and we both admitted we had
feelings for each other.”
“And? Don’t tell me you walked away. That is not the Emmy I
know.”
“Of course not.” Emeryss grinned. “I told him what I wanted, but
it couldn’t be forever because of who he is and who I am. I accepted
it.”
Issolia’s eyes closed. “Because we’re Neerian.”
“No, he never cared about that.” Emeryss moved a piece of hair
out of her face. “He, uh, is fairly important in Stadhold, and he’s
required to marry someone that improves his lineage.”
Issolia faked a gag. “Primitive societies, I swear.”
“He promised that he didn’t care about the marriage thing, but
we discovered some information about Stadhold and Revel with the
Ingini, and he wanted to stay and tell them about it. To fix things.”
Issolia nodded. “Honorable. So, what’s the problem?”
“He was supposed to come here right after.” That last bit hurt to
admit to herself, let alone say it out loud for once. Her eyes started
to ache and water.
Issolia’s smile faded, and the wind blew harder. She drew her
knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “I see.”
“I mean, I knew…” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed. “I
knew he had things he had to do, and I walked into the relationship
fully aware that I might not have him for long. But his mother
definitely hates me, and they sped up his marriage arrangement to
make sure he stayed away from me. So…”
One tiny tear dropped from her eye and was whisked away with
the breeze.
Issolia wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in,
knocking her forehead against the side of hers. “I’m sorry, Emmy.”
She tried to fight off more tears. “He said he would write, and…”
Issolia clicked her tongue. “I’ve never seen you this hurt over a
guy. Ah, my poor, Emmy.” She pulled her closer. “You loved him? Like
really loved him?”
Emeryss nodded. “And I believed him.”
“And he’s that great? Does he have a cube-shaped head like my
husband?” Issolia giggled.
Emeryss burst with a laugh. “He’s pretty great. I think you’d like
him.”
“Then, maybe, he’s trying to get back to you and can’t. Maybe
things are really tough there with the war starting and all the fights
and battles—”
Emeryss sat up from her. “You know about the war?”
Issolia narrowed her eyes. “The war? The war that took out a
piece of the wall? That claimed all those soldiers in the Revelian
Caster Army? Of course, we heard about it. Did you forget we don’t
live under a rock?”
That made her feel a little better.
“Honestly,” Issolia continued, “it just makes me feel sorry for
those Casters. It can’t be easy fighting off people and killing them
like that. Blessed life to a blessed night.”
“You shouldn’t,” she mumbled.
“Hm?”
Emeryss shrugged it off. “Nothing.”
“I have to warn you, Emmy. You might want to tell Mother and
Father about this boy that’s been bothering you.”
That was the last thing she wanted to do.
“Mother thinks you’re lying to her about why you’re here, Father
is disappointed that you’re different now, and it looks like someone
else wants to speak with you.” Issolia pointed down at the beach.
Callo.
She was staring up at them. Her shawls and trailing cloth skirt
fluttered in the wind. Though her shape had curled a little with age,
she was the same short, stocky old woman she’d remembered.
Emeryss sighed.
“Does she want to talk to you?” Issolia asked.
“Probably,” she muttered.
“Then, you should.” Issolia stood and dusted her hands off on
her shorts. “She’s getting up there in age, though, so be nice. I’m
going to get back, but before I forget, Father wanted to see you. Do
me a favor. Find him and talk to him, okay?”
Emeryss nodded again. “Okay.”
Issolia walked on, but Callo hadn’t.
Emeryss didn’t want to hear what the oracle had to say to her.
She hadn’t since she was a child. How could she face someone
who’d claimed to predict her destiny only for Emeryss to change it?
Emeryss stood and left the cliffside for her parent’s home and
met her father on the main path.
He was tall, broad, and still plenty strong for his age. His dark
hair, threaded with gray, was messy and damp in places. He carried
rope over one shoulder and a bucket in his free hand. “Emeryss?”
She slid to a stop, feeling smaller than she was. She wasn’t a kid
anymore, but nostalgia and the time spent at the library made her
forget her age in her parents’ presence. “You wanted to see me?”
He tossed the rope to her.
She caught it easily, but the weight of it in her arms surprised
her. She’d definitely lost some of her old strength in those years as a
Scribe.
“Last chance at a harvest,” he said. “You want to go or not?”
A day trip on the sea. The last harvest. The best one of the
season.
A fishing trip was exactly what she needed. It’d put her fears on
hold for a while longer.
“Sure, I’ll go.”
Her father blinked, seeming shocked she’d agreed. “Good. Be at
the dock and ready in five minutes.”
He walked away, and the shadowed woman was behind him.
Callo.
The old woman folded her hands in front of her, setting black
eyes on Emeryss.
Emeryss suppressed a sigh and tried to maintain a courteous
tone. “Now’s not a good time—”
“Never is a good time,” Callo said. “Always is a good time. Time is
irrelevant.”
 She inched back. “Actually, time is really important because I
have to go get—”
“Death, Emeryss.” Callo’s shaky hand lifted in her direction.
Crazy. The oracle was getting crazier with age.
Emeryss took a few more feet toward her parent’s house. “I don’t
mean to be disrespectful, but—”
“Death, Emeryss, is what you’ve brought. Death surrounds you
like a fog…”
She wasn’t going to listen to this. “I’ve got to get going.” She
turned for her parents’ home.
“I know what you did, Emeryss. I know why you’re here!”
Adalai had said Callo and people like her were a scam, preying on
the weak-minded, and Emeryss wanted to believe that. She’d been
the one to change her destiny, after all.
But years of ingrained traditions and respect made it hard to
loosen the grip on what she was expected to accept as fact. Was
Callo a fraud? A figurehead for Neerians? Or could she really read
the waves and speak to the spirits?
Emeryss knew better than anyone that anything was possible.
Still, Callo’s weird prophecies and clever words, however true they
may or may not have been, wouldn’t stop the war. It wouldn’t bring
back those they’d lost. And it wouldn’t bring Grier to her.
 CHAPTER 2
COURT — G R E AT LI BR ARY — S TADHOLD

G rier adjusted his polished chest armor and bracer and faced the
courtroom’s doors.
He had not missed his full gear and undergarments. In the few
weeks he’d been away from Stadhold, his body had gotten used to
the lighter threads of the Zephyr mechanic suit and the mining outfit
Mykel had made them. Two months of jumping through hoops and
red tape, and it was probably the armor that had made it a hundred
times worse.
Or it was his mother who’d made it so.
He balled his right hand and clenched the four rolled-up reports
in his left.
“Sir, court is in session,” the Keeper standing guard said with a
slight tremble. He was younger, fresher, and had clearly been made
aware of Grier’s recent awards and promotions.
Too bad they were all hol-shit, as Adalai would put it.
They were mere decorations and false pats on the back to
encourage him to stay and do the right thing. Ploys by his mother,
his father, and his commanders to make it look like his Scribe hadn’t
just run away and he with her. Manipulations to make him and the
rest of the Keepers their ignorant puppets.
He thumbed the sigil scarring at the tip of his finger—a habit he’d
recently developed. If court was in session, it was the perfect time
to interrupt. “Good,” he told him.
Fight for what you want, Emeryss had said.
 He took a long, deep breath and pushed through the courtroom
doors.
Commander Simon’s spiel trailed off at his entrance. His bald
head gleamed in the filtering light through the unglazed windows.
His jaw, framed by a full silver beard, dropped. “What in the world…”
Grier’s boots clunked against the white sunstone tile as he made
the long walk to the center.
All eyes fell to him. Murmured whispers moved through the
chamber.
The main courtroom of the Great Library usually sat over a
hundred, but less than fifty Scribes and their Keepers sat within the
grand high ceilings today. A painful reminder of the too few Scribes
left in the world.
His eyes fell to his mother, Lerissa, sitting on the commander’s
left with other Keeper officers. Lead Scribes and Avrist’s meek
secretary sat on the right of Librarian Jgenult.
Jgenult looked every bit regal with her braided gray hair tied
back by gold jewelry, her gold-rimmed glasses perched at the end of
her nose, and her bright-red robes and gold bands at her arms and
waist. She was polished and professional, while Commander Simon
was every bit the typical Keeper commander with scars on his face
and calloused hands. Together, they sat at the center of the grand
table on an elevated dais.
“Grier? What is the meaning of this?” Commander Simon
dropped his hand to the table.
His mother rose as if to argue or scold him, but Jgenult urged her
down. “Grier, welcome. It is a pleasure to—”
“My apologies, Librarian Jgenult, Commander Simon, Scribes,
and Keepers, but I am not here to swap pleasantries.”
Hushed words passed between the audience on either side of
him.
He took his place in the center, where the mosaic tile spun into a
multi-colored swirl—a harmony of ethers. Behind the Librarian and
the Commander, a statue at least forty-feet high of the Goddess of
Mercy had her palms out and up as if encouraging onlookers to take
her hands or accept Her.
 Another glance to his mother, and she wiggled impatiently in her
chair. Her fingers smoothed a few strands of hair in its tight bun.
“I’m ready to give my reports on my findings,” he announced.
“Yes, well,” Jgenult smiled, “we are all keen to hear about them,
but there is a proper procedure to share them—”
“I’ve been ready for weeks,” he countered, a little too loudly.
Jgenult blinked.
“I mean to say,” he tried again, “that I’m not interested in waiting
another month for scheduled meetings and proper procedures while
innocent people are slaughtered in the streets and traitors continue
to work among us, Librarian.”
Jgenult maintained her composure, but Commander Simon
leaned forward. “And what about rules, boy? Do you no longer care
for those? A few weeks out of Stadhold, and you seem to forget that
we gave you promotions instead of consequences—”
“You gave me those promotions to keep me here.” To keep me
ignorant. “They were an attempt to fool other Stadholdens into
thinking I had done the job you’d trained me for—”
Several gasps echoed around the room, while his mother scolded
him and Commander Simon stuttered through his exasperation.
He ignored his mother, however. She’d won the battle, keeping
him there for two months, wasting his time with required
ceremonies, meetings, forms… Maybe it was because of the rules.
Maybe it was to delay the release of his eventual findings. Maybe it
was his mother making sure he hadn’t forgotten his duties and his
responsibility to choose a match. Whatever it was, it had only just
occurred to him that none of those rules mattered if they were all
dead in the war soon. And none of those rules mattered if Stadhold
was part of the lie.
“I’m not waiting any longer,” he said. “I will not follow one more
procedure while the fate of three countries is being decided. I’m
here to tell you what I know and to find answers.”
“What do you think we’ve been doing?” Simon asked. “You’re
young, you’ve little experience—”
“Have you discussed the Battle of Marana?” Grier asked.
“Yes,” Simon scoffed. “At length—”
 “And that Avrist, the world’s only locator Caster, went into the
middle of the battle?”
“He died honorably—”
“—to use his Keepers to entangle and stab my Scribe?”
Whispers moved through the room like a breeze.
Avrist’s secretary wiggled in her seat. “I was not made aware of
anything like that occurring.”
Simon turned to Jgenult, mouth gaped again.
“Grier,” Librarian Jgenult tried more evenly, “clearly you know
details from being on the fields of Marana that we do not, but
perhaps this isn’t the best method of sharing—”
“Have you discussed Fort Wretched? Sufford? The Goliath?” he
pushed.
Maybe it wasn’t best to release it all so publicly in front of the
other Scribes and Keepers, but it was the only way to get witnesses.
Now, they couldn’t say he didn’t try. Now, they couldn’t deflect to
another meeting. They had to face the truths if everyone knew
about them.
“Grier…” Jgenult started again, but it sounded like placating a
child more than listening to an informed ally.
He pushed further. “Have you discussed Revel sending the RCA
into Ingini to start battles and annihilate civilians? Or the fact there’s
a Revel traitor overworking our Scribes only to ship our grimoires
over to help Ingini in the fight against them? All for power?” His
voice had lifted in strength, but maybe then they’d see his
frustration and anger through the rules he no longer cared for.
Louder words moved around the room, loud enough that the
Librarian’s voice rose.
“Please, settle yourselves.” She folded her hands neatly in front
of her. “Grier, this sounds like very important matters that—”
“As I’ve been struggling to say for months.”
Jgenult was still trying to push this aside to a more private
meeting or a better time. As if there was a better time than now.
But Commander Simon’s thick, white eyebrows told another
story. “Why wasn’t this rushed forward sooner?” Simon turned to
Grier’s mother.
 Her lips were a thin straight line, and her eyes were trained on
Grier. “Because he hadn’t conveyed the importance of this
information to me. Clearly, he had been withholding some
knowledge.”
It was a lie. A total and utterly despicable lie.
He’d told his mother, his father, and his two brothers, of which
only his brothers seemed to care to hear. His mother and father,
however, fought with him over the information. Told him it was
already being discussed, and who was he to think he had
intelligence they didn’t have? They mocked him for being gone for a
few weeks and thinking he knew how real war worked.
But the fact she lied so easily, so publicly, told him all he needed
to know about her intentions.
Jgenult took a heavy breath. “Grier, if you would, please.”
Finding his strength in her willingness to listen, he relayed it all.
Everything from the Battle of Marana to the Ingineers. From the
laser on the wall to the Goliath. From the poor little city of Sufford to
the mines, Barren Ranch, and how the Ingini people barely scraped
by. He described the lands, the air—polluted with ether-smog. He
talked about Foreman Hall and the CEO, Kimpert, as well as what
had happened to them. The only thing he’d left out was what
Emeryss had achieved. For her safety, for her people’s safety, he
wouldn’t tell a spirit.
Their tight faces were stricken with a mixture of fear and
disbelief.
They’d asked for proof of Revel’s crimes against Ingini, and he’d
admitted that he had none. “All I have is that I wasn’t certain what
sort of welcome I’d be returning to. And yet, I still came to tell you
this.”
It also helped prove the validity of his statements when some
details rang true. They knew Fort Wretched had been attacked. They
knew of a massive weapon the Ingini were going to use. Anything
beyond that had appeared like new information to them.
The crowd hadn’t moved. Someone could have dropped a feather
on the floor and every ear in the room would’ve heard it.
 “Grier,” Jgenult said after a long pause, “I apologize for making
you wait to give us this information. Lerissa was not wrong to
instruct you of proper procedures, but I see why you were so
determined about telling us sooner than later—”
“And Emeryss…” Dolan had blurted it from the side. Her old
teacher’s face was set in earnest. “Is she really gone? She’s really
died?”
It wasn’t typical for them to speak out during court, but
something he’d said must have struck a nerve. The question was so
genuine, so laced with fear and concern and urgency, Jgenult hadn’t
stopped him after asking.
Grier swallowed. “Yes. She was… killed.”
Hands went to mouths.
It was better they didn’t know, that no one knew the truth. It
would keep her and her family safe.
Unfortunately, however, he didn’t know what had happened since
they’d said goodbye. He hadn’t heard from her despite sending a
letter a week. He had to do it in secret and address it to her sister,
Issolia, but he’d figured she’d at least gotten one. She was expecting
them.
But he never got one in return, and his heart tore at the
meaning. She’d gone so long without seeing her family and her
home, maybe she was busy with them, busy living life again. He’d
just hoped she wasn’t busy moving on from him.
He cleared his throat. “I can’t help with grimoire shipments out of
Aurelis or who ordered the Goliath from Revel,” he continued, “but
I’d like to investigate something else.”
“And that is?” Jgenult peered down her glasses at him.
“Avrist’s motivations.”
Jgenult’s eyebrows narrowed. “It’s a little late, Grier. What would
knowing those do for us now?”
His focus trailed to his mother’s face, her fuming rage boiling
under the surface, and then back to Jgenult. “When Avrist went after
Emeryss in Marana, he’d done so with so much force and anger, he’d
been willing to kill us. I wasn’t sure if he’d been ordered to behave
that way—”
 “Grier!” His mother jumped up from her seat. “I would have
never sent him to attack—”
“Captain Lerissa,” Jgenult urged. “We’re all frustrated and in
shock over this, but I don’t believe Grier would accuse you of trying
to kill him. Isn’t that right, Grier?”
No. He believed his mother had been trying to kill Emeryss.
“I no longer trust everything I’m told, Librarian Jgenult.
Therefore, I’m unsure.”
“Watch yourself.” Commander Simon’s chair slid back only an
inch, but the squeak echoed. “It’s traitorous to even suggest—”
Jgenult held up a hand. “I have known your father and mother
for a long time, Grier. I believe she wouldn’t want to risk her own
son’s life to return Emeryss to us. Now, I have to ask again what
investigating a deceased Caster would bring you.”
“The world’s only locator Caster showed up in the middle of a
battle, on a field with bombs and grenades, to get one Scribe?” He
looked at the Keepers. “After I had already bested him twice?”
The Keepers’ expressions went inward as if grasping the picture
he was painting and the questions it left behind. Scribes were
important, but Avrist was more so. Why was Emeryss so important
at that moment? Or why wasn’t Avrist?
Jgenult nodded. “Yes, but she was an important Scribe—”
“Why? Because she was Neerian?” He knew they wouldn’t
answer that. He suspected Avrist claiming it would look bad on the
library if something happened to Emeryss was not solely Avrist’s
belief. “Aren’t all Scribes important?” he urged.
“Of course,” Jgenult said.
“That you’d be willing to kill them to recover them?”
“Ah—”
“You would agree, then, that running into battle, putting his own
life at risk, and having two Keepers stab her in the arms to drag her
back is extreme?”
“What is your point, boy?” Simon asked. “They’re dead. We’re
unable to question them, now.”
Jgenult nodded. “It is extreme, and we never would have
ordered Avrist to behave that way. Had I known, I would have come
to talk Emeryss into returning myself.”
So, she hadn’t been made aware back then?
Jgenult continued. “Avrist had told us she was simply running
away, and he was always one step behind. He’d told us that you,
Grier, were too good at your job.”
Her ignorance on the topic might have been the only thing
keeping his feet in place. If she’d said right then that they knew, he
would have every reason to leave his country and never look back.
Grier swallowed. “Considering everything else that seems to be
occurring around this war, I believe Avrist was a traitor working for
Ingini and the RCA, and I believe he already had a replacement
locator Caster in case he died.”
Grier also believed it led to an explanation of what the Keepers
were actually employed to do. Trained to kill. Trained to fight off
Ingini. Trained to hunt and imprison.
It all started with Avrist. His actions could have been a tiny piece
to a larger puzzle.
“You think he already had a replacement because he recklessly
went into battle over one Scribe,” Jgenult said quietly, more thinking
to herself than questioning him.
“Yes,” Grier replied.
Scribes mumbled to one another.
“He hadn’t claimed to have found a replacement yet,” Jgenult
said. “Correct?” She’d turned to the docile woman in glasses at the
end of the table—Dova Snuppet, Avrist’s secretary.
“That is correct, Librarian,” Dova said.
“Or so we’ve been told.” Grier held his stare.
Avrist had been willing to kill his Scribe. He’d thrown himself in
the midst of the battle. Grier would bet his life that Avrist had
something to do with Revel’s actions with Ingini. And it seemed he’d
threaded enough doubt that Jgenult couldn’t believe what Avrist had
been capable of. Not anymore.
“Perhaps there was more to him than we all knew.” Jgenult
appeared to meditate for a second. Eyes shut. Brief breath in and
out. “I assume that you, Grier, want to investigate this personally?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
 Jgenult looked to Commander Simon, whose arms were crossed,
as well as the fellow Scribes beside her. “All right. Because of your
family’s record, because of your contributions to your country, I’ll
allow it. If you run into any obstacles, come straight to me. Agreed?”
He wanted to get back to Emeryss, to Neeria, but he wanted
answers, too. If he could figure out why Avrist was so adamant
about getting access to Emeryss, if he could solve that, then he
might get closer to the Keepers’ true purpose and know where his
allegiance should rest.
“Agreed,” he said.
As he spun and headed for the exit, Commander Simon’s voice
echoed above the others. “Are we going to discuss the RCA attacking
Ingini without provocation?”
“What about the grimoire’s being stolen?” someone else shouted.
The room erupted in questions and chaos.
He’d finally started what he’d come home to do. There was just
one more visit to make before his investigation could begin.
 CHAPTER 3
LOWE R AUR E LI S — R EVE L

A dalai stacked the grimoire tokens on her side of the busted crate.
“Double or nothing?”
Worn, the enormous butcher of Lower Aurelis, sat across the
crate from her with his greasy hair, tiny mustache, and a bloody
apron. He grunted and tossed a few more grimoire tokens on top of
the pile already sitting there.
The crowd watching from the shadows of the alley around them
whispered to each other.
She grinned.
“All right,” Koy said. “One more round. Wrists out. Nothing funny.”
Adalai and Worn raised their hands, exposing their wrists to one
another. He with burnt-sienna animal sigils, and she with her
magenta illusion sigils. His had the same number as the previous
round, meaning he hadn’t used ether to cheat. However, if a butcher
was going to cheat at a game of Stash, she’d doubt it would be
sneaky.
Her sigils would conveniently read the same number as the
previous round, too.
They kept their hands raised until Koy threw the dice at the
wooden crate. Six four-sided bone dice rolled across the surface, hit
the edge, and stopped.
“Three ones and a four,” Koy announced. He left those sitting
there and took the other two.
They tumbled across the crate and landed.
 “A four,” Koy said, and the crowd grew excited, cursing under
their breaths.
One more and she’d have enough to eat for the week.
Worn was staring straight at her.
She lifted her chin.
“Last one,” Koy called, tossing the final die into the air.
It rose between them and fell onto the crate.
She hadn’t needed to even move or wave her hand, or even
touch the die anymore.
Glamour.
The die landed with a one facing up, and she smirked.
Some of the crowd cheered, some stuffed their hands in their
pockets and gave over their winnings to other onlookers.
She slid the tokens off the crate and into her hand.
Poor Worn looked as if he might cry. “Ah, come on, Adalai. Sherl
is going to kill me. I can’t be losing that many tokens in five games.”
He whined like an oversized child, and his wife would most
definitely kill him for losing that many tokens in any number of
games.
“I’ll help you out, then.” Adalai grabbed the largest token
between two fingers and tossed it at Worn’s chest. “A full roast. A
good one. Not too tough, but not too much fat either. I’ll be by later
to pick it up.”
Heavy clomping echoed up from the main street. Two great
mawks with glistening red and gold plumage pulled a gold cart with
four RCA members announcing, “Curfew in thirty minutes. Be in your
homes. Be safe.”
More like: Be in your homes or be arrested.
The crowd scrambled out of the alley. Worn picked up the token
she’d thrown at him and pushed off the crate to leave in a hurry,
too. She didn’t need to run from the RCA. They might have
instituted curfews, grimoire rations, and a whole list of other rules,
but as long as she stayed out of sight, she’d be fine.
Grimoire tokens deep in her pockets, she slipped into the
shadows and headed down the south alley toward Glint Street.
 Lower Aurelis wasn’t as nice as Proper. It didn’t have the fancy
filigree over the signage or perfectly painted doors. But on its worst
days, it was still a hundred times better than any city in Ingini. It
had smooth stone for the streets with huge ether-stone buildings
and banners draped between them to block out too much sun. Some
of the buildings had been made out of pale sunstone, others with
soft skystone.
The difference was that Proper didn’t have the riff-raff and the
open markets in the streets like Lower. It didn’t have alleys to do
shady, seedy things. No, all the questionable acts of Aurelis Proper
were done indoors, where advisors and nobles lived.
“You gonna tell me how you did it?” Koy popped up beside her.
She jumped and grabbed her chest. “What the shit, Koy! Don’t
do that.”
He smirked. “You’re slower.”
“What?”
“Old days, you would have pulled a dagger on me in an instant.
Now, you jump back and complain. You got soft.”
Koy had been a friend when they were kids. Nowadays, he was
living with a girl on top of his parents’ old shoe shop and still playing
back-alley games if the tokens were good.
“Apparently not.” She patted her side pocket and Blinked up to
the half-broken ladder on the edge of a crumbling five-story
building.
“Yeah, and I’m going to figure out how you did it,” he called up
to her.
“I played fair and square,”—if practicing basic casting without
needed grimoires counted as fair and square.
She climbed the rungs of the ladder, stopped at the third-floor
window, and slid it open.
The building had been marked for repair for several months, but
with the war, it left this floor inaccessible by stairs or lift—secluded
just for her.
She straddled the ledge and looked down at Koy. “Hey, any news
for me?”
 He shrugged his small shoulders. He still looked like a boy in
many ways despite being in his mid-twenties. “General Orr is on a
rampage for the Ingini.”
“I knew that.”
“You still have to tell me the rest of that story.”
“No, I don’t.”
“And the RCA Ethereal Series is coming up, but they’re thinking
about canceling the competition with all the fighting and stuff.”
A lump formed in the back of her throat. It had been a knee-jerk
reaction, recalling a time when she’d had great plans of conquering
the competition, leading the Zephyrs to victory, and gaining favor
with the king.
“Why would I care about that?” she asked.
He shrugged again. “Because you’re into that sort of thing.”
“Nope. Not anymore.” She swung her leg over the windowsill to
leave him behind on the street below.
“Also, they’re doing a hit tonight, I think.”
They? The REV? She poked her head back out. “Hit what?”
He looked up and down the street before whispering up to her,
“A big shot. An advisor.”
“Which one?”
“Ednor. He’s back from his third trip to the palace, and he’s about
to announce more grimoire rations.”
“More?”
He nodded. “It’s getting bad. The messages keep claiming we
need to be tighter and less careless with our rations, but how can
we be careless when we don’t even have enough to live?”
“They’re lying, Koy. There are plenty of grimoires.”
“Yeah, in Stadhold.”
“No, here.”
“Okay, and it’s why the REV exists—to stop this shit.”
She shrugged. “Sure, Koy.”
“Really! The REV are moving in. Things are in motion. The REV
are legit.”
Things. He meant a revolution. He meant the REV thought they
could take on the entire RCA and Aurelis, which was ridiculous. And
there was no way the REV could do that. No matter how powerful or
sneaky they thought they had gotten.
“A revolution isn’t going to change or solve anything,” she said.
He adjusted his cap. “I dunno. Maybe. Just come to a REV
meeting with me, please?”
She waved him off and headed inside.
“Wait, Adalai!”
She stuck her head back out and sighed.
“Please? Just one. I promise it’s not what you think. It’s regular
people like you and me. They discuss what’s happening up in Proper,
they mention plans for the bigger organization. We’re small pieces all
trying to make it work.”
“And I’ve told you before, there’s a mole in the palace. Nothing
will stop this unless you get the mole.”
“Exactly!” He held up his hands to her. “They won’t believe me if
I tell them that. They want proof. You have tons of proof. All your
stories, what you saw over there—”
“And I regret telling you any of it.”
“They need to hear this stuff. It will help them.”
That side of her that wanted to help, to do something, it was
gone. Lost in the flames and ash of her recurring nightmares—
screams, cries, and the sound of a cocked ether-gun aimed at her
forehead.
She shivered. “No. And if the REV need me to gain any traction in
a revolution, they’re not strong enough to begin with. Night, Koy.”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and sauntered off down the
street toward his home.
She slid the window closed, locked it with a pin, and faced her
shitty apartment.
Rickety floorboards. Uneven walls with peeling wallpaper. She’d
put a heap of pillows in the corner as a bed at least, and she had a
lamp she could light with some matches like the old days. Other
than that, the floor was strewn with messages about the war, the
RCA, and the crews fighting along the border for the safety of Revel.
She walked over them as she crossed the room, dumped out her
pocket of tokens into a jar, and flopped back on the pillows.
 A few empty boxes of puffed snacks lay nearby.
Tidbits flourished to life beside her and rummaged through the
wrappers, licking anything she could find.
“I’m hungry, too, Tidbits.”
The tulisan trilled at her.
“Yeah, I know. But we’ll eat soon. I made money today.”
The illusionary creature chirped.
“Enough. More than enough.” She drew in a deep breath and
stared at the dark holes in the ceiling.
So, things were in motion? The REV had guys on the inside
everywhere, according to Koy. The palace, all the advisors, some of
the contractors, too. The REV claimed they were looking out for the
little guy, watching over them.
They were playing with fire—Orr’s fire—and it burned too deep
and too hot to overcome.
But Ednor. Advisor Ednor wasn’t a terrible start, really. He and his
weird wife were old, easy to take and manipulate—probably. If they
couldn’t get Ednor under their grasp, then they couldn’t do anything.
She looked at Tidbits and back at her meager jar of grimoire
tokens.
Could the REV surprise the advisor and the RCA? Were they fast
enough? Did they have the Casters to pull it off?
She bit her lip.
They wouldn’t need to kill Ednor. Just take him and his wife
hostage, destroy a couple of rooms in his manor. It’d be easy.
She stood up and Glamoured her hair black. “Come on, Tidbits.
We’re leaving.”
The creature chirped again and lumbered over to her.
“I’m bored. I want to know if they can pull this off. I’m not
getting involved, I promise.”
Tidbits dissolved into pink ether, and Adalai made for the window
again.
She could just watch. She could stay invisible or hide in the
shadows and Blink out if it got too crazy.
 CHAPTER 4
N E AR HALUN DE R — R EV E L

C love fidgeted with the hem of her new shirt, trying to ignore the
buzzing in her chest. She hadn’t gotten used to wearing regular
clothes like a normal person. It had been the mining suit for that
little while with the Zephyrs and flight suits for months before that.
But it wasn’t the clothes bothering her.
Jahree had stepped out to visit a little shop, leaving her and
Mack alone in the airship. The tension from their silence had only
gotten thicker in the last several weeks.
She glanced over at him.
He sat in one of the passenger seats of Jahree’s ship, staring
ahead at nothing in particular. Finally, he inhaled and leaned his right
elbow on the arm of the chair. “I think we could get farther if it was
just you and me.”
He’d been hinting at it for days, irritated they hadn’t even found
the prisoner camp. They’d checked Halunder and the surrounding
areas. They’d asked locals and old friends of Jahree. It’d turned up
nothing.
“He knows this place—”
“Right, and I think he’s stringing you along.” His olive eyes under
thick, dark eyebrows met hers. “There’s no way he knows exactly
where Cayn could be—”
“Of course, not—”
“Then, he could be anywhere.” He leaned forward. “We could
wander around asking people questions.”
 “No, Mack. He promised to help. He wants to help. We need it.
Having him is infinitely easier than us wandering around.”
But she suspected Mack’s irritation with Jahree wasn’t about
finding Cayn at all. The buzzing in her heart told her it wasn’t.
She and Jahree had kept to their agreement—friends with
benefits only. Nothing more. It would eventually end when they
went their own ways, or when the war was over. But if Mack had
realized or suspected they were involved with one another, then he
most likely didn’t understand how easy it was going to be for them
to break it off and go back to their old lives.
A part of her wanted it out in the open. Yes, I’m screwing Jahree!
And so, what? Over and done with. If he’d been holding back
opinions of it, it was best he got them off his chest, so they could
move on.
Then again, it wasn’t any of his business. If anything, it was
none of his business because she and Jahree weren’t in a
relationship, and neither was she with Mack. She owed him no
explanation, and she’d already told him the truth in the barn all
those nights ago. Nothing had changed since then.
Of course, it was awkward with all three of them on this airship
together. Still, she wasn’t letting Mack stay behind in Ingini without
her. He’d join the UA, especially now with Lark gone. He’d get
himself killed, and if she’d lost Cayn, then she wasn’t losing Mack,
too.
“Finding my brother—”
“And what if we don’t? What happens then?” His hollow stare cut
her. “What happens if you find out he’s died?”
She swallowed. “Then, I face that—”
“Will you? Because it’s been months now, and we can’t even find
the prisoner camp.”
“We’ve searched all over Halunder, and—”
“And the most we’ve gotten is a guard schedule.” He took her
hands in his. “I know this is hard, but this time I’m here. We can
face it together, but…”
“But?”
“But, it feels like you’re dragging your feet, and Jahree is, too.”
 Dragging her feet? Why would she be dragging her feet to find
her brother? That didn’t make any sense.
He moved a section of her hair from her face that had fallen.
“You’re afraid to open the door.”
“What?” She pulled away.
“You’re on one side of the door, Clove. On the other side of it is
the truth. Once you open it, you know the truth. You’ve got all the
answers, and you have to face them. But right now, the door is
closed.”
“Okay. I get that.”
“The truth is whatever you want it to be because you’re too
scared to open the door. Anything is possible. Cayn alive. Cayn
dead.”
And once she opened the door, she’d know. Bile rose in the back
of her throat.
Maybe she was dragging her feet. Maybe she didn’t want to go
and find out her brother was never in Halunder or that the prisoner
camp in Halunder was never real. If he was dead—
She sniffled.
The last time she faced that possibility, she was in Ingini on the
cold bathroom floor of her empty home.
Mack moved like he might hug her but stopped short. “I say we
go back to Halunder and search one more time. Really look and get
in. Sneak in and out. That sort of thing.”
It would be too difficult. He knew that. “Jahree said—”
Mack scoffed and shook his head. “Either Jahree has no idea
what he’s doing or he’s making this last longer—”
“Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know, Clove. Why would he?” He glared at her.
Mack was never stupid, but she wanted him to be wrong.
He cleared his throat. “As someone who just recently lost their
last remaining family member, I’ll give you one piece of advice: rip
the bandage off, Clove.”
Her eyes watered. “I know—”
Mack shrugged a shoulder. “Then, I suggest we stop screwing
around and do something about this.”
 “Do something about what?” Jahree had entered through the
back of the airship. She quickly wiped her eyes as he looked from
Mack to her. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Mack’s, uh, just frustrated that it’s taken us two
months to get what little information we have.”
Jahree set the few bags of supplies down and jumped into the
pilot’s seat, spinning it around to face them. “Tell me about it. I feel
like we’re missing something obvious.”
The bags he’d set down were fairly light. “Only two grimoires?”
she asked.
Jahree nodded and started up the airship. “That shop was too
small. Too rationed. I need to stop off at a slightly larger store,
maybe one with some pre-recycled books. Then you can Scribe for
me, and we’ll be good to go for another round at Halunder.”
Mack bent over his seat and grabbed the maps they’d acquired.
They’d been pouring over them for hours already, so he was
most likely just looking for a reason to ignore them.
And it made sense.
They were like family, like siblings.
He saw her as more.
If he knew about her deal with Jahree, then it couldn’t have been
easy, and she didn’t blame him.
Maybe he needed distance from her. Maybe bringing him along
was the wrong thing to do… for him.
Maybe she was being selfish.

J ahree had flown them to a larger town with a bigger supply store.
“Okay, I’ll go in and check for grimoires—”
“I’ll go with you,” Clove offered, standing already.
Jahree looked at Mack and then to her. “Mack, you okay staying
here with the ship?”
Mack hadn’t glanced up from the maps when he said, “Sure.”
Jahree gestured to the back of the airship. “Ladies first.”
She rolled her eyes, and they stepped out into the afternoon sun.
 Revel was clean and bright and brilliantly warm at just the right
times.
She hated how right Jahree had been about the differences
between Revel and Ingini, but it was the truth. Revel was gorgeous.
And damn it if that didn’t infuriate her.
They headed down the landing zone for a small store just off the
strip.
“This is bigger than the other shop?” she asked.
“Sadly, yes.” Jahree nudged her shoulder with his own. “You
okay?”
She held her breath. “Mack knows.”
He paused for a second and then nodded.
“He doesn’t understand,” she continued.
“People rarely do.”
“It’s probably making it worse that I chose to come with you.”
He held open the store’s door for her. “You have to live your life
your way, Clove. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
“Good morning,” chimed two voices from deeper in the store.
“Morning,” Jahree replied. “You have pre-recycled grimoires for
sale?”
“We do,” an older woman said, smiling and pointing toward the
back. “Can you reach them?”
He smiled. “I’ll do just fine.”
All this politeness. Sugary sweet. Customer service. Clove almost
missed arguing with shop owners underground in Luckless or the
crude way Branson did business in his swamp hangar.
She followed Jahree past aisles of trinkets and other useless
items people filled their homes with or gave as gifts. There were
shoes, clothes, hats. Anything last minute travelers might think they
need before heading out.
“Look at this.” Jahree picked up a trinket as they passed.
It was heart-shaped but split in two, intended for one person to
keep one half and give the other. When stuck together, it read: You
fill my heart.
“You want it?” he asked with a smug grin, passing her a piece of
it.
 She smiled, reaching out for it, but then stopped.
No.
She pushed past him. “I don’t like that shit.”
“I know. That’s why it’s funny.” He returned it to the shelf and
followed her to the grimoires. “See, we get each other.”
Four rows of books lined the wall. Some were thick, some were
thin. The thinner ones were considerably cheaper, not that she
understood their currency beyond lower numbers being cheap and
higher numbers being expensive.
Jahree rubbed his chin. “They’re spiking the prices.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“And they’re running low.”
She looked back at the wall. The space wasn’t small by any
means, and it had four very full rows of empty grimoires. “Looks like
they have enough to me.”
He shook his head. “This whole half of the store should be filled
with them. Spines out, instead of the covers. The prices are high,
too—”
“It’s the war,” the shop owner returned, moving some curly gray
locks out of her face and dusting her hands on her apron. “The
rations are so deep.”
Jahree nodded.
“We hear there’s going to be another announcement about it,”
the woman continued. “We think the king has allowed the release of
some stored grimoires for emergencies. We’ve seen pallets move
through the city almost daily, and they’re shaped perfectly for
grimoires. It’ll bring relief to everyone when they do announce it.”
She smiled, but there was worry carved in her wrinkles.
“We’ll just take a couple.” Jahree grabbed the thickest grimoires
on the shelf and handed over a few tokens to the woman. “Have a
great day.”
“You, too,” the woman said to them as they turned for the exit.
“You all are entirely too nice to one another,” Clove whispered to
him.
He laughed and opened the door. “What does that mean?”
 “It means what it means. We’re not as bad as you think we are,
but we’re definitely not nice like this.”
He passed her one of the grimoires, the weight of it unexpected.
“Getting fuel in Ingini would have been a lot harder than that,
too,” she added.
They walked back to the airship and found Mack in the center of
the floor with the maps all around him.
“Find something?” Jahree asked.
“We know where all the guards are in Halunder,” Mack said.
Jahree and Clove nodded.
“And we all agreed that it’s a tad too much for a training facility.”
Jahree nodded again. “I trained there like the other Zephyrs, and
it never had guards like that when I was there. They had a few
posted for regular security, but it was nothing like what we’ve seen.
Then again, that was years ago.”
“So, we still agree there has to be something in Halunder.”
Clove crossed her arms. “Yes, but that’s the point. When we went
on that fake tour, we didn’t see anything suspicious. Not even a
questionable door.”
“Right.” Mack shifted some of the maps and blueprints around.
“Trent wouldn’t have made up Halunder for nothing. It has stories
for a reason.”
Jahree shrugged. “Maybe, but the REV could be selling those
conspiracy theories to the Ingini for who knows why.”
But Clove understood what Mack was meaning. Why do that?
Why lie? Trent hadn’t been lying. Even if the REV were sharing these
stories, who would lie to them?
“What would lying about it get them?” Clove asked.
“Nothing, I guess.” Jahree scratched the side of his head. “Maybe
it gets them to attack Halunder?”
“That doesn’t make sense, though.” Clove sat the grimoire in her
seat and leaned against the back of the chair. “Halunder is too far
inland.”
“I think,” Mack said, tapping the map, “they’re taking them in
another way.”
Clove looked at Jahree and then back to Mack.
 “I think,” Mack continued, “if there is a prisoner camp, Halunder
is too specific of a detail to be completely made up. I’m wondering if
they’re being hidden.”
“And where has been the problem,” Jahree said.
Mack’s finger skimmed the paper. “These lines are for water? Or
sewage or something?”
Jahree knelt and scanned where Mack was gesturing. “Yeah, I
would think so.”
“They all stop here. In this line.”
Clove squinted her eyes at the map. “So?”
“So, something’s in the way,” Mack said. “Why add extra pipe and
go around the whole complex like this when it’s always easier to go
straight in.”
“You think the prisoners are underground?” Clove asked.
Mack nodded.
Jahree sat back on his knees. “Okay, but it could be something
wrong with the land underneath. Something in the terrain that didn’t
allow them to build the pipes there.”
Mack turned the map around a couple times. “There’s nothing
around Halunder except for the small town, a few shops, and a
landing zone. I think there’s something there underground. A
structure. Maybe a cave—”
“A cave.” Clove squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her head. “A
cave. An ether mine?”
Jahree looked up at her. “We don’t mine ether—”
“No, I know,” Clove said, “but when we were in Gruskul Mines,
Emeryss asked something. She asked if there are places where the
ethereal realm touches our world and forms cave systems for us to
mine in, then wouldn’t that mean there should be some in Revel.”
Mack and Jahree looked back at the map.
“There has to be some in Revel. Statistically, right?” she asked.
Jahree shrugged. “If there is a cave system, they could move the
prisoners underground without Revelians knowing what they’re
doing. Just like you guys move supplies and illegal goods through
your mines.”
 Mack shuffled through map after map, turning them in several
directions. “If there’s a cave system underneath Halunder, there’s an
outside entrance. A natural entrance, a rock outcropping to the
southeast—”
“How would you know that?” Jahree asked.
Mack looked over at him. “Live around ether mines your whole
life and you notice patterns. My dad used to say that when the ether
and the earth touched each other, the force was so great it uprooted
the earth. It created pockets—the cave systems—and outcroppings
of rocks would be the sign of the beginning of the fold. He used to
point them out to me when I was little. It’s how the first Ingineers
found the ether mines.”
He’d rearranged a map of Halunder, dragging his finger across
the paper until he found a small cluster southeast of the facility.
Clove knelt beside them. “Is that it?”
Jahree bent forward. “It could be anything.”
“We need to go see,” Mack said.
Jahree looked to Clove, and she nodded.
It wasn’t more than fifteen minutes later, and they were landing
near the point on the map.
They stepped out of the cargo hold and onto a bed of soft,
damp, green grass. A small hill spotted with white rock sat before
them. It looked perfectly normal save for the solid boulder wall in
front of it.
“That’s weird to everyone else, right?” Clove asked.
Jahree lifted his hands, and the wind whipped around them.
“There’s definitely something off here.”
Clove could feel it, too. The ether, maybe? But it didn’t have the
same smell, and it didn’t carry the same voices she was used to
hearing.
“The air currents…” Jahree said. “There are air currents moving
between the rocks. There’s something behind it.”
Mack ran his hands along the boulders.
“What’s wrong?” Clove asked.
“They can’t be moving people in if the boulders are in the way,”
he replied.
 “Or they’re not moving people underground,” she said, “and we
got it wrong again.”
Mack’s hands stretched around another rock and stopped.
The rock wall suddenly hissed open, revealing a small, dark
tunnel on the other side.
“There was a lever,” he said.
She stared down the gaping hole.
Jahree looked to Clove. “You ready to go inside another ether
cave?”
No, but it was for Cayn. He could be trapped in there. He could
be tortured, hurt, and dying. She could be mere feet away from him.
She steeled herself. “Yes.”
 CHAPTER 5
ADV I S OR E DNOR’S MANOR — R EV E L

C ayn rolled over the sheets , bare ass up to the world. The air felt
nice.
“Dress, Cayn.” Lady Cecillius tossed him his uniform. “This is no
time to sleep.”
His “uniform” was a short flap of canvas barely covering anything
below the waist. The rest of him had been ordered nude and ready
to address her or her husband’s whims at a moment’s notice.
He was exhausted; his new prosthetic arm specifically. Mostly
healed, it ached from time to time, especially when he’d been
overworked, not that Lady Cecillius and Master Ednor cared. For an
elderly couple, they’d demanded a century’s worth of sexual favors.
“I need those magic fingers to work later,” she said with a smile.
She sat nude at her vanity, pinning her auburn-dyed hair up in
places.
They’d teased he might actually be a charm Caster, using ether
to ease their old muscles with excitement and pleasure. He smiled at
the thought of making more money in Ingini if he were secretly a
Caster.
“Is the Master going somewhere tonight?” he asked.
Julian, their chef, had told him weeks ago that the REV were
ready to strike this place. They wanted to kidnap the couple, burn
the building to the ground, set the workers free.
He wasn’t sure how many working there had been Ingini
captured in Halunder like him, and no one dared to bring it up. Being
put to work in a manor was better than being tortured. Maybe most
of them were everyday Revelians and he was the only Ingini. Either
way, they were all more slaves than employees.
“Ednor is making an announcement. He’ll have a hundred
Messengers on him. It’s very important.”
A public event, then.
She smoothed a few locks of hair into place and began applying
makeup to her cheeks and lips. “Once the curfew starts, he’ll be
calling for the cease of all unnecessary grimoires.”
“There aren’t enough?” he asked.
She smiled at him in the reflection of her mirror. “Now, don’t you
worry, my dear. We’ll make sure Ednor and I have plenty of
grimoires, so we can keep our little games going.”
He forced a smile in return.
So, there were enough grimoires for recreational use for the
wealthy but not for the average Revelian to live on.
Before, he wouldn’t have cared, all things considered. But it was
akin to CEOs in Ingini hoarding all the money for themselves and
handing out painfully small portions to their workers. “Making a
living” was always a misnomer.
“Ednor just wants to make sure that all the grimoire creation in
Stadhold goes toward the cause. Simple elemental ether needs to be
purely for the RCA to keep us safe.”
“And what will those people do?”
“Which people, dear?” She picked up jeweled pieces and placed
them on her ears and around her neck.
“The people who won’t be getting grimoires anymore?”
She clicked her tongue. “Well, they should have been saving
them up this whole time. I mean, they’ve been practically handed
everything they’ve gotten. Can’t fight a war without grimoires, and
they knew this was coming. If they were careless to waste their
sigils on frivolous things, well then, we just can’t help them, can we?
Can you get my dress for me, dear?”
He’d heard the same spiel in Ingini, and it was misplaced with
the assumption that everyone had grimoires—or money—to save.
Another random document with
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said, “Who are you?” something replied to me. I cannot say it was a
voice. It was more like some one hissing at me through closed teeth,
but I could distinguish the name “Emily.”
‘I was so frightened, Arthur, I did not know what to do. I wrenched
my hand away from the dead hand. You were not there, and I called
out loudly. I would have leaped out of bed, but that I heard the
creeping footsteps, accompanied by the sobbing breath, go round
the room, crying, “Father, father!”
‘My blood seemed to curdle in my veins. I could not stir until it was
gone. I heard it leave the room distinctly, although the door was
never opened, and walk upon the landing as though to go
downstairs. I was still sitting up in bed listening—listening—only
waiting till the dreadful thing had quite gone away, to seek your
presence, when I heard a heavy step clumping downstairs, then the
report of a gun. I don’t know what I thought. I remember nothing that
followed; but I suppose I jumped out of bed with the intention of
finding you, and fainted before I could reach the dressing-room. Oh,
Arthur! what was it? What is it that haunts this house, and makes
even the sunshine look as gloomy as night? Oh, take us away from
it, or I am sure that something terrible will happen!’
‘I will take you away from it, my dear. We will none of us sleep
another night beneath its roof. What curse hangs over it, I cannot
tell; but whether the strange sounds we have heard proceed from
natural or supernatural causes, they alike render Rushmere no home
for us. We will go to the hotel at —— this very day, Janie, and deliver
up the keys of Rushmere again to Messrs Quibble & Lye.’
I then related to her my own experience, and that of Dawson; and
though she trembled a little whilst listening to me, the idea of leaving
the place before nightfall rendered the heavy fear less alarming than
it would otherwise have been.
The servants, upon learning the resolution we had arrived at, were
only too ready to help us to carry it out. Our personal possessions
were packed in an incredibly short time, and we sat down that
evening to a comfortable family dinner in the good old-fashioned inn
at ——. As soon as the meal was concluded, and the children sent
to bed, I said to my wife,—
‘Janie, I am going to ring for the landlord, to see if he can throw
any light on the cause of our experiences. I never told you that, when
we came to this inn to try for a nurse to supply Mary’s place, he
informed me that nobody from his countryside would live at
Rushmere; and asked me, in a manner which assured me he could
have said more if he had chosen, if we had not heard anything whilst
there. I laughed at the question then, but I do not feel so disposed to
laugh at it now; and I am going to beg him to tell me all he may
know. If nothing more, his story may form the stratum of a curious
psychological study. Would you like to be present at our interview?’
‘Oh yes, Arthur; I have quite recovered my nerves since I’ve lost
sight of Rushmere, and I feel even curious to learn all I can upon the
subject. That poor, sobbing voice that whispered “Emily”—I shall not
forget its sound to my dying day.’
‘Ring the bell, dear, and let us ask if the landlord is at leisure. To
my mind, your experience of the details of this little tragedy appears
the most interesting of all.’
The landlord, a Mr Browser, entered at once; and as soon as he
heard my request, made himself completely at home with us.
‘After the little rebuff you gave me t’other day, I shouldn’t have
ventured to say nothing, sir; but when I see your family getting out of
the fly this afternoon, I says to Mrs Browser, “If that don’t mean that
they can’t stand Rushmere another night, I’m a pumpkin.” And I
suppose, now, it did mean it, sir?’
‘You are quite right, Mr Browser. The noises and voices about the
house have become so intolerable, that it is quite impossible I can
keep my family there. Still, I must tell you that, though I have been
unable to account for the disturbances, I do not necessarily believe
they are attributable to spirits. It is because I do not believe so that I
wish to hear all you may be able to tell us, in order, if possible, to find
a reason for what appears at present to be unreasonable.’
 ‘Well, sir, you shall hear, as you say, all we have to tell you, and
then you can believe what you like. But it ain’t I as can relate the
story, sir. Mrs Browser knows a deal more than I do; and with your
leave, and that of this good lady here, I’ll call her to give you the
history of Rushmere.’
At this information, we displayed an amount of interest that
resulted in a hasty summons for Mrs Browser. She was a fat, fair
woman, of middle age, with ruddy cheeks, and a clear blue eye—not
at all like a creature haunted by her own weak imagination, or who
would be likely to mistake a shadow for a substance. Her
appearance inspired me with confidence. I trusted that her relation
might furnish me with some clue to the solution of the occurrences
that had so confounded us. Safe out of the precincts of Rushmere,
and with the lapse of twelve hours since the unaccountable swoon I
had been seized with, my practical virtues were once more in the
ascendant, and I was inclined to attribute our fright to anything but
association with the marvellous.
‘Be I to tell the story from the beginning, Browser?’ was the first
sentence that dropped from Mrs Browser’s lips.
Her lord and master nodded an affirmative, whereupon she began:
—
‘When the gentleman as built Rushmere for his own gratification,
sir, died, the house let well enough. But the place proved lonely, and
there was more than one attempt at robbery, and people grew tired
of taking it. And above all, the girls of the village began to refuse to
go to service there. Well, it had been standing empty for some
months, when a gentleman and his wife came to look after it.
Browser and I—we didn’t own this inn at that time, you will
understand, sir, but kept a general shop in the village, and were but
poorly off altogether, although we had the post-office at our place,
and did the best business thereabouts. The key of Rushmere used
always to be left in our keeping, too, and our boy would go up to
show folks over the house. Well, one damp autumn day—I mind the
day as if ’twere yesterday, for Browser had been ailing sadly with the
rheumatics for weeks past, and not able to lift his hand to his head—
this gentleman and lady, who went by the name of Greenslade,
came for the keys of Rushmere. I remember thinking Mr Greenslade
had a nasty, curious look about his eyes, and that his wife seemed a
poor, brow-beaten creature; but that was no business of mine, and I
sent Bill up with them to show the house. They took it, and entered
on possession at once; and then came the difficulty about the
servants. Not a soul would enter the place at first. Then a girl or two
tried it, and came away when their month was up, saying the house
was so lonesome, they couldn’t sleep at nights, and the master was
so queer-spoken and mannered, they were afraid of him.’
‘Don’t forget to say what he was used to do at nights,’ here put in
the landlord.
‘La, Browser, I’m a-coming to it. Everything in its time. Well, sir, at
last it came to this, that Mrs Greenslade hadn’t a creature to help her
in anythink, and down she came to ask if I would go to them for a
few days. I stared; for there was the shop to be tended, and the post-
office looked after, and I hadn’t been used to odd jobs like that. But
my husband said that he could do all that was wanted in the
business; and we were very hard drove just then, and the lady
offered such liberal pay, he over-persuaded me to go, if only on trial.
So I put my pride in my pocket, and went out charing. I hadn’t been
at Rushmere many days, sir, before I found something was very
wrong there. Mr Greenslade hardly ever spoke a word, but shut
himself up in a room all day, or went mooning about the fields and
common, where he couldn’t meet a soul; and as for the poor lady, la!
my heart bled for her, she seemed so wretched and broken-down
and hopeless. I used often to say to her,—
‘“Now, ma’am, do let me cook you a bit of something nice, for
you’ve eaten nothing since yesterday, and you’ll bring yourself down
to death’s door at this rate.”
‘And she’d answer,—
‘“No, thank you, Mrs Browser: I couldn’t touch it. I feel sometimes
as if I’d never care to eat or drink again.”
 ‘And Mr Greenslade, he was just as bad. They didn’t eat enough
to keep a well-grown child between the two of them.’
‘What-aged people were they?’ I asked.
‘Well, sir, I can hardly say; they weren’t young nor yet old. Mr
Greenslade, he may have been about fifty, and his lady a year or two
younger; but I never took much count of that. But the gentleman
looked much the oldest of the two, by reason of a stoop in his
shoulders and a constant cough that seemed to tear his chest to
pieces. I’ve known him shut himself up in the parlour the whole night
long, coughing away fit to keep the whole house awake. And his
breathing, sir—you could hear it half a mile off.’
‘He was assmatical, poor man! that’s where it was,’ interposed Mr
Browser.
‘Well, I don’t know what his complaint was called, Browser; but he
made noise enough over it to wake the dead. But don’t you go
interrupting me no more after that fashion, or the gentleman and lady
will never understand the half of my story, and I’m just coming to the
cream of it.’
‘I assure you we are deeply interested in what you are telling us,’ I
said, politely.
‘It’s very good of you to compliment me, sir, but I expect it will
make matters clearer to you by-and-by. You’re not the first tenants of
Rushmere I’ve had to tell this tale to, I can tell you, and you won’t be
the last, either. One night, when I couldn’t sleep for his nasty cough,
and lay awake, wishing to goodness he’d go to bed like a Christian, I
made sure I heard footsteps in the hall, a-creeping and a-creeping
about like, as though some one was feeling their way round the
house. “It can’t be the mistress,” I thought, “and maybe it’s robbers,
as have little idea the master’s shut up in the study.” So I opened the
door quickly, but I could see nothing.’
‘Exactly my own experience,’ I exclaimed.
‘Ah, sir, maybe; but they weren’t the same footsteps, poor dear. I
wish they had been, and she had the same power to tread now she
had then. The hall was empty; but at the same time I heard the
master groaning and cursing most awful in the parlour, and I went
into my own room again, that I mightn’t listen to his wicked oaths and
words. I always hated and distrusted that man from the beginning.
The next day I mentioned I had heard footsteps, before ’em both,
and the rage Mr Greenslade put himself into was terrible. He said no
robbers had better break into his house, or he’d shoot them dead as
dogs. Afterwards his wife came to me and asked me what sort of
footsteps they seemed; and when I told her, she cried upon my neck,
and begged me if ever I heard a woman’s step to say nothing of it to
her husband.
‘“A woman’s step, ma’am,” I replied; “why, what woman would dare
break into a house?”
‘But she only cried the more, and held her tongue.
‘But that evening I heard their voices loud in the parlour, and there
was a regular dispute between them.
‘“If ever she should come, Henry,” Mrs Greenslade said, “promise
me you won’t speak to her unless you can say words of pity or of
comfort.”
‘“Pity!” he yelled, “what pity has she had for me? If ever she or any
emissary of hers should dare to set foot upon these premises, I shall
treat them as house-breakers, and shoot them down like dogs!”
‘“Oh no! Henry, no!” screamed the poor woman; “think who she is.
Think of her youth, her temptation, and forgive her.”
‘“I’ll never forgive her—I’ll never own her!” the wretch answered
loudly; “but I’ll treat her, or any of the cursed crew she associates
with, as I would treat strangers who forced their way in to rob me by
night. ’Twill be an evil day for them when they attempt to set foot in
my house.”
‘Well, sir, I must cut this long story short, or you and your good
lady will never get to bed to-night.
‘The conversation I had overheard made me feel very
uncomfortable, and I was certain some great misfortune or disgrace
had happened to the parties I was serving; but I didn’t let it rest upon
my mind, till a few nights after, when I was wakened up by the same
sound of creeping footsteps along the passage. As I sat up in bed
and listened to them, I heard the master leave the parlour and go
upstairs. At the same moment something crouched beside my door,
and tried to turn the handle; but it was locked, and wouldn’t open. I
felt very uneasy. I knew my door stood in the shadow, and that
whoever crouched there must have been hidden from Mr
Greenslade as he walked across the hall. Presently I heard his
footsteps coming downstairs again, as though he had forgotten
something. He used to wear such thick boots, sir, you might hear his
step all over the house. His loaded gun always stood on the first
landing; when he reached there he stopped, I suppose it was his bad
angel made him stop. Anyway, there was a low cry of “Father,
father!”—a rush, the report of the gun, a low groan, and then all was
still.
‘La! sir, I trembled so in my bed, you might have seen it shake
under me.’
‘I’ve seen it shake under you many a time,’ said Browser.
‘Perhaps you would like to tell the lady and gentleman my exact
weight, though I don’t see what that’s got to do with the story,’ replied
his better half, majestically.
‘I don’t think I should ever have had the courage to leave my room,
sir, unless I had heard my poor mistress fly down the staircase, with
a loud scream. Then I got up, and joined her. Oh, it was an awful
sight! There, stretched on the floorcloth, lay the dead body of a
young girl; and my mistress had fainted dead away across her, and
was covered with the blood that was pouring from a great hole in her
forehead. On the landing stood my master, white as a sheet, and
shaking like an aspen leaf.
‘“So, this is your doing!” I cried, angrily. “You’re a nice man to have
charge of a gun. Do you see what you’ve done? Killed a poor girl in
mistake for a robber, and nearly killed your wife into the bargain.
Who is this poor murdered young creature? Do you know her?”
 ‘“Know her!” he repeated, with a groan. “Woman, don’t torture me
with your questions. She is my own daughter!”
‘He rushed upstairs as he spoke, and I was in a nice quandary, left
alone with the two unconscious women. When my poor mistress
woke up again, she wanted me to fetch a doctor; but it would have
been of no use. She was past all human help.
‘We carried the corpse upstairs between us, and laid it gently on
the bed. I’ve often wondered since where the poor mother’s strength
came from, but it was lent her for the need. Then, sitting close to me
for the remainder of the night, she told me her story—how the poor
girl had led such an unhappy life with her harsh, ill-tempered father,
that she had been tempted into a foolish marriage by the first lover
that offered her affection and a peaceful home.
‘“I always hoped she would come back to us,” said Mrs
Greenslade, “for her husband had deserted her, leaving her
destitute; and yet, although she knew how to enter the house
unobserved, I dreaded her doing so, because of her father’s bitter
enmity. Only last night, Mrs Browser, I awoke from sleep, and
fancied I heard a sobbing in my room. I whispered, ‘Who is there?’
and a voice replied, ‘Emily!’ But I thought it was a dream. If I had
known—if I had but known!”
‘She lay so quiet and uncomplaining on my knee, only moving now
and then, that she frightened me; and when the morning broke, I
tried to shift her, and said,—
‘“Hadn’t I better go and see after the master, ma’am?”
‘As I mentioned his name, I could see the shudder that ran through
her frame; but she motioned me away with her hand.
‘I went upstairs to a room Mr Greenslade called his dressing-room,
and where I guessed he’d gone; and you’ll never believe, sir, the
awful sight as met my eyes. I didn’t get over it for a month—did I,
Browser?’
‘You haven’t got over it to this day, I’m sometimes thinking,
missus.’
 ‘That means I’m off my head; but if it wasn’t for my head, I wonder
where the business would go to. No, sir—if you’ll believe me, when I
entered the room, there was the old man dead as mutton, hanging
from a beam in the ceiling. I gave one shriek, and down I fell.’
‘I don’t wonder at it,’ cried Janie.
‘Well, ma’am, when I came to again, all was confusion and misery.
We had the perlice in, and the crowner’s inquest, and there was
such a fuss, you never see. Some of Mrs Greenslade’s friends came
and fetched her away; but I heard she didn’t live many months
afterwards. As for myself, I was only too glad to get back to the shop
and my old man, and the first words I said to him was,—
‘“No more charing for me.”’
‘And now, sir, if I may make so bold, what do you think of the
story?’ demanded the landlord. ‘Can you put this and that together
now?’
‘It is marvellous!’ I replied. ‘Your wife has simply repeated the
scene which we have heard enacted a dozen times in Rushmere.
The footsteps were a nightly occurrence.’
‘I heard the voice!’ exclaimed Janie, ‘and it whispered “Emily.”’
‘The handle of my servant’s door was turned. The report of the
gun was as distinct as possible.’
‘That is what everybody says as goes to Rushmere, sir. No one
can abide the place since that awful murder was committed there,’
said Mrs Browser.
‘And can you account for it in any way, sir?’ demanded her
husband, slyly. ‘Do you think, now that you’ve heard the story, that
the noises are mortal, or that it’s the spirits of the dead that causes
them?’
‘I don’t know what to think, Browser. There is a theory that no
uttered sound is ever lost, but drifts as an eddying circle into space,
until in course of time it must be heard again. Thus our evil words,
too often accompanied by evil deeds, live for ever, to testify against
us in eternity. It may be that the Universal Father ordains that some
of His guilty children shall expurgate their crimes by re-acting them
until they become sensible of their enormity; but this can be but a
matter for speculation. This story leaves us, as such stories usually
do, as perplexed as we were before. We cannot tell—we probably
never shall tell—what irrefragable laws of the universe these
mysterious circumstances fulfil; but we know that spirit and matter
alike are in higher hands than ours; and, whilst nature cannot help
trembling when brought in contact with the supernatural, we have no
need to fear that it will ever be permitted to work us harm.’
This little analysis was evidently too much for Mr and Mrs Browser,
who, with a look of complete mystification on their countenances,
rose from their seats, and wished us respectfully good-night; leaving
Janie and me to evolve what theories we chose from the true story of
the Invisible Tenants of Rushmere.
 AMY’S LOVER.
It was five o’clock—five o’clock on a dull November afternoon—as I,
Elizabeth Lacy, the wretched companion of Lady Cunningham, of
Northampton Lodge, in the town of Rockledge, stood gazing from the
dining-room windows at the grey curtain of fog which was slowly but
surely rising between my vision and all outward things, and thinking
how like it was in colour and feeling and appearance to my own sad
life. I have said that I was the ‘wretched’ companion of Lady
Cunningham: is it very ungrateful of me to have written down that
word? I think not; for if a wearisome seclusion and continual
servitude have power to make a young life miserable, mine had fairly
earned its title to be called so. I had withered in the cold and
dispiriting atmosphere of Northampton Lodge for four years past,
and had only been prevented rupturing my chains by the knowledge
that I had no alternative but to rush from one state of bondage to
another. To attend upon old ladies like an upper servant—to write
their letters, carry their shawls, and wait upon them as they moved
from room to room—this was to be my lot through life; and if I ever
dreamed that a brighter one might intervene, the vision was too faint
and idealistic to gild the stern realities which were no dreams.
I daresay there are plenty of people in this world more miserable
than I: indeed, I knew it for a fact even at the time of which I speak;
and the few friends I possessed were never tired of telling me that I
was better off than many, and that I should strive to look on the
bright side of things, and to thank heaven who had provided me with
a safe and respectable home, when I might have been upon the
parish. Did not Job have friends to console him in his trouble? Do not
we all find in the day of our distress that, whatever else fails, good
advice is always forthcoming? Well! perhaps I was ungrateful: at all
events, I was young and headstrong, and good advice irritated and
worried, instead of making me any better. I knew that I was warmly
clothed, whilst beggars stood shivering at the corner of the streets,
and that beneath the care of Lady Cunningham no harm could
happen to me, whilst women younger than myself broke God’s holy
laws to put bread in their mouths. And yet, and yet, so perverse is
human nature, and so perverse was mine above all others, that,
engaged on my monotonous round of duty, I often envied the
beggars their liberty and their rags; and even sometimes wished that
I had not been reared so honestly, and had the courage to be less
respectable and more free. Perhaps one reason why my life chafed
me so fearfully, was because I had not been brought up to it. Five
years before, I had been the child of parents in good circumstances,
and loved and made much of, as only daughters generally are. My
father, who held the comfortable living of Fairmead in Dorsetshire,
had always managed to keep up the household of a gentleman, and
my poor delicate mother and myself had enjoyed every luxury
consistent with our station in life. She had had her flower-garden and
her poultry and her pony-chair, and I my pets and my piano and—my
lover. Ah! as I stood at the wire-blinded windows of Lady
Cunningham’s dining-room that sad November afternoon, and
recalled these things, I knew by the pang which assailed me at the
thought of Bruce Armytage, which loss of them all had affected me
most. My father and mother, who from my youth up had so tenderly
loved and guarded me, were in their graves, and with them had
vanished all the luxuries and possessions of my early days. But
though I stood there a penniless orphan, with no joy in my present
and very little hope in my future, the tears had not rushed to my eyes
until my memory had rested on Bruce Armytage; and then they fell
so thickly that they nearly blinded me; for mingled with his memory
came shame as well as regret, and to a woman perhaps shame is
the harder feeling of the two. His conduct had been so very strange,
so marvellously strange and unaccountable to me, that to that day I
had found no clue to it. When he first came down and took lodgings
in Fairmead—for the purpose of studying to pass his examination for
the law, he said—he had seemed so very, very fond of me that our
engagement followed on the avowal of his love as a matter of
course. But then his family interfered; they thought, perhaps, that he
ought to marry some one higher than myself, though my father was a
gentleman, and no man can be more; at any rate, his father wrote to
say that Bruce was far too young (his age was then just twenty) to fix
upon his choice for life, and that no regular engagement must be
made between us until he returned from the two years’ foreign tour
he was about to make. My father and mother said that old Mr
Armytage was right, and that in two years’ time both I and my lover
would be better able to form an opinion on so serious a matter.
Bruce and I declared it was all nonsense, that fifty years of
separation could make no difference to us, and that what we felt
then, we should feel to our lives’ end. And they smiled, the old
people, whilst our young hearts were being tortured, and talked
about the evanescence of youthful feelings, whilst we drank our first
draught of this world’s bitterness. How seldom can old people
sympathise with the young! How soon they become accustomed to
the cold neutral tints of middle age, and forget even the appearance
of the warm fires of youth at which they lighted those passions which
time has reduced to ashes! It was so with my parents: they were not
unkind, but they were unsympathetic; they rather hoped, upon the
whole, that I should forget Bruce Armytage; and, in order to
accomplish their end, they pretended to believe it. But he went, with
the most passionate protestations upon his lips, that as soon as he
returned to England, no earthly power should keep us separate; and
he never came back to me again! My father and mother had died
rather suddenly, and within a few months of each other; our home
had been broken up, and at the age of nineteen I had been sent forth
upon the world to earn my own living; and, at the age of three-and-
twenty, I was at the same trade, neither richer nor poorer than at
first, but with all my faith in the constancy and honour of mankind
broken and destroyed; for Bruce Armytage had never found me out,
or, as far as I knew, inquired after me. His family had permitted me to
leave Fairmead and enter on my solitary career without a word of
remonstrance or regret; since which time I had had no
communication with them, though at that period my pride would not
have forbidden my sending an account of my trouble to Bruce,
believing that he cared for me. Correspondence between us during
his foreign tour had been strictly prohibited, and I had no means of
ascertaining his address. For a while I had expected he would write
or come to me; but that hope had long died out, and the only feeling I
had left for him was contempt—contempt for his fickleness and
vacillation, or the pusillanimity which could permit him to give up the
woman he had sworn to marry because his father ordered him to do
so. No! filial obedience carries very little weight with the heart that is
pitted against it; and as I thought of it and him, I bit my lip, dashed
my hand across my eyes, and hoped the day might yet come when I
should be able to show Bruce Armytage how greatly I despised him.
At this juncture the housemaid came bustling into the room with a
little note for me—a dear little cocked-hat note—which seemed to
speak of something pleasant, and at the writer of which I had no
need to guess, for I had but one friend in Rockledge who ever sent
such notes to me.
‘Waiting for an answer,’ said the bearer curtly; and I tore it open
and devoured its contents.

‘Dear Lizzie,—I think you will be very much surprised to

hear that your little friend Amy is engaged to be married!
However, it is quite true, although the business was only
settled this morning; and the young gentleman has promised
to spend the evening with us, and to bring a cousin whom he
is anxious to introduce. Will you come and take tea with us
also? The doctor has only just told me that Lady Cunningham
dines out to-night, or I should have sent before. Do come,
Lizzie. Amy is crazy to see you and tell you all her secrets,
and you know that you are always sure of a welcome from
your affectionate friend,
‘Mary Rodwell.’
 The perusal of this little epistle threw me into a perfect whirl of
excitement and delight, which would have appeared extraordinary to
any one who had not been acquainted with the maddening
monotony of my daily existence. These Rodwells, the family of the
good old doctor who attended Lady Cunningham, were my only
friends in Rockledge, the only people with whom I ever caught a
glimpse of a happy domestic life, such as had been once my own. To
spend the evening at their large, old-fashioned house, which rang
from basement to attic with the sound of happy voices, was the only
dissipation by which my days were ever varied, and a relaxation all
the more precious because, on account of Lady Cunningham’s
requirements, it came so rarely to me. And on the afternoon in
question, when I had allowed myself to become absorbed by fanciful
thought, the cordial and unexpected invitation warmed my chilled
spirits like a draught of generous wine. All things seemed changed
for me: I no longer saw the grey fog nor remembered my mournful
past, but in their stead pictured to myself the brightly-lighted,
crimson-curtained room at Dr Rodwell’s house, and heard the ringing
laughter and merry jests of his many boys and girls. In a moment I
had shaken off my despondency—my eyes sparkled, my heart beat:
I was in a flutter of anticipation at the pleasure in store for me.
‘Is there any answer, miss?’ demanded the housemaid, who had
been waiting whilst I read my note.
‘Yes, yes; I will go, of course. Say I will be there in half-an-hour,’ I
replied, for my evening, in consequence of Lady Cunningham’s
absence, was at my own disposal. ‘And, Mary, please bring me up a
jug of hot water; I am going to take tea with Mrs Rodwell.’
‘Well, I’m very glad of it, miss; it’s a shame you shouldn’t have a
holiday oftener than you do,’ returned my sympathising hearer as
she departed with my answer.
I must say that, during my years of servitude, I had nothing to
complain of respecting the treatment I received from the hands of
servants. I have read of needy companions and governesses being
cruelly insulted and trampled on by their inferiors; I never was. From
the first they saw I was a gentlewoman, and to the last they treated
me as such.
With a hasty vote of thanks to Mary for her kind speech, I ran
upstairs to my own bedroom to make the few preparations needful
for my visit. I knew that Mrs Rodwell would not desire me to dress;
but to arrange my hair anew with a blue ribbon woven in it, and to
change my dark merino body for a clear muslin Garibaldi, made me
look fresh and smart, without taking up too much of the precious time
I had to spend at her house. Besides, were there not to be some
gentlemen present? At that thought my mind reverted to the
wonderful news of Amy’s engagement, and I could scarcely proceed
with my toilet for thinking of it. Little Amy! younger by five years than
myself, who had always appeared so shy and modest and retiring—
was it possible she could have had a lover without my knowing it?
And now to be actually engaged! going to be married at her age! It
almost seemed incredible, until I remembered with a sudden sigh
that I had been no older myself when Bruce Armytage proposed to
me, and had been able to keep my secret very well until the
necessity for doing so was over.
But I would not let such thoughts engross me now, for I had no
wish to carry a long face to Mrs Rodwell’s house; and so I hurried on
the remainder of my things, and wrapping myself up warmly in a dark
cloak, hurried bravely out into the evening air. It was then six o’clock,
and the fog was denser than before; but what cared I for outer
dulness any longer? My imagination ran on before me, vividly
picturing the cheerful scene in which I should so soon mingle, and
my feet tripped after it joyous as my heart. I had not far to go, and
my eagerness shortened the way; so that in a few minutes I was
rapping at Dr Rodwell’s hall door and scraping my feet upon his
scraper. How quickly it was opened by little Amy herself! And what a
mixture of bashfulness, pleasure, and self-importance was in her
blushing face as I threw my arms around her neck and warmly
congratulated her.
‘Come upstairs, Lizzie,’ she entreated in a whisper; ‘come up and
take off your things, and I’ll tell you all about it.’
 We were soon in her own room—that cosy room in which she and
her younger sister Mattie slept, and which bore so many evidences
of their mother’s tender care and thought for them.
‘And so you are really engaged to be married, Amy?’ I exclaimed
as the door closed behind us. ‘That was a very astounding piece of
intelligence to me, who had never heard the faintest whisper of such
a thing before.’
‘You forget you have not been near us for a month,’ she answered,
laughing; ‘but the truth is, Lizzie, it was all so uncertain till this
morning that mamma said it would be very unwise to mention it to
anybody; so that you were the first recipient of the news, after all.’
‘Well, I suppose I must be satisfied with that; and when did you
meet him, Amy?’
‘Last month, up in London, while I was staying with my Aunt
Charlesworth.’
‘And is it a settled thing, then?’
‘Oh yes! His parents have consented, and are coming to
Rockledge on purpose to call on us. And—and—he came down this
morning to tell papa; and I believe we are to be married in the
spring.’
‘So soon?’ I ejaculated, thinking how easily some people’s
courtships ran.
‘Yes,’ replied Amy, blushing; ‘and he is here this evening, you
know, with his cousin, who is staying at Rockledge with him. He
talked so much about this cousin, but oh! he is not half so nice-
looking as himself; and—and—I hope you will like him, Lizzie dear,’
kissing me affectionately as she spoke, ‘for I have told him so much
about you.’
‘I am sure I shall, Amy,’ I replied as I returned her caress; we were
on the staircase at the time, descending to the dining-room. ‘I assure
you I am quite impatient to see your hero. By-the-bye, dear, what is
his name?’
 ‘Armytage.’ And then, seeing my blank look of amazement, she
repeated it—‘Armytage. Have you never heard the name before? I
think it’s such a pretty one. Amy Armytage,’ she whispered finally in
my ear, as, laughing merrily, she pushed me before her into the
dining-room.
It was all done so suddenly that I had no time to think about it, for
before the echo of her words had died away, I was in the midst of the
family group, being warmly kissed by Mrs Rodwell, and Mattie, and
Nelly, and Lotty, and shaken hands with by the dear, kind old doctor,
and his rough school-boys.
‘Well, Lizzie dear,’ exclaimed my motherly hostess, as she claimed
me for a second embrace, ‘this is quite an unexpected treat, to have
you here to-night; I thought we were never going to see you again.
But you look pale, my child; I am afraid you are kept too much in the
house. Doctor, what have you been about, not to take better care of
Lizzie? You should give her a tonic, or speak to Lady Cunningham
on the subject.’
But the good old doctor stuck both his fingers into his ears.
‘Now, I’m not going to have any talk about pale looks or physic
bottles to-night,’ he said; ‘the time for doctoring to-day is over. Miss
Lizzie, you just come and sit between Tom and me, and we’ll give
you something that will beat all the tonics that were ever invented.
Here, Mattie, pass the scones and oatcakes down this way, will you?
If you children think you are going to keep all the good things up at
your end of the table, you are very much mistaken,’ and with no
gentle touch my hospitable friend nearly pulled me down into his own
lap.
‘Now, doctor!’ exclaimed Mrs Rodwell, with an affectation of
annoyance, ‘I will not have you treat my guests in this way. Lizzie
has come to see me, not you, and she sits by no side but mine.
Besides, you have not even given me time to introduce the
gentlemen to her. Lizzie, my dear, we must all be friends here this
evening. Mr Bruce Armytage, Mr Frederick Armytage—Miss Lacy.
And now, doctor, we’ll go to tea as soon as you please.’
 I had known from the moment of my entering the room that there
were strangers in it, but I had not dared to glance their way. Amy’s
announcement of her lover’s name had come too unexpectedly to
permit me to form any fixed idea upon the subject, excepting that it
was the same as mine had borne, and yet, when Mrs Rodwell
repeated it with the familiar prefix, strange to say, I seemed to hear it
with no second shock, but to have known the bitter truth all along.
Not so, however, Bruce Armytage; for Mrs Rodwell’s introduction
was scarcely concluded before I heard his voice (unforgotten
through the lapse of years) exclaim, ‘Miss Lacy!’ in a tone of
surprise, which could not but be patent to all.
Cold and pulseless as I had felt before, the mere tones of his voice
sent the blood rushing from my heart to my head, till the room and
the tea-table and the group of living figures swam before my dazzled
eyes. I felt my weakness, but I determined all the more that no one
else should guess at it, and mentally stamped upon my heart to
make it steady against the moment when its energies should be
required.
‘You have met Mr Armytage before, Lizzie?’ said Mrs Rodwell, with
a pleasant astonishment.
Then I lifted my eyes and looked at him. Good God! What is the
vital force of this feeling, called love, which Thou hast given to us, far
oftener to prove a curse than a blessing, that after years of
separation, coldness, and neglect, it has the strength to spring up
again, warm and passionate as ever, at the sight of a face, the tone
of a voice, or the touch of a hand? Has nothing the power to trample
life out of it? Will it always revive when we think it most dead, and
turn its pale mutilated features up to the glare of day? Shall our
mortal dust, even when coffined in the mould, stir and groan and
vainly strive to make itself heard, as the step of one whom we have
loved passes sorrowfully over the fresh grass beneath which we lie?
I lifted up my eyes, and looked upon Bruce Armytage, to be able to
say truly if I had met him before. Yes, it was he, but little altered
during our five years of separation, excepting that he had passed
from a boy to a man. He coloured vividly beneath my steady gaze;
for a moment I thought he was about to seize my hand, but my eyes
forbade him, and he shrank backward.
‘Mr Armytage and I have met before,’ I said, with a marvellous
quietness, in answer to Mrs Rodwell’s previous question—‘when I
was living in my old home at Fairmead; but that is so many years
ago that we are nothing but strangers to each other now.’
At these words any purpose which he might have entertained of
claiming me as an old acquaintance evidently died out of Bruce
Armytage’s mind; for, retreating a few paces, he bowed coldly to me,
and took a seat, where his proper place now was, by Amy’s side.
‘Oh, not strangers, my dear—oh no!’ exclaimed Mrs Rodwell, who
had taken my answer in its literal sense. ‘You must all be friends
together here, you know, if it is only for Amy’s sake. Mr Frederick
Armytage, will you be so kind as to pass the muffins up this way?
Thank you! Now, Lizzie, my dear, you must make a good tea.’
I sat down between my host and hostess, triumphant on the
subject of the manner in which I had acquitted myself, and feeling
strong enough for any future trial; but before many minutes had
elapsed I was overtaken by a sickly and oppressive sensation for
which I was quite unable to account. The hot flush which had risen to
my face whilst speaking to Bruce Armytage died away, leaving a
cold, leaden weight upon my breast instead; my pulses ceased their
quick leap and took to trembling; the rich dainties which the doctor
and his wife heaped upon my plate nauseated me even to
contemplate; and a whirring confusion commenced in my head,
which obliged me to rally all my forces before I could answer a
simple question. The noise and laughter of the tea-table seemed to
increase every minute; and if one might judge from the incessant
giggling of Amy, Mattie, Nelly, and Lotty, the two gentlemen at the
other end were making themselves very agreeable. I tried to eat; I
tried to force the buttered toast and plum cake and rich preserves
down my throat, but there was something there which utterly
prevented my swallowing them.
‘Lizzie, my dear, are you not well?’ inquired Mrs Rodwell,
presently. The friendly interrogation saved me. I had just been