And after that, she simply had to test it out.
She sat at the dresser and thought of herself with a fringe. And it only bloody gave her one. She stared for a good thirty seconds, caught between how incredible this was and how horrible she looked. Before she remembered that Anaya was waiting for a reply.
Do not do what the mirror says. I think it might be mad,she scribbled, then sent it through the magical postbox drawer. And a second later, she got a reply. So fast, so full of eagerness, in a way that wasn’t just delightful because it was so unspeakably magical. There was also the little pang she got when she read Anaya’s next words.
I’m so glad I’ve got someone to share all of this with. Do you know there is no heating? Everything is just a perfect temperature, all on its own. My Baba would be having a fit now over the thermostat if we had the house this lovely and hot,she had written, as if it was just that easy to find a friend and talk with them about things.
Familiar things, too.
She knew what it was to have to watch what you were doing. To have little money and wear three sweaters instead of having the heating on.I’m so glad I have you, too, she wrote back, and for the first time in her life, it didn’t feel nerve-racking to say something like that. Someone else had talked that way first.
Somehow here, in this cold and aloof and moneyed place, she had found an ally. A partner in a crime. Someone as valuable and soft as that bastard was worthless and cruel. It helped her breathe out. To settle in the same way the sight of the girl at the window, reading, had. In a way that still did, once Anaya had said good night, and she was left alone with a candle that lit itself, on a holder with a handle like something from a novel by one of the Brontë sisters, and an armload of books that she carefully selected, for maximum immersion into this strange new world.
The Complete Compendium of Creatures, she chose immediately. And then:A Guide to the Underneath, Rules for Navigating in Between Places, The Complete History of Harrowhall. In fact, there were several histories of various schools there. She noticed a few American volumes, a Canadian one.
Though they weren’t quite as wide-ranging as she would have liked.Here is not going to be the place to find out what exactly happened with the three unseen wars, and the overthrow of colonial rule, and the stalemate schism,she thought, as she searched and came up empty.Most likely living in England means you’ll never know how badly they were outgunned, simply because other countries grasped magic quicker. All that matters is it made us a narrower, rule-obsessed place, and you need to know those rules if you want to survive here.
All of which was disheartening.
But still fascinating in its own way. She clambered across her new big, lovely bed, thinking of all the secrets between what was said that she might be able to unearth, all the things they would probably dance around in official accounts. She’d always been good at figuring out what was between the lines, layered in subtext, left unspoken. She had needed to be, in order to navigate theworld as an introverted fat girl, as someone forgotten and left to the edges of everything.
As someone clever but often thought of as not.
He thinks you’re not, she thought, as she eagerly turned to the first page of her first magical book. Then hot on its heels:And that will be his downfall, that will be the way you protect yourself. That will be how you live deliciously, in this dark place. By doing this.
Though it was deep into the early hours before she found anything useful. Her eyes were drooping; the candle had almost burned to nothing. She glanced up briefly to get the crick out of her neck and saw the darkness outside shifting to a cool, cold gray. Then just before she drifted off, she saw it.
The Underneath feeds all magic.
And it is your clearest thoughts that forge the connection.
Chapter Four
She knew she wasn’t fully asleep anymore. But it didn’t feel as if she was awake, either. Everything felt soft-focus and sort of distant, as if she were watching it through a camera. The candle flickering down to nothing on the windowsill in front of her wasn’t the one she’d left burning. That arm dangling over the brass frame of the bed didn’t actually belong to her.
And there wasn’t really a man in the corner of her room.
She was dreaming; she was just dreaming. All she had to do was give it a second, and he would dissolve down to nothing. But somehow a second went by, and he was still there. Another second, and he seemed even more solid than he had before. She made out broad shoulders, a hulking body.
Then just as she was thinking that was madness, he moved.
Some part of his body shifted, still in shadow enough that she couldn’t make out what the part actually was. She couldn’t tell what was happening, until something seemed to abruptly glow in the darkness. A deep orange ember, bright enough that it illuminated a small circle around itself.
Then she saw teeth.
Fingers.
A hand.
And she knew. Whatever was there had just kissed a cigaretteto his lips. He had taken a drag, slow and deliberate. Now he was exhaling smoke in a steady plume that she couldn’t quite see.
But could definitely smell.
It was too sweet to be tobacco, too strange to be anything of this world. Even though she knew it shouldn’t be.The use of Underneath ingredients as intoxicants is strictly prohibited and may result in expulsion, she had read. But obviously whoever this was didn’t care. He took another drag as she watched, even lazier than the first one. And this time he didn’t let the cigarette leave his lips.
He clamped it there, as if he was about to do something he needed both hands for. Though somehow, she didn’t really imagine he would do anything at all. Dream creatures had to stay where they were, after all. They couldn’t really harm you; they couldn’t really do anything to you.
Unless of course you had done something the welcome pack told you not to.
