Page 106 of Rules for Ruin

“Surely, there’s no point in keeping secrets anymore,” Effie said. “I already know the worst of it.”

“You should never have known any of it at all,” Miss Corvus snapped back at last. “What good has it done you to learn these dreadful things?”

“It is undeniably painful,” Effie admitted. “But—”

“From the first, you’ve been determined to disobey me,” Miss Corvus interrupted. “Every chance I’ve given you to spread your wings, you have used the opportunity to fly backward rather than forward.”

“Learning about my past was the only way I could go forward,” Effie told her. “You of all people should understand. The past may not decide our future but it certainly informs it. If you knew about the life I had before—”

“I knew nothing,” Miss Corvus said tightly. “Only that you were emaciated and filthy, and moved as silently as a cat. Had I not turned around at the flower stall in that precise moment, I’d never have known you’d stolen my reticule. I’d never have known you at all.” She adjusted the neck of her dressing gown with uncharacteristically restless fingers. “As for that creature…the woman you insist on calling mother…had I any knowledge of what she’d done to you, I’d never have criticized your fear of heights. Perhaps I was wrong to do so in any case. I might have guessed—”

“No one could have guessed at such cruelty,” Nell declared from her place by the window. “That a mother should treat her child so! Any child. My heart breaks for you, Effie.”

“Your heart needn’t trouble itself on my account,” Effie said. “I wanted understanding, and now I have it.” It hurt her, yes. But she couldn’t regret the knowledge of it. There were only a few finer points on which she still needed clarification. She turned to Miss Corvus. “Did you pay her for me?”

Miss Corvus’s hand stilled at her throat. “I took you to her that day, intending to give her a piece of my mind. She had a rented bed in a communal room in the slum. The state of it. Of her.” Her lip curled with disdain. “I’d already founded the orphanage. The trustees and I anticipated choosing girls from the workhouse. But when I saw the conditions in which you’d been living, and when that woman offered you to me—”

Effie’s brows shot up. “She offered me to you?”

“For a sum,” Miss Corvus said. “There have always been those who would buy little girls for unsavory purposes. Brothel keepers and the like. The woman plainly suspected I was one of them, and sought to make a few coins for herself in the bargain.”

Effie’s stomach revolted at the thought. She pressed a hand to her midsection, willing herself to remain calm and unemotional. But to think—her own mother would have sold her into such circumstances. It was sickening. Devastating. “How much did she ask of you?”

“Four pounds,” Miss Corvus said.

Effie exhaled a trembling breath.

Across the room, Nell angrily brushed a tear from her cheek.

“I paid it, naturally,” Miss Corvus said. “You were half-feral, but you were quick and fearless and undoubtedly bright. I was confident I could make something of you. I flatter myself I succeeded, despite your constant attempts to thwart me.”

“I always believed you’d taken me from someone who loved me,” Effie said.

“I’m well aware what you believed,” Miss Corvus replied. “It was better than you knowing the truth.”

“How could it have been?”

Miss Corvus gave a dismissive sniff, as though the answer were obvious. “You were too young,” she said simply. “The truth would have destroyed you. You were ill-equipped to hear it. It’s the very reason you couldn’t remember the details of the years before you came to me. The experience was too painful for you to recollect. I count it a mercy.”

Effie stared at her former teacher, a powerful emotion holding her in its grip. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to hear that Miss Corvus had acted out of kindness rather than cruelty. Effie had already learned so much of late that cast her former teacher’s actions in a more flattering light. And yet, she was surprised anew, finally comprehending that someone had acted to protect her fragile young heart and mind from additional pain. Not her mother, it was true, but another woman. A stronger woman.

Miss Corvus had been that person, always.

“I daresay you were right,” Effie said. “But it has been a long while since I was a child. You might have told me anytime since I came of age. I’m a grown woman. So is Nell. We deserve your candor if nothing else. There should be no more secrets between us.”

“To what purpose?” Miss Corvus asked. “Your pedigrees don’t define you. Nor do the actions of those who would abuse or victimize you. We forge our own identities here. The two of you have done so, not by my will, but through your own. It’s that which marks your character. Your integrity and achievements, not any accident of birth.”

“Do we forge our identities?” Effie asked. “Or are they manufactured for us?”

Miss Corvus’s lips compressed at the suggestion, but she didn’t deny it. She’d given them their names. Their knowledge. Their singular purpose.

“You taught us to be independent. To defend ourselves and think for ourselves.” Effie paused. “So long as our thoughts don’t diverge from yours.”

Miss Corvus flinched. “Don’t be absurd.”

“Your disapproval weighs heavily. That, and the promise of a stipend. I’d have done anything to earn them.”

“You never disagreed with my philosophy.”