Page 2 of Rules for Ruin

Nell hugged her tight in return. “Had you no cause to pick any locks while you were companion to Madame Dalhousie?”

“Not a one, thank heaven.” Effie’s duties had been confined to accompanying the eccentric widowed madame to art and literary salons, lavish balls, stately dinners, and other social events of both the respectable and unrespectable variety. Such was the life of a lady’s companion, even one lucky enough to live in the City of Light.

“Pity,” Nell said. “You’ll be out of practice for what lies ahead.”

Effie drew back, brows notched in a frown. She searched Nell’s face. “It’s like that, is it?”

“Naturally.” Nell released her. “You must have realized it when you received my sampler.” She moved to lock the gates behind them, visibly proud of herself. “Clever, was it not?”

The sewing sampler had arrived at Madame Dalhousie’s apartment in Paris last week. A masterpiece of advanced embroidery, it had been composed of delicate colored threads stitched into a rectangle of coarse cloth, depicting a stone house and gardens, a jumbled alphabet, and a flock of birds circling above. Four ravens, to be precise, one of which had a white-tipped wing. The latter was the unofficial symbol of the Academy, and a necessary component of any secret message. Taken altogether, it had been a simple enough code. Effie had used it to spell out the unmistakable command: FLY HOME.

“Ridiculous, more like.” Effie’s tone held no malice. Among all the residents of the Academy, Nell was the only one whom Effie counted as a friend. They had corresponded semi-regularly during Effie’s exile.

Together, they returned up the pebbled path to the house. Nell’s leg hitched with every step. Effie felt the motion as much as saw it. The guilt she nurtured over her part in the childhood accident that caused Nell’s injury sprang anew. It never really left her, that guilt, despite the fact that Nell had long professed to hold no resentment over the past.

“You might simply have written a letter to me,” Effie said, “rather than making a riddle of it.”

“How dull that would have been.” Nell linked her arm through Effie’s. “It was far more amusing to practice my stitchery.”

Their full skirts pushed against each other as they walked. It was impossible for them not to, given the respective size of their wire crinolines. Miss Corvus wasn’t a lady to entertain the whims of fashion, but she had made an exception for the controversial, and seemingly impractical, cage-like undergarment. All of her teachers donned them, and most of the older orphans, too. Both Effie and Nell wore theirs like armor.

No one could easily get close to a girl wearing a wire crinoline, not without thoroughly disarranging her. Its sheer circumference provided a modicum of protection. But its daunting size had another purpose. A crinoline made even the smallest female an intimidating creature. She took up space for herself—demanded space—in a world where ladies were too often diminished and ignored.

“People never trouble to examine samplers too closely, I find,” Nell continued. “And when they do, they’re only searching for the flaws, never the meaning. It makes them an ideal vehicle for sending secret messages.”

“You’re a modern-day Madame Defarge,” Effie remarked.

Nell’s eyes twinkled. “Except my messages are all for the good.”

Effie gave Nell a speaking glance as they ascended the front steps to the house. “That remains to be seen.”

Like the exterior of the house, the interior of the formal entry hall was composed of aged stone, worn over the centuries to a buttery sheen. Faded carpets covered the floor, and moth-eaten tapestries adorned the walls, along with two large, gilt-framed oil paintings. One was an excellent reproduction of Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes. It had been there since Effie had first arrived at the Academy as a girl. A terrifying painting for a child to behold.

The other painting had been there as well. It was a portrait of a dark-haired woman in a lusterless black dress, standing tall and strong in the silhouette of a doorway. But it was no ordinary rendering, made to flatter its subject. The woman in this portrait had her back to the viewer. Her face was completely hidden from view.

Effie had once heard Miss Corvus offer an explanation of the portrait to a questioning gentleman who had come to inspect the premises on behalf of the parish council. “The modest woman conceals her face,” she’d told him.

It was as good a story as any, and one that had well satisfied the pious man. But it wasn’t the truth, as Effie would learn.

She deftly removed her bonnet with one hand, still holding her carpetbag in the other. Franc scanned the hall, his liquid brown eyes unblinking as he took in his strange surroundings. He offered another low growl.

There was no one about to inspire it. At this time of day, the inmates of the Academy would all be in their classes, sectioned off into the various rooms of the house like busy little bees in a hive.

But what of the Queen Bee?

When last Effie had faced her, Artemisia Corvus had been in her fourth-floor study—a remote tower room filled with books, antiquated papers corded with ribbons, and a bewildering filing system, the secret of which was known only to its equally secretive inventor.

“Where is she?” Effie asked, moving toward the broad, blackened oak staircase at the edge of the hall. “In her study?”

“Not there.” Nell set a hand on Effie’s sleeve, gently arresting her step. “She’s in her private quarters.”

Effie’s brows lifted. Miss Corvus never received any of the girls in her private rooms. Not even the teachers. At least, she hadn’t during Effie’s tenure. Miss Corvus’s rooms had always been sealed off, as impenetrable as a tomb, behind an impassable set of tall, iron-banded wooden doors. Not even the canniest members of the Academy had dared attempt entry.

Nell directed Effie down the hall. “She caught a fever some months ago. It weakened her considerably. Stairs have become difficult.”

Effie’s already uneasy stomach jolted at the news. She couldn’t fathom Miss Corvus being weakened by anything. To Effie, the Academy’s proprietress had always seemed invincible. “Is she—?”

“She’s recovering,” Nell said. “But slowly.” She guided Effie down the long corridor and through the high stone archways that led past the library and the old conservatory. A right turn into a narrow passage brought them to the very set of iron-banded doors that separated the public rooms from the private.