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She lets a beat go by. “You don’t have to now. But if you ever do want to talk, well, you know where I live.”

I offer her a smile. “I know. Thanks.”

The fire is behind me and the wine is warm in my hand and the ribbon is gone, and I think about the way Morena used to tie her hair in the morning and the way she had laughed at anything our father said even when it wasn’t funny because she thought he was the funniest man in the world. It’s been five years and it’s been five minutes and it’s been fifty years. Time collapses on itself when you lose someone. It becomes wholly irrelevant and surreal when you’re grieving.

Avelene gives me a sympathetic smile and hooks my arm again and she steers me gently back toward the long table, and she pours me more mulled wine without being asked.

I take a long sip and look across the courtyard.

Baz is at the edge of the chaos, near the brazier under the arcade, standing with Hetch. His mask is in his hand. The firelight is in his hair and along the line of his jaw, and he looks like he’d been dragged to a party against his will and is going to leave at the first opportunity, which he probably is.

Hetch has his small clay jug in his hand and puts it in Baz’s hand and claps him on the shoulder with a wide smile, gesturing at him to drink. I watch Baz look at the jug and brace himself with a wary smile, then lift it up and have a careful sip. His eyes go slightly glassy and his jaw tightens as if he’s about to retch. He hands the jug back to Hetch without looking at him, as if he’s been deeply offended. Hetch is laughing, of course.

I can’t help but delight at the scene.

I know Avelene is watching me watch him, but thankfully she doesn’t say anything. She just presses her shoulder against mine and takes a sip of her own wine, and we stand together at the long table, and the bonfire pops and sends sparks up into the deep sky.

For an hour I lose myself in it. The warmth of the wine. The group close around me. The feeling of having friends, of belonging, for once in my life. Ambrose and Nelle have come back from wherever they had been and Ambrose has not stopped grinning. Avelene manages not to say anything that would embarrass him and I commend her for her self-control, because I can tell it’s killing her.

And when I let my gaze wander and look for Baz again, I find that he’s gone. The space under the arcade where he had been standing is empty and the brazier is burning down. Hetch is somewhere in the middle of the courtyard with his hair in his eyes, giving a lecture to Hester and Clem, who are too polite to escape. Baz has slipped away without anyone noticing, even me.

I don’t know what I’d been hoping for. Another look. Another nod. Nothing I could have had in front of this many people, but still I’d been secretly hoping for one more small thing.

“Come on, Greythorn,” she says, quiet. “Time for bed. You’ve got your first Veil Trial tomorrow.”

I sigh, suddenly feeling bone-weary, even though part of me is afraid something exciting might happen if I leave. “I guess you’re right.”

“Ambrose, we’re going,” she says to him.

Ambrose, who is deep in a conversation with Nelle that has their heads bent toward each other at a cozy angle, looks up unfocused, happy, and in no hurry to leave. “Oh,” he says. “Already? Why?”

“Because.”

He sighs and then kisses Nelle on the cheek. I’m not sure if she was expecting that—we sure weren’t—because her brows raise to the sky and she sits there, shock-still.

We walk back through the courtyard and across the bridge and up the ramp. Our masks are under our arms, our lanterns in our hands, and the corridors inside are warm after the cold of the bridge.

It’s starting to feel like home.

Chapter

Fifteen

SATURNA

Nox Anima begins before most of the school has had breakfast.

By the time I come down from my room in the morning, the Keepers’ candles have been replaced with fresh ones, taller and whiter, each one lit at dawn by an attendant with a long lighting rod. A small sprig of yew has been laid at the base of every cradle, tied with narrow black ribbon. The whole long curve of the ramp smells of wax and yew and resin. I lay a candied chestnut on Deton Moreau’s plate from the tin a student handed out on the landing above, and I don’t know whether this counts as the exchange I’m supposed to make but it’s what I have. I swear the air at his cradle warms by a touch, though it could be my imagination.

The refectory at supper is quieter than usual. The bone-marrow broth is on the long tables as it has been every evening of the week, with hot cider in copper jugs beside it, and tonight there’s a new dish, a plate of pastries called soul-bread which Avelene breaks apart over my soup and tells me to eat before the Veil Trial. I take her advice. The cake is dense and smoky and tastes faintly of molasses, and I finish it slowly over the broth all while everyone else is talking in hushed tones about the Trial. Someone remarks that the sky is the darkest red they’ve seen so far and even that puts shivers up my spine.

The veil is as thin as it’s going to get.

By dusk, the whole second year is gathered at the back archway of the east range in the Trial robes.

The robes are new, pulled from a storeroom none of us had ever been in. Mine is black wool, mid-weight, falling just below the knee, with a wide hood. Under it I’m wearing a plain white shift of soft linen, the same as everyone else, even the boys. The shift is thinner than I’d thought it would be and I feel terribly on display.

“I’d thought the robe would be the whole of the garment,” I complain to Avelene.