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“Eugenia herself told us it wasn’t real!” Miss McCleethy insists.
“Because she feared it!” I shout. “That’s why she burned Wilhelmina’s drawings. Why she denied its existence. But I assure you it is very real indeed! I have seen it.”
“You’ve been to the Winterlands,” Mrs. Nightwing whispers. She’s as pale as cheese.
Miss McCleethy’s expression is one of pure fury. “You stupid, stupid girl!”
“Perhaps if the Order hadn’t been afraid of the Winterlands, if they hadn’t made it forbidden all those years, you’d know more about it!”
“We know what we need to know about the Winterlands and those filthy creatures: that they must be controlled or destroyed.”
“You’ll never destroy them. It isn’t possible. The creatures are feeding souls to the tree—the souls of the dead and the living. They’ve been coming into our world through the secret door and taking them back. That’s what happened to Miller’s men, to the mummers, to Ithal. They were taken! Those horrible things I saw—I thought I was going mad. Eugenia told me you would make me see things, illusions, that I would feel mad, and I believed her.”
“You are mad!” McCleethy growls, her voice rising.
Fowlson holds out a hand. “Sahirah, what if—”
Her eyes flash. “Don’t.” And Fowlson, the bully, quiets like that frightened boy in his mother’s kitchen. “Eugenia Spence was the most loyal member of the Order who ever lived! And you are the daughter of the one who nearly killed her. Why should I believe you?”
Her words sting, but I have no time to be wounded. “Because I’m telling you the truth. When Eugenia sacrificed herself for Sarah and Mary, they fed her soul to their god, to the tree. She became a part of it—her power joined to its. And over time, they’ve become something new, something enormously powerful. She isn’t what she was. She isn’t the Eugenia you knew.”
“Sahirah, you said it would be safe,” Mrs. Nightwing whispers.
“Lillian, she’s invented this tale. It’s ridiculous! Eugenia Spence!”
“Are you so desperate to be right—to admit no cracks—that you would ignore my warning?” I say.
“Miss Doyle, why don’t you admit the truth—that you are loath to share the power, and that you would do anything to hold on to it?” McCleethy turns on Fowlson. “And how could you believe her?”
Fowlson lowers his eyes. He turns his hat in his hands.
Miss McCleethy’s gaze is cool. “We gave you a chance to join with us, Miss Doyle. You refused. Did you think one girl could hold us back?”
It is not a question to be answered, so I say nothing.
“Our plans will continue with or without you.”
“Please,” I say, my voice raw. “Please believe me. They need my magic to complete their plan. They mean to sacrifice me today, May sixth—Eugenia’s birthday. We must find a way to stop them.”
“I’ve heard enough.” Miss McCleethy rises.
A flicker of worry passes over Nightwing’s face. “Perhaps we—”
“Lillian, remember your place as well.” The door closes behind McCleethy with barely a sound.
I’ve never heard anyone speak to Mrs. Nightwing in such a manner. I wait for her to dismiss me, to resume being Mrs. Nightwing—imperious, commanding, never wrong.
“Sahirah…,” Fowlson says as he follows his lover out. I hear them arguing in heated whispers beyond the door, Miss McCleethy’s mumbles sounding hard and quick, Fowlson’s slower and defensive.
“I am not of the Order,” Mrs. Nightwing explains to Kartik and me. “My power did not take, you see. Within months, it faded. I was not destined to continue. I left Spence for a life outside the Order, for marriage. And when the power of that faded, too, I came back to help. I chose a life of service. There is no shame in that.” She rises. “Women have fought and died to preserve the sanctity of the realms. Perhaps you could bend just a little.”
Mrs. Nightwing’s skirts whisk stiffly across the floor, and then Kartik and I are the only ones left. Soon morning will creep into afternoon. Dusk will fall. And then night.
Felicity and Ann rush in, out of breath. “We were listening at the door earlier,” Ann explains. “Before McCleethy shooed us away.”
“Then you know they don’t believe me. They think I’m mad, a liar like Wilhelmina Wyatt,” I say. “We’re on our own.”
Felicity puts a hand on my shoulder. “Perhaps you are wrong about this, Gemma.”
