Sachi opens it. She’s already dressed in a black-and-white houndstooth gown festooned with black lace. “Rory and Prue are still asl— What’s wrong?” she asks as I march to the window.
I shove the pink-pinstriped curtains open, letting the weak December sunlight spill into the room. Prue sits up, blinking and groggy, reaching for her spectacles.
“My sister’s a monster,” I explain.
Rory sticks her rumpled head out from beneath her quilt and groans. “You woke us up to tell us that? We already know that, Cate. Go back to bed.”
“I can’t. I’ve got to go to church.” I pace around their room, sidestepping slippers and petticoats and books dropped helter-skelter. It’s a pleasant change from pacing around my own room for the last thirty minutes, waiting for it to be late enough to wake them. “Finn said that Merriweather is plotting something and I’m afraid Alistair will get himself arrested. But Prue, we can’t leave you alone. Someone has to stay with you, every moment, until we get word to your brother. He’ll want you with him once he finds out you aren’t safe here.”
Prue swings her bare feet onto the floor. “I’m not safe here?”
Sachi catches my elbow, hauling me to a stop. “Cate, you’re not making any sense and you’re making me dizzy. What’s Maura done now?”
I went to Maura for help with Tess and somehow she turned everything around, the way she always does, and made it about her. And now—now I’ve got to worry about whom she and Parvati might take it into their heads to attack next. I’m afraid the leading candidate is sitting right in front of me on her trundle bed.
“Jennie and Elsie didn’t run off of their own accord.” My voice is tight. I am ashamed to say it out loud. How could my sister do such a thing? “Maura and Parvati erased their memories and threw them out. They don’t trust anyone who’s not a witch. I wouldn’t put it past Maura to go after you next, Prue. We had a huge row, and if she wants to get back at me—”
“She wouldn’t hesitate to attack one of your friends.” Rory sits up, straightening her red flannel nightgown. “Your sister’s a right bitch, Cate.”
I slump onto the bench in front of their dressing table. “I know.”
“All right then. Church it is.” Prue shucks off her nightgown and rummages through the armoire. She’s still too thin from her time at Harwood; I can see the knobs of her spine through the white muslin of her shift.
“What if someone recognizes you?” I protest. “I’d have to glamour you. My illusions are better than they used to be, but maintaining it the whole way through church would be tricky.” Particularly considering how little I’ve slept and how splintered my focus already is—furious with Maura, frightened for Tess, annoyed with Merriweather. “You’re better off staying here with Sachi and Rory.”
“Is she?” Sachi’s taken up my pacing. Her feet, clad in black silk stockings, whisper against the wooden floorboards. “Parvati can’t go to church. What if she tries to attack Prue? She could compel us to step aside and we’d have no choice in it.”
Prue’s pulled the black dress over her head. Now she turns her back and gestures for Sachi to fasten the hooks. “My brother’s smart, but he isn’t infallible, and that church will be overflowing with Brothers. If it were your sister taking such a mad risk, you’d go, wouldn’t you?”
She’s got me there. I sigh. “All right. I’ll ask Tess to help with the glamour.”
Sachi grabs my elbow again. Her smile is chilling. “I know Maura’s your sister, Cate, but if she does anything to hurt Prue, she’ll have to answer to me.”
“I won’t let that happen,” I promise.
I only hope I’m not telling a lie.
• • •
Despite the Gazette’s warnings about the fever, Richmond Cathedral is packed. Christmas Day is for prayerful commemoration of the Lord’s birth—and for showing off one’s finery to one’s neighbors. The air is cloyingly fragrant with the scents of perfume—lavender, lemon verbena, and rosewater. Girls wave at friends with their satin gloves and matrons toss their heads to display new earbobs, while men ostentatiously check their new pocket watches.
“I don’t see him,” Prue complains, glancing around anxiously. We’ve waited until the last moment to take our seats so she could search the crowd for her brother.
“Maybe he changed his mind,” I suggest.
She raises her eyebrows. “I find that unlikely.”
We start down the central aisle, but an old woman in a white fur cloak jostles me and I stumble, grabbing Prue’s arm to right myself. My focus wavers. Her newly pudgy, dimpled hands stretch into long, thin fingers with nails cracked from lack of proper nutrition.
“Are you all right?” she asks.
“Of course.” It’s fixed in a trice. A small thing, barely noticeable. I push down a jolt of worry. I’d counted on Tess’s help, but she stayed home from services; Vi said she was up half the night crying over the kitten.
I head toward the Sisterhood’s customary pews, searching for Elena. Maura sits in the first row with Inez, but Elena’s nowhere to be seen. It’s not like her to miss church. Keeping up appearances is important, she would say; Sisters are meant to be devout. I tap Sister Celeste, one of the governesses, on the shoulder. “Have you seen Elena?”
“She went across town. Her aunt’s taken sick,” Celeste explains.
Blast. I nod and thank her while cursing Elena’s aunt. The services are about to start; we can’t rush out now. I motion Prue into the last row, next to Lucy.
Lucy looks askance at the seeming stranger. “This is Lydia,” I explain, gesturing to the plump, pretty blonde with brown eyes and round apple cheeks who looks nothing like Prue Merriweather. I should have made the illusion less complicated. I didn’t realize I’d be solely responsible for keeping it up.
I look up at the ceiling, praying that I can manage this.
Brother O’Shea climbs the dais, his long horse’s face unsmiling, and wishes us all a merry Christmas. At his command, we reach for the Bibles tucked on the back of each pew. I open ours to follow along with the customary prayers—and a leaflet falls out, fluttering to the floor. Prue picks it up, and I peer over her shoulder as she reads:
This reporter has obtained records from Richmond Hospital confirming that over three hundred people have died of fever in the last week alone. Yesterday’s Gazette urged the Brotherhood to cancel services and other public gatherings until the threat has passed. This reporter has learned that the Sentinel intends to print a rebuttal charging us with shoddy journalism intended to stir the populace against the Brotherhood. However, it is the Sentinel which has ignored the science of prevention in favor of blaming the witches. This reporter has borne witness to witches healing the fever—that of a poor boy, a tailor’s son, who was denied a place in the hospital. The Brotherhood dismissed the outbreak because it originated in the river district, whose inhabitants don’t contribute to the Brothers’ coffers. The Brothers’ refusal to set up temporary hospitals, to make available more medicine and nurses to treat the city’s poor, has allowed the fever to spread across the city into your fine neighborhoods. If I print lies—why are so many of your fellow congregants coughing?