He wipes an arm across his brow.
“And is that all?”
“I…” He steals a quick glance. “I see your face.”
“Me? I’m there?”
He nods.
“Well…what happens next?”
He doesn’t look at me. “You die.”
Gooseflesh rises on my arms. “How?”
“I…” He stops. “I don’t know.”
The breeze coming off the lake gives me another shiver. “They’re only dreams.”
“I believe in dreams,” he answers.
I take hold of his hands, not caring if it’s too bold. “Kartik, why don’t you come into the realms with me and look for Amar yourself? Then you would know for certain and perhaps the dreams would go away.”
“But what if they’re right?” He slips his hands from mine. “No. As soon as I have paid my debt to the Gypsies for their aid, I’ll be on my way to Bristol and the HMS Orlando.”
I stand. “So you won’t even try to fight?” I say, swallowing the lump rising in my throat.
Kartik stares straight ahead. “Make the alliance without me, Gemma. You’ll be fine on your own.”
“I’m tired of being on my own.”
Wiping away tears, I march into the woods. Just past the Gypsy camp, I see Mother Elena heaving a pail toward Spence.
“What are you doing?” I demand. I yank the pail away, and the dark liquid in it sloshes against the sides. “What is this?”
“The mark has to be made in blood,” she says. “For protection.”
“You’re the one who painted the East Wing. Why?”
“Without protection, they’ll come,” she says.
“Who will come?”
“The damned.” She grabs for the pail and I hold it out of her reach.
“I’ll not spend another morning scrubbing,” I say.
Mother Elena tightens her shawl about her. “Two ways! The seal is broken. Why would Eugenia allow it? She knows—she knows!”
The whole ghastly night rises in me like a battered dog who’ll take no more taunting. “Eugenia Spence is dead. She’s been dead for twenty-five years. You’re not to do this again, Mother Elena, or I shall tell Mrs. Nightwing it was you, and you’ll be banished from these woods forever. Do you want that?”
Her face crumples. “Have you seen my Carolina?”
“No,” I say wearily.
“She’s a good hider.”
“She’s not…” I trail off. It’s no use talking sense to her. She’s mad, and I feel if I stand here talking longer, I’ll tip into madness myself. I empty the bucket into the grass and hand it back. “You mustn’t do it again, Mother Elena.”
“They’ll come,” she growls, and limps away, the empty pail clattering against her bangles like chimes.
It’s noticeably colder on my return to Spence, and I curse myself for not bringing a wrap. Just one of the many foolish things I’ve done, such as trying to change Kartik’s mind. Something flies close to my head and I yelp.
“Caw! Caw!” it cries, soaring ahead of me. Nothing but a bloody crow. It settles in the rose garden, pecking at the blooms.
“Shoo, shoo!” I flap at it with my skirts and it rises. Then I see a curious thing: A patch of frost has taken out several of the budding roses. They are stillborn on their stalks, half-formed and blue with cold.
“Caw! Caw!”
The crow perches on the East Wing turret, watching me. And then, before my astonished eyes, it flies over the spot that marks the secret entrance to the realms, and disappears.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
BY THE FOLLOWING EVENING, OUR LAST AT SPENCE BEFORE Easter week, we are desperate to enter the realms again. I don’t try to conjure the door of light on my own anymore; it’s hardly worth the effort when I shall only be disappointed and we’ve another way in that never fails. Once we’re certain our teachers are gone to bed, we run straight for the secret door by the East Wing and then on to the Borderlands. We no longer bother with the garden. It feels like child’s play, somehow, a place where we turned pebbles into butterflies as girls do. Now we fancy the blue twilight of the Borderlands, with its musky flowers and the magnetic pull of the Winterlands. Each time we play, we find ourselves a toehold closer to that imposing wall that separates us from its unknown expanse.
Even the castle has grown less forbidding to us. The wealth of deadly nightshade blooming from its walls gives it color—like a Mayfair parlor covered in the most exotic paper. We burst through the castle’s vine-twisted doors, shouting Pip’s name, and she runs to us, squealing with delight.