“What was it?” Felicity jumps in.
“I don’ ’ear ever’ fin’, Miss Pesterpants,” Brigid chides.
I mouth Miss Pesterpants to Felicity, who looks as if she could cheerfully strangle me.
“Wotever it was,” Brigid continues, “Missus Nightwing were very cross about it. I’ve never seen ’er so angry.” Brigid puts the candlestick back just so. “There. That’s better. I’ll ’ave to ’ave a word with that Emily. And you best get to prayers, before Missus Nightwing turns you out and me righ’ after.”
“What do you think it all means?” Felicity asks as we fall in with the other girls. They gather their prayer books and straighten their skirts. They crowd around too-small mirrors, pretending to tidy their hair when really they’re only gazing at themselves, looking for hopeful signs of budding beauty.
“I don’t know,” I say with a sigh. “Is Wilhelmina trustworthy or not?”
“She does appear in your visions, so it means something,” Felicity says.
“Yes, but so did the girls in white, and they were fiends who would have led me astray,” I remind her. The very girls who meant to lure Bessie and her friends into the Winterlands for who knows what purpose also came to me in my visions, giving me a measure of truth and lies. In the end, they led us straight into the clutches of the gruesome Poppy Warriors.
“So what is Miss Wyatt?” Felicity asks. “The lady or the tiger?”
I shake my head. “I honestly can’t say. But she took the dagger—that’s for certain—and that’s what we need to find.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
OUR TRIP TO THE REALMS ISN’T AS MERRY WITHOUT ANN. Even the magic can’t lighten the mood. The factory girls take her departure particularly hard. “Our lot got no chance,” Mae grumbles to Bessie.
“You must make your own chances,” Felicity retorts.
Bessie gives her a hard look. “Wot would you know of it?”
“Let’s not fight. I want to dance and play with magic. Gemma?” Pippa gives me a knowing look.
With a sigh, I tread the familiar path to the chapel and Pip follows. This time when we join together in the magic, the draw on me is hard. It’s as if I fall into her deeply. I’m part of her sadness, her envy, her bitterness—things I’d rather not see. When I break away, I’m tired. The magic itches beneath my skin like insects crawling.
But Pip sparkles once again. She nestles into my side and wraps her arms about my waist like a little girl. “It’s wonderful to feel special, even for just a few hours, isn’t it?”