Gilded Cage (Dark Gifts #1)(36)

Abi studied the paintings, all portraits. She recognized the subjects of the largest two canvases, but had no idea about the other two sitters. One was a long-necked young woman wearing a dress the same bronze colour as her hair. She petted a large lizard that nestled in her arms. The other, unframed, was a wistful, black-eyed boy aged seven or eight.

‘This is Cadmus Parva-Jardine, the Pure-in-Heart,’ she said confidently, touching the largest picture in its gilded frame shaped like a laurel wreath. Jenner nodded.

Her fingers trailed onto the next. She knew what this man had done. Was it only that knowledge which made his likeness seem both proud and vicious, or did his deeds truly show in his face?

‘Cadmus’s father, Lycus Parva. Lycus the Regicide. He killed Charles the First and Last.’

She shuddered. Lycus had used nothing but Skill to kill the Last King, and the histories said that Charles had taken four days to die on the scaffold at Westminster. It was written that the spectacle was so terrible that pregnant women watching miscarried, and men went mad.

‘This is Cadmus’s mother, Clio Jardine,’ Jenner said, pointing to the woman in the bronze dress. ‘It was painted to mark her marriage to Lycus. You see the walled garden behind her? That’s the Jardine family emblem. And she’s holding a salamander, the Parva heraldic device. Our coat of arms today combines both, although the Parva motto has dropped out of use. Silyen’s fond of it, but it’s a bit too self-effacing for Jardine tastes.’

Abi looked at the painted banner. Uro, non luceo. I burn, not shine. An appropriate match for the salamander, that legendary creature said to breathe fire and renew itself in flames.

Clio gazed sideways out of the canvas. Her face was framed by artful ringlets, her eyebrows painted in bold arches. Her features and colouring, though, Abi had seen before. They were like those of the young man standing beside her.

Abi looked from Clio to Jenner, and it was as if a wall as impenetrable as Kyneston’s own had reared up between them. He might not have the Skill, but he had the blood. These impossible names from history books were his ancestors. His family. His great-great-greats.

Jenner hadn’t noticed her reaction, and continued his tale.

‘Clio was the only offspring in the Jardine direct line. This was before female succession was permitted, so she couldn’t inherit Kyneston. The house was due to pass to a male cousin. But when her son Cadmus’s incredible Skill became apparent as a teenager, he was co-opted as the Jardine heir and given the double surname Parva-Jardine.

‘Cadmus was a scholarly man and lived a quiet life. He married young, and when that first wife died he was grief-stricken and buried himself in his research. You know what happened next: the Revolution. Lycus, the father, killed the king. Cadmus, the son, restored peace. He tore down the palace and built the House of Light, in the Great Demonstration. And after becoming our first Chancellor, he married again. It was the eldest son from that marriage, Ptolemy Jardine, who next inherited Kyneston. But it shouldn’t have been.’

‘Why not?’ said Abi, mesmerized by the unfolding story. ‘Who should it have been?’

‘Someone we never talk about,’ said Jenner. He pointed to the final picture. ‘Him.’

The boy had the large black eyes of Lady Thalia and the Young Master, but none of her sparkle or his arrogance. His expression was soft and sad. The picture wasn’t particularly well executed – the clothing was flat and the boy’s hands were all wrong. But the artist had captured some deep sorrow in the child.

‘Father won’t let this one be displayed,’ Jenner continued, a strange note to his voice. ‘It would have been destroyed years ago were it not the only picture we have which was painted by Cadmus himself.’

‘So who is he?’

Abi was hooked by this secret that she’d never encountered in all her reading about Kyneston and the Jardines. And another, shameful part of her was thrilled that Jenner wanted to share with her this story that plainly meant so much to him.

‘He’s me. He’s the only other rotten fruit on the family tree. The only one in our great and glorious history with no Skill – until I came along.’

And what did you say to that? Abi’s mind raced for an answer, but found none. She didn’t do people, dammit. She did books. A world of difference.

She cast her mind back to the day they had arrived at Kyneston, Daisy opening her big gob and asking why the Young Master had let them through the gate and not Jenner. His easy, gallant response about his lack of Skill. How many years had he been practising those lines until he could say them like that? As if they meant nothing at all, when clearly his life was poisoned at its roots by this awful, inexplicable lack.

‘Take a close look,’ Jenner urged.

There were numerous objects displayed around the boy. An empty birdcage with the door shut. A tulip in its prime, upright in a vase but drab and grey, as if a week dead. A sheet ruled with musical staves but without notes. A violin with no strings. Abi peered at the word written at the top of the blank musical score. The non-existent work was titled in Latin: Cassus.

‘It means “hollow”,’ Jenner said. ‘“Empty”. Alternatively: “useless”, or “deficient”. Which is to say, without Skill. All that’ – he gestured at the flower, the birdcage – ‘that’s what my world looks like, to them.’