The Mesmerist(31)

He sweeps a curl of white hair from Emily’s eyes. “My kind are blessed with gifts of spirit and air, which gives us power over the elements, but only for a short while, and only at great cost.”

For the first time, I notice how drawn his face is. The spark in his silver eyes is somewhat dimmed.

“There were too many for us to face,” he says, almost apologetically. “I had no choice but to destroy the cave. And now we do not know what else lurks within, nor do we have any further information on this ‘rosy’ business.”

Emily stirs and yawns. “Hullo,” she says sleepily. She looks exhausted. Dark half-moons shade her eyes.

I stare for a moment before I greet her. “How are you feeling?”

She looks at me blankly, as if I am speaking another language.

Darby enters with tea and scones. She is back to her subservient self, not the smiling girl who was thrilled to receive a new dress. How much does she know of all this? She sets the tea service on the table, and her eyes flit to Emily.

“Hullo, wolf girl,” Emily greets her.

I almost gasp aloud.

Darby studies the floor.

“Emily,” Balthazar says calmly, like a headmaster about to reproach an unruly student, “that is not Darby’s name.”

Gabriel closes his eyes and sighs.

“It’s all right,” Darby says, looking back up, but at no one in particular. “I don’t mind.”

“Can I have some water, please?” Emily asks sweetly.

Darby smiles and leaves the room quietly.

When she is out of hearing distance, I turn to Balthazar. “How much does she know?” I whisper. “About us? About the League of Ravens?”

“Well, she certainly knows that her master is not an ordinary chap,” he answers, “and that the children who reside in this house are quite unusual.”

“She could join us,” I suggest, looking to Gabriel and Emily for support. “We would accept her, and she would be an equal. I think she could use a friend.”

“I think so too,” Emily says. “She’s all right, you know? We could’ve used a wolf against those monsters.”

“Darby cannot change at will,” Balthazar says wearily, as if he has stated it before. “Only on the full moon can she make the transformation.”

Darby comes back into the room bearing a tray with a ewer of water and glasses. She fills one and hands it to Emily, who gulps it down without pausing.

“Thank you,” she says. “I need water after I light up. If I don’t drink, it feels like I’m gonna burn to a crisp.”

And then she belches.

The color blooms in her cheeks. Darby almost laughs aloud, but quickly turns to leave.

“The rhyme,” Gabriel says, looking up from his book. “The one the ghoul spoke. It is the same one we heard from the boy in the alley.”

“‘Ring around the rosy, a pocketful of posies,’” I whisper.

“How would that thing know that?” Emily asks.

Balthazar turns to her. “That is what we must find out.”



The remainder of the day is spent quietly, each of us with our own thoughts. We are waiting for our next move, whatever it may be. I am beyond exhausted. Mother’s death, the ghoul in the cave—?it is all too much to bear.

But still, after everyone retires I spend a few minutes looking at some of the assorted books piled in the sitting room. Darkling, it called me. What does it mean?

Most of the tomes I find are of a fantastical nature: The Black Book of Signs, The Carved Deck, The Land and Its Terrors, A History of the Seelie and Unseelie Court, but nothing that mentions “darkling.”

I hear footsteps, and Emily creeps into the room. I thought she would be sleeping. “Oi,” she calls. “What are you doing slinking about?”

“I’m not slinking,” I answer. “I’m trying to find out more about this darkling business.”

She looks around as if she might find something of interest, but then sits at the table, props her elbows up, and rests her chin in her hands. I join her. I wonder what other evils she has seen, and if fighting ghouls is as disturbing to her as it is to me.

“Was this your first time?” I ask. “Seeing . . . something out of a nightmare?”

“No. I seen something before. It were awful.” She looks down at the table and then back up. “It were at Nowhere, right? Olly and Rags said there were a monster in the forest, but we couldn’t go out at night, see? But one night me and Gabbyshins snuck out.” A mischievous grin forms on her face.

“What did you see?” I ask her. “Did you find anything?”

“Yeah. We found it. We looked all around in the woods, and didn’t see nothing. I used my light to show the way. And right when we was headed back, I seen it.”

“What? What did you see?”

“A hellhound.”

“What is a hellhound?”

“A hound from Hell, innit?”

“I suppose so,” I say.

“Well, first it were a man, and then it turned into a dog,” Emily clarifies, as if that really helps. “It came after us, me and Gabbyshins. I had to . . . I had to kill it.”

Her face looks pained, and I stop the conversation there.