Changeling (Sorcery and Society Book 1)(20)

The Brandywine crest was a bit more subtle than I’d expected, white apple blossoms with dark leaves and roots. As I was supposed to be a distant Brandywine cousin, Mrs. Winter had asked Madame DuPont to subtly embroider white apple blossoms on some of my dresses and handkerchiefs, and each set of gloves. She’d also given me several small pieces of costume paste jewelry featuring the floral motif. All of the smartest girls did this, Mrs. Winter claimed, sneaking their house sigils in some form into their ensembles to show allegiance to their families and remind their classmates with whom they were dealing.

I wandered closer to the cray-fire lamps, an invention of House McCray, powered by a network of magically charged crystals. They were terribly expensive to create and maintain, due to the amount of magical energy required to keep them lit. Miss Morton murmured that the McCray family had generously donated the lamps more than a century before, with the understanding that the students would be responsible for charging them as part of their coursework.

“The older girls are quite diligent in this task,” Miss Morton assured me. “Though I admit that with some classes where the talent pool is, shall we say, diluted, the faculty step in to supplement.”

I smiled, but didn’t comment, sorely afraid that I would say the wrong thing in the wrong accent and give myself away before I even started. Miss Morton led me down the sweeping marble staircase to the ground floor, where she seated me in a little window alcove at a private desk.

“One thousand words,” she said kindly. “I’m sure you’ll manage it in no time at all. And then I shall show you some of the more interesting botany books, since you appear to take an interest in the subject.”

I glanced down at The Dark and Dangerous Garden. Miss Morton snapped a green velvet curtain closed around my study alcove, separating me from the rest of the library. I cleared my throat and uncapped my pen. I searched through the table of contents until I found the chapter on Drosera plants. One illustration showed the plant as I’d first observed it, beautiful, golden blooms glowing against a dark background. The second illustration, labeled “actual appearance,” revealed a plant covered in brown reptilian scales and a split mouth-like pod with teeth like the disgusting lake lampreys Mr. Sykes sold at the fish market.

Plants of the family drosera use a glamour of bright petals and faint iridescence to attract potential prey. The plant requires the blood of its prey to generate the glamour, so only the strong specimens survive.

I wrinkled my nose, wondering which of her hapless underclassmen Headmistress Lockwood used to feed her plant. Still, it was an interesting plant and reminded me of the old vampire tales Mrs. Green, our teacher at the Warren school, tried to scare us with around All Hallow’s Eve. I dutifully scrawled out an introductory paragraph in my neatest cursive, comparing the plant’s methods to the old vampire tales and suggesting that the familiar legends could have some link to the plant world. It might not have made any sense, but at least it would entertain Headmistress Lockwood.

Soon, I had a passable first draft – one thousand and fourteen words, thank you very much – but as I read over it, I realized it was missing something. Mrs. Green had insisted on supporting our essays with multiple sources, something Mary had complained about bitterly. I needed something to back up my assertions about the vampire tales. Surely, a library like this had a section devoted to folklore and legends.

I stood, poking my head out of the study alcove. Miss Morton was nowhere to be found. Come to think of it, she was supposed to come back to check my progress. Had she forgotten about me completely or I was supposed to alert her when I’d reached my goal? Was working past my goal considered a breach of new student etiquette? I worried my lip, considering my options. If I waited for Miss Morton, I might not finish my essay, which would definitely not help my case with Headmistress Lockwood. And I had been given permission to look at the “entry level” shelves, though I’m sure Headmistress Lockwood meant for me to have an escort. As long as I didn’t touch anything, I told myself, I would be fine.

Several heads rose as I parted the velvet curtains. Though several sets of eyes followed me, each girl was careful not to appear as if she was watching. I scanned the plaque on the stairwell, listing the subject areas on each floor. The folklore section was located on the third floor. I sighed, eying the steep staircase and my voluminous skirts.

What would Mrs. Winter do, I wondered.

She would hike herself up those stairs. Or she would enchant someone to carry her.

I grabbed the bannister, pulling myself up the first step. I marveled at the sheer number of bookshelves I passed, novels, history, alchemy, astronomy, divination. Seeing Headmistress Lockwood’s office and this monument to the written word made me that much more eager to get up the mountain of stairs and finish my paper so I could stay at Miss Castwell’s. And I wanted to stay at Miss Castwell’s, not to please Mrs. Winter or to avoid Coven Guild dissection, but because I wanted to live in this library. I wanted to wallow in these bookshelves, taking my time as I worked my way through the treasures it had to offer.

Several minutes and curses against fashion later, I’d arrived on the third floor landing. The library was even more impressive from this height, the green-carpeted levels standing out sharply from the black and white floor tiles. The ceiling’s jewel-like renderings of the House crests were so close I could almost touch them.

The older students I’d seen before were still milling about, adding to the burden of their floating book stacks. They largely ignored me, but I could see the occasional intentionally casual glance thrown my way. I could see now that there was a seventh crest etched into the glass, but it had been nearly obliterated. Only a dark outline remained, a rounded blobby bird-like shape with outstretched wings.