Changeling (Sorcery and Society Book 1)(73)

I closed my eyes and then opened them to stare up at the ceiling, where the late afternoon light shone through the House sigil constellation window. I spotted the blobby stain I’d noticed on my very first day at Miss Castwell’s. I’d spent so much time in the library and I’d been so involved in reading that I hadn’t really looked at it again. Mrs. Winter said that the glass had been vandalized while she was a student at Castwell’s. What if I was right when I thought that some misguided Grimstelle descendant had tried to add her sigil to the celestial ceiling?

I moved as quickly as I could, exhausted by the act of walking up one flight of stairs to where Miss Morton kept a display of class photos on a large expanse of wall between the astral projection and astrology sections. Each photo featured that year’s senior girls arranged on the grand staircase in the lobby, dating back to before the Great Restoration. Mrs. Winter would never admit her age, but I searched back twenty picture frames or so and found Headmistress Lockwood’s rigid form front and center. Even as a student, she’d had a permanently exasperated expression. Mrs. Winter was standing a few spots to the right, looking resplendent, even in black and white. I scanned the other girls’ faces. In the back, almost hidden between other smiling girls, was Miss Morton. Even at seventeen, she’d looked older than her years. Her hair was already frizzling around her face, her round glasses giving her eyes a wide, plaintive look.

My head swimming, I squinted at the photo, spotting the now-familiar sprig of nightglove pinned to Miss Morton’s dress – the sprig of nightglove secured with a tarnished owl-shaped brooch.

Why hadn’t I noticed that before? Had I become so used to the dull, dark brooch against Miss Morton’s dark clothes that I became blind to it?

My limbs growing even heavier, I stumbled down the stairs and approached the House Drummond archive. I opened the thick volume and found the page listing the Morton family.

I traced the connection from the major line from House Drummond to the Morton’s roots. Miss Morton’s great-great-grandfather was listed as the son of Gulliver Drummond one of the most powerful men in that era’s government and a master of training dogs to assist in hunting potion ingredients in the woods. Mr. Drummond also happened to be an acquaintance of Calpernia McCray, and I happened to remember a journal entry in which Calpernia mentioned Gulliver boring everyone at a dinner party with a lengthy description of his dog’s favorite places to nap. She wrote that it was no surprise that Gulliver was unmarried with no children, as he was far more interested in his dogs than raising a family.

Miss Morton couldn’t be connected to the Drummond family that way. I searched for other Mortons, but all of them had connections to major houses I could confirm. Miss Morton wasn’t related to any of those families. It was if she’d materialized from nothing.

Miss Morton had betrayed me. She’d lied to me, pretending to be my friend. She’d stolen from me. Cold, sharp dread spread through my chest, making it hard to breathe.

I picked up the Mother Book and stood, determined to get back to my room and send Mrs. Winter a scrying message as soon as possible, but my skirts snagged on the chair leg and tripped me up, sending me sprawling across the library floor. I groaned and tried to push up, but my arms collapsed under me. I couldn’t move. I didn’t have the energy to stand up. I rolled on my back, my eyes not quite focusing on the sigil constellations overhead. The blurry smear on the ceiling seemed to be mocking me. My eyes fluttered closed.

And then, it struck me, Morton. Mort. The latin root word for death. Grimstelles were masters of death. Miss Morton was a Grimstelle, hidden right under my nose.

I was an idiot.



I woke to find Miss Morton hovering over me in the darkened library, holding a small crayfire lamp close to my face. “Cassandra, wake up.”

“Miss Morton?” I mumbled. I was so weak I could barely sit up. My head was all fuzzy and my eyes weren’t focusing. There was something important, something I was supposed to do, but if felt like a bad dream, something I couldn’t drag into the waking world with me. “Time’sit?”

I pushed up, feeling around the floor beside me, trying to find the book. “Where’s the Mother Book?”

“Oh, I’m taking it outside, I thought perhaps studying it outside would do you some good, get a little fresh air.”

“No,” I groaned. “Too tired. I don’t think I should be working with the book so much.”

“I am afraid I must insist, dear. It will make you feel better.”

“No, please,” I murmured before slipping under the surface of sleep. I faded in and out while Miss Morton was practically dragging me down the hallway, to a part of the school I didn’t recognize. The walls were spotted with mold and the great swatches of paint were flaking from the ceiling. She carried me round and round a dark passage of creaking steps, tucking me under her arm. The book was clutched in the other. How was Miss Morton this strong? We reached a stone chamber with walls that opened onto the school grounds. The flow of fresh air revived me enough to look around.

We were high off the ground, the school’s green expanse of lawn stretching out to all directions. The stone chamber’s corners were marked by four intricately carved green columns. The bell tower? A wide ladder led to the next level. I could see candlelight through a hole in the ceiling above, reflecting off of the large bronze bell. Miss Morton dropped me into a half-rotten desk chair, the arm falling off under the impact of my weight.