A Scandal in Battersea (Elemental Masters #12)(52)

Is it right to let them have hope when it’s false? Nan thought, as the group broke up and Memsa’b made arrangements for a second bed in Amelia’s room. I’m glad it’s not my decision to make.



Amelia’s room was the same size as the one Nan shared with Sarah, and even had a second bed in it already, since most rooms at the school were meant to be shared by two or more children. All she had to do was move one of Neville’s portable perches in, and all was in readiness. Of course, as an adult, she came to bed somewhat later than Amelia, but the girl was waiting up for her, reading in bed, when she eased the door open and sent Neville to his perch.

“Oh good, I was afraid I would wake you,” she said, and made quick business of slipping out of her clothing and into a nightdress. “Don’t be afraid, Amelia. This time, when you have one of those visions, the moment it begins, if I don’t awake by myself, Neville will awaken me, and I will be with you the entire time.”

Amelia had been eying Neville with curiosity and just a touch of nerves. “He’s . . . very big. Does he stay with you all the time? I’ve never seen a raven for a pet.”

“Neville is my partner, not my pet.” Nan smiled. “I sometimes think I am Neville’s pet, actually.”

Neville made a chuckling sound. “You are, pet,” he said insolently.

Amelia started. “Oh! He talks!”

“I can talk,” Neville said cheekily. “Can you fly?”

“And he speaks his mind. Do go make friends, you limb of Satan,” she said to her bird, who chortled again, then hopped down off the perch, walked with immense dignity to Amelia’s bed, jumped up onto the foot of it with a couple of wingflaps, and sauntered up to her.

He put his head down, offering her the nape of his neck. “Give pets, pretty,” he said with great politeness for Neville, and Amelia gingerly stroked his head.

“He’s soft!” she exclaimed, and ventured a little scratch. Neville purred. When she stopped, he walked down to the foot of her bed, and flew back to his perch.

“Neville is my partner, just as Grey is Sarah’s,” Nan explained. “He’s quicker at sensing some things than I am, and he’s quite able to defend me. He’ll do the same for you, now that you are friends.”

“What if I don’t have a dream?” Amelia asked anxiously.

“I don’t think you will, actually; not tonight anyway,” Nan told her. “The medicine will need time to wear off, and you’ll probably sleep very lightly because you have a stranger and a bird in your room. But we’ll stay until we know for certain whether or not you’ll see visions again, and that’s a promise.”

“Promise,” Neville echoed.

“And now—” Nan blew out the lamp on her side of the room. “Lights out. And we’ll see what we will see.”

Amelia obediently blew hers out as well. “I hope I do,” she said into the darkness, though her voice quavered a little. “I want to help you, as you helped me.”

“And you will,” Nan promised, closing her eyes. Brave girl. She reminds me of Sarah. I think we’ll do, I really think we’ll do.





10





ALEXANDRE woke in a cold sweat, the voice of that entity in the basement ringing in his head. It had woken him out of a profound sleep, and his heart was pounding both from the icy fear the thing induced and from shock at being so suddenly awakened.

The damned thing could reach him here now! In his bed, in his own bedroom.

It didn’t seem to care that it had awakened him, which honestly should not have surprised him in the least.

The offerings were acceptable. I need more. If anything, its tone was even more arrogant, and he hadn’t thought that was possible.

But it wasn’t finished. And better, it added.

Better? What the hell is that supposed to mean? he thought, unable to control his reaction. He hadn’t meant the damned thing to overhear . . . but it had.

Better. The ones who serve must be . . . he thought the entity was struggling with concepts that were utterly foreign to it in order to express what it wanted from him. They must be better cared for. Cherished. Finer.

Bloody hell. Is it asking for what I think it’s asking for?

What he thought it was asking for was upper-class girls! Panicked, he couldn’t keep himself from thinking about all those girls—sisters, cousins, sweethearts—that he’d seen surrounding his classmates at University when visitors paid calls on the students. Images sprang into his mind without prompting, memories of well-bred young women, pampered, cosseted, protected. Young women who were never without protectors of some sort.

Yes! came the emphatic reply. When the witnesses return, they must assemble. The first witness is being kept. This is not acceptable.

What did the thing mean—“kept”? And “assemble”?

He didn’t have any privacy even in his own damn head. No sooner had he formed the thought than the thing reacted to it.

Vague pictures were shoved into his mind, roughly. Girl-shaped creatures all together in a single room. Acceptable. One girl by herself, with two other shapes tending her. Not acceptable.

Did that mean the girl he’d abducted and sent off down the street had been found, and that she was being tended to by her parents? He shuddered at the thought. He couldn’t imagine any task more repulsive than to have to tend to that lifeless, soulless simulacrum of a human being. So, the entity didn’t like that. . . .