Into the Dim (Into the Dim, #1)(49)

“Come on, you two,” Phoebe called from the stoop.

I hurried out the door, ignoring an uneasy, anxious feeling. Our plan to get into the castle had been flimsy at best. Now we were headed straight to the queen’s apartments. If there was anywhere we’d find information about my mother, it would be there. In a moment, Collum followed, and the four of us headed out into a London covered in a new blanket of fluffy white.





Chapter 23


THE SUN BLAZED IN SLIVERS FROM BEHIND THE NOW-EMPTIED CLOUDS, glimmering on thatched roofs and the snow that blanketed the ground, covering the mud and muck. London spread out before us, looking like something from a storybook.

Magical.

“It is, isn’t it?”

Though I didn’t realize I’d said the word aloud, I only nodded while Rachel went on quickly. “On days like this, when the city is so clean and new, I sometimes imagine things aren’t so ugly beneath.”

Up ahead, Collum howled as Phoebe dumped a handful of snow down the back of his tunic. Rachel and I exchanged a smile. When my new friend tripped over something beneath the snow, I snatched her arm. The pendant I’d seen the day before swung out on a chain between us as she steadied herself.

“Your pendant is lovely. An opal, is it?”

Rachel grimaced. “Yes, though I care not for it. My father bids me wear it. He is a goldsmith, you see, so it is good advertisement. The stone was a gift from the man I am promised to.”

“Promised to?” I said, confused. “You mean William?”

Shocked, she stopped in her tracks.

“Oh no, mistress.” Rachel’s wide eyes skittered all around to ensure no one was near enough to hear. “Captain Lucie is but a friend. I—I am to wed another. A cousin in Spain, an arrangement made when I was but a child. Once the coronation celebrations are done, my father is taking me to him.”

Her head bowed, she fingered the pendant. “This opal is my betrothal gift. My—Isaac’s—family trades in rare and valuable stones.” Her eyes fixed on the street before us. “It is a good match.”

“Oh,” I said. “Oh. Well, yes. Yes, I’m sure it is.”

I didn’t know what else I could possibly say to erase the troubled look Rachel tried so hard to hide. I knew that girls in this time had no choice whatsoever in where they lived or who they married. I knew that love rarely entered the picture. Even grown women were nothing but property, their lives dictated and their fates decided by men.

I quickly changed the subject. “So your father is a goldsmith?”

“Yes,” Rachel, obviously relieved, answered. “In fact, on the morrow, my father—along with other leaders of my community—will present their majesties with a special coronation gift. Father is quite pleased with himself. A rare specimen of opal arrived only weeks ago, and he’s worked day and night to set the jewel into the hilt of a fine dagger. It’s meant to represent the Jews’ bond with the new king.”

Collum, who obviously had ears like a bat, stopped short and was staring at Rachel as we caught up. His broad cheekbones, which always looked slightly wind burned, had gone scarlet with cold or excitement.

“Mistress Rachel,” he said, hazel eyes intent on the pendant, “I hear that some of the finest stones have a name. Does the one in your father’s possession happen to be named, by any chance?”

Phoebe joined our huddle, shifting from foot to foot as people streamed around us toward the castle.

“Well, yes. I believe it does. Father called it the . . .” Rachel frowned, thinking. The three of us leaned toward her as if pulled by a thread. Tendons bulged from Collum’s neck, willing the word to come. “I am sorry, but I cannot recall,” she said. “The Notharius, perhaps? Something akin to that?”

Air oozed from Collum’s lungs as he stepped back. “I knew it.”

Phoebe let out a whoop that startled a nearby clerk, causing him to drop his stack of scrolls.

As we continued tramping through wet snow, Collum murmured under his breath to me. “If it really is the Nonius, that would explain why this particular pattern kept repeating.”

“What pattern?” I asked, forgetting my irritation at him.

“The ley lines. They kept repeating the sequence to this exact time and location. It’s pure unusual for them to do that. It has to be the Nonius.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but it’s not like we can get to it, right?”

He huffed and stomped ahead. Guess I’d rained on his parade.

As we approached the gate, Rachel moved slower, hunched against the cold like an old woman.

When the guard waved us in with barely a glance, Rachel relaxed. “The first few times I came here alone,” she said quietly, “the guards were not kind. But after the queen’s companion, Sister Hectare, had a word with them, I’ve had less trouble.”

We bypassed the steps to the main entrance and passed through a servant’s portal. In the vast kitchens, steam rose from enormous pots of boiling liquids. The roof of the high, circular room was layered with smoke from dozens of open ovens set into the walls. At floor-level, the miasma of sautéed onions and roasting meat, simmering sauces, and bubbling soups made my belly gurgle. Servants in splattered aprons yawned as they diced vegetables or plucked feathers from seemingly every kind of fowl known to man. Huge, plump geese dangled from hooks, their blood draining into buckets on the stone floor. Everywhere were headless ducks and chickens. We dodged a young boy carrying a wicker basket filled with the limp carcasses of tiny, delicate larks.