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“No,” she replied, forcing herself to sound calm, though her heart was racing. “I just think it would be easier for me to focus on my studies if I stay here.”

There was a sound of rustling, and Oberon spoke. “But we already made plans. Remember—we talked about it when we walked to the station. We were going to take the train to Driftsea and visit the new bookstore that has opened.”

Lark toyed with the end of her hair ribbon as she remembered her brothers’ eager suggestions for her next visit home. In a guilt-stricken rush, she tried to explain, tripping over her hurried words. “There’s a postgraduate curation program here, at the gallery, and I want to apply. If I’m accepted, I’ll be able to study all of Caedmon’s works, perhaps even host my own exhibition.”

Her brothers were silent. Then the line went muffled, as though one of them had put his hand over the mouthpiece of the receiver. Lark held her breath, trying to listen. She thought she could hear Henry and Oberon murmuring to each other, but it was impossible to be sure alongside all the noise of the city traffic.

“It’s very competitive,” Lark added. Her voice gave a little desperate quaver. She clenched her teeth together, swallowed down herunsteadiness before she continued. “They only take two students a year. And if I stay at Marchmain, I can do extra work in the term breaks and after my regular classes to help with my application.”

“I see,” Oberon said, his voice gone quiet. “That does sound perfect for you.”

“I will come back. After graduation, I’ll come home and see you both,” Lark told him. It was impulsive, this promise. A compromise she hadn’t been thinking about until this moment.

At the other end of the line, she heard a match being struck. Henry was lighting a cigarette. He breathed in, then exhaled with a slow sigh. “Graduation is still three years away. That’s a long time, Lark. If you change your mind, or get too homesick, or need us… we’ll be here, always.”

“I love you,” Lark said, and then covered the mouthpiece with her hand so her brothers wouldn’t know she had started to cry.

Her second year at Marchmain drew to a close. Spring emerged piece by piece across the winter-dark city, with leaves unfurling on the trees and budding flowers in the garden beds outside the gallery. In the refectory, they served fresh berries for dessert.

Lark and Damson spent every spare moment together. They sat side by side in classes, avidly taking notes they would compare afterward. They went early to gallery practicals and were always the last to leave. Their rooms were both so full of books, at night Lark felt as though she was going to sleep inside a miniature library.

And as the weather turned warmer, the air tinted by birdsong, exams loomed like the clouds of a gathering storm. From second year onward, academic results at Marchmain were posted on the board outside the commons building. Everyone was tense and anxious, Lark included, knowing their grades would be visible to the whole school. But the anticipation enlivened her, too.

She and Damson worked together whenever they could. After curfew, they separated into their own rooms. Lark would lose herself to photostats and index cards, staying awake well past the midnight bells as she underlined passages and memorized facts.

All the dorm rooms were furnished with a typewriter, and Lark wrote countless drafts of essays on the clattering, well-used keys. When she walked through the halls, the noise of other students typing in their rooms was a constant soundtrack. It became as soothing as the tap of rain against her bedroom window.

After they finished a draft, Lark and Damson would swap their essays. If the hour was late, they would slip the pages under each other’s doors. Damson would annotate Lark’s work in cheerful, bright blue ink. It gave her such a sense of connection whenever she saw her friend’s responses in the margins.

On solitary midnights when her homesickness crept back in, she read Damson’s notes instead of her brothers’ letters.

When the assessment results for the year were posted, Lark placed second. Damson was first. Lark pressed her finger to the typewritten list, pinned on the announcement board, where her name sat right under Damson’s at the top of the column. It felt like proof that she’d made the right choice.

She pictured the rest of her time at Marchmain like a thing she could unfold, a carefully cutout paper garland. Two Verse girls with their bookstacks and ink-marked essays, with their late nights in the gallery sitting on the bench in front ofThe Dusk of the Gods. The letters from her brothers that she would tuck beneath her pillow. At the end of it, she and Damson continuing on together as the gallery’s newest curation students.

And after graduation, she would go home. Surely then she would feel strong enough to step back into her old world and face whatever emotions rose. Surely then she would have forgotten all about Alastair Felimath and the way he discarded her, the way he had broken her heart.

CHAPTER TENNow

I dream of endless oceans, a sky full of swans. Mirrors that don’t reflect my face but instead show my back, retreating, as I run across a beach. The sand is black as the crystal of my betrothal ring. I’m feverish, restless, and the hours dissolve like seafoam. When I open my eyes to the lingering night, I’m so afraid I’ll see Therion: his angry gaze, his pointed claws.

You are mine, Lacrimosa.

But there’s only Camille, still beside me. Her long hair trails silkily across our shared pillow, tickling my face. She looks at me with a sleep-blurred expression. She lays her hand on my cheek, and her palm is cool against my too-hot skin. “Sleep,” she murmurs. “I’m here.”

I think of Damson, comforting me after Alastair’s cruel rejection. Her affection was like a reward I’d earned with my hurt, by telling her she was right that I shouldn’t have gone home. But this, with Camille, feels so different.

When daylight finally comes, I wake alone. Stirred by the sound of voices rising from the lower part of the house. I climb out of bed and pull a knitted sweater on over my brothers’ borrowed clothes. The feathers on my arm prickle against my skin—a reminder that all of this is real, not just some moonlit nightmare.

Halfway down the stairs, I hear Alastair, speaking to Camille. “I only wanted to make sureyouwere all right.”

Peering into the front hall, I see him in the doorway. I hesitate. I don’t want him to notice me. He stands on the threshold, refusing to come inside. “I’m fine,” Camille says to him. “But Lacrimosa isn’t. And you—”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Alastair snaps, moving away when Camille tries to touch his face.

“Debatable,” she says. “You can’t walk away from this, Alastair. Whatever has happened with Therion—it concerns us all.”

He folds his arms across his chest. He’s wearing his overcoat, and beneath it, his shirt is rumpled, the collar unbuttoned. He looks as though he hardly slept at all. “Don’t lecture me, Camille. This isnotmy concern.”