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Chapter Thirteen

B riony

I sleep with my body curled around the stone, my arms clutching it tightly to my chest. All night it radiates heat, vibrating against my body and by morning I swear the cracks have penetrated more deeply into the stone’s surface.

Is it broken? Did I break it somehow?

Once again I consider returning to Professor Tudor and showing him my treasure. Or perhaps I could brave the library again, see if it would help me find a book that could identify the stone.

Neither of those options seems appealing.

Instead, I sit in bed and flip through that book again.

I reread the account of my meeting with Beaufort.

Look again at the description of what happened in the maze.

It seems all the other students were hooked out of that maze as soon as that beast got too near, or the bramble started to entwine them or any other danger ventured too close for comfort.

Did Madame Bardin manufacture things somehow so that I wasn’t saved? Or was it that shadow? Did that shadow interfere somehow?

This book isn’t going to answer my question though. However, as I’m flicking through pages again, I realize it might help answer another.

I skim through the pages, hunting for the night Odessa trashed my room. I find a description of my room being destroyed, only I was wrong. It wasn’t Odessa at all.

It seems someone else hates me as much as Odessa does. I guess I’m not surprised. Although, if I’d had to place money on this, I’d have guessed Henrietta would have been the one to destroy all my possessions.

Not Linette.

I am surprised that a shadow weaver like her didn’t find the stone buried in the bottom of my closet. If the stone pulls me towards it – a commoner – I’m certain it would attract the awareness of someone who can wield magic.

I flick through the next few pages. There is other information in between. A fight between two Iron Quarter boys. A description of a new homework club. And details about that day’s meal. Then there I am returning to my room and finding it trashed.

And right beneath, the information I was hoping for.

The girl from Slate Quarter lifts the firestone from her bag, relieved to find it was not stolen.

Firestone.

I’d always suspected and then dismissed the possibility. Firestones haven’t been found in the realm for hundreds of years and the last ones vanished around the same time.

But here it is in black and white. The stone I found, the stone that called me to it, is a firestone. I just don’t know what the hell that can mean.

I insist we hang out in my room the next day, which my friends definitely do not understand given that I probably have the worst room in the academy.

Plus yesterday’s sunshine is long gone; today there’s an icy wind sweeping through the academy and right through my ceiling, bringing with it the odd flake of snow.

“Do we really have to hang out in here?” Fly asks me for at least the tenth time, poking at the pathetic flames in my very small fireplace.

It is a lot warmer, a lot more comfortable and a lot less vermin-infested in Clare’s room, but I’m already going to have to be dragged away from my stone for the evening.

I don’t want to be parted from it for the entire day.

Not now I know just how special it is – even if I don’t understand what that can mean and what if anything a firestone can do.

However, I do have someone who might be able to help me – a walking, talking, breathing encyclopedia.

Clare.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she knew more than Professor Tudor and Professor Cornelius combined!

The only problem is how to introduce the topic into our conversation subtly without giving myself away. Subtlety is not exactly my forte.

I spend most of the morning coming up with clever ways to shoehorn it into our conversion, then chickening out. In the end, with the ball approaching, I simply blurt it out.

“Ever wondered where the academy got its name? ”

“Nope,” Fly says. He has several pins in his mouth. He’s insisted on raising the hem of Clare’s dress because, and I quote, she is not living in a convent.

“They say the first firestones were found in this location,” Clare says.

“Oh,” I say as casually as I can, “they never really taught us much about firestones back in Slate Quarter. The lessons were more … practically focused.” I pull a face.

“Yeah, we didn’t learn much about it,” Fly mumbles around his pins.

I look at Clare hopefully, but she’s concentrating on the passage she’s reading.

“Clare?” I prompt.

“Oh, sorry,” she says, “I’m getting seriously invested in this relationship between two dudes from Iron Quarter. Their relationship is seriously on-again off-again and so much drama.”

“We were talking about firestones,” I say.

She’s still focused on the book. “I don’t really know much about them – except there’s that statue outside the Great Hall.”

“There is?”

Fly laughs. “You can’t really miss it. Big, ugly bronze thing with those three ugly dragons.” He stabs a needle into Clare’s dress. “Honestly, I don’t understand the obsession with dragons. They are so flipping ugly.”

“What’s it got to do with firestones?” I ask.

“Briony,” Fly says, clearly doubting my intelligence, “that giant oval thing in the middle of the statue – that’s a firestone.”

I’m about to open my mouth and ask more questions but my words are cut off by the roar of an engine. It’s so loud I swear the floor vibrates beneath us. Fly goes to investigate out the window, although how he can see anything out of those long narrow slits, I’ve no idea.

“Yep,” he calls. “The shadow weavers are back.”

“Oh yay,” I say flatly.

“You’re not fooling anyone, girlie,” he calls back, still staring out the window, “we haven’t forgotten that flush yesterday.”

“I bet they’ll be seriously disappointed with their audience today.” Surely, no one’s stupid enough to hang around outside just to ogle some stupid vehicles when it’s this frigging cold.

“There’s still quite a crowd out there.” He swings back around. “Right, if the shadow weavers are back then that definitely means it’s time to put those books away and start getting ready. You girls go get showered. I’m nearly done with this stitching.”

I shiver at the thought. “There’s no way I’m showering today,” I say. “I don’t want to catch pneumonia.”

“You won’t and if you did, I’m sure Beaufort would cure you.”

“Still, I’d rather not freeze my tits off.”

“Briony,” Fly says, striding towards me and taking ahold of both my shoulders. “I love you. You’re a truly wonderful human being. But you stink and your hair needs washing.”

“I do not stink,” I say, lowering my chin and attempting to sniff myself. “I took a shower yesterday.”

“Cupcake,” he says gently, “in Slate Quarter it may be acceptable to bathe once a fortnight but everywhere else we wash daily.”

“Asshole,” I tell him.

“Who only has your best interests at heart. All our interests at heart. I’m determined we’re all going to get laid tonight. ”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s likely,” Clare says, fiddling with her glasses.

“With the adjustments I’ve made to this dress, it’s highly likely. Now get moving both of you.” We stand there staring at him. “Go!”

The shower is far colder than I dreaded. Around me I can hear others squealing, gasping and even screaming in agony.

I wash as quickly as is humanly possible, scrubbing my hair with some shampoo Fly has lent me, and then go stand in front of my pathetic fire, hoping to warm up.

I think of the raging fires in the Princes’ tower. How warm and toasty it is even in the bathrooms. I think of that deep hot bath.

Maybe being their thrall wouldn’t be all bad. Well, clearly it wouldn’t. Beaufort has the ability to turn my body to fire. He drags orgasms from me that must be magical.

I sigh, thinking about that and then I snap the hell out of it and concentrate on rubbing my body dry with the flimsy towel.

Twenty minutes later, my body may be dry (although still freaking freezing) but my hair is damp. Fly knocks on the door and enters.

“I’ve come to do your makeup.”

“Makeup?” I say, peering at him from a funny angle as I dangle my hair in front of the fire.

He points a finger at me as if it were a dagger. “Don’t even think about arguing. Everyone needs makeup. Even the most stunningly beautiful of human beings.”

“Are you going to wear some then?” I ask.

He steps in closer and flutters his eyelashes at me. Over his eyelids he’s dusted something sparkly and his eyelashes are coated in a dark paint that make them look thicker and longer than usual. “Already am, Cupcake.”

“You can do that to me too?” I ask.

“We’re going to do a little more than this to you, Cupcake.” He takes my face in his hands and angles it upright. “You don’t have naturally defined cheekbones like I do and your lips are a tad on the thin side.”

“Jeez, thanks,” I say.

“No worries. This is what makeup was invented for. Now where is your makeup bag?”

I stare at him with an amused look.

“You really think we have luxuries like makeup back in Slate Quarter?” I say, a little annoyed at my friend. “You know once we went without bread for two whole days.”

He cringes. “Shit, Cupcake. You’re so … stoic about this bullshit, I sometimes just forget. Let me go get mine.”

He halts by the door. “Do you think Clare has no makeup too?”

I shrug and continue to rub at my hair.

Another five minutes later, he has me sitting on the bed, bottles and tubes and little cases spread across the mattress.

“It’s not the best stuff,” Fly mutters, smudging something pink over my cheeks.

“It’s all the bits and pieces my sister-in-law didn’t want anymore.

Smuggled of course, because …” He shrugs.

“Tip your head back and don’t blink.” I tip my chin up, but as soon as he comes towards me with a short black stick, I flinch.

“It’s mascara,” he explains. “Hold still or I’ll poke your eye out. ”

“Gosh, that sounds reassuring! Do I want to lose an eye in the pursuit of beauty?”

“Yes,” he says, “the dress is stunning. You can’t let it down with drab hair and makeup.”

“Will you do my hair in braids again for me?” I ask, trying my best not to tear up as he combs black liquid across my eyelashes with a tiny comb.

“Uh uh, we’re going to do something more elegant this time.”

I sit quietly, attempting to imagine what on earth that can mean as he brushes colored powder across my eyelids and paints my lips a pinky-red color.

“There,” he says. “Not bad. Go take a look.”

I walk to the mirror and peer at the reflection.

“Wow,” I say, tipping my face one way and then another. “I look like a shadow weaver.”

“They just look better than us because they can afford better cosmetics and face creams,” he says.

“And can probably use their magic to remove pimples,” I point out.

“That too.” He bends down and rummages in the bag he brought with him. “Now, for your hair.”

He pulls out another implement – something that again looks suspiciously like an instrument of torture.

“What the hell is that?” I yelp.

“Curling irons.” He walks over to the fire and places them carefully alongside.

“Are you going to brand me on the ass?”

“No, I’m going to curl your hair.”

“With something you’re heating in the fire?!” He nods. “No way. I’ve already lost parts of my hair.”

“You won’t lose any more. I will be careful.”

I shake my head.

He nods his.

We glare at each other.

The fire crackles. I can smell the irons warming.

We stare some more.

I’m the first to blink.

“Fine. But if any more of my hair is burned off, this will be the end of our short but sweet friendship.”

“Understood,” he says, lifting the irons out of the fire with the rubber handle. He touches it lightly with his hand and then, instructing me to take my seat on the bed again, gets to work on my hair.

“I think,” he says with a grin on his face, as he arranges my hair in waves of curls, “even Cinderella’s fairy Godmother didn’t achieve such an amazing outcome.”