She walked to where the others sat at their usual table. Sylvain’s cashmere coat was lined in expensive silk; it slipped easily from her shoulders. When she held it out to him he accepted it with a guarded look, as if he was afraid of what she might say.
But all she said was, ‘Thanks for the loan. I hope you didn’t get chilblains… or whatever you get from the cold.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what chilblains are but I don’t think I have them.’
‘What are chilblains, anyway?’ Nicole asked, looking around the table. ‘People only seemed to get them in Dickens.’
‘I don’t know.’ Allie dropped into a seat next to Zoe. ‘And I don’t want to.’
Zoe, who had opened her mouth to explain chilblains, snapped it shut. ‘I know what they are,’ she said. ‘But if you don’t want to know I won’t tell you.’
‘Where’s Rachel?’ Allie said, suddenly noticing her absence.
‘Sitting with Lucas.’ Nicole gestured to a nearby table. Lucas had his arm across Rachel’s shoulders and their heads were close together.
‘And Carter is with Jules tonight.’ Looking thoughtful, Sylvain glanced over to where the two seemed to be sharing a private joke then back at Allie again. She avoided his eyes.
‘It must be date night.’ As she spoke, Nicole’s doll-like eyes studied Sylvain and Allie, missing nothing.
‘At least there’s still us.’ Oblivious to the unspoken drama happening around her, Zoe was so peppy and normal Allie wanted to squash her under something heavy.
She thought about telling them the things she’d learned from Lucinda, what Orion really was, and why Nathaniel was doing this. But it seemed weird to tell only a few of them and leave out Rachel and Carter.
Besides, nobody seemed very interested in that stuff right now. The idea that the school could be emptied tomorrow – that Nathaniel’s plan could work – had drained the energy from them all. Everything felt futile. It was as if, instead of readying for battle, they’d begun preparing themselves for defeat.
Holding up her water glass, Allie watched the liquid swirl. Remembering her history lesson that morning, she thought about Napoleon’s plan – the way he defeated a larger army through cunning and deception.
But who is Napoleon? she wondered. Is it us? Or Nathaniel?
THIRTY
But Nathaniel did not make his move the next day. Or the day after that.
Or the next day.
As time passed, the school fell into an uneasy sort of normality. Students went to class, studied, played games… and waited.
When a week had passed without any sign of Nathaniel, Allie began to allow herself to hope that maybe they were safe after all. Perhaps Lucinda had got to the board in time. Maybe they’d stood up to him and he’d been forced to back down.
When she asked Isabelle about it, though, the headmistress just shook her head. ‘He’s letting us get comfortable. Hoping we drop our guard.’
After the Night School instructors returned to the school, the group met less often. Raj and Isabelle had ordered them to stop looking for the spy and, under the circumstances, they had little choice – the teachers watched them like hawks. Now there was nothing for them to do but wait. Jules and Lucas began joining them for meals again and conversations about lessons replaced Nathaniel and spies.
It was a kind of false normality and Allie hated it. It felt like they were all pretending something awful wasn’t about to happen. But what else could they do?
She found she missed the adrenaline rush of meeting in secret out of hours, of sneaking into locked rooms and searching for evidence. She missed the feeling of actually doing something. They were back on the outside of things again. On some level, maybe they always had been but, at least for a while, it had felt like they’d had some control.
Without the daily gatherings, she found it easy to keep her distance from Sylvain. And she wanted to do that. She needed time to think about things.
Every so often, though, she’d look up and find him watching her from across a room, a lost look in his bluer than blue eyes. And her heart would twist inside her.
Each time it happened she remembered what he’d said: ‘I won’t wait for ever… It hurts too much…’
Sometimes, when he made no effort to pursue her, or he didn’t laugh at one of her jokes, she’d worry he’d decided not to wait any more and panic would unfurl in her chest unexpectedly, making her heart stutter.
He just… had to wait. Just until this thing with Nathaniel was finished. After that…
For his part, Carter never returned to the walled garden. Allie had suspected he wouldn’t after their talk, but she still felt bereft that first sunrise when he didn’t appear.
Still, though, at least they were getting along better. He treated her like a normal friend – not a good friend – but a friend, nonetheless.
Baby steps, she told herself.
The weirdest development was she was starting to like gardening. She remembered something Jo had told her once about falling in love with the gardens after she’d been given weeks of detention. At the time Allie hadn’t understood but now she could see what Jo meant. There was something therapeutic about the smell of damp earth; about dropping seeds into it and covering them up. It was calming.
It helped that the cold was less biting now. March had arrived in the midst of all this and green shoots appeared everywhere, all at once, as if someone somewhere had pressed a button marked ‘Grow’. The neat, straight furrows she and Carter had made that morning in the rain were already lined with tiny green plants that would someday be carrots, cabbages and potatoes. Looking at them, she felt a sense of accomplishment – she’d helped to create that.
Mr Ellison had become less fierce once he and Allie were alone again, as if he felt sorry for her. Most days, he brought out a thermos of hot sweet tea and packets of biscuits, and they’d take a break, sitting on a bench, munching the biscuits and watching the birds work. They talked about a lot of things then – about his childhood in London, and how he came to Cimmeria to escape the city. He never told her the story Carter had told, about making a mistake and losing everything, and Allie didn’t ask. But she found herself telling him things she wouldn’t have wanted to tell anyone else. How she and her mum couldn’t talk any more. How she missed her dad. There was something about him – a kind of thoughtfulness and wisdom – that made her feel she could really talk to him. He’d made mistakes in his life, too. And so he, perhaps alone among the adults she knew, was unlikely to judge her.
Lately, Allie had been having long talks with Isabelle, too. After Lucinda’s visit she’d plied her with questions about Orion and Nathaniel and Gabe.
It was Isabelle who told her about the other secret groups like Orion elsewhere in the world. That the one in Europe was called Demeter. The one in America, Prometheus. That Orion was the oldest but no longer the biggest or most powerful.
The headmistress also told her more about Nathaniel’s plan. As they sat in her office one Friday after the day’s classes ended, Allie asked her about Nathaniel.
‘What does he really want?’ she said. ‘I mean, I know he only wants me to get back at Lucinda. And I know he hates you because of the inheritance. But why is he really doing this?’
As if she’d felt a sudden chill, Isabelle pulled her navy cardigan off the back of her chair and draped it over her shoulders. Under it she wore a white polo-neck top and slim, grey trousers. There was no way you would look at her and think she was organising a fight – preparing for an attack. She just looked like a teacher.