“I didn’t do it for them,” I whispered, my face hot with the kind of shame unique to being misunderstood. “I did it for—”
“For your mother, I know. Try not to drown yourself in your guilt, Aoife,” Valentina said. “We’ve all done things we wish we could take back.” She looked at her shoes for a moment, then back at me, as if she’d decided to confess. “I used to have terrible nightmares about the things I saw after I joined the Brotherhood. Some choices I had to make for the greater good.”
“And now?” I whispered. I had to admit Dean was right—I had misjudged Valentina. The pain written across her face mirrored my own in that moment.
“Now I don’t dream at all,” she said, and smiled. It was genuine, but sad. “It does get better, Aoife. Try and get some sleep. Things will seem brighter tomorrow.” She started to shut the door and then leaned back in. “And try not to squash your rollers in your sleep. You’ll look so grown-up tomorrow.”
I didn’t want to burst her bubble on that score, but I knew my unruly hair. I just nodded. “Good night. And … thank you.”
Valentina gave me another one of her sad smiles before she backed out and closed my door, the latch catching with a click. So different from the clanging doors of Graystone and the heavy, creaking hinges of the Academy. A normal house sound, for a house full of normal people. What a joke.
I sat for a long time, listening to the house tick and settle. There was a draft coming through the windows, and I burrowed under the covers of the tiny bed. It was like being back at the Academy, in my drafty dormitory under my threadbare school-issued coverlet. Not exactly comforting, but familiar.
What was I supposed to do now? Sit and wait for my father and Valentina to solve things? If I was going to be the daughter Archie had asked me to be, the trusting one, the answer was probably yes.
If I was being honest with myself, that sounded like trading in one set of rules designed to keep me passive and sweet for another designed to keep me obedient and not asking questions.
But before I could debate any more, my mind decided that I’d been awake for enough days in a row, and I fell asleep hearing the wind worm its way through the cracks and hollows of the house.
In the morning, I realized that I’d slept dreamless and dead to the world for the first time in weeks. My neck was cramped from lying on the rollers. I unpinned them and pulled them off my head, combing the curls with my fingers. I wrapped my head with a rag while I took a bath and then wiped the mirror free of moisture to see what I looked like.
Valentina had been right. I hardly recognized myself. My dark hair set off my skin—which until this moment I’d always lamented as too pale—as it fell in gentle waves to just below my shoulders, swooping low across my brow to partially shadow my gaze.
I’d almost call myself pretty. Almost.
I tried not to let my shock at how I looked distract me while I got dressed. I was still here, in Valentina’s house, and still had no idea what my father wanted from me beyond shutting up and doing as I was told.
The dress Valentina had left for me was plain blue wool, with a straight skirt and mother-of-pearl buttons up the bodice. It was a lady’s dress, not a full-skirted thing with a wide, round collar made for a child. This dress required stockings, a garter belt and pumps, not a petticoat and stiff, flat shoes.
I put it on gratefully. Now that I’d distanced myself from them, the clothes I’d gotten in Windhaven really did stink.
I found underthings in the wardrobe, rolling on stockings that smelled of mothballs, and when I ventured outside my door, a pair of tan leather pumps with low, practical heels sat next to my doorway in the hall. Valentina and I had the same size feet, it turned out, and the pumps gave me height that I loved, even if I did wobble crazily until I learned how to balance on the narrow heel.
All right, I admitted. She’s not my favorite person on the face of the earth, but she’s not an evil stepmother, either. In time, maybe I could accept the fact that my father had replaced Nerissa with her. After all, it wasn’t really Valentina’s fault. That lay wholly with my father, and meant an entirely different unpleasant conversation we would have to undertake at some point.
But not now. Now, my stomach growled and reminded me that real food was nearby, and I hadn’t had nearly enough of it lately. I headed for the stairs.
In daylight, with a chance to look around undisturbed, I saw that the Crosley house wasn’t in much better shape than my old, mud-stained clothes. Everything was clearly expensive, overstuffed and velvet-covered and practically oozing out the money it had cost, but it was all curiously faded and dusty, as if nobody had come to the house for a long time and the house preferred it that way.
I followed the smell of bacon into the kitchen, which was vast and modern, both icebox and range a pale pink I’d only seen over a makeup counter in a department store. All the latest gadgets to mash and peel and open cans under the power of clockwork rather than doing it yourself sat on the countertops, covered in a thick layer of dust.
My father stood at the stove with his back to me, and I watched him for a moment. I tried to see myself in him, as I had the day before, and as I’d done with his portrait at Graystone before that. His posture wasn’t mine—he stood feet apart and shoulders thrown back, even as he chopped onion and turned eggs in a frying pan.
Our hands moved the same way, though, sure and quick. Our hands knew what to do even if we didn’t. You needed steady hands and a delicate touch to be an engineer. It was the one way being smaller than everyone else in the School of Engines had come in handy. In those days, I could always fix what was broken.
“How long are you going to stand there?”
I ducked away reflexively at being caught and then looked at the toes of my shoes, my face heating. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak.”
Archie didn’t respond. He scooped up the onions and dropped them into a second frying pan, covering them with egg mixture from a pink porcelain mixing bowl. He tossed in a few lumps of soft white cheese and then wiped his hands on a blue-checked towel and turned to face me, sizing me up with those stony eyes once more. And once more, I felt like a squirming specimen under a microscope.
“How did you know I was here?” I said finally, to break the unbearable silence.
“Basic situational awareness isn’t a magic trick,” Archie said. “At least, not a very good one. And it’s something you’re going to have to learn, if you want to stay alive by more than pure luck.”
I bristled. He could at least give me a tiny bit of credit for staying alive this long. “It’s not just luck. I know things.”
Archie raised an eyebrow and then turned back to the stove, flipping the omelet in the pan with an expert hand. “You can’t fight. You don’t know wilderness survival. You know nothing about the Fae or the Erlkin, or even the Gates. You’ve spent your whole life safe in Lovecraft.” He slid the omelet onto a plate and cut it into sections, placing them on several dishes along with potatoes and bacon and toast. “Tell me, Aoife—exactly what great feat of skill or strength kept you out of the clutches of the Proctors besides pure, blind luck?”
He turned back, set a plate on the table in front of me and folded his arms, awaiting an answer with the tilt of his head.
I stared at him for a moment, stared at the plate, and then, unable to contain myself, shoved the plate back at him, scattering food everywhere. “If you feel that way, Dad, why’d you ever pull me out of Lovecraft on your stupid, prissy airship and let your stupid, prissy girlfriend act like you two actually wanted me here? If I’m such an idiot, you should have just abandoned me to the damn ghouls.”