For a few seconds, I strained and strained to hear what might be on the other side, but there was nothing but silence. I couldn’t even hear any commotion from outside the building. I had no idea how the rest of Lottie and Hafsah’s plan turned out, or whether the guard had returned to his post. It was almost as though the entire North Tower was muffled beneath a great blanket, allowing no light or sound to breach its round stone walls. I almost felt as though time itself operated differently here.
I was about to creep up the stairs to hide in the Observatory when the halfway door opened from the inside.
My heart hitched in my throat as I stared in horror at the person on the other side.
Kate Feathering grabbed me by the faux-fur lapel of my coat and dragged me into the secret room.
I staggered across the crooked threshold, clipping the toe of my boot on the stone step. Feathering shoved me to the floor, the soft palms of my hands scraping against the hard, rough ground. For a split second, I felt like a debaucherous thief being tossed from a medieval tavern on to ale-soaked cobbles. My grazed hand went to the knife in my pocket.
Behind me was the sound of the door being closed once again. Then a key in a lock. Slowly, fearfully, I raised my head and took in where I was.
A narrow, windowless room. Vaulted ceilings; beams hung with moth cocoons of sickly silver grey. A long mahogany table topped with twisting silver candelabras, all lit with flickering flames. Several wooden sideboards like you might find in a Renaissance apothecary; neat little drawers with ornate silver handles. From the cabinetry nearest to me, I was sure I could pick out the scents of sage, rosemary and elderflower.
Atop the sideboard were rows of miniature test-tube racks in dark wood, with cast-iron wolf heads on either end. Notched inside them were dozens of the same small vials I’d been using for my own tinctures, and four of the racks had a name carved into them: FEATHERING. MORDUE. BAPTIST. SANTOS. The vials in those racks were full of pre-prepared tinctures.
There were doors on three of the four walls. One was the North Tower entrance from which we’d just entered. The second was directly opposite, and, if I remembered the architectural drawings correctly, led to the library. On the third wall was a row of three identical doors, with keyholes that locked from the outside.
On the fourth wall was a portrait of Sister Maria in a gilded frame. Despite the traditional bust style of the painting, it was unlike any portrait from that era I’d seen. Her eyes were jet black, as though her pupils had swallowed her irises. She wore her familiar ruby rosary beads around her neck, but they were painted in such a way that they looked more like a bloody gash on her throat. She was surrounded by moths; cocoons hung from the dark folds of her habit. In the bottom-right corner was a signature in off-white: Maria Dunn. A self-portrait.
Understanding hit me like the whip-crack of a tree branch thrashing in the wind.
It all started with her.
Hung above the antique sideboard was a large forest-green plaque, like the one champions pose beside at Wimbledon. On it were over a dozen names in gold leaf. I recognised a handful of them:
Kate Feathering
Vanessa Mordue
Janie Kirsopp
Dawn Taylor
Fiona Middlemiss
Alice Wolfe
Hafsah Al-Hadi
Something cold and creeping pooled in my gut.
I turned slowly back to Feathering, who was watching me carefully for a reaction. For the first time since I’d known her, a lock of silver hair was slightly out of place, and her black lipstick was smudged in one corner.
‘What the hell is this place?’ I asked, almost breathlessly. My pulse sang thin and fast in my ears. ‘It looks like some kind of . . . clubhouse.’
Her hard green eyes bore into my own. ‘Welcome to the Society for Soulless Girls.’