“When I woke up from being ill and found out that he had left me for Grace, I was more relieved than anything else,” said Ariadne. “I was grateful to Grace, I think. I thought if we invited her to live with us, it would show the Enclave that I bear her no ill will.”
After turning onto Carmelite Street, they passed a brick building with mullioned windows. The spire of the Institute loomed close above the nearby buildings, the warren of familiar streets around the cathedral welcoming them in. “Well, that’s quite a sacrifice to make for the Enclave,” Anna said.
“It wasn’t just for the Enclave. I wanted to get to know Grace better, because of our shared experience.”
Anna laughed shortly. “How are your lives at all alike, Ari?”
Ariadne gave her a steady look. “We’re both adopted.”
It was not something that had occurred to Anna. After a pause, she said, “I have not always seen eye to eye with your parents. But they love you. I think it is doubtful whether Tatiana has any gentle feelings toward Grace.”
“My parents do love me,” Ariadne conceded. “But they never acknowledge my past—the fact that I came here from India when I was seven—nor even that I had a different name when I was born.” Ariadne faltered, seeming to search for the right words. “I feel as though I am always between worlds. As if I am glad to be their daughter, but I am someone else, too.”
Anna heard a rumble in the distance, like the sound of a tram. “What was your name when you were born?”
They had almost reached the gates of the Institute. Ariadne hesitated. “Kamala,” she said. “Kamala Joshi.”
Kamala. A name like a flower.
“And there was no other family—no one who could help?” Anna said.
“An aunt and uncle, but there had been bad blood between them and my parents. They refused to take me in. I could have been raised at the Bombay Institute, but I—I wanted a mother and father. A proper family. And perhaps, to be far from those who had rejected me.” Ariadne’s lovely deep eyes with their flecks of gold were fixed on Anna’s face. It was unnerving, being looked at like that—it made Anna feel seen in a way she rarely did. “Anna. Will you ever forgive me?”
Anna tensed, caught off guard by the question. “Ariadne—”
Lightning cracked through the sky. Anna spun in surprise. There had been no sign of storm, the dawn sky untroubled. But now…
“What is that?” Ariadne whispered.
A huge dark cloud had gathered over the Institute—but only over the Institute. It was massive, inky black, and billowing above the church as though propelled by internal gusts. All around it the sky spread dark blue and untroubled to the horizon.
Thunder rumbled as Anna stared around in perplexity. A mundane man in workman’s clothes walked past, whistling to himself; it was clear that the storm was invisible to him.
Anna pushed open the gates, and she and Ariadne ducked into the courtyard. It was deep in shadow, the cloud billowing overhead. Lightning crackled around the Institute’s spire.
Ariadne had a khanda—a double-edged blade—already in her hand. Unfastening her whip from her belt, Anna turned in a slow circle, every sense on alert. Her eye caught a flicker of movement—something dark, like a spill of ink or blood, was moving in the center of the courtyard.
She took a step toward it—just as it surged up and outward: it wasn’t a spill after all, but something slick and black and moving and alive. Anna leaped back, thrusting Ariadne behind her, as it smashed upward through the earth, sending cracks zigzagging through the flagstones. Water rushed up through the cracks, filling the courtyard with the stench of hot salt and brine. Even as Anna spun, lashing out at the darkness with her whip, she couldn’t help but wonder: How on earth was the Institute’s courtyard possibly filling with seawater?
* * *
Though initially reluctant to venture out of his warm stall and into the icy weather, Balios gained his energy back quickly, delivering Lucie to Chiswick House in the dark small hours. She dismounted and patted the horse’s muzzle before tying him to a post near the gates with a blanket draped over his withers.
She moved cautiously over the ruined, winter-burned grounds. As always, Chiswick House seemed abandoned, only the whistle of the winter wind through the trees to accompany her. But she was determined to take no chances. If her guess about Jesse was even remotely close to the truth, then she had to be very careful indeed. She crossed the ruined garden, with the wry thought that she was becoming as familiar with the paths of the Chiswick grounds as she was with the streets of her own neighborhood. She wended her way past broken statuary and overgrown shrubbery until she arrived at the old garden shed.