* * *
“You must be so terribly disappointed to miss the party tonight,” Jessamine said as she drifted past the bookcases in the drawing room. “You must be absolutely crushed.”
Lucie had been in the middle of reading Kitty Costello, or trying to, when Jessamine had appeared, looking for company. Normally Lucie didn’t mind Jessamine, but her bone-jarring headache had only just faded, and she simply felt weary.
With a sigh, she folded down a page to mark her place and closed the book. “Honestly, I’m not sorry to miss the party.”
“Even though that Italian girl got to go?” Jessamine inquired.
“Filomena?” Lucie felt she hardly knew Filomena; the older girl, though nominally living at the Institute, was always rushing around London, going to museums and exhibitions. Lucie hardly saw her. “No, I’m glad she’ll be having some fun. It’s just that I don’t really want to see Rosamund and Thoby being smug, but I am sorry not to be a support for Cordelia. Rosamund will doubtless cloister her away with the married ladies and she’ll be terribly bored.”
Jessamine had drifted down to sit on the desk’s edge, swinging her insubstantial legs. “At least her marriage is publicly recognized. When I married Nate, no one even wanted to hear about it.”
“Well, that’s probably because he was a murderer, Jessamine.” Lucie set her book aside and stood up, tightening the sash on her flannel dressing gown. She had already let her hair down for the evening, and it spilled to the middle of her back, making her think nostalgically of being a little girl—she had spent so many evenings in this room, curled up by her mother’s side as Tessa put her hair into bows and plaits, and Will read aloud. She would miss her parents while they were in Paris with Charles, Lucie thought; them leaving so soon after James had moved out was a blow, though they had reassured her they would certainly return in time for the Institute’s annual Christmas party. At least Aunt Cecily and Uncle Gabriel would be keeping her company, as they were stepping in to head the Institute while the Herondales were gone. Christopher and Alexander too, though she suspected Christopher would spend most of his time in the cellar blowing things up.
Jessamine sniffed but said nothing. Occasionally she romanticized her past, but she knew the truth as well as Lucie did. Not, Lucie thought as she headed back down the corridor toward her room, that Jessamine had deserved to die for the mistakes she’d made, or deserved to become a ghost, either, always trapped between life and death, haunting the Institute and unable to leave it.
It really made one quite melancholy to think about. Reaching her room, Lucie wondered if she ought to seek out Bridget and wheedle a cup of hot milk, lest she be unable to sleep—then the door swung wide, and suddenly hot milk was the last thing on her mind.
Bright moonlight spilled into the room, illuminating the carefully laid-out lilac dress she’d picked out for tonight, which had gone unworn. Low-heeled ivory kid boots stood under the window; her necklaces and rings were spilled across her vanity table, glittering like ice in the cold light. At her paper-strewn desk sat Jesse, the pages of The Beautiful Cordelia spread out in front of him.
Lucie felt a rush of panic. She had intended to show Jesse The Beautiful Cordelia, but she had also planned to curate which pages he saw. “Jesse!” she said, slipping into the room and closing the door firmly behind her. “You shouldn’t be—”
“Reading this?” he said. There was an odd note in his voice, and an odder look on his face. A look she hadn’t seen before, a sort of shadow cast across his fine features. “I can see why.”
“Jesse—”
She reached out a hand, but he’d already picked up a page. To her horror, he began reading aloud from it, his voice stiff:
“The Brave Lucinda clasped her hands before her. Did her eyes deceive her? But no! It was indeed her beloved, Sir Jethro, returned from the war. Truly he seemed weary and war-torn, his brightly blazoned armor daubed with blood—no doubt the blood of the innumerable poltroons he’d slain upon the battlefield. But these marks of battle only made his beauty shine more brightly. His black hair gleamed, his green eyes shone as she ran toward him.
‘My darling, you are alive,’ she cried.
He clasped her face between his cold hands. ‘I am not alive. I am a ghost, and only you can see me.’
‘It does not matter!’ cried Lucinda. ‘Alive or dead, I love you still!’？”
Lucie snatched the page out of his hand. She was breathing hard. “Stop,” she said. “Stop reading.”