Outside, they all scattered to their respective carriages. All save Lucie. “I’ll just be a moment, Daisy,” she called to Cordelia, then darted to Christopher’s carriage and yanked open the door.
“What on earth—？” He gazed at her through his spectacles. “Is something wrong, Luce?”
“No!” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “You were meant to have more thorn-apple for me—don’t you remember?”
“Oh. Yes,” Christopher said, digging in his pocket for a small parcel. “But Henry is getting more suspicious about why you’re asking for all these things.”
Lucie took the packet of dried flower heads, holding it delicately by the corners, and tucked it into her skirt pocket.
“It’s really nothing,” she said. “I’m only working on a beauty potion—but you can imagine that my brother would give me no peace if he found out.”
“You should have said so,” Christopher said, brightening. “Henry has some sperm whale oil. It’s supposed to be good for your complexion if you put it on your face.”
“No, thank you,” Lucie said with a shudder. “I think this thorn-apple will do the trick.”
“Just be careful with it,” Christopher said, as she stepped back from the carriage. “It’s very poisonous. Don’t swallow any of it, or drink it, or anything like that.”
Lucie gave him a reassuring smile. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
And she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t dream of making a beauty potion either, but even Christopher—who, among all the boys in the world, was surely one of the best and kindest—found it an easy enough excuse to believe. Gentlemen, Lucie thought, hurrying to catch up with Cordelia.
* * *
It was one of those days when nothing seemed to be going right in the training room.
Cordelia had caught a ride to the Institute with Lucie. Usually she found her best friend an excellent sparring partner. But neither of them seemed to be able to concentrate properly today. They had ducked where they should have dodged, missed their targets when knife throwing, and Cordelia had pivoted where she should have lunged, bruising her hip against a post. Worse, she had fumbled Cortana twice, letting it slip out of her hands in a way that had startled and alarmed her.
“Today is just not our day, I’m afraid,” said Lucie breathlessly, her hands splayed in the middle of her back. “I suppose we can’t help being distracted.”
“Is it awful if I wasn’t thinking about the murders at all?” said Cordelia.
“That depends on what you were thinking about,” said Lucie. “New bonnets might be bad, the meaning of the universe less so.”
“I was thinking about my father. We’re meant to all have dinner at Cornwall Gardens tomorrow night. It’ll be the first time we’ve seen him since the wedding.” She pushed back her damp hair impatiently. “I tried so hard to make this happen,” she said. “I did everything to get my father back, and now that he’s here, I don’t know at all how to feel.”
“They sent him to the Basilias because you defeated the Mandikhor demon,” Lucie pointed out. “Otherwise he’d have gone to jail, Daisy, and he’d still be there. You don’t have to know how to feel, but it’s because of you that there’s a chance for reconciliation. I’m sure he knows that.”
“I suppose,” said Cordelia, with a wan smile. “Only I don’t know what to say to him, and I don’t have time to think of it. And it seems an awful thing to do, to make James attend this awkward family dinner—”
“He is your family,” said Lucie firmly, “just as I am; you are my sister now, and you will be my sister forever after. We will always be sisters and parabatai. That is what matters. In fact—” She glanced around. “Why don’t we practice the ceremony?”
“The parabatai ceremony?” said Cordelia. She had to admit, the thought had a certain appeal. “Do you know all the words?”
“I watched James and Matthew’s ceremony,” said Lucie. “I think I remember. Here, pretend where you’re standing is a circle of fire, and I’m standing in a different circle of fire.”
“Hopefully we will be wearing gear,” said Cordelia, arranging herself in the imaginary circle. “Our skirts would quite go up in flames.”
Lucie thrust out her hands and indicated Cordelia should do the same. They clasped hands, and Lucie, an intense look of concentration on her face, began to speak: “Though most parabatai are men, the ceremony uses words from the scriptures that were spoken by Ruth to Naomi. By one woman to another.” She smiled at Cordelia. “？‘Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee, for whither thou goest, I will go—’？”