Free Chantress by Amy Butler Greenfield

the answer, almost as if someone else were speaking. “Viviane Marlowe.”
    There was a long pause. And then Penebrygg said, “Oh, my dear, I am so sorry.”
    I stared at my empty hands. I had accepted long ago that my mother was dead and would never come back. It was a sad fact, but a settled one—part of the flint-hard rock on which my life was built. So why did it shake me so much to learn exactly how my mother had died? To know that it was not the sea that had killed her, but Lord Scargrave’s Shadowgrims?
    No matter. It shook me. I pushed my palms against my hot eyes, and hid my face.
    “I think,” said Penebrygg, slowly and kindly, “that you need rest and quiet, yes? We must find you a place to sleep and some warm blankets. I shall give you my own bed—”
    “No, sir,” Nat interrupted, his voice low. “It’s not right that you should give up your bed. Your back’s not up to it. She can have mine instead.”
    “That’s good of you, Nat.”
    “But sir?”
    “Yes?”
    “She still hasn’t said whether she’ll help us.”
    “And you would ask her now, when she is mourning her mother?” Penebrygg’s hushed voice held a note of reproof. “We have waited a long time for a Chantress, Nat. Surely we can wait a little longer for her answer.”
    I barely heard them for thinking of my mother, so loving, so gentle, so determined to save me. My mother, surrounded by Shadowgrims . . .
    I had spent half my life wanting to come back to this place, this England. I had believed my life would begin here. But I had never imagined anything like this. Desperately I wished myself back on the island, with Norrie at my side, my voice locked away, my magic untapped. This terrible world unknown.
    But that was not possible.
    Sing and the darkness will find you.
    Desolation swept over me. But through my grief and bewilderment, I could sense something else growing in me, something alive, something stronger than fear: a burning and angry resolve.
    My hands fell away. I looked Nat and Penebrygg full in the face.
    “If you want my help, you have it,” I said. “I will do everything in my power to destroy the man who murdered my mother.”

CHAPTER TEN
CURIOSITIES
    “Lucy?” a voice called.
    Fogged by sleep, I thought: Norrie? Eyes still closed, I listened for the customary sounds of an island morning—the pots clattering, the cockerel crowing, and Norrie’s wide-awake call, “Up now, and no dawdling!”
    Instead, I heard dogs yapping, and hammers tapping, and hoarse voices hawking wares: “Had-had-haddock!” “Small coal, penny a peake!” And beneath everything, a rumble like a hundred handcarts rolling by.
    Where on earth was I?
    London, my sleepy mind said. I was in London with Norrie and Mama, in the narrow garret by the River Thames. Only for the winter, Mama had said, and then we would move out into the country . . . .
    “Wake up!” The command was sharp as a slap on my cheek.
    I opened my eyes and saw a boy with hazel eyes looming overme. Memory flooded back: Nat and Penebrygg. Scargrave and the Shadowgrims. The singing and the ruby.
    My mother, murdered.
    And Norrie lost.
    I sat up, and my stone swung forward on its chain. Still there. And still a ruby.
    “You sleep like the dead.” Nat sounded cross and a bit alarmed. Apparently my commitment last night had made us close enough comrades that he thought it worth worrying about me. It hadn’t made him any friendlier, though. “I’ve been shouting your name, and you never even moved.”
    “Well, I’m awake now.” And feeling at a distinct disadvantage. Neatly dressed in dark breeches and fresh white linen, Nat had the look of someone ready to take on all comers. I, meanwhile, was facing the world with wrinkled skirts, a rumbling stomach, and fingernails that still bore traces of mud from the island garden. I put a hand to my hair and wished I hadn’t: It was a scraggle of snarls.
    My only comfort was that Nat did not appear to notice.
    Striving to