A Midwinter Fantasy Read Online Free PDF Page B

searing emptiness. The resultant vacuum felt wrong, and Rebecca regretted that she’d ever taken the Grand Work for granted.
    She’d had a familiar as well: Frederic, a raven. He was nowhere to be seen, and Rebecca ached for him. She’d no idea how comforting it was simply to have that black bird outside on a windowsill, something that was hers, an ever-present companion. Poe had been ungrateful in his prose. Now that her bird had quit her chamber, Rebecca Thompson had never felt so alone.
    Lit dimly in gaslight, a dark London night past her drawn window, she was caught between utter terror, incapacitating grief and a slight frisson of possibility. She had supped upon bland soup, tried to read, considered rearranging Athens Academy curriculum for the new year, reorganized her small pantry, changed the direction of her Persian rugs and nearly paced holes in them before at last curling up with Marlowe,her trembling hands gliding haphazardly over his fur, staring at her apartments, bewildered.
    When the board of Athens Academy sent her a letter asking her to apprentice as headmistress at the tender age of sixteen, an act she assumed came from Prophecy rather than from her proficiency, she didn’t dare say no. Their sacred space and the heart of the Grand Work centred around Athens and so it was fate that placed her in this building. But she’d wanted, as the rest of them had, her own space not so tied to the Grand Work. She wanted to retire separately, to a place neutral. But alas, she had been and perhaps would always be defined by the academy in her waking and sleeping hours.
    Craning her head toward the window, she watched snow-flakes begin to fall. As much as she may have wished to be elsewhere, she hadn’t gained the courage to leave the apartment for days. Her thoughts were murky as she contemplated her broken state. She should have been the one to die, not Jane. For all her mistakes, Rebecca mused with sullen surety, it should have been she.
    As early as she could remember, she had striven to be a woman both accomplished and reliable, gifted and strong. Once, she had been all those things. For years she had performed her duty to The Guard with aplomb, had been their Intuition. Then she’d nearly caused Prophecy to fail. She was a Judas. She was weak. She should never have been spared. Even saving the lives of her students and helping to prevent warring spirits from tearing up London brick by brick could not diminish her guilt.
    She had no idea where her friends were on this cool winter night. Usually she could sense them, but since the forces previously driving their destinies were gone, the group was disconnected. She spared a moment of pity for the world atlarge, people who’d never known what it was like to be tethered in some direct way to loved ones, but then that passed. Her bond was now sundered. Perhaps the rest of the world was better off ignorant of such a thing.
    Because she did not know where to find her friends, she was hesitant to go out into the night and search for them. Her melancholy did her the disservice of supposing them assembled and having a grand time without her. Not that the party could ever again be complete. Not without Jane, their modest Healer, their keen judge of character and quiet recluse, The Guard’s steadfast hope and Rebecca’s dearest friend.
    “What is wrong with you, Headmistress?” she chided herself. “Pull yourself together; you’ve an institution to run. You’ve never been unable to perform that venerable duty. Oh, but for the grief and these nerves . . .”
    There was just so much to
feel
—something she’d attempted for years to avoid. She needed help sorting out the guilt-ridden, lonely, excitable and confused mess that was her present state of mind. But, to this end, she had no idea where to turn. She would once have gone to Jane, to sensible, stalwart Jane, since she most certainly couldn’t have turned to Alexi, both her friend and her greatest agony. But