The Sweetest Dark Read Online Free PDF

street corners back in St. Giles, and, God help me, I didn’t even care.
    Hello, screamed the fiend inside my heart. Hear me, hear me at last, hello!
    â€œHello,” said the driver, his voice reaching through the notes to pull me back down into the trembling, stunned husk that was my flesh. “I’m Jesse.”

Chapter Four
    Lora.
    That was her name. He’d caught her choked murmur just before she’d darted away, bolting like a rabbit after Hastings. She actually overtook the old man, only hesitating by the main doors until he could open them for her.
    The image of her turning around that one last time, throwing that swift, frozen look back at him, with the atrium light spilling a dull tarnish behind her and her hat crushed in one hand—
    He’d frightened her. He’d not meant to.
    Jesse propped his elbows on the sill of his open window and regarded the tangle of woods that whispered to him to come out, come out now. He wouldn’t be able to spend the rest of the night here in his cottage, he knew that already. But in his hands he held one of the fleece blankets he’d put in the carriage for her, and he was unwilling to relinquish it quite yet. After a few long minutes more of watching the dark, he brought it up to his face.
    Loosestrife, he thought. Delicate spiky flowers, sweet and spice.
    Lora.
    A pretty name, even if it wasn’t her true one.
    He stood, draped the blanket over the chair behind him. With a single practiced vault he was out the window and out of the confines of roof and walls, bare feet in moss, fresh air on his face. An easy run that sank him deep and quiet into the dark.

Chapter Five
    The walls of the castle closed in around me with a gray cold sameness, broken only by flickering shadow and flame from an oil lamp burning in an alcove by the doors. I followed the lumpy shape of Mr. Hastings without really seeing him, without taking in the fine paintings that began to appear along the corridor or the wool runner that unfurled like a long woven tongue into the gloom ahead.
    Jesse. Jesse of the blissful touch. Jesse of the silent song.
    I remembered the starlit contours of his face and felt a shivery echo of that pleasure begin its way through me, from the top of my scalp to my toes.
    Oh, God. There was definitely something wrong with me.
    â€œKeep up, gel.” Mr. Hastings had stopped before a new door, a much more modern one than the ancient iron-and-oak pair blockading the main entrance. He waited until I crept closer, nodded, then knocked hard twice against the painted wood.
    â€œEnter,” came a female voice from the room beyond.
    Hastings opened the door, motioned for me to go ahead.
    It was clearly the headmistress’s chamber. I’d seen enough of Director Forrester’s office to recognize the subtle signals of adult power, although it was accomplished much more elegantly here: the bookcases filled with important tomes, their lettering a gilded gleam along flawless spines. Long, creamy lace curtains framing the windows—no dust on these—beautiful enough to be bridal veils. Vases of lilies perfuming the air, a low crackling fire in the hearth. A chandelier of brass and wax candles throwing glints of honeyed illumination. A ticking clock.
    A wide polished desk of cherrywood with two wing chairs before it and a more imposing one behind with a woman seated in it, her head bent, writing.
    â€œThank you, Mr. Hastings,” she murmured, without glancing up from her work.
    I heard the door close behind me. I stood where I was without moving, without even loosening my grip on my hat and case.
    The clock continued to tick. The woman continued to write. Her hair was confined to a strict ebony twist, not a strand out of place, something I never managed to accomplish with my own.
    A ring flashed on her hand. Instinctively I knew—and hated that I knew—that it was a green sapphire, one-and-one-quarter carats, with a band of