Star Cursed

When we finally part, I lay my head on his shoulder, my arms still twined around his waist. My mouth is a little swollen, chin tender from the sandpaper brush of his stubble, and my hair is falling down around my shoulders.

Finn clears his throat. “This isn’t actually what I brought you up here for,” he says, though he doesn’t look displeased by the delay. He takes my hand, leading me across the balcony, heading right for a particular shelf, and hands me a book.

“Arabella, Brave and True!” I beam up at him, taking the novel carefully in both hands. The red cover is cracking, the pages yellowed and ripped. “This looks old.”

“A first edition, printed in 1821.” He gently opens the cover, pointing to a spidery swoop of handwriting on the title page. “Look, she signed her name.”

“Who, Arabella?” I joke, bringing the page closer. Beneath the printed letters that read CARTER A. JENNING, the signature spells out clearly: Catherine Amelia Jenning.

I gasp, tracing the imprint of her pen.

“A woman, and a Catherine, no less.” Finn’s crooked smile is enormous.

“This is marvelous.” I wrap my free arm around him, hugging him tight. “Thank you for showing me.”

“I’m glad you like it. Just think—someday, if the Sisterhood wins this war—we could make this into a proper library.” Finn’s voice is hushed. “We could have more of all the forbidden books printed to replace the ones the Brothers burnt. Then we could invite people in to borrow them and take them home and read them, the way they’re meant to be read, without fear.”

I slide the book reluctantly back onto its shelf. “I wish I could bring Tess here.”

“Perhaps someday you will.” Finn glances at his pocket watch and picks up the candle from the traveling cart. “We should hurry. I expect they’ll be coming back through soon.”

“And you know where the files are?” The Archives are much larger than I’d imagined.

“In a locked cabinet in Brother Szymborska’s office. I saw them and filched the key yesterday while paying a brief call. Spilled a mug of tea on him, and in the hurry to clean it up—well, I daresay he’s got a dozen keys on that ring, at least. He hasn’t missed this one yet,” Finn says. He looks so proud of his derring-do that I won’t tell him I could have unlocked the cabinet without a key.

At the end of the balcony, a small door leads to a hallway lined with offices. Finn enters the last office on the right, which is dominated by a heavy desk and a row of matching wooden cabinets. Only one has a brass lock. He fits it with a small, tarnished skeleton key.

“Here we are,” he announces, rummaging through the towering stack of papers. “Right on top, there’s a file on Brenna Elliott.” He places it on top of the desk and flips it open. “Predictions she’s made so far, reports on her erratic behavior from the nurses. Looks like they sent someone to Chatham last week to speak with her parents and the council about her history. Interviewed Ishida as well. He didn’t mention that to me.”

I grab a sheaf of paper and a fountain pen from Szymborska’s desk and shove them at Finn. “Here. Write down any of her predictions that seem useful.”

Finn nods, peering into the drawer again. “Looks like the Harwood files are alphabetical, but there are a few on top marked High Security. Those might be what you’re looking for.”

I glance out through the parted red damask curtains. The moon is lower in the sky, glinting off the white marble spire of Richmond Cathedral. Down the street, I can spot the imposing gray stone of the National Council building. How much time has passed since we left the convent? The walk itself took at least half an hour.

The first dozen files are for girls who have tried to escape by climbing the fence or stealing away in supply wagons. Two summers ago, a woman stole the matron’s pistol and shot a nurse. Last year, a sixteen-year-old girl named Parvati Kapoor tried to strangle a visiting Brother Cabot with his own cravat, and when that failed, she tried to compel him to blind himself with the letter opener in the matron’s desk. He came to with the instrument pointed at his own eye.

This girl seems like a good candidate for the Sisterhood, mind-magic or no.

“I’ve written them all down. Eleven prophecies since they started watching Brenna,” Finn says, and I realize she’s roughly on par with Tess. I hand him a stack of folios.

We make frustratingly slow progress. There are dozens of girls sentenced to Harwood for ridiculous reasons, like refusing to marry old men the Brothers betrothed them to or being caught in compromising positions with men who subsequently refused to marry them. There’s a girl named Clementine who was arrested six months ago for turning her sister’s hair blue, and the file says a silencing spell intended for the sister backfired on her, so she hasn’t spoken since before her trial.

While I feel compassion for these girls—and loads of curiosity about some of them, like Clementine—I’m looking for clear evidence of mind-magic. My frustration grows as I flip through the files, nearing the section at the bottom marked DECEASED. The records are hardly surefire proof of a witch’s capabilities. Zara, for instance, was never accused of compulsion, though I know she’s capable of it; her crime was possessing books on witchery.

Eventually I find one more candidate: Olivia Price, accused of bewitching a member of the Brotherhood who tried to arrest her for possessing banned musical instruments and materials. This must be the brunette Mei and I ran into this afternoon, Livvy—the one who was reprimanded for singing in the kitchen.

Out the window, the sky is fading from inky, star-studded black to indigo. I’m about to give up when Finn crows beneath his breath.

“Did you find something?”

“Cordelia Alexander,” he announces, waving a file triumphantly.

“What was she accused of?”

He sobers. “Irreparably damaging her older brother’s mind. She was only twelve when it happened. She was playing dress-up with her mother’s diamonds and lost one, and she tried to compel him not to tell. Her parents turned her in.”

“Good Lord.” I clap a hand over my mouth. “How awful.”

Finn cocks his head. “Shh,” he says, blowing out the candle. “Someone’s coming.”

I hear jingling keys and loud male voices. Finn bends down, and I think he’s picking up the folios from the desk, but he reaches for his boot instead.

“What are you doing?” I hiss, pushing the cabinet closed.

“The pistol,” he whispers.

“They have guns, too, I imagine. No one’s getting shot if I can help it. Get under the desk.” I snatch up the candle in one hand and the pile of folios in the other. “Perhaps they’ll just peek in—if not, I can take care of them.”

Finn shoves the leather chair aside and crawls beneath the desk. I squeeze in next to him, curling myself as small as possible.

“I think it was this one where I saw the light,” one voice growls as footsteps hesitate outside.

Stupid. I should have drawn the curtains first thing.

“It was probably just the moon off the glass,” another guard argues.

“Best check to be sure,” the first insists. Light slides across the room as the door creaks open, and I hold my breath, heart hammering.