The Sweet Far Thing

“Gemma,” Felicity says, her eyes wild with fear.

There is scratching at the entrance to the East Wing. They wait on the other side of that door.

Kartik takes hold of my hand, squeezing it. Fowlson joins hands with Miss McCleethy.

“I won’t let it get you, Sahirah,” he says.

I hear Ann’s breath catching on her fear.

“Wish I had my sword,” Felicity whispers. Then she adds a soft prayer under her breath: “Pippa, Pippa, Pippa…”

“Take my hands,” I say.

Kartik is puzzled. “What—”

“Take my hands and don’t let go!”

“Do not employ the magic now, Miss Doyle. It isn’t wise,” Miss McCleethy says.

“We’ve no choice,” I answer. “I shall try to summon the door.”

“But you’ve not been able to do it these months,” Ann says.

“It’s time to try again,” I answer.

The shrieks from the lawn shudder through us. “What if you can’t?” Felicity whispers.

I shake my head. “I can’t think about that. I shall need everyone’s help. Put your hands on mine,” I say. When I feel the weight of them, I close my eyes and concentrate, marrying my need to my purpose. “Think of a door of light.”

I hear the scratching at the East Wing doors. The caws overhead as the crows beat near. They’ve found us. Purpose, Gemma. The door of light, the door of light, the door of light.

Soon, the familiar tingle begins. It is but a halting trickle at first but it grows to a hum and then a racing whoosh that makes every part of me come alive. The force of it blows my hair back from my face with its warm breath.

When I look, the door of light is there, waiting.

“You did it, Gemma,” Felicity says, looking relieved.

“No time for congratulations,” I say. “Go!”

I open the door and we race through nearly in a clump just as the trackers break through the East Wing doors. They howl and it makes my blood turn cold.

“Gemma!” Ann shouts.

“Close now!” I call on the magic once again, and thank goodness, it doesn’t fail me. As the door of light disappears, the last thing I see is the rider in his long, tattered robe, his teeth bared in a chilling snarl. “Rot in hell, you miserable beast,” I pant.

“It’s already in hell. We have to keep hell from getting any closer,” Kartik says, pulling me on.

We run into the realms as fast as we can. “We don’t have long. They’ll get through the other way. We must go to the garden and find Gorgon,” I say, trying to catch my breath. My lungs are on fire.

“Wait!” Kartik says. “We don’t know what we’ll find there. Perhaps I should run ahead to see.”

“Agreed,” I say. I would carry on, but there is truth to what he says, and I can scarcely breathe. Corsets were not meant for running.

“I’ll go wif you, mate,” Fowlson says, looking around in wonder.

Grudgingly, Kartik nods, and the two of them run ahead.

Exhausted and peevish, we sit and wait, hiding under the cover of a large rock. Ann hasn’t left the comfort of Felicity’s side. It is tenuous comfort but she craves it. Weary from the chase, I settle myself on the ground and stare out at the bleeding horizon.

“Why did you not tell us you’d seen such things?” McCleethy says, gasping for breath. But it is a rhetorical question. She knows why. Her dark hair is half free of its bindings. It blows wild in the gusty wind. “We created order out of chaos. We made beauty and shaped history. We kept the magic of the realms safe in our grasp. How has it come to this?”

“You’ve not kept it safe. You’ve kept it to yourselves.”

She shakes her head to dismiss the thought. “Gemma, you may still use the power for much good. With us to help you—”

“And what, pray, have you done to better the lot of others?” I ask. “You call each other sisters, but are we not all sisters? The seamstress ruining her eyesight to keep her children in porridge? The suffragists fighting for the vote? The girls younger than I who would ask for a living wage, whose working conditions are so deplorable they were locked in a burning factory? They could make use of your precious help.”

She holds her head high. “We would have done so. In time.”

I snort in disgust. “It is daunting to be a woman in any world. What good does our power do us when it must be kept secret?”

“You would prefer bold voices to illusion?”