Into the Dim by Janet B. Taylor

Author:Janet B. Taylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Chapter 25

“YOU’RE NOT BEING FAIR, HOPE.” PHOEBE’S TEETH CHATTERED as our rented sled lined up with hundreds of others. Sleds, sleighs, and riders on horseback, filed out the city gate, headed for the Palace of Westminster and its nearby Abbey. “First of all, you don’t even know for sure the woman they mentioned is our Sarah.”

I nodded, though I did know. I knew it in my heart. After we returned to the house and I revealed what I’d learned, I’d sunk into a depression that left me wrung out and numb.

Alongside the procession, hundreds of mounted soldiers bore blazing torches, lighting the frigid night until the fat snowflakes glowed like bits of fire falling from the sky. Shouts and cheers rang out. The smells of horse and ice and burning pitch. The jangle of bells on tack as people’s cheeks and fingertips froze.

It wasn’t far down the road called the Strand to Westminster that—in this bygone age—still lay a few miles outside the city proper. Based on the sprawling hamlets and great estates we passed, it wouldn’t be long before London outgrew its walls completely, and the great Abbey and Palace became the center of town.

I burrowed deeper under the musty furs. Every exhale turned to a cloud of frozen mist that iced my blood in a world gone cobwebby and cold. In the orange haze, Collum rode beside us on a sway-backed mare. He seemed twitchy and anxious. I’d never seen him nervous before. I did not care for it.

Dismounting, we merged with the crowd as they flowed toward the castle’s entry. Phoebe’s emerald dress—purchased secondhand at market—suited her auburn hair and pale, freckled skin to perfection as she puffed beside me. “Let’s just find Sarah and get the story from her, okay?”

My own gown of rich indigo, embroidered in whorls of scarlet, swept down in a cascade of plush wool. With Phoebe’s needle, the long, belled sleeves, lined with crimson silk, draped to the ground in swooping elegance.

When I’d come down the steps at Mabray House, my hair braided and pinned in place by Alice’s clever fingers, Collum had stared at me for a long moment before mumbling a begrudging “You’ll do.”

The knot on my forehead from my previous tumble pulsated. The freezing wind whipped at the filmy veil as—for the hundredth time—I adjusted the bronze circlet that ringed my scalp like a torture device.

Phoebe glanced over at me. “You all right, then?”

“Peachy.”

People lined up before the torchlit entrance to the Palace of Westminster, dressed in their glittering, courtly best. Butterflies cartwheeled in my gut as we joined the queue of invited guests.

She’s here—I know it. My mother’s here and she’s married.

Phoebe gave me a concerned look as we crossed the scoured cobbles and mounted the steps. “It’ll be okay, Hope. Honestly. We’ll find Sarah, and then . . .”

My eyes never stopped scanning the crowd. Not her. Not her. Not her.

“Oh,” Phoebe said, “so I shagged the groom in the hayloft this afternoon after going to the market.

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