Page 11 of The Light Between Worlds

Please, I beg silently as bombs go off within me. Please, Philippa. Stay.

She’s quiet for a long while. Then she turns to Cervus, and I can see tears on her face. “I couldn’t leave either of them, but especially not Ev. Do you know what my parents told me, the first time we were sent away at the start of our war? ‘Look after your little sister, Philippa. She’s yours to take care of now.’ And I’ve tried. I made a promise to them, and it’s binding me here as much as the promise I just made to you. So if you want someone to dangle as a prize for the Empire to snatch at, let it be me, but there’s something I want in return. An oath that Evie will come to no harm.”

“I’m only a Guardian,” Cervus says. “I am here when a Woodlander’s journey begins and when it ends, but I have no control over what lies in between.”

Philippa stills. Her shoulders set. “If that’s true, what did you mean when you promised we’d find our way home?”

“What all Woodlanders mean when we speak of homegoing. That if not in life, then at last in death, your heart will find its true resting place.”

I watch as Philippa balls her hands into fists at her sides. “That’s not what I meant when I made you swear. I wanted to know that my brother and sister and I will all return safe and well to our own world.”

“I could not promise such a thing.” Cervus lets out a sharp breath. “I will do everything I can to ensure the three of you stay safe and return to your world. No Woodlander will do less. But swearing to do anything more would be dishonest. I don’t control your fate, little one.”

Philippa takes a step away. She’s quiet for a while before answering, and when she speaks, her voice is colorless. “Even if you can’t promiseto keep Evie safe, I did. So I suppose it’ll be up to me as always, to look after her and to get her home. If that means helping to hold off your war until you’re ready, then so be it.”

Cervus rests his head on her shoulder, and at last she turns, throwing her arms around his neck and burying her face in that ruff of rust-red fur. I creep away, knowing she’s said things she wouldn’t want me to overhear.

7

“—EV. EV, ARE YOU LISTENING?”

Georgie’s voice and the clamor and chatter of girls leaving English Lit comes into focus. I blink a few times, shedding remembered Woodlands sights and sounds like so many dried leaves. The corners of Georgie’s mouth tuck in, and she rubs the back of one hand against her forehead.

“Ev. The bell’s rung. It’s time for Latin.”

No one’s left in the room but us and Max, who sits behind her desk watching our conversation. I push my chair back with a scraping noise and gather up my books carelessly. “Thank you, Georgie.”

I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but it wears on me, always having people take such care, always having them watch and worry. I’mfine, and I don’t need help.

Philippa obviously thought so or she wouldn’t have left, even after the things I said.

The truth is, my sister may have gone, but she’s still everywhere in this place. As I trail down the hall to Latin, following Georgie, who pretends she’s not waiting for me, I can’t help but notice adozen places haunted by Philippa’s ghost. The Woodlands have plagued me for years, but this is new.

Across the corridor is the Science Room, where Phil held meetings for the school’s Aid Committee. It wasn’t a particularly glamorous club, but it was her favorite, and she made it popular just by her presence. There was always something or other they were fund-raising for by baking or canvassing or hosting concerts. They started out sending books to soldiers in hospital, during the war, and moved on to knitting hats and mittens for those left homeless on the Continent.

Next to the Science Room is an urn of imitation flowers, and they were Philippa’s doing, too—part of her successful but short-lived School Beautification Scheme. The refectory’s not safe because she held court there, ruling benevolently from a table beneath the windows. The library’s a minefield because it’s where she took me to deliver her lectures—Buck Up, Ev, Just Keep Busy, There’s Plenty of Good in This World If You Only Look for It.

I never expected I’d miss her so much, though I’m the one who drove her away.

Georgie’s standing in the doorway to Latin, having given up pretending she’s not waiting for me. I duck my head and hurry along, sliding into my desk just as Foyle, our stern and pinch-faced Latin magistra, begins to speak. She peers at me, but says nothing about my tardiness.

Even Latin’s thick with memory, though. I’ve never been a good student, but Philippa, the diplomat and negotiator of our family, loved old languages. Even in the Woodlands I’d catch her muttering under her breath, “aut viam inveniam aut faciam” or quipping“asinus asinum fricat” when a letter from the Empire contained a little too much flattery.

I sit in Latin and bide my time, badly translating the texts I’m given and waiting for the bell. When it rings, I hear it without a reminder from Georgie, and am first out the door, hurrying through hallways and past rooms that all serve as reminders of my sister. Haunted by her on the outside, haunted by the Woodlands on the inside, haunted, haunted, haunted.

Maths would be intolerable. All those numbers are bad enough on their own, but now all I see when I look at them is Philippa. She and Alfreya spent hours bent over a ledger at Palace Beautiful, keeping careful track of the farmstead’s produce. And afterward, when we’d been sent back here, she tried to make a game of algebra for me, teasing me into laughter rather than tears when an equation wouldn’t come out right.

I push through the press of girls and bolt down a back corridor.

The outside air reminds me how to breathe. It’s crisp and already cool with the promise of autumn. I skirt the back of the school building, keeping close to the walls and out of sight, then sprint for the relative security of the gardener’s cottage. No one calls after me—there’s no indignant shout from any of the classroom windows. This time, I’ve escaped notice.

I stick to the narrow trail left by my own two feet as I cross the overgrown back field. Then through the gate to freedom. The tame woods of this world close around me, with their familiar scents and songs.

I cut through the forest to a place where the River Went runs dark and swift through the trees. With the noise of water to drownout my memories, I perch on a river rock and try to write a letter to my sister. I gnaw the end of a pencil and stare down at the blank page on my lap, wishing I could make a magic out of letters strung together. If I could—if some power commuted my words to an undeniable summons—I’m not sure who I’d call.

I miss you, Philippa. It’s sharp as a toothache, this missing—new and fresh and undeniable.

I miss you, Cervus, like broken bones set the wrong way, a deep and abiding ache that never leaves me, a constant reminder of how far I am from home.