Fragile Hearts (TID - Will Herondale fanfic)

Chapter 30: Ravenscar Manor

Will glanced over as Nora entered the carriage. She seemed tired.

  "Did you sleep last night, Ella?" Jem asked.

  Nora looked up then and nodded. "Where are we heading to?"

  "Mortmain's house growing up," replied Jem. As usual, Tessa and him sat across from Will and Nora. Tessa was wearing a dress, but Nora decided to go for her gear this time.

  The carriage finally rolled to a stop.

  "But we're not there yet," said Tessa. "If that's Ravenscar Manor—"

  "We can't just roll right up to the front door; be sensible, Tess," said Will as Jem leaped out of the carriage and reached up to help Tessa down. Will dropped down lightly beside her, watching in hidden admiration as Nora jumped out with grace, landing on Will's other side. "We need to get a look at the place. Use Henry's device to register demonic presence. Make sure we're not walking into a trap."

  "Does Henry's device actually work?" Tessa asked.

  Will was taking in the view. The solidarity made him think of his home at Wales.

  Tessa laughed. "I was thinking how odd it would be to grow up in a place like this, so far from any people."

  "Where I grew up was not so different from this," said Will, not exactly sure why he said that. "It's not so lonely as you might think. Out in the countryside, you can be assured, people visit one another a great deal. They just have a greater distance to traverse than they might in London. And once they arrive, they often make a lengthy stay. After all, why make the trip just to stay a night or two? We'd often have house guests who'd remain for weeks."

  Jem and Tessa were looking at him in shock, but Nora seemed engrossed in her own mind.

  "I share Tessa's view. I have never lived in anything but a city. I don't know how I could sleep at night, not knowing I was surrounded by a thousand other sleeping, dreaming souls," Jem said.

  "And filth everywhere, and everyone breathing down one another's necks," countered Will. "When I first arrived in London, I so quickly tired of being surrounded by so many people that it was only with great difficulty that I refrained from seizing the next unfortunate who crossed my path and committing violent acts upon their person."

  "Some might say you retain that problem," said Tessa, and Will just laughed—a short, nearly surprised sound of amusement—and then stopped, looking ahead of them to Ravenscar Manor.

  He glanced over at Nora, who had gone a sickening white.

  "Nora?" Will said, concerned. He took her elbow gently. "Are you alright?"

  Nora shook her head. "This is where Mortmain grew up?"

  "What's wrong?" Tessa asked.

  "Someone's living here," Jem said, starting further down the hill.

~

Ella felt every single nerve inside her flare up. Shock, anxiety. All of it. But she didn't have time to register it fully.

  A carriage was rolling toward the manor. A familiar one, at that. Ella clenched her fists, trying to let the pain cloud her thoughts.

  Jem crouched down immediately in the grass, and Ella, Will and Tessa dropped beside him. They watched as the carriage came to a stop before the manor, and the driver leaped down to open the carriage door.

  A young girl stepped out, fourteen or fifteen years old—not old enough to have put her hair up, for it blew around her in a curtain of black silk. She wore a blue dress, plain but fashionable. She nodded to the driver, and then, as she started up the manor steps, she paused—paused and looked toward where the four of them crouched, almost as if she could see them. Ella couldn't help her rapid heartbeat.