Chantress by Amy Butler Greenfield Page A

Scargrave. Not that we’ve had much success yet. But that is our aim.”
    “And you become invisible?” I asked cautiously, sitting beside him.
    “Alas, no. The power of invisibility is beyond us. Although I will say that young Rooke has hopes—”
    “Should we be using names?” Nat interrupted, sitting down across from us. His collar was fastened shut again, and I could not see his scar.
    “Sir Barnaby thought we should, as long as we did so with care and discretion, never writing anything down—the usual precautions.” Penebrygg glanced behind him. “I bolted everydoor on the way up. And those windows are latched shut, yes?”
    “Yes,” Nat said, “but—”
    “Lucy is part of our circle now. That is the Council’s decision. And since she is in our circle, we must be open with her.” Penebrygg turned to me again. “It is our rule, you see. We were known to each other before Scargrave’s rise, so there was no disguising things afterward. And there is a certain measure of safety in continuing this way. If we were to cloak ourselves in hoods and masks, an imposter might easily slip in among us. But without them, we know exactly where we stand. Our faces are no secret to each other, and neither are our characters.”
    “I promise I won’t betray you,” I said.
    “But what if she’s caught?” Nat asked Penebrygg.
    Trust Nat to assume the worst, I thought. Especially where I was concerned.
    “If Lucy is caught, we have nothing left to hope for,” Penebrygg said. “And that is precisely why we must tell her whatever we can. She is less likely to make mistakes that way. And should she find herself in trouble, she will know who to turn to. Her safety, not ours, must be our utmost priority.”
    Nat nodded slowly. “Agreed.”
    I no longer felt like scoffing. It was sobering to realize how desperately they were counting on me—to the point that they were willing to hazard their own lives to keep me safe.
    “The Council agrees we must do everything we can to find your guardian, too,” Penebrygg said to me. “We cannot afford to have any of Scargrave’s spies find her—not for her sake, and not forours. This very morning we have begun to circulate her description among our allies, and we will be on the lookout for her.”
    “Thank you,” I said, the words a poor reflection of the deep gratitude I felt.
    “Now, you were asking why we call ourselves the Invisible College.” Penebrygg nodded at me. “It was Sir Barnaby Gadding, the founder of our group, who coined the term, back in King Charles’s time. We had no buildings, he said, no faculty, none of the trappings of a regular school. We merely wrote and corresponded and talked. But we shared an invisible link: a deep and abiding interest in investigating the world around us, and in communicating what we learned. For all intents and purposes, Sir Barnaby joked, we were members of an Invisible College.” He added, “I think he took pleasure in the abbreviation, too.”
    I did not quite follow him.
    “IC,” Penebrygg said, pointing to his eyes. “ ‘I see.’ ”
    “Sir Barnaby loves puns,” Nat said drily.
    “Pun or not, it is a good motto for men who believe in witnessing events with their own eyes, and not relying on hearsay and superstition,” said Penebrygg. “But that is by the by. The point is that ever since Scargrave came to power, the Invisible College has found it rough going.”
    “Scargrave doesn’t like truth,” Nat said. “Or doubts or questions. And those are the lifeblood of what we do.”
    Penebrygg nodded. “That’s why he has closed the universities. The breeding ground of rabble-rousers and traitors, he called them. A sad development in a man who once endoweda Cambridge library, I might add. But be that as it may, our Invisible College continues to meet on the quiet.”
    “And Scargrave has never captured any of you?” I asked.
    “Not a one,” Penebrygg said. “And for that we have Sir Barnaby to thank. His