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“Who invited you here?”
Crow raised an eyebrow, drawing herself to her full height, “Noelle, I’m the guest of honour.”
“And I’m Queen Caledonia,” she sneered.
She raised her other eyebrow, looking her up and down, “Are you?”
“Don’t be so obtuse. I suppose it comes easy to you though,” she flounced off without waiting for one of her absolutely pathetic attempts at a riposte. She went to see her mother, to ask her why on earth the staff hadn’t thrown out Morrigan Crow on her ear, wundersmith or not.
She didn’t care that she was a wundersmith. What good was a wundersmith? All she knew about them was that the last wundersmith was evil and had done awful things and… killed people or whatever. History was boring and her tutors didn’t care about teaching her that sort of thing once her chances of joining the Wundrous Society were scuppered. All that effort, all her mummy’s crying and her daddy’s raging. Their deals which she wasn’t supposed to know about, the thing they had done to her, when the strange people had come to their house right after the Fright Trial, which she had completed easily, and had only had to be hosed down once after the fact, which meant her singing had gone from amazing to extraordinary, all for nothing because all Morrigan Crow had to do was stand in front of the Elders and be put to number one.
She had still been on the leaderboard after that but the short range oracle had come in just after Mr Charlton’s other candidate, the one whose name she could never remember, and knocked`her to tenth, which meant as much as coming thirtieth or fiftieth, frankly.
She had been her family’s great hope for a place in the Society, the one thing they had never had, and it had been ruined for her by an illegal immigrant with a bad haircut who had been nothing but rude and unpleasant to her the whole time. She had had girls hanging off her arms, begging to be her friend, and she had never wanted Morrigan Crow to be around her as a weeping sycophant but the fact that she hadn’t tried to be one made her blood boil.
It was all supposed to be hers. She had the house, she had the family name, and the bloodline and the money. The Devereauxes were always somebody and she had had her spot stolen by an absolute nobody and no one had stopped it happening.
There had been a brief moment where, just after the Show Trial, Mr Charlton and his other candidate - maybe she hadn’t been there actually. Noelle didn’t remember now - and he had said he was going to fix it, that there was a carveout in the law for situations like this. But… something had happened. Her memory was fuzzy but the Nevermoor City Police had just left instead of arresting her.
Crow had done something. Or North, the same trick he had pulled to get the Elders to accept her in the first place.
“Mummy? Mummy!” she grabbed her arm, dragging her away from Countess von Bissing and into the hallway.
“Darling?” her mother blinked a few times, adjusting the tennis bracelet where the clasp had snapped open again. “You know you aren’t to interrupt me when I’m with guests.”
She resisted the urge to stamp her foot in frustration, “But Mummy! Morrigan Crow is here. You need to get rid of her.”
Her mother’s lip curled, “Oh yes, I know about her. Why don’t you make friends, Noelle? Aren’t you the same age? Or thereabouts? She’s in Unit 919, which Unit did you try out for again?” The and failed to get into was unsaid but loudly heard all the same.
She sighed, deciding to take the question at face value. Mother hated when she did that. Apparently her thoughts lacked depth, “Also 919, Mummy.”
“Of course, of course,” she sighed airily. “So why don’t you go make friends? Call it a… what’s that bourgeois word for it again? Playdate?”
Noelle wasn’t sure her mother knew what bourgeois meant, and hoped she didn’t know what playdate meant, so she slumped.
“Shoulders up, darling,” two fingers made their way under her chin, tilting her head up so she had to look at her in the eyes. “We mustn’t look like we didn’t have you taught deportment properly.”
She pulled her shoulder blades back, raising the top of her head as tall as it would go, “Yes, Mummy.”
“She could be… a wise social investment, even a long term one, if you understand what I am saying,” she touched something on Noelle’s forehead, moving a stray hair out of the way. Her perfume was noxious and she struggled not to cough.
“But-” she paused, her objections aborted before they could leave her mouth. “Yes mother. I will… go make friends.”
“Very good, darling. I know you won’t let me down,” her frozen smile said if you do, there will be consequences. “Now, I simply must make my way back to the party. The countess will be missing me now.”
She left in a flurry of skirts and a smell like a garden of poisonous flowers, Noelle standing there, feeling slightly shell shocked. She would go out, talk to Crow, laugh with her, tolerate her within her mother’s sightline. Then she would make her excuses and go to bed, and probably throw something at a wall.
“That didn’t go like you wanted it to.”
She jumped, her target staring down at her with those awful black eyes, “Oh, just leave me alone.”
“That seems counterintuitive to what you want- sorry, what your mother wants.”
She bristled, “Whatever, at least I still have a family that loves me.”
Crow’s eyes flicked upwards, her mouth twisting. Noelle wasn’t sure if she had hit a nerve or if Crow was thinking do you?
Maybe that was just what she was thinking, “Why are you out here anyway? I thought you were here to make connections.”
“I’m here because I was asked to be,” she said, sounding quite tired all of a sudden. “And wundersmiths are nothing if not obedient.” It was like she was parroting from a textbook or from someone with a very specific opinion on wundersmiths.
Noelle didn’t care, “Fine, go then. See you never.”
“Likewise,” she smiled slightly. “Have a nice night. And,” she stopped for a minute, her Grommish Exit interrupted briefly. “Let me know, if you need to talk about your mum or anything. She seems awful.”
“She is,” Noelle said, and immediately covered her mouth, shocked that the words had come out. “Get out.”
“I’m going,” she said. “But just… remember that, okay?”
“I’ll do as I like,” she snapped.
Crow sighed, “I’m sure you will. Goodnight.”
Noelle returned to the party, to the group of sycophantic children in her social group that had been foisted upon her, and to the domineering stare of her mother when no one else was looking, or when they were choosing not to see.
And she didn’t think about Morrigan Crow for the rest of the night. Or at least, she tried not to.