“I need you to skip to the end.”
Mr. Morningside paged through my latest translation, a piece of iced lemon cake in front of him, which he diligently ate in between appraisals of my work.
“This is all fine, excellent, really, but I must know where it ends,” he said, slapping the packet of papers down onto the desk in front of me. My eyes hurt from squinting in the candlelight for so long, and my fingertips were stained with ink. I sat back and stared numbly at the journal, my head swirling with questions. “Where do they go?” Mr. Morningside added. “Where do they stop? Find that and translate it. The rest,” he said, flicking his brows and stabbing his dessert, “is just icing on the cake, my dear.”
I glared up at him, annoyed by his cheery demeanor.
“My father is here, did you know that?” I asked, crossing my arms over my middle. “You never wrote to him. . . .”
“I was planning on it.”
“You never wrote to him.” I scoffed and looked away from him, choosing to stare instead into the blue flames in the library’s fireplace. “I can’t believe this.”
“Which part?” he asked, finishing the cake and licking the crumbs from his fingers.
“All of it.” I gave up, piling my forearms on the desk and resting my forehead on them.
Mr. Morningside gave me a patronizing pat on the shoulder and stood from where he had been perched on the desk. “You wanted him here and now he’s here, Louisa. I really don’t see the problem. Do you want me to try talking to him?”
“No,” I mumbled. “You will only make it worse.”
“That’s harsh.” He paced in front of the desk; I could hear his riding boots pitter-pattering across the rug. “Is this going to be too much of a distraction for you? It does not matter how persuasive the shepherd finds those journal entries—at some point you will be asked to speak and I need you at your best.”
I dragged my head up off the table and gave him my most hollow-eyed stare. “Do I look like I am at my best?”
No longer pacing, Mr. Morningside tucked his knuckles under his chin and said, “Very well. I see now that I have been pushing you too hard. The Court cannot long be detained, but what would you need?”
“A day,” I replied after a moment’s consideration. “Just . . . one day to sort things out with my father and finish this work for you. A day without tasks from Mrs. Haylam or having to attend your bizarre trial. A day like that and I may feel . . .” Better? Human? Normal? What would I feel? “Ready.”
He nodded and danced quickly toward the desk, smacking it with his palm. “A day I can grant you. Tomorrow is yours, Louisa; do with it what you will.” This bargain seemed to please him, or at least satisfy him, and Mr. Morningside brushed by me with a whistle, walking briskly toward the door that led out to the endless corridor and his office. “Oh! And you have one less thing to worry about,” he said as he opened the door.
“What do you mean?” I twisted in my chair to face him.
“I know who killed Amelia.”
That made me sit up straighter. “Was it Finch? Sparrow?”
“Sparrow? Ha! No, dear girl, it was Mary. Ah well, Amelia was going to depart us anyway; now we must just decide what to do with the rest of them. . . .”
He made to close the door on that but I shot out of the chair, racing across the room toward him. “Mary?” I blurted. “But how is that possible?”
Mr. Morningside grinned and peered out from the crack in the door, just one bright yellow eye visible as he purred, “I don’t pretend to truly know even my oldest friends, Louisa, and neither should you.”
I was no longer certain of many things, but one thing I knew in my heart was that Mary could not be a killer. Nothing about her gentle aspect and goodness told me she was capable of turning Amelia Canny into a dried-up husk with liquefied eyeballs. Rather than freeing me of one concern, Mr. Morningside had simply added another to the growing pile.
Mary, a killer. Those three words rolled around in my skull all through that day, rattling ’round and ’round while I served Mason, his father, and Samuel Potts their luncheon, and while I helped Chijioke gather kindling from the edge of the woods, and while I sat, silent and stumped, all through our dinner. Mary did not join us; she now only had a little bit of broth in the morning and before bed, but otherwise kept to her room and rested. I did not see my father, either, though Poppy announced to us at supper that he knew marvelous much about flowers and had given her a thrilling lecture on dandelions and all their medicinal properties.
“How nice for you,” I had told her, dazed.
Mrs. Haylam shushed her, perhaps thinking I did not want to be bothered with stories of my father, which was true, but my real distraction centered around Mary. It didn’t make any sense. Why lash out at Amelia? They had probably not even met, and nothing I had ever learned about Mary or her abilities led me to believe she could murder someone in that horrible manner. I don’t pretend to truly know even my oldest friends. Was there wisdom in that? My eyes roamed the table, falling on first Mrs. Haylam, then Poppy, and finally Chijioke. I did not claim to know any of them intimately, but did I really know so little about the people in this place?
Whether I liked it or not, I had grown to trust Poppy and Chijioke, Chijioke in particular, and maybe that was a mistake. If Mary could suck the life out of a young woman and not say a word about it, then perhaps everyone else was just as changeable and unpredictable, too.
I retired to bed that night with my head stuffed full of uncomfortable questions. Now I dreaded the nighttime, convinced that each time I slept, some new, vivid nightmare awaited. But that night passed relatively peacefully, with only vague dreams of a woman’s voice in the distance; she sounded scared and sad, but I never quite knew what she was trying to tell me. It was bliss to wake after a full night’s rest, and it cajoled me into believing the remainder of the day would unfold just as nicely. I dressed hurriedly and ran downstairs for a quick breakfast. There was still no sign of the Residents as I went.
Mrs. Haylam presented me a plate of back bacon and buttered bread with no commentary.
I sat at the table by myself, listening to Chijioke sing to himself a little tune as he shooed the horses in the barn, his distant song wending its way across the grass and into the kitchens through the open door. It was fixing to be a hot, hazy day, the house already resonant with sticky warmth.
“Is Chijioke going to town today?” I asked idly.
Mrs. Haylam scrubbed an old vase at the basin, her slim back to me. “The Breens are intent on going to Malton. They believe the sightings of Amelia there are promising.”
“Ah. And the Residents? Where are they? I’ve seen not a wisp of them lately.”
“I have dispatched them to the forest and surrounding pastures,” Mrs. Haylam explained, a little tartly. “They are ranging as far as my magicks allow, searching for your mysterious man wolf.”
I stopped midchew, remembering clearly the journal entry I had just finished for Mr. Morningside. Bennu’s description in his writings matched what I had seen almost exactly, and I was beginning to think we had encountered the same creature. My silence must have perturbed Mrs. Haylam, for she slowly turned at the waist, her good eye skewering me like a well-aimed arrow.
“Any more questions?” she murmured.
“It’s just odd,” I said, picking at my bacon and spinning my teacup while I gathered my thoughts. I was not supposed to discuss the work I was doing for Mr. Morningside, but obviously she knew I was up to something with him. Perhaps a vague gesture at the truth might suffice. “I’ve been doing a good deal of reading, you know, to try to learn more about this new world I live in. . . . Mr. Morningside’s books are rather instructive.”
“They are.”
“Do you think it’s possible that monster that attacked us is, I don’t know, one of us?” I thought of the mangled spoon in my pocket, of the sad little note reading “SO RY” in a messy, wibbly script. Something didn’t fit. “Could it be reasoned with?”
“Reasoned with?” She rounded on me, losing her temper. Her nostrils flared, one tendon working furiously on the side of her face as she pointed the damp vase at me. “That thing tried to kill Mary. If you hadn’t gained your senses for half an instant and shot at it, who knows what would have happened?”
“Well, it was Finch who actually—”
“I don’t care who did what, I only care that you two fools survived.” It was the closest thing to concern she had shown for me in a long time. Perhaps ever. Her furor ebbed, and she turned back to the basin, calmly washing the vase once more. “I know you don’t appreciate that there is, or was, an order to things around here, but some of us are doing our best to maintain it. That order does not have room for a mangy, flea-bitten . . .”
I couldn’t make heads or tails of the rest of her sentence, but it damn well sounded like she knew what that monster was. Even its proper name. I pushed my half-eaten plate away and stood, sliding smoothly out the door toward the foyer. If Mrs. Haylam knew what that thing was, then so did Mr. Morningside, and if she wouldn’t tell me then perhaps he would. I had leverage now, in fact: his precious translations.
“I should start my day,” I said as I left, feeling petty and triumphant that I had left behind a small mess to clean up.
“I dare say,” she drawled, her shoulders bunched up in irritation. “Enjoy it while it lasts, girl.”
Enjoy was a strong word, but I did intend to make the most of my short freedom. I had so far avoided my father, but the confrontation could no longer be avoided.
I planted myself in the west salon next to the foyer. It was commonly used for reading or taking tea in the afternoons, and it was only a matter of time before Croydon Frost found me there. Poppy mentioned over supper that he had spent most of the day there writing letters and perusing a book of poetry. While I waited near the windows, I watched the clouds pass low over the forest. The little path leading to the spring was always dark, like the crack in a cliff wall only into deep shadow. I usually avoided the spring, as guests liked to congregate there, and now I felt even less inclined to visit. The Residents were indeed flitting among the trees, and I watched them weave silently on their patrols, hunting for the creature prowling unseen.
There was a hot, building pressure in my forehead, and I recognized it for what it was—the strain of too many questions and an aching dread. Sailors often complained of pains before a storm, and this was no different—something horrible waited on the horizon, I could feel it, but I was powerless against our inexorable slide toward calamity. I did not believe Mr. Morningside’s trial would go as flawlessly as he anticipated, and I did not believe Mary had killed Amelia. A storm was gathering above us, and nobody but me seemed to notice the building, angry clouds.
“It’s an extremely finicky process, enfleurage. . . .”
I pulled away from the window, turning to find Croydon Frost picking his way across the carpets toward me. He was dressed as exquisitely as Mr. Morningside, making no attempt to hide his wealth, with a well-cut deep emerald suit in velvet, and glossy riding boots. His puffy silk cravat was patterned with moss-green roses.
“You are attempting to preserve delicate things, re-create something ephemeral and vanishing. The tallow must be imbued with a flower’s life over and over again, the fat hungry for the fragrance, not sated until it has devoured dozens, sometimes hundreds of blossoms.” He paused halfway across the room from me and pulled a small glass vial from his pocket. Holding it up, the crystalline bottle shimmered in the sunlight. Something moved along his shoulders, bright and strange, but I could not tell what it was until he shifted closer.
“And then, when the fat has had its fill, we come to this.” He opened the cork on the vial and approached, handing the tiny bottle of perfume to me. Even before it reached my hand I could smell the indelible, light beauty of lilacs. It was almost otherworldly, how perfectly he had captured the essence of the flower. My eyes fluttered shut, and I held the bottle just under my nose, breathing in pure summer.
“A gift,” he said softly. “A woman is not fully dressed until she has her parfum.”
I opened my eyes and stared down at the bottle. No wonder this had made him rich. I wondered how much this little vial would fetch, and slipped it into my apron pocket next to the bent spoon.
“Thank you,” I said. “It was very— Oh God, what is that?”
The thing on his shoulder skittered around from behind his neck to the arm nearest me. It was a spider, a huge, hairy spider the size of a bird, brilliant purple and pink, as if dyed to match some garish ball gown, and a small chain like a leash was secured around its middle. It was, quite frankly, the creepiest personal effect I could imagine. Carrying a bloody great spider on a chain everywhere? Was I really related to this person?
I recoiled, backing into the window and holding the curtain in front of me.
“Oh, this?” Croydon Frost laughed, urging the creature down his forearm to his palm, where it seemed to regard me with its many eyes, one fragile furry leg in the air swaying. “She’s quite harmless, I promise, just a stunning creature I found on my travels.”
“It doesn’t look harmless,” I murmured, cowering.
“Do you think I would let her crawl all over me if she were prone to biting?” He grinned and held her out closer to me. “Go on, it’s not like the fur of a cat. It’s completely unique.”
I had no desire to touch it, but seeing it in greater detail was morbidly fascinating—it had a spiral pattern on its back and I could not believe how bright and pretty its pink and purple stripes looked in the sunlight. Carefully, I reached a finger out and stroked one of its furry legs.
“Ouch!” I snatched my hand back in horror. “It bit me!”
“My apologies.” He stumbled away, shielding me from the spider with his other hand. “She’s never . . . That’s not like her.”
It felt like a bee’s sting, and my finger immediately became red and swollen where the creature lashed out.
“Is it poisonous? Oh Lord, am I going to die?” I felt immediately sweaty, cradling my hand defensively to my chest. How perfect. Closing my eyes against the pain, I went rigid, listening as the woman’s voice I had been hearing drifted toward me again, soft, like music from a neighboring room.
Run, child. Run, the slumber is ended.
“No, no, be calm, they’re not poisonous, you should be just fine once the swelling goes down,” Croydon explained. I almost didn’t hear him, focusing completely on the voice that came not from without but from within. Who was she? Why did I keep hearing her words of warning? She had been right last time, and I took a small step back from Croydon.
He sighed and shooed the spider back up his arm, where it seemed to watch me, peering around his neck, little black eyes glittering with interest. Or hunger. Maybe I had proved a tasty bite.
“And here I had hoped to win you over.” He strode to the windows to my right, placing his hands on his hips and surveying the lawn.
“Resist the urge to bring a spider next time,” I muttered.
“At least we know I’m a spectacular failure in all things,” Croydon joked, but he sounded genuinely miserable. “Consistency is important.”
“Don’t expect me to feel sorry for you. Nobody made you fail me and Mum, you did that all on your own.” I glared down at my wound, wondering if it would scar as badly as the marks left behind by the book. He said nothing, but I felt him gazing at me with desperate eyes. Forgiveness. That’s what he wanted, what everyone wanted, but I had no intention of giving it to him. “Seventeen years of neglect is not rectified with a perfume bottle.” I marched over to him, fishing the vial out of my apron pocket and thrusting it forward. “You can have this back. I don’t want to be bribed, I just want you to answer my questions.”
“And money, I expect you want my money, too.” He sounded colder now, angry. His black eyes narrowed as he looked down his beak of a nose at me. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’re my daughter—you have my eyes, you have my curse, you will also have my vices.”
It was so strange to see him, really see him, and know that we shared a kinship, for I felt nothing at all for him, no daughterly warmth, no familial connection.
“Why did you leave us?” I demanded, searching his face. If he lied, I would push him through that bloody window, spider and all.
“I didn’t know what you would become, if you would be odd like me,” Croydon replied flatly. “Without me . . . Without me you had a better chance of living a normal life.”
“A poor life! A miserable life with a drunk of a father!” I prodded him in the chest and he touched the spot as if burned. “So you are a Changeling?”
Croydon Frost considered the question for a long moment, and his eyes went hollow, almost dead, as if he had momentarily slipped into a trance. Then swiftly, before I could react, his hand flashed out, capturing mine and lifting it. He studied the bite on my finger, shiny and red, and then let go.
“I want to give you an inheritance,” he whispered. There was life again behind his black eyes, swirling, burning life.
“That doesn’t answer my—”
“But you will have to choose, Louisa,” Croydon interrupted sharply. “You can have wealth or knowledge, and one is infinitely more valuable than the other. That is a promise you can depend upon.”
I shook my head, hoping he saw that same, determined fire behind my eyes now. “No,” I said resolutely. “I want both.”
“Both,” he repeated in a growling whisper. What I saw then in his gaze frightened me. He was not disgusted by my greed or intimidated by my stand; he instead reveled in it, a kind of mad intent simmering in his eyes, like a thrumming kettle about to scream. “Then you will have both, daughter, but not here. Not now. You will meet me in the pavilion tonight, midnight, you will come alone, and you will have all your questions answered, and more. Some answers, I suspect, you will wish to forget.”