Breathless, we tumbled out into the sunshine to find the laborers in an uproar. They had heard the thunder as whatever or whoever had fallen into the east fields landed. It had not been a smooth arrival, as a great cloud of dust and grass and feathers hung in the air, visible even from the kitchen door.
“Move!” It was Chijioke. He exploded out of the house, pushing past us, rushing toward the tent on the lawn and the confused workmen. Lee and I hurried toward the fields as Chijioke intercepted the men, herding them back toward the tent, calling, “Back to work! All of you! Nobody is paying you to make a fuss!”
I heard them complaining in return, but ran on anyway. It was difficult to keep pace with Lee, whose long legs sent him bounding ahead. I muttered and cursed my long skirts, holding them up and pelting for the rickety fence guarding the borders of Coldthistle property.
“Lee! Wait!” But I called to him too late. He reached the fence and stopped short, falling hard to the ground as if he had run headlong into a wall. Whatever shadow magic Mrs. Haylam had used to resurrect him tied him to the house, and he could no more pass beyond the limits of the house than a horse could fit into a mouse hole.
Gasping for air, I paused next to him, leaning down and putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. His shoes and trousers were scuffed by the dirt, and he pushed blindly at my fingers.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“No,” he muttered. “Leave me be.”
I looked between him and the cloud of dust in the field just beyond. Lee shooed me off again and I stood, gathering my skirts and climbing the low fence. “I’ll go and have a look,” I told him. “Stay here and I will let you know what I find.”
He ignored me, climbing to his feet and dusting off his muddied trousers.
As I turned toward the crater in the fields, that icy sensation lanced through me again. I shivered and wrapped my arms tightly around myself, rubbing at my elbows. It was such an odd feeling . . . to be perfectly aware of the lovely spring sun overhead while my body felt plunged into the depths of winter. I blinked, gasping, watching as a puff of my own breath bloomed into the warm air. How was it possible? But then, I should’ve known better than to question the curiosities of this new and darker world I found myself living in.
The whisper in my bones rose again, stronger, and with it came a physical tugging, as if the warning inside could slow me down, turn me from the hole in the ground, and march me back to the house. I still wore the small silver pin Mr. Morningside had given me, a token that allowed me to pass beyond the boundaries of Coldthistle. Even so, I felt ill and numb with strange frost.
The noise around me dimmed until there was only the inner voice, panicked and desperate.
Foolish child, turn back from here. Turn away from this place.
Though the words were strange to me, I somehow knew their meaning. Turn back . . . Some hidden voice inside wanted me to turn back. It was a woman’s voice, thin as a knife’s edge. I fought the urge to flee, watching as the cloud of dust kicked up by the fallen object began to dissipate. A figure took form, hunched, and while my steps grew slower from the cold, the image became clearer and clearer.
How could anyone survive such a fall? Yet the person righted himself and moved closer, ducking through the particles of dust as if parting a misty curtain. The moment he appeared in full, a surge of light blinded me, painful, a spike of heat cutting through the cold. I grabbed for my head and flinched, falling back, stunned by the agony. The voice did not throb now but screamed, wraithlike and wailing as the pain crested—
Cursed sky sentinel! Priest thief!
I must have doubled over from the intensity of it, hands clasped on my knees as I fought to regain my balance and strength. An instant later I felt pressure on my back. A hand. The sensation gradually ebbed, and when I could breathe again I found a young man standing next to me, his full, dark brows knitting with concern.
A kind of yellow glow surrounded him, then faded, and at last I could make out the details of his face. He did not look bruised or battered from the fall, and even his very fine gray suit was untouched by the impact.
As I beheld him, the voice whispered to me one last time, repeating itself. It was ghostly and stern, like a mother turned ghost.
Cursed sky sentinel. Priest thief.
“Priest thief?” I murmured. It didn’t make any sense at all. In fact, looking at the young man, strong and well-groomed, with dark brown skin and a mane of wild black hair, I couldn’t imagine he could be any manner of thief. He looked every ounce the impeccable London gentleman, though I had never met anyone of his particular origin.
“Sorry, could you say that again?” He still looked racked with concern. “Are you well, miss? You look ill.”
“M-me?” I stammered, laughing. “Am I well? You . . . How did you do that? I saw you fall so far; how could you possibly survive a fall from such a height?”
The young man opened his mouth to answer, but a second figure emerged from the haze of dust and grass. She, too, was dressed in clean, gray colors, in a cut of suit not so different from the boy’s. For a woman in men’s trousers, she did not seem the least bit ashamed of her odd attire, striding toward us with her head held high, a cocky sway to her full hips. She was beautiful, suffused with that same yellow glow around her shoulders, and with her large sapphire eyes and yellow hair, she might have been the boy’s opposite.
“Frightening the local wildlife, are we?” she drawled. She was far taller than I, and in my shocked state I could hardly find the outrage to respond as she approached us and put a finger under my chin, tilting my head upward. Nobody but Mr. Morningside had ever studied me so closely or with such cool intensity.
“You will of course excuse my sister,” the young man said, batting her hand down and away from my face. “She has all the subtlety of a bull.”
“Wings, dumpling,” the girl added, ignoring her brother. “He has wings, that’s how he managed. Not his most graceful entrance, I’ll warrant . . .”
They both had crisp London accents to match their tailored clothing, though I also heard a hint of something foreign that I did not recognize. There were stories, of course, of the wealth coming to England from the East Indies, and I had to wonder if these two hailed from that region, though she might have been from any town in the commonwealth. How they could be related, I did not know.
They have wings, you fool; they’re not from any region on known Earth.
Sheepishly, I glanced around the young man’s shoulder. I saw no wings of any kind, big or small. The girl noticed me looking.
“Ha. Not the kind you can see with your eyes, my dear. Not usually, anyway.”
“I’m Finch,” the boy said, giving a polite bow and then gesturing to his sister. “And this charming creature is Sparrow, my twin. I had no intention of making such a cumbersome entrance, but it seems protective measures at Coldthistle House have been improved since our last visit.”
Finch and Sparrow? Was everyone around here obsessed with birds?
“Your twin?” I repeated, glancing between them.
“Ah, you see, our kind attain physical b-bodies in an unconventional way,” he said with a charming stammer. “We start as just little motes of light, and when we perform our first act of service, whomever we helped, well, that’s who we come to look like. Sparrow and I were ‘born’ at the same time, which is why she’s my twin.”
“That’s rather lovely,” I said, thinking it over.
I watched as they both turned toward the mansion, leaving behind the immense crater in the field. Far in the distance, beyond the hole, I noticed a cluster of sheep on the hill. A furry herding dog there watched us, too, wagging its tail before it gave a few short barks and disappeared at a run.
Cold lingered in my bones, but I slowly followed the two strangers, wondering how exactly they could fly about on unseen wings. It had to be believed, since they had fallen so far and apparently sustained no injury greater than a ruffled hair.
“You’ve been here before?” I asked, still confused but eager to make conversation. Ahead, I saw that Lee had vanished, though Chijioke was waiting for us by the fence, leaning on it, a faded work cap dangling from one hand.
“Loads of times,” the girl, Sparrow, replied. Her long blond hair was pulled back in a severe and intricate braid, the crown of which arced over her head and then ended in a dizzying knot at her nape. They wore matching gold rings on their right pinkie fingers. “Still utterly hideous, I see. Henry should really stop hiring so many maids and invest in a painter or two.”
“We’re here for the Court,” Finch said, glancing over his shoulder at me. He had a noble face, with a broad nose and easily smiling lips. And were I less baffled by their sudden appearance, I might even have counted him handsome. “It, well . . . It seems there has been some trouble here lately, enough of it to convene the Court. Which means . . .”
“Somebody’s in trou-ble,” Sparrow finished, singing her way through it with a sneer. “Henry’s gotten himself into a mess, surprising literally no one.”
“Oh,” I said, fiddling nervously with the spoon around my neck. “Yes. There was something of a scuffle here a few months ago. I never realized it had caused so much attention. It must be severe if you came here from, um, from wherever you’re from to look into it.”
The young woman stopped short, spinning swiftly on her heeled boot. She squinted down at me, a sharper counterpoint to her brother. Another chill shot through me, the whisper in my bones giving a menacing hiss. Whatever or whoever this strange voice was, it clearly had no love for these two strangers.
“Who are you?” Sparrow asked, leaning toward me. “Or rather, what are you?”
“Irish?” I glanced between them, squeezing the spoon in my fist. “An Irish chambermaid?”
Finch smirked, quirking his lips to the side as he chuckled.
“You think you’re clever, do you?”
“Not particularly.”
“Don’t lie to me, clever thing,” Sparrow said, narrowing her eyes. “I can have the truth from you whether you want to give it or not.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Finch put in with a grumble, placing an arm between his sister and me. She leaned away from me, but only a little. “She means to ask what your name is, I think, and also what you are are.”
I did not like the way this girl had chosen to menace me when I had done nothing but show concern over their well-being. Curiosity was not a crime, and her instant cruelty rankled. Though I would never have her height, I could still do my best to appear dignified and unimpressed.
“You first,” I replied tartly. “I may have your names, but I still have no idea what you are.”
“Are all of Henry’s servants this ignorant?” she sighed, rolling her eyes. She propped both wrists on her hips and gave yet another heaving sigh. “We’re Upworlders, Adjudicators, which is why the very sight of you makes me feel ill. And since you make me feel fit to vomit on my shoes, that means you’re one of Henry’s lot. Or something fell. So out with it, mm? You’re not a bairn, too tall. A soul whisperer? A witch? Definitely not a succubus, too plain.”
“How kind of you,” I muttered bleakly. Before she could insult me further, I added, “My name is Louisa, and according to Mr. Morningside, I’m a Changeling.”
“A skin changer?” It was a brief moment of triumph, as Sparrow’s eyes widened and she reeled back as if scalded. She looked, satisfyingly enough, frightened. “I thought you were all but gone. You’re supposed to be all but gone.”
“Apparently not,” I told her with a shrug. “But if it makes you feel any better, I’m the only one I’ve ever met.”
Sparrow’s lip curled as if smelling something unpleasant. Her eye caught on the silver pin shining on the shoulder of my apron and she flicked it, hard. “No bloody wonder the Court is being convened,” she spat, throwing up her arms and turning as she stalked toward the fence and Chijioke. “He’s lost it for good this time—the jailers are in the cells and the inmates are running amok.”