Page 1 of A City of Hearts and Feathers

CHAPTER ONE

Zoe knew it was her birthday by the cold dread that crawled along her half-asleep body. She opened her eyes slowly, her stare fixed on the cream ceiling above her, and willed her sleep paralysis to release her. It was these moments that were the worst—her consciousness awake and her body frozen as she convinced her limbs to work after a nightmare. She focused on naming what she could see to make her brain react again.Lamp, books, glass of water, reading glasses…

Her town house in Fulham was silent except for the cars zooming with the usual London commuters outside. The sounds her mother usually made in the bottom half of the house in the morning were painfully absent, reminding her starkly of what day it was.

Her mother, Anita, always took off on some fabulous holiday every year on Zoe's birthday. She always made a point of celebrating Zoe's birthday in the days before she went away; she just never hung about for the actual date. Zoe didn't blame her. After all, it was also the day her father had died.

For Zoe, her grief was a well-worn party dress that she dusted off once a year to wear when no one was around to see it.

She breathed in and out, trying to push away the memories and nightmares of her blood-stained dress, her father's office piled high with books, and his murderer still crouched over his body. She would never forget the heart he had tattooed on one hand, a feather on the other, and everything stained in scarlet. She remembered the tattoos in detail but could never recall his face. Her paralysis let her go, and she inhaled a sharp breath.

"Not today, Satan," Zoe murmured. She dragged herself into the shower, focusing on her breathing and not on the memories of that warm Istanbul night twenty-three years ago.

She'd had a long time to get over it—as her ex-boyfriend had pointed out many times. She just never had. Her mother dealt with the anniversary by being on a beach on the other side of the world. Zoe was more pragmatic. She worked so she wouldn't think.

She had a private commission to finish, a binding restoration of a gorgeous first edition ofHistory of the Worldby Sir Walter Raleigh, and that was all she needed to focus on that day. Not her father's unsolved murder. Not ruined birthdays and absent mothers who taught her to be self-sufficient too early in life. Books—her eternal refuge.

Zoe was an expert in the rare and the damaged. In a way, it helped her feel closer to her good memories of her father, who had been a rare book dealer, but also because books made her feel safe. For a few hours, her world was contained between two covers. It was a place that was controlled. Nothing else mattered.

Downstairs, Zoe made coffee and tied her bronze hair up into a high bun. She ate a croissant for breakfast and stared at the wisteria in the tiny back garden that was turning the outside world lavender.

Food always helped the grogginess of the sleep paralysis go away, and slowly the nightmares relented. She needed to get onwith her day, not stare at the garden and imagine what life would be like if Oman had lived.

Coffee, emails, invoicing, more coffee. Zoe kept moving from task to task, not stopping long enough to think. Thinking was the enemy.

She was wrapping the Raleigh in tissue paper late that afternoon when the doorbell buzzed loudly, jolting her out of her working zone.

Zoe hurried downstairs, expecting a bunch of 'I'm sorry' birthday flowers from her mother, but what she got was a tall, dark-haired man in a suit. Zoe kept the chain on the door as she opened it a crack.

"Can I help you?" she asked cautiously.

"Good afternoon. Are you Zoe Kartal?" he replied, his English perfect but with a slight accent.

"Yeah? Who's asking?"

"My name is Kerem Polat. I am here on behalf of your father's estate." He offered her a card through the crack in the door, and she took it. He was a lawyer from a firm in Istanbul. Zoe's stomach flipped, and she removed the chain from the door.

"I don't understand what this could be about. My father has been dead for twenty-three years. His estate was cleared up long ago," Zoe replied, her brows drawing together.

Kerem smiled politely. "This was a special request that could only be delivered today on you thirty-third birthday. May I come in? Or if you would feel more comfortable, we can go to the cafe at the end of the street?"

"Cafe would be good. I could use the break." Zoe's fingers tightened on the card. "Let me just get some things."

She shut the door on him and stared at the card again. It was heavy white stock, the firm name printed in clean black lines. On the back was the imprint of a set of scales.

Anyone could print a card, so Zoe pulled out her phone and quickly Googled the firm. They were legitimate, based in the Karaköy district of Istanbul.

What could have her father possibly left her? Zoe's fingers hovered over her mother's phone number, and then she decided against calling her. Anita always said that talking about Oman was too painful, and Zoe was annoyed with her enough to say something that would piss her off. Going off with a strange lawyer to talk about her father would definitely annoy Anita to no end.

Her father had left something for Zoe alone—it didn't concern her mother—and there was only one way to find out what it was.

Outside, Kerem was waiting patiently on the footpath, a black leather folio tucked under one arm. He had a sprinkling of gray in his black hair and a touch of amusement in his eyes as he smiled at her. If it wasn't for the card burning in her pocket, Zoe wouldn't have picked him for a lawyer. He seemed far too jovial and his eyes too kind. He also seemed familiar in a way that she couldn't quite put her finger on. She decided it was probably the Turkish accent, reminding her of childhood.

"Should I ask what this is about, or would it be better to wait until I have an espresso in me?" Zoe asked as she fell into step beside him.

"Coffee is always best when discussing business," Kerem replied. "Miss Kartal, I understand that this might seem strange, but I want to assure you that we handle these kinds of requests often."

"Requests from fathers to their daughters after being dead for decades? God, I feel crazy just saying it out loud." Zoe gripped the leather strap of her bag to keep her hands busy. "You know there is still family in Istanbul that could have taken care of any estate matters."

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