Page 4 of Court of Shadows
“Now thatisodd,” I mused.
“Yes, yes, please enjoy a chuckle or two while you still can. I doubt you will feel so blisteringly superior when you hear the contents of the letter,” he said, his eyes, yellow and dancing, flamed with annoyance.
Setting down the tea without drinking it, I frowned and reached for the letter, but he tugged it away, keeping it just out of my reach. A few of the birds perched around him tittered as if amused.
“Not yet,” he said, shaking his head. “You may read it soon,but first I must know something, Louisa.” Mr. Morningside leaned toward me, setting his jaw and grinding it back and forth a few times before saying softly, “Howareyou?”
I stared. “How... am I? What sort of question is that?”
“A friendly one,” he replied. “A genuine one. I realize I have been... preoccupied of late, but I do honestly worry. That ugly business with Bremerton would leave any normal person catatonic with shock. I know you must feel a certain amount of confusion still, what with Mary’s ritual not working. You appear to be taking it all in stride, but as you know, looks can be deceiving.”
“I’m...” I cast about for a suitable response. It hurt to realize just how baffling that question could be. How was I? Unsteady, terrified, disheartened, utterly lost in a sea of strange forces and even stranger revelations about the world, about myself, about the nature of good and evil, God and the Devil. I was... “Getting along. Yes, I’m getting along, sir.”
Mr. Morningside lifted one dark eyebrow at that. “A genuine question deserves a genuine answer, Louisa.”
“Very well, then I’m surviving. I survive, usually by trying not to think too hard about what you are and what this place is. I clean the chamber pots and wash away blood. I sweep and muck out stalls and put my hands over my ears at night if a guest is screaming. If I thought too hard about any of it, about who I am and what I’ve seen and done after less than a year of employment here, then I might notappearto take it in stride.So while your question may indeed have been genuine, sir, it was also foolish.”
My voice had risen to almost a shout, and I did not apologize for it, nor did Mr. Morningside seem taken aback or offended.
He placed the letter on the desk between us, tented his fingers again, and nodded slowly, chewing briefly on his lower lip as he continued regarding me. His gaze flickered once to the letter, but then fixed on me. I refused to squirm under the scrutiny.
“Would it please you to see your father?”
I laughed. Scoffed, really, and gave a distinctly piglike snort. Pointing to the fine parchment of the letter, I said, “Malachy Ditton could never afford paper that fine. If he has, it’s a deception, some way to part you from your coin, and you’d be a dolt to believe a word of it.”
Mr. Morningside’s eyes grew huge, almost innocently so, and his lips parted. “Oh.” Still looking dazed, he reached for the letter and began opening the creased pages, laying bare a long, long note written in a scrolling, beautiful hand. I had never seen letters with so many flourishes and loops. The entirety of it appeared to be written in Gaelic.
“My father can hardly scratch out his own name,” I murmured, transfixed by the sheer loveliness of the penmanship and that delicate perfume of juniper and forest drifting from the paper. My eye swept to the bottom and the signature, a name I did not recognize. It looked likeCroydon Frost. “There must be some mistake...”
“There is no mistake, Louisa,” Mr. Morningside said gently. “This letter is from your father. Yourtruefather. Not a man of flesh and blood and mortal spirit but a Dark Fae, the source of your Changeling magic.”
Chapter Three
At once, I was a child hiding in the cupboard again. My stomach felt as if someone had thrown a sack of bricks into it. I had few memories of my father before he left, though the ones that remained were potent in all the worst ways. One could never forget the sound of a hard slap, or the mother’s grief that came afterward. I spent more time hiding from his moods and his drunkenness than I spent in his arms hearing stories.
He did tell me one tale that stuck. “Remember, my girl,” he would say, bouncing me on his knee in one of his few moments of sobriety and kindness, “every man has his limits. From the smallest to the tallest, they all have a weakness. You have to know it, girl, but you have to know yours, too. See, I can drink one bottle of whiskey and keep my feet, but two more cups after that andbam! I’m on the floor. You drink the bottle and keep your feet. You don’t be tempted by those last two cups, you hear? See the wall before you crash into it.”
“What a father,” I breathed. I had all but forgotten that I was not alone. Mr. Morningside stared at me, but I felt no pressure behind the look. At last I reached for my tea and drank it, all in one gulp, fighting back a cough from the heat of the liquid and the strength of the brandy.
“Can I refuse to see him? Can you refuse him for me?” Iasked, pushing the cup and saucer away from me.
“Of course I can. Is that what you wish?”
“I had one father already, and I can’t recommend the experience. How do I even know this one is telling the truth about our relation? It seems so... far-fetched.” But it would explain my odd abilities, which, one year ago, I would have found very far-fetched indeed.
Mr. Morningside nodded, tapping the letter on his desk with one fingertip. “You aren’t curious to read what he has to say?”
“Curious?” I searched the wall behind him, looking from bird to bird, watching them preen and sleep. “Morbidly so, perhaps, but I think I feel more... disappointed. The father I already have let me down, but I accept that now. I’ve worn that around and grown accustomed to the feeling. I don’t think I’d like to be let down that way again.”
I pushed away from his desk and stood, aware suddenly that I felt dizzy. It wasn’t the brandy, or that wasn’t the only culprit. For so many years my father had railed against my mother, accusing her of all manner of ridiculous things. Foremost among them? Infidelity. And now here was proof that at least one of his suspicions was true. I shook my head, silently deciding that it wasn’t worth giving this stranger and his story too much credence.
Why would anyone go to the trouble of finding you if it wasn’t the truth? Why would anyone care about a futureless, penniless daughter?
“There is another possibility,” Mr. Morningside said quietly.I had already begun to leave, but I stopped and took a few tentative steps back toward him. He folded the letter neatly and held it out to me. “You might be pleasantly surprised. You might even find kinship with him, considering that you’re both of the Unworld.”
“Or it’s just a bunch of nonsense and he’s some kind of criminal,” I replied. “Isn’t that more likely? Coldthistle House lures the wicked, you told me that yourself.”
He inclined his head, still offering me the letter. “I’m familiar with the criminal set. Nothing in this note leads me to believe he has ulterior motives. He sounds quite educated, in fact,” he explained, pausing for effect. “And wealthy.”
