Page 68 of Court of Shadows
I was lying in the grass still, gazing up at a dozen faces lit by the moon. Mr. Morningside was there to my left, hugging Chijioke with bruising enthusiasm. All of the familiar faces were there: Mrs. Haylam, Poppy, Lee, Finch, and the dark-skinned stranger. Only the shepherd and Sparrow were missing. And Father. Where was Father?
Putting a hand to my chest, I coughed one last time and studied my fingers. They came away from my apron stained with blood and pink froth. Someone had draped a jacket over me for modesty.
“I was dead,” I said weakly. “How...”
My eyes drifted to Mrs. Haylam, but she simply shook her head.
“Chijioke ferried your soul back into your body before it could escape,” Mr. Morningside told me with a gentle smile. His hair was even wilder now, and flecked with blood. “Although ittook, well... How do you feel?”
“Strange,” I murmured. Very strange. I was me, certainly, but I felt different, stronger, as if just flexing my hand or moving my head was an invigorating exercise. The urge to transform everything in the near vicinity was there, too, and a sense that I was seeing more clearly, with new precision. And there was a pit in my stomach, one made of anger and regret, and deep, dark memories. The grass seemed to bend toward me, as if responding to my hovered palm.
Before I could say another word, Finch sprang to his feet. He stumbled away from us, his mouth covered with one hand as he pointed an accusing finger first at Chijioke and then at Mr. Morningside. “What have you been doing, Henry? This boy... he can ferry souls to other bodies? This is not your power to command! Those souls are meant to move on, to embrace death....”
Mr. Morningside and Chijioke shared a look, one I could not fully read but one that did not seem optimistic, and then in a blink both men rose and gave chase. But Finch was gone, fleeing, lifting into the air and out of their reach before they could get to him.
They returned slowly, Chijioke eyeing Mr. Morningside with his lip between his teeth. “We should not let him escape with that knowledge....”
“It is what it is,” Mr. Morningside said grimly. “The truth was bound to out eventually.”
I hardly knew what they meant, and could not muster the energy to untangle the knot.
“Where is Father?” I asked softly, casting around for where he might be. “Did you save him in time?”
“That’s... the tricky bit,” Chijioke said. He was having trouble meeting my eye. “It was the only way to bring you back, Louisa.”
Mr. Morningside took my hand before the panic really gripped me. My eyes flew to his and my mouth dropped open. No.No. They couldn’t have done it. How could they have done it?
“Where is Mary?” he asked gently.
And I knew. At once I knew. “Oh God,” I whispered, closing my eyes tightly. “She’s in the fortress. In the First City. He imprisoned her there after she returned from the Dusk Lands. It’s like I can feel parts of him in me... his thoughts, or memories, bits and pieces of it.” Tears bubbled up, spilling in hot torrents down my face. I squeezed his hand, willing it not to be true, willing my father’s blighted soul out of my body. “I need... I need to think. I must be alone.”
“That’s not a good idea right now,” Chijioke said, intervening when I tried to stand. My balance almost gave out, but then I found my feet. “You shouldn’t be alone until the shock wears off.”
“And who is responsible for that shock?” I shot back, furious. Softly, Lee cleared his throat and I half sobbed, half sighed. “Ofcourse. Of course you would let him make the decision.”
“Louisa, it only seemed fair,” Mr. Morningside told me, placing a careful hand on my back. I shrugged away. “You must not be cross with him. This is a good thing, yes? The book is preserved, Mary is found, and the soul of your people has a new start. A second chance.”
I nodded, knowing all of that was true and right, knowing also that Lee deserved to decide my fate as I had decided his. And yet... And yet... It hurt. Maybe it would hurt less upon reflection, but I doubted it.
“I’m sorry.”
The stranger had spoken, his voice rough but not unfriendly. I turned gradually to face him, taking in his huge purple eyes and markings. More than that, I saw the still healing wound on his cheek, a slim red line, a line that might be left by a bullet grazing a cheek. But I understood him—how? Of course. I sighed. With my father’s soul had come his knowledge and his power.
The language sprang to my lips as easily as English. “I know you,” I said wearily. “You were Bennu the Runner’s companion; you guarded him from Egypt to the First City. You’re an Abediew, a moon jackal called Khent. But how did you survive this long?”
“I slept when the kingdom slept, when Father slept,” he said, scratching at the back of his neck sheepishly. “I woke not long ago to find the fortress frozen in time, everything as it was, andyet Father was gone. Tracking him took many months, many, many months, and when I at last found him it was too late. I was... too late to warn you.”
“That’s why you only attacked Mary in the woods,” I murmured. “Because it was him.” My hand slid into my apron pocket, closing over the bent spoon. “And you tried to return my spoon. With... an apology. Of a kind.”
He ducked his head, eyes as furtive and gentle as a chided dog’s. “I do not yet speak your language well, but I will learn.”
“You should rest, lass; your body and soul need to mend,” Chijioke said. There was a bird cradled in his hand, not dead but weakened. Was that where my soul had been while they found a way to entwine it with Father’s? I felt ill, and yes, as he said, exhausted. I longed for bed but dreaded utterly what my dreams had in store.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Drawing up more contracts?”
For once in a long while, I found Mr. Morningside’s office door wide open. I waited just outside, watching him bending over his desk while he wrote languidly across a fresh parchment. He smiled but did not look up from his work.
