Page 45 of Court of Shadows
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 byme 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 whileI 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 ofuncomfortable 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.
