Page 52 of Court of Shadows
“Where is the woman?” I asked, innocent. “There were four of you in the painting I saw. Where is the fourth?”
The scarlet beams in his eyes flared.
“Gone,” he said simply, the smoke billowing around his hollow cheeks dying down momentarily. “She was pure and selfless, and this world of darkening deeds swallowed her whole. There will never be another like her, nor can there be. There are no souls left pure enough to deserve her.”
Lies, lies, little child, all lies...
The voice echoed in my bones, and I tried hard to conceal its effect on me. Nobody, least of all this dangerous stranger, needed to know I was hearing whispers of warning.
“So what do I call you?” I murmured. “I’m not stupid enough to think the Devil’s name isHenry, or that you, whatever you are, that you are called Croydon Frost.”
“He does exist, or he did. I took a page from your employer’s book and...commandeeredthe life of Croydon Frost, wealthymerchant. He is a useful disguise. You may call me Father,” he replied with a slight bow of his head. “All Father of the Trees, if you prefer the formality, but ‘Father’ will suffice.”
This was who Bennu and his cult had worshipped. Mother and Father, only now “Mother” was somehow gone, according to him.
“Does that make you a god?” I asked.
He smiled, but it was a horrible thing to witness. “There are no gods left anymore, my child, only monsters too stubborn to die.”
“So a god can be killed?”
“Killed? No, but weakened? Made to surrender? Oh yes.” His hands curled into fists at that, and he seemed to grow larger, as if the anger buried in that remembrance fed him. Then he breathed out and diminished, though he was still an intimidating size. He roamed to the trestle table with the black pennant hanging above it. Reaching up, he pulled on the fabric, a black sleeve coming loose, revealing a more colorful flag underneath. It was a stag’s skull with many purple eyes, rose- and green-colored vines twisting around its antlers.
Placing one hand on the table, he leaned heavily against it, as if he were losing strength and growing tired.
“Ask your questions now, child. I am weak from many long years of slumber.”
I fidgeted with the little vines on my skirts, my mind working out two problems simultaneously. There were plenty ofquestions to ask, but the rules had changed, and quickly, and now I had to adjust and find a way to survive this. His arrival at this place signaled something terrible, that storm I sensed on the horizon, screaming in fast. Even if he was weakened, he was dangerous, dangerous and terrifying. It was upon us, I realized, the thunder and lightning and crashing winds beginning any moment. I did not know if I could control this man, this god who had diminished into a monster, but I had to at least manage him.
There were innocents at Coldthistle, Mary and Poppy, Chijioke and Lee, and I had no intention of letting them get hurt when the storm reached its peak.
“Am I the only one?” I asked. “Your only child?”
“No,” he said matter-of-factly. “But you are the only one who matters, the only one who developed the gift.”
“So you abandoned many of your children,” I muttered.
He twisted, one black-and-red eye staring at me over his shoulder. “Your human lives and concerns struck me as unbearably petty. And fleeting. Is that offensive? Human lives pass in the blink of an eye. I had been sleeping for centuries; I was far too restless to care for one or two or three humans.”
“I see. I’m useful to you now because I inherited some of your powers,” I said. It almost felt good to realize this man, orthing, was as vile as I’d expected. It made it easier to dislike him, and inside that hatred was protection. He did not quibble with my observation, so I went on. “How do you do that? Change intoother people, I mean. I can do small things, change my spoon into a key or a knife, sometimes a gun if I really need to, and I can translate things. But could I really become someone else?”
At that, he turned around to face me completely. He looked caught off guard, and if I squinted, sad.
“He taught you nothing. Of course. He must be terrified of you, of what you could become.” Grinning, he spread his clawed hands wide. “You are my one true child, and it would be an insult to my blood if you could not do all that I can. Let me see, there was a rhyme the druids once sang.A drop of blood, a lock of hair, lands you in the Changeling’s snare.”
“I need someone’s blood and hair to mimic them?” I pressed.
“Spill the blood of another or have them spill yours, and that is power enough to create their image,” he said. “But you will notbethem, only appear and sound like them. It’s a mirage, child, nothing more.”
I would store that away for later, a useful trick if I could manage it.
“And what about pink foam? I... had a dream, and the next morning I had spit up something dark pink. What does that mean?” I asked.
“That can happen when our kind experience a particularly potent vision,” he said. “Whatever you dreamt that night could be prophecy.”
I shuddered. Prophecy? My friends and employers eating me alive wasprophecy?
He approached me, the black mist rising from his face and robes contorting as he walked. Soft echoes surrounded him, as if he wore a cloak of ancient whispers. He reached out toward me and I froze, paralyzed by the strangeness of his eyes and the undeniable power that rolled off him in terrible tendrils. His talons traced the edge of my jaw and I inhaled quickly, trying not to tremble, trying not to show him my fear.
