Page 1 of Tomb of Ancients
Prologue
It was becoming less and less obvious where I stopped and he began. My father’s dreams had become my own, and like his dark heart, they were ever terrible and troubling. I dreaded sleep yet fell into it with ease, a deep and dreamy slumber consuming me the moment my head touched the pillow. At times, in these dreams, I wandered the past—my past and his—watching as an observer, as an outsider judging my own choices and his.
But on that night, I explored a seemingly endless hall, high and arched as a cathedral, the walls and floor made of a black, twinkling glass. And while there was no explanation for it, I knew this place, and my presence in it, to be real. Though I slid through it in my dream, it felt as solid and true as the bones in my body and the blood in my veins. A real, true place, hidden somewhere, a church of starlight and mystery, with a tremendous secret churning like the determined and bloody chambers of a heart.
When I walked in that hall, I walked with my father’s footsteps, his soul’s presence in my body, his voice never far from my thoughts, as if he were there beside me, smirking, a question on his lips.
Are you lost, child?
I did not feel lost in that dream—in that strange, endless corridor. There was something at the end of the hall waiting for me, an answer, or perhaps an ending. I moved toward it with purpose and a trembling in my hands, for no ending came easily and no answer was ever given without a price.
Chapter One
London
Autumn, 1810
Iwas not strictly to blame for what happened at the Thrampton ball, though all those who witnessed the aftermath might claim otherwise. It would be hard to argue with their logic, considering I emerged from the house covered head to foot in blood, a small, dull knife still clutched in one hand. For a moment, it had been a sword, at times a shield; it became whatever tool of defense I needed it to be, shifting from honed to blunt at my will, bent by my Changeling powers—now more potent than ever.
For I harbored a god spirit in my body. It had been the thing used to resurrect me, and that was how all this trouble began in the first place. That was how a perfectly charming ballroom became an abattoir, a scene of horror and gore, guts in the punch bowl, screams of anguish splattered across the fine cucumber sandwiches.
I had not attended the Thrampton ball expecting to be ambushed, though there had been signs that something in London was terribly amiss.
The evening of the ball, I looked down at the stoop, littered with dozens of dead spiders, and instinctively reached behind me for the door. There was no mistaking what this meant—somebodywith ill intent was watching the house, observing it—and us—closely, and now they were leaving a calling card. Not the polite, sensible sort of card like the one I had left with my long-lost half sister a few weeks prior. No, this was not a kind overture, but a warning. I wondered if it had to do with Mary. When we first arrived in London, she had been using her Dark Fae powers to shield our presence and the house. It was a precaution born of my anxious sense that we would never make a clean getaway from Coldthistle House. Too many dark events had transpired there, and she helpfully agreed to use the lightest shielding she could manage, a sort of mirage that would make us bleed into the neighborhood like a couple of boring, native residents.
But after weeks of all quiet, I had told her the protection was no longer necessary. How wrong I had been.
Toeing aside a few of the dead spiders, I flicked my eyes up to the gated perimeter of the lawn, seeking anything ominous that did not belong. But the fog was thick, and all those who were out late on the town were concealed by heavy black coats or gliding along in carriages, the mist making those carriages look as if they were pulled by nothing at all. By ghosts. I went back inside with heavy steps.
London was not at all what I’d expected.
For all its terror and strangeness, there had been a kind of peace at Coldthistle House. I would wake to near silence or the soft bustle of the staff and guests rousing, and I would sleep to the rumbling snores of Bartholomew the dog, or Poppy’s voiceas she sang herself odd lullabies, coaxing us both into dreams.
There was never peace in London, a fact I did not mind, as the traffic of the horses, cries of stray cats, and merry singing of the drunks wandering home at night made for distracting company. The noise kept me from delving too deeply into my thoughts and fears. It kept me from pursuing the growing number of voices in my head, those that had come almost the moment after my friend and former colleague Chijioke diverted my father’s godlike spirit into my body, saving me from death.
Aye, the differences, the changes, did not bother me until the dead things began arriving on my doorstep.
The first had come the week before, a small and dusty bird wrapped in a handkerchief. Mary had been the one to discover it, shrieking as she opened the door to retrieve our wood and fuel delivery. The package had come, but the bird was on top of it, its coal-black legs curled up, its toes splayed horribly, part of the beak missing as if snapped away, a silver spoon impaled through its breast.
The second unwelcome surprise had come only two days later, while we entertained our neighbors, Mr. Kinton and his daughters. We had been enjoying a spirited round of whist, and then there was a knock at the door, and Khent excused himself to help our servant, Agnes, answer. They were gone for too long, prompting me also to take my leave from the game and join them in the front hall. Another strange thing had turned up—this time it was a child’s toy in the shape of a shaggy blackdog, its head torn off and left with the body. Khent and I had shared a glance that Agnes couldn’t possibly understand.
I had a feeling we would share it again tonight when I retreated back into the house. But inside I found neither Khent nor Agnes, but Mary, her curling, reddish-brown hair braided neatly up, away from her ears and in a crown over her head. She wore a fine white gown and a green shawl draped over her shoulders. She rushed toward me, reading at once the pale fury on my face—I had only gone out to get a breath of air, nervous to attend my first social dance in the Ton.
“It’s happened again, hasn’t it?” she asked, her pallor matching mine.
Khent emerged from the shadows near the staircase, dressed for the dance in a becoming black suit and cloaked coat that hid his many tattoos and scars.
“What was it this time?” His low voice trembled with disgust.
“Spiders.” My eyes slid between the two of them, and I walked to the staircase, leaning on the banister. I suddenly felt faint, and the whispering voices in my head rose like a restless tide. “A bird with the spoon, a dead dog, spiders... These aren’t random warnings, they’re messages from someone who knows our business here.”
“I shouldn’t have stopped shielding us, it must have been doing some good after all. Perhaps we shouldn’t attend the ball,” Mary said, biting her lip. “We could be in danger.”
“Then we would be safer away from this house,” I suggested. The hall glowed pleasantly with the sconces lit for the evening, a lingering scent of roast and baked bread remaining from our supper. Agnes and our housekeeper, Silvia, chatted in the kitchen, their work done for the day.
“I will fetch a broom,” I added. “The spiders will frighten them.”
“They have a right to know something is amiss,” Mary replied, following me as I went to a small cupboard in the hall pantry. “Someone is trying to frighten you. Us.”
