Page 35 of Tomb of Ancients
“Us?” His eyes widened.
“Mary and Khent have come with me,” I told him. “And the spider, too, only it’s not a spider anymore but Father’s counterpart, and she’s called, well, Mother, obviously. Mr. Morningside’s old Upworlder friend has tagged along. He says he wants to help me get rid of Father’s spirit inside me, but I have no idea if that’s true.”
Perhaps I ought to take a page out of Dalton’s own diary and see if Bartholomew couldn’t divine his intentions. If only I had known the dog’s gift earlier, I might have saved myself a lot of trouble at Coldthistle.
“Goodness,” Lee murmured. “You had a busy summer.”
“So have you, from the looks of it,” I said.
“It was quiet for a while after you left,” he explained, sitting on the stack of jars and sighing. He ruffled his curls with one hand and leaned back. “But then it all went to hell. Birds all over the county started dropping dead. Figures started watching us from the property boundary, day and night you would see them standing there, waiting for something. Then, a fortnight ago, they began crossing over, and one almost carried Chijiokeoff. It’s horrible, Louisa, but I’m terribly glad you’re here. Mr. Morningside has not been himself...”
The way he gazed up at me, so expectantly, made me nauseated with fear. I couldn’t crush his expectations.
“He did look a bit peaky,” I said.
Lee shook his head, curls rustling. “No, no, it’s more than that. He’s cross with us all the time. I knew he could have a prodigious temper, but now we’re the target of it, too.”
“I’m sorry.” It was all I could think to say. “He’s in open conflict with the shepherd. He must be worried that he could lose.”
“But how?” Lee scratched thoughtfully at his chin. “He has hundreds of souls trapped in birds, and he must be powerful himself. I don’t understand why he hasn’t fought back, why he hasn’t made Mrs. Haylam raise shadows or some such.”
“I couldn’t possibly know his mind,” I said. But Lee had a point. Whywashe waiting to mount a proper defense? I had never known Mr. Morningside to be meek or retreating, so why the sudden change? “Listen, Lee, I don’t know his mind, but I’ll do what I can to help. We all will. I just need to be careful. Father’s spirit is dangerous, and I frighten myself when he takes control. He’s out for blood.”
“Good,” Lee said, furrowing his brow. When we first met, I could never have imagined him becoming bloodthirsty, but death and living as a man of shadow had changed him. It would change anybody. “Those Upworlders are more than a nuisance.They won’t hesitate to hurt us. Why should we be any different?”
He had a point, of course, and I didn’t know what they had experienced in my absence, but I did know what it was like to be hounded and hunted.
“There may be a better way to solve this,” I said. “You might want bloodshed now, but trust me, you will quickly tire of it. Killing, even out of pure defense, it maims your spirit. Pull the wings off a butterfly, pull off its legs, and what do you have left?”
Lee stood, glowering, and pushed his way past me out of the pantry.
“Well, if you refuse to help us, maybe Khent and Mary will.”
“That’s not what I meant, Lee. I’m only advising caution. I... was responsible for Sparrow’s death. Nobody liked her, maybe, but it opened a wound in me all the same,” I said.
That slowed his steps, and he hung his head, shaking it.
“She is really gone?” he whispered. “I should be relieved to hear she’s gone. Just her very presence made me sick to my stomach, and she hated us, but... Damn it all.”
“I should look in on the others,” I said, walking slowly toward the open doorway to the foyer. “Mr. Morningside seems to be in a strange mood, and having another ancient god in the house with him makes me nervous.”
Lee hunched, gripping his stomach, wincing and stumbling forward until he could put one hand on the high table.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, going to him. His brow perspired. “Are you ill?”
“Upworlders,” he said through gritted teeth. “They’re near. I only feel that way when they come.”
“Dalton is one of them but estranged. Maybe you sense him in the house?”
“No, no. It’s too sharp to be just one of them. It feels more like when Finch and Sparrow first turned up together. They’re beings of light, Louisa, and I’m a creature of shadow now. Light pierces shadow. It’s torment when they’re stalking us.”
“Come,” I said, taking him gently by the arm. “We should tell the others. You don’t have to fight them on your own anymore. Our strength is yours.”
Chapter Seventeen
1247, The Road East
“What do you make of him?”
