Illusions of Fate

I wait.

Before long, a figure in a dark suit materializes like a shadow from between trees, staying just outside the ring of my light. He has no umbrella, merely a hat set back on his head. He seems unaware of the soaking rain, smiling at me as though we were dear friends meeting under the sun.

“Well done, little rabbit.”

“I want Finn freed. Now.”

“Oh.” He says it as a sigh, a false note of sympathy behind his voice. “Finn made a rash decision just a few minutes ago. Thanks to Eleanor’s industrious brother, Finn was being delivered to the courts to have an audience with the prime minister when the guards reported he stopped and did not respond to anything they said, as though he were listening to something they couldn’t hear.”

The shadow. He was listening. A cold dread fills my stomach.

“After a moment he went mad, throwing off his guards and running for the bridge. They had no choice but to shoot him.”

Pain washes over me like the pounding of the tide. “No,” I whisper.

“It’s very disappointing. I had further plans for him.”

“He’s not dead.”

“The royal guards are excellent marksmen, and without his cane he had no magic stored. They’re recovering his body from the river now. Such a pity.”

“You’re lying.”

“Stupid girl, if I wanted to lie, I would tell you he was alive and well and you were doing the right thing to secure his freedom. I would feed you hope. But you know how this ends. You’ve already made the decision to sacrifice everything in order to protect your precious island home. I was worried for a while, that you’d been so seduced by the pale, glittering wealth of this country, by their fine manners and dead eyes and simpering customs, that you might actually be willing to let me burn the village.”

Finn. My Finn. I want to collapse to the ground, to sink into it. This grief would consume me like a moth in a flame, and I want to let it. I want to hand over the book and be done with it right now. But then I would not be the woman Finn gave his shadow to. I refuse to be anything less than what I am.

“You won’t win.”

“I will. And after I’ve exterminated the Hallin line, I’ll be the most powerful man in the world. But you don’t need to worry about that. You’ve done your part.”

“How do I know you will not still punish Melei?”

He shakes his head. “You really are daft, aren’t you? Everyone always thought you were so smart, but you can’t see anything. I was so happy when I found you again that first time. I meant what I said, that I would have kept you for my own. You would have been happy. Maybe I still will keep you.”

“All the magic in the world couldn’t make me love a man like you.”

“Really?” He steps closer, into the soft pool of light around me. His face is covered with glimmering droplets of water. “But you’d kiss me.”

“You’re mad.”

Laughing, he pulls out a handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket. “Am I?” He wipes his face. Along with the water droplets, his very skin is taken off, revealing a darker one beneath with the sharp smile and sharp eyes that I caught glimpses of all along.

“Kelen,” I whisper.

Thirty-four

KELEN’S GRIN SPREADS ACROSS HIS FACE. “IN THE flesh. Well, in someone else’s flesh. Most of the time.”

“You’re working for Lord Downpike?” I feel dizzy, unbalanced, disconnected from reality.

“I am Lord Downpike.”

“You can’t be. It’s impossible. You only left the island three years ago.”

“Don’t insult me by assuming Lord Downpike could have done all this, set it all in motion. He was so blind he could not recognize his own son when he hired me on as a servant. You weren’t the only one of us with Alben blood. Lord Downpike’s blood just happened to be more useful than pathetic Milton Miller’s. Not so precious as your mama treated you, now, are you?”

“You killed my father.”