Page 15 of Shadowed

"Three bedrooms," I say to the paper. The paper agrees by not arguing. "Hot water. Heat that works. Not Coalside."

I write:Three bedrooms minimum. Heating that holds in winter. Hot running water. Located not less than half a mile north of the river.

I read it. I add:Within walking distance of a baker that doesn't water the flour.

The paper accepts this without comment. The paper has accepted worse. I once wrotereceipts itemised by the half-pennyon a fence agreement and Morrow signed it because I wouldn't take it off.

Food. Specific quantities. Bread, cheese, milk, eggs, two pieces of fruit per child per week. I write delivery, not allowance, because money he gives Marcus I'll have to extract from Marcus's pocket again the way I extracted Da's coin when Marcus was eight and didn't yet understand that we don't trust banks because we don't have any.

Medical. Tommy's cough. A doctor with a real certificate.

Education. Elena. Books she doesn't have to steal. I underline this twice.

Marcus—apprenticeship. Something with his hands. He has my hands. He should learn to use them for something that pays.

Tommy—protection. Total. No Fae contact. None.

I stop. Read it back. The clause sits there in my smallest hand and it doesn't feel like enough. Pages don't feel like enough. The thing I want for Tommy isn't the kind of thing you write in ink—it's the kind of thing you make a male say out loud while looking at you.

I put the pencil down.

I unlockthe Bramah and open the door.

The hallway is dark. He's in it. I can feel him before I can see him—the shape of dark in the wrong place, the smell of stone and cold mineral, the air pressed denser than it should be. He's leaning against the opposite wall with his arms crossed. His wings are folded against his back and even folded they press against both walls of the corridor, the dark membrane denser than the surrounding shadow, blacker than black. His hair catches what little light comes through the street-facing window at the end of the hall—white, almost silver, the one pale thing in all that dark. The corridor is too small for what he is.

"You wanted me?"

His voice does something low to the air. It's the first sentence he's spoken since he left and it's a question and the question is almost amused.

"I have a question."

"Ask."

"What's your name?"

The shadows along his shoulders ripple. Whatever he expected me to ask, that wasn't it. I'll take that as a small win and not show I'm taking it.

"Caligo."

"Caligo what?"

"Caligo Umbrius. Prince of Shadow Court."

"I'm not calling you Prince Umbrius. I'm just not."

"I didn't expect you to."

"Caligo, then."

My body is doing the thing again. The heat, the lean. The hallway is narrow and he's taking up most of it and I'm standing barefoot in a chemise and my coat, addressing a Fae prince who's been waiting in my corridor for most of an hour, and the most coherent part of me is the part that's been trained to negotiate before the rest of me forgets what we came out here for.

"I have one demand I'm not putting on paper. I want to hear you say it out loud. Where you can't pretend later that the writing meant something else."

The shadows still completely. He's listening now. Whatever was wandering before, isn't.

"Tommy is eight," I say. "He's the youngest. He believes our father is coming back. He has nightmares about ordinary things and I'm not letting him have nightmares about Fae. He doesn't see you. He doesn't see your shadows. He doesn't enter Shadow Court. Not at eight, not at ten, not at fifteen. Not until he's old enough to understand the deal his sister made and choose forhimself whether he wants any part of it. I want you to say it, Caligo. Out loud. To my face."

The lightless eyes do whatever they do. I can't read his face—too dark, too still—but the shadows aren't moving, and after six hours of this I'm apparently a shadow reader. He's not deciding. He's already decided. He's deciding how to say it.