Chapter 209: Who Opened the Curtain?

The lamp on Killian’s desk was the only light in the room.

It was past one in the morning. Volume eleven of the Crown survey maps lay open under his hands. He had traced the northern spur in pencil from the gate to the river. On the far bank the line went under, and the map went white.

He turned the page. White again. He wrote where? in the margin in small, neat letters and underlined it.

On the sofa, Elias slept with his shoes up on the arm and his mouth open. Ezra stood by the door with his arms folded.

Heather lay in Killian’s bed under the pink quilt, her back to the window. The curtain was drawn.

Killian turned another page.

The bed creaked.

He looked up.

Heather was sitting up. Her right eye was shut. The left was wide open, white from lid to lid, and fixed on the curtain.

"Miss Greene."

She pushed the quilt off and put her bare feet on the rug.

Ezra came off the door.

"Wait," Killian said.

She walked across the room in the thin white gown. She passed close behind his chair. Her face was slack, and her breathing was slow and even.

At the window she took the edge of the curtain in both hands and pulled it open.

Moonlight fell across the rug.

Heather laid her palm flat on the glass.

"There you are," she said.

Killian stood.

Below the window the grounds ran down white with frost to the playing fields. Past the fields lay the black line of the trees.

Something was walking out of them.

It came onto the frost on legs too long for its body, its arms hanging past its knees. Another stepped out behind it. Then three more, farther along. Then more, all along the edge of the forest, coming out of the dark one after another.

They walked in straight lines across the fields, toward the Royal Faction House.

Killian’s tongue flicked out once.

"Ezra."

Ezra was already at his shoulder. He looked down. His eyes went yellow, and a growl started low in his chest.

"Wake him."

Ezra crossed to the sofa and kicked his brother’s feet off the arm.

Elias jerked upright. "What? Is it morning?"

"Window."

Elias came and looked.

"What the hell are those?" He grabbed the back of Killian’s chair. "Your Highness. What the hell are those?"

"They live in the forest," Killian said.

"Then why aren’t they in the forest?"

Killian counted.

The first of them reached the foot of the lawn below the window and stopped.

It tipped its head back.

Where its eyes should have been, smooth skin ran from brow to cheek. Its jaw hung split down the middle. It held its face up toward the window and stayed that way.

Elias stepped back from the glass. Then he stepped forward again.

The next one stopped beside it and tipped its head back too. Then the next.

They gathered on the lawn in a loose crowd, shoulder to shoulder, more arriving at the back. Every sealed face turned up to the window where Heather stood.

Elias’s voice came out thin. "They’re looking at her."

"They have no eyes," Killian said.

"They’re looking at her."

Heather leaned her forehead on the glass. Her breath fogged a small round patch on the pane.

In the dark glass her reflection looked back at Killian. The blue eye was shut. The white one was open, and it moved. It went left along the crowd below, then right, slowly.

The last of them came out of the trees and crossed the fields to join the others.

"Forty-six," Killian said.

Ezra’s growl stopped. "Should I wake the house?"

"And tell them what?"

"That there are forty monsters on the lawn," Elias said.

"Do we go down?"

"No one goes down."

"They’re on the lawn."

"It is my lawn," Killian said. "They may stand on it."

"And if they stop standing on it?"

"The doors downstairs are bolted."

Elias looked at him. "Since when?"

"Nine o’clock."

"You knew they were coming?"

"I knew she was looking at something."

Across the grounds a light came on in one of the senior houses. A door opened. Someone stepped out onto the path in a dressing gown, stopped dead and went back in. The door slammed. A moment later every window on that floor lit up, one after another.

Down on the lawn, the sealed faces stayed turned up to Heather.

Killian looked at the girl at his window.

"Take her away from the glass."

Ezra went. He put his hands on Heather’s shoulders and drew her back a step. She came, loose and warm. Her head turned on her neck so that the white eye stayed on the window.

Elias made a small sound.

Ezra bent and lifted her, one arm behind her knees. She sighed in her sleep and turned her face into his neck. Her hand curled in his collar.

Ezra went very still.

Elias looked at his brother. The corner of his mouth twitched.

"Not a word," Ezra said.

"I didn’t say anything."

Ezra carried her to the bed and laid her down. When he straightened, her fingers stayed hooked in his collar. He unhooked them one at a time and tucked her hand under the quilt.

Killian drew the curtain shut.

The moonlight went off the rug. The room was lamplit and quiet again.

He stood with his hand on the velvet.

From the bed came a small sound. Heather had turned onto her side to face the curtain. Her right eye was shut. The white one was open in the dark.

"Open it," she mumbled.

"No," Killian said.

"They’re cold."

Elias looked at Ezra. Ezra looked at Killian.

Killian picked up his chair, carried it away from the desk and set it down in front of the curtain. He sat, crossed his legs and folded his hands on his knee.

"Your Highness," Elias said. "How long are we doing this?"

"Until they leave."