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When he looked up, she’d already gone He caught a glih the crowds, her stool under her ar sed her and he was left with nothing but her card

Chapter Two

Kent, later that evening

THE HOME WHERE EDWARD had grown up hadn’t changed at all

A deer track ran through a nearby wood; a ept ive a natural appearance, abutted the south wing The river, a quarter mile distant from the house,water fro road a mile froray stones silver in the ht, looht here; he and Patrick had always been unearthing bits of ar sword hilts Now there was little left but the battleh and, down by the river, a collection of stones that had once been a ferry Those sad re since been replaced by the bridge a mile upstream After nearly ten years of absence, Edas about as relevant to this scene as those abandoned battlements

The modern house lay before him, the picture of utter tranquility

That tranquility was a lie On that field near the stable--that was the place where Edward’s father had ordered Patrick and Stephen whipped

The s of the house cast a golden, illusory light on the scene of that hts, and stole his way to a glassed side door

Moonlight spilled into the library Through the s, he could h with papers Edward had received his share of repri to break, refusing to lie, no matter what the consequences

Pah He’d learned better now The notion of morality was relative For instance, he intended to break into this house Solary"

It would be, in the moral sense: The current residents of the house would not welcoal perspective, however, there was one s in it, still belonged to him It would be his for four more months, until he was declared dead once and for all

He couldn’t wait

He pulled a thin piece of steel fro place in his coat sleeve, crouched beside the lock, and listened for the telltale click He’d known a man who could open any door in a few seconds flat Edward, by contrast, had only rarely needed to break and enter, and so the skill was all too rusty It took him three uncomfortable minutes to persuade the door to let hiar sent, a rancid smell that had seeped into the curtains, into the walls It was an old smell, as if nobody had smoked in the room in months Edward found the matches, lit an oil lalow illuo through If Patrick was right, the proof would be here

Proof was one of the two reasons he’d co for turned out to be hidden in the leftes Edward untied the trapped around the papers and sorted through abits of correspondence But the series of newspaper clippings particularly caught his eye

The first was just over six ural release of a coluhnessy

So Patrick had the right of it So attention to Stephen His friend had mentioned that Stephen wrote for a paper, but Edward hadn’t realized he had a regular coluht of taking advice from the twelve-year-old he’d once known sounded rather horrifying But even Stephenyears