“He’s your dad,” Hen said. She gave a little laugh at the silliness of the question.
Hill dug his heels into the grass. Her hand tightened on his arm, sharp nails pinching his skin.
“What color are his eyes?” he asked.
“Blue,” she said immediately.
Hill thought she was wrong, but the confidence in her voice made him hesitate. His dad’s eyes had been hazel. That was right. He was sure of that, but he didn’t know if he actually remembered it or not.
There was one thing he definitely remembered, though. No matter how much he tried to forget.
The grass underfoot turned to the cobbles of the stable yard. Hill pulled his arm out of Hen’s grip.
“Where were you that day?” he asked. “When he killed himself, where were you?”
She spun on her heel to glare at him.
“Do you want to see him or not?” she snapped. “It wasn’t easy to make this happen, you know. It’s only because you’re special, and it still wasn’t easy. Look what they did to me!”
Hen snatched the mask off her face. The skin had been peeled off before, to leave bare bone for the mask to catch on, but now it was scraped down to the bone. Tool marks scored over the white surface of her jaw and cheekbone.
“Where were you?” Hill insisted.
She heaved an aggravated sigh. “At work!” she said. “I had a job, didn’t I?”
That sounded like a real question, not a rhetorical one. And she’d been dead a good year when Albie killed himself. She might have been at work, but it had been here. Not in the living world.
“Why?” he asked.
Hen stared at him, then turned and bolted for the stables. “He’s here!” she yelled as she grabbed the doors and threw them open. “You can get him. I’m sorry I helped him before!”
The Hound shoved her out of the way. There was no malice in it, just impatience. It still bounced Hen off the wall. She slid down to sit on the ground, her arms folded over her head, as the rest of the Hunt followed the lead out.
Five of them, although one of them was dragged out on all fours, the bridle twisted around his head and gripped in another Hound’s gauntleted hand.
“I’m sorry,” Hen said into her knees.
She might have meant it for Hill or the Hounds. It was hard to tell.
“Me too,” Hill said.
He turned on his heel and ran. Back the way he’d come at first, but when he got to where he’d left them, Davy was gone. Fraser was still there, his cigar smoked down to a stump, but he stared through Hill with those cold, heavy eyes.
Hill muttered a curse under his breath, changed direction, and ran back toward the house. He didn’t have a plan. It might be OK. Davy always made that work.
He crashed through the kitchen doors shoulder-first and rolled over the floor. The staff, the living ones, stepped through or on him without noticing as they fed in and out of the party. It was only the dead, with serving trays of steaming roast things and pitchers of milky cocktails, that stepped over or around him.
Hill pushed himself back to his feet, hands slipping on the floor, and shoved his way through both toward the doors. He wasn’t quick enough.
Someone behind him grabbed a handful of hair and yanked him back.
The dead servers cringed back against the wall, eyes wide and beaks agape with panic. The bright pink insides of their mouths seemed to pulse as they stared at the Hounds.
Dangled from one of the Hound’s pawlike fists, Hill managed to stretch up onto his tiptoes to take his weight. He swiveled around to stare at the Hound, both hands raised to claw at the big gauntleted hand.
“Why?” he asked. “I’ve only got three hours left. Why can’t you leave me be?”
To his surprise, the Hound actually looked sympathetic. Not enough to let him go, but his eyes looked soft, and the long jut of his muzzle was relaxed.
