Merrick dodged my approach and swung the journal overhead and back like we were playing a game of keep away. I glowered at him, feeling small despite being a tad taller than him now.
“I amsearchingthe house and all of its contents, Penwell,” he told me, “as is my right.”
I gave up reaching for the book and propped my hands on my hips instead. “Well, you won’t find anything in there.” I nodded toward the journal. “Or anywhere, for that matter.”
“We shall see.” Closing the book, Merrick tucked it under his arm. He turned to a Sentinel who was passing by on his way to the bedrooms and called the other man’s attention to the shelf of books. “These appear to be valuable historical documents. They should be taken to the library in the Ossuary and examined.”
Levitt gestured to the book Merrick had pinned against his side. “May I see?”
Merrick’s features pinched in reluctance. “Certainly,” he said, but his posture was fully grudging as he offered the tome.
Levitt, similarly, opened the book and turned a few pages, then snapped it closed. “These are private property,” he said. “Family heirlooms. I see no need to confiscate them.”
In the kitchen, something crashed and shattered. I hissed a breath.
The Sentinel Merrick had stopped moved on, cutting a line toward my room and flinging the door open.
“Your Eminence, I must disagree,” Merrick replied. “Vaughn Koesters was our leader, our guide to Eeus’s favor. Who can know what wisdom may be imparted on these pages? We should study them. Take what knowledge we can.”
Levitt glanced at Kit at the same time I did, but Kit remained staunchly silent. He stared straight ahead, so focused he might have bored a hole through the far wall.
“Temporarily, I’ll allow it,” Levitt said after a pause. “I’ll assign them to Fletcher to catalog. But they’re to be returned to Kit as soon as possible.”
“Of course, Your Eminence.” Merrick smirked.
Still holding the journal, Levitt peered into the shambles of the kitchen and shook his head. “It appears there’s nothing to be found.” Genuine sorrow creased his brow as he turned toward Kit and spoke in a low voice. “My apologies for the intrusion?—”
“Nonsense!” Merrick chimed in. “We have yet to search the entire property.”
“Dig a hole in the yard, why don’t you?” I snapped. “Perhaps yourevidenceis buried in the snow.”
Merrick rounded on me, flashing teeth that seemed suddenly sharp. “Perhaps,” he retorted.
Rather than venture out of doors, he headed toward the bedrooms, taking the door at the end of the hall into thearea that had been practically forbidden since we’d arrived here.
Levitt and Kit remained in close proximity. Levitt’s sympathetic expression persisted while Kit remained painfully impassive. He was so strained, so tense, that I wanted to assure him, to slide my fingers between his and offer what comfort I could. But we weren’t alone, and that wasn’t allowed around the present company.
Sounds continued from other parts of the house. Both bedrooms and even the bathroom were being rifled out of our line of sight. The longer I stood, the more tension bound me up. Levitt was whispering to Kit, and the sight of his lips so near Kit’s face made my blood boil. That, and the knowledge that my brother was pawing through things Kit wanted to keep private, wreaking havoc in my life like he’d always done, drove me to move.
I bolted out of the living area. Kit shouted my name as I passed, but I didn’t slow until I rounded the corner into the far bedroom where Merrick had gone.
Entering the room, I found it as sparse and barren as the rest of the home. I’d expected Merrick to be halfway through destroying the place, ripping the sheets off the bed or turning the mattress in his sanctioned search. Instead, he stood to one side, surveying the area as though in study, looking for what, I couldn’t possibly guess.
When he spotted me crossing the threshold, he turned with a scowl. “What is it, Penwell?”
“Why do you hate him?” I aimed a finger back the way I’d come. “What has he done to you? Or is all this only because he’s important to me?”
Merrick crossed his arms and snorted a breath. “Very little of my decisions have anything to do with you.Though, still more than I would like. And I told you already, this doesn’t involve you.”
I came closer to him, strung tight with indignation. “I live here too. If Kit was hiding something, don’t you think I would know?”
“I cannot understate how little you would know, Penwell.” He swept his hands down his ceremonial robes in grand reference to himself. “I carried on with this deception for years without your notice. Not to mention Father’s andyourmother’s.”
He never failed to distinguish that he was only half my blood, and that was the half he liked least. No one would have guessed we weren’t fully siblings. We even looked alike with the same sandy blonde hair, green eyes, and suntanned skin, though he had paled in recent years with more time spent here than on the farm. But he insisted on holding himself apart—and above—the rest of us.
I wondered, not for the first time, how I’d overlooked it all my life. I’d accepted him as different than me, but in only the best ways. He was a hard worker, successful and ever-striving. People in Eastcliff always said he had a head for business and would do great things. Even Mother said I should be more like Merrick. Knowing what I did now, I was glad to have never managed that feat.
He was still posturing, still glaring at me as he concluded, “Maybe if you pulled your nose out of your damned drawing book long enough to notice therealworld, you’d see what was right in front of you.”
