Cal slammed open the solarium doors. The inset glass, so meticulously placed, flew from the frame as soon as the wood slammed against the wall. With every breath, he inhaled the powdery loam of dead plants and rotting wicker furniture. He kicked a few large planters out of his path, spilling soil, and fumbled for the latch on the back door. Not daring to lookbehind him, but hearing his sparrow’s gasp and knowing his father was close. And then,then, the tumbler slid into place and they were in the moonlit garden.
It was already cold. It usually was at night, at this elevation, but on this particular one it was as if a dark enchantment had settled over the grounds. A mist had descended, ringing the trees in gossamer halos that glowed unnaturally in the moonlight. Cal could smell the flowers, even while they were budded up against the encroaching dark, and when he set Nadine down in the soil, the petrichor scent of still-damp earth stung his nostrils with its sharpness.
His father staggered into the garden with a growl, bleeding from his nose and a gash on his cheek. He clawed the hellebore out of his path, and in the eerie light of the moon, his eyes seemed to glow the reflective yellow of a wolf’s.
“That quivering creature at your side might be coerced into breeding your children, but apart from that, there is no difference. A deer is a sparrow is a deer.”
Cal swept Nadine behind him. “So everything in the book is a lie.”
“No. It was the hunt that mattered to Caledon Cullraven. The glory of the family legacy, which fell to the subsequent generations to uphold. Sparrows and their ilk are nothing. A mere means to an end and nothing more, closer to concubinage than the sacred vows of man and wife.”
His smile turned sharp. Blood from his facial wounds ran over his lips in black rivulets, glistening like oil between his teeth.
“I didn’t realize how deeply you boys had internalized that part of the lore. That you thought you could pair-bond with asparrowand—what?” he mocked. “Find love? They’re meant to be subjugated and bred, not cossetted and . . . loved.”
“So you gave Noelle the green book.”
He half-expected his father to deny it; rather, he seemed gleeful at the opportunity for malicious truths. “I did. And the sparrow didn’t care much for her raven prince then, did she? No, she came for him with her little talons right in the middle of the square. It was a wake-up call for Ben, hearing the sweet songs of his little wife become the stark ravings of a madwoman.”
“She wasn’t mad!” Nadine screamed from behind him. “Youkilledher!”
His father turned. “Caledon Cullraven killed his first wife for less. When he caught her with her lover in the woods that night, he realized just how evanescent such trifling feelings are. And her fate loomed over that of his second wife in perpetuity, keeping her and all others in check. That painting in your room, my deer—did you like it? They say all Cullraven brides bleed, you know. At first.”
Nadine shivered with loathing and his father smiled.
“But Evangeline didn’t love Caledon. It was fear that bonded her to him until the time of her death. That made her bear him children. Fear, and nothing else.”
“Same with grandfather?” Cal heard himself ask. “And our grand-uncle? Them as well?”
“More sparrow-brides who needed to be culled from the flock, yes.”
“And what about Mother?”
“Ah yes. Corrine. Well, she is—rather uniquely obedient. And she does like her pretty house. I used to leverage you children to ensure her continued obedience, but now I thinkshe’s simply grown used to the fear. It’s the only reason I still come to her, you know—the fear.”
“My god.” Cal couldn’t keep the disgust from his voice. “It’s all just a twisted fucking fairytale.”
“But my, what a beautiful one. Yes, Caledon, I can see how you were blinded to it. What man doesn’t want a woman who will fall before him as one does a god?” He gave Nadine a darkly knowing look, one that suggested that he knew exactly what the two of them had gotten up to all those nights spent in Ravengate. “Even this one, with all her pretty cowering, will not bend as easily as that. And she will turn on you. All sparrows do.”
He lifted his gun, intent on aiming it. Cal’s grip on Nadine tightened. “If you discharge that, the whole town will hear it.”
“They know what day it is. What’s one more shot among many? All sparrows die when they refuse. And all sparrows refuse in the end. That’s why female Cullravens—they never inherit. Not unless they keep the family name. The blood is weak, until you raise it up. And Ravensgate needs its heirs.”
Ben: his useful idiot.
A cold fury welled up inside him like a leviathan rearing up from the deep. “What about your heirs then? It was Ben I shot in the woods tonight, Father. He died trying to kill my sparrow. Are you going to shoot me to get to her as well?”
“Youkilled Ben?”
He drew himself up. “I did.”
Cal could count on one hand the number of times he had seen his father properly shocked. This was one of them. “He’s been counseled his whole life on how to take over the estate. What have you done, you fool—you’ve ruinedeverything.”
For a moment, it seemed that his father might give in to his emotions and allow those decades of stiff-upper-lip composure to relax enough to let himself acknowledge whatever he felt, whether it be remorse or grief. But then his brow smoothed over like hardening ice, his eyes becoming as cold and blank as bullets. “Well then, if you want to be the new Master, you know the rules. What it takes to inherit. Lower thy honor and raise thy blood and thou wilt soar over heaven. Give yourself over to the pleasure that come only from being lord of life and death. Rule with fear and nothing else. Kill the girl, and revel in it—for the pleasures of the blood exceed the flesh by far.”
His father was raving mad, consumed fully by his bloodlust and the post-euphoria of the hunt. Cal thought he might be able to snatch the rifle from his father’s hand and overpower him, but Nadine was faster, angrier. More desperate. Something spherical and metallic arced in his periphery, close enough to feel the displaced air; it threw off orange sparks where it caught the light, winking like a ball of fire.
Before his father could dodge, it collided with his temple with a wet, heavy thud. Whatever it was, it carried some heft—the impact left a divot in his father’s brow where bone had been crushed—and when it fell, it thudded to the ground, kicking up clods of dirt.
