“She has no voice in this. I am the Hunter, and I need to stop this faery.” I ponder my words, aiming for a delicacy that my sister deserves. “It killed three men, Ry, including our father. It killedour father.”
Rylan exhales. I feel like she knew that, but perhaps Mother was sparing her the details. Either way, my sister steadies herself and then asks, “May I assist you inside the laboratory, too?”
I hate that I am agreeing, but thereisno other Hunter-in-Training, not until she or I have a child to inherit this duty. “You must obey my every order there.”
“Obey you?” she scoffs.
“In matters of the Hunter, we are not sisters, Ry. I am the Hunter, and you may assist me, but I cannot risk you being injured.” I stare at her, hating how I sound and hoping she’ll refuse.
“You sound like him,” she whispers. “I understand how you felt about him in this moment. I don’t like you very much right now.”
I nod. What else can I do? Rylan helps steady me as I walk to the laboratory. The one we have here is smaller than the one at the manor, but it is still reasonably well supplied. Salt crystals line the walls, and there are no windows. To get into this room, a monster would need to tear through the wall of the house.
I used to think nothing was strong enough for that. The Beast of Brimmond has nearly severed the heads of grown men. That sort of strength is daunting.
The first door to the laboratory leads to a small foyer, no more than a door’s span in depth. Inside it is a second door. The inside of the inner door is steel, but that is true of the door to the front of this house and the back. The same is true at the manor. Father’s grandfather had them commissioned. The core is steel or iron, but the exterior is a wooden facade. Our homes are safe.
This room is safer still.
I want to lock Mother and Rylan in here, sealed away from threats, and not allow them to be in a world where monsters rip holes in the skin of my family. I want to insist Isabeau build such a room and hide away. How did my father live with the fear? How can any person endure the crushing weight of responsibility for another person’s safety?
Mother stops us in the hallway and forces us to each take several bites of food and a half cup of tea before walking away. She says nothing, but her eyes are red from crying. I want to promise any andeverything to make her pain end, but nothing I do will return Father to her arms.
“Come,” I whisper to my sister, pushing the door of my laboratory open.
Inside the room I open the safe where one of them, likely Mother, stored all the samples. My heart recoils at the thought of her carrying her husband’s blood and tissue here.
“I brought the box in here,” Rylan says from behind me. “She was holding it and weeping.”
“I am sorry. I was not prepared for the transition to ...” My words fade away, as if saying it will make us both mourn again.
“Hunter,” Rylan finishes. Then my sister gives me a sympathetic look. “I cannot imagine being prepared. You were miserable.” She flashes her impish smile. “I would appreciate you never dying because I do not want to feel that sort of painever.”
“I cannot promise, but I will try.” I pull on an apron before I open the steel box of samples, trying to pretend that they were not collected from our father’s corpse.
Rylan stands waiting for instruction.
“Apron. Then, I need the etched microscope.” I point, dropping too heavily into a chair. I am not recovered. I know it as well as I know that it matters little if I am ready.
Rylan carries the device with both hands and lowers it to the table in front of me. It’s my favorite microscope. I’ve collected six new versions of the devices to have here over the last few years, but this one was custom-designed by an ocularist here in Regina Centrum. The man was a bit of an artist, so the barrel is etched with designs that have hidden reminders in the spirals.
I pull out a glass slide and a small thistle tube. The glass resembles a thistle, flared on top with a long thin stem. They are all hand-blown glass, so I treat them carefully even as my hand is still weak. I cover the top of the thistle tube with my thumb to use air pressure to draw up liquid.
“What are you looking for?” Rylan asks.
I adjust the focusing screw. “Saliva first.” I pause. “Sketching pad so we can draw anything we find.”
Once she has the pad and a set of charcoals, I recite the list of possible faeries I have so far as she writes them down on the page. Although some are less likely, I want to list all of them. The ground was wet the nights that Hugh and the nameless victim died, so perhaps we missed water.
Bean Nighe.
Phynnodderee.
Ankou.
Pooka.
Aughiska.
