Page 10 of When the Sky Breaks

I looked over the man standing on the porch. He was tall and thin, his features gaunt. Well dressed, but dirty from the road. He looked about fifty, but the complete lack of beard, exceptionally blue, upturned eyes, and subtle points at the tips of his ears meant he could be anywhere from just over three hundred to nearly a thousand—as he was undoubtedly an Elf.

“I’m Ansel O’Faelan,” the man said. “I worked for your father. Now I work for you. I’ve spent the last nine days riding like a maniac to get here. I’ve got papers in my bags, I just don’t want to go dig them out and get everything dirtier than it already is.”

There was no reason this couldn’t be Ansel. But I also had no proof that it was.

“Papers,” I said. “Then we’ll talk.”

He wandered off the porch and back toward the stables in a huff.

If Neal had drilled one thing into me over the past few weeks, it was not to take anyone at their word.

“If you insist,” the man grumbled, heading back toward his horse.

“Hiram, go fetch Mr. MacCairn,” I instructed. “He’ll be in his office or up in his room.”

The young man paused, frozen.

“I’m not supposed to go upstairs in my boots . . .” he trailed off.

“And who made that rule?” I asked.

“Um . . .” Hiram paused. “You did?”

“Right, so if I’m telling you to break it . . .” I hoped he would fill in the blank.

“Then I can go upstairs in my boots?” Hiram supplied.

“You can indeed. Now don’t dawdle.”

Ansel and Neal arrived on the porch near simultaneously. Ansel held out his papers, but before I had even a moment to look them over, Neal strode past and pulled the other man into an embrace.

“Ansel! Glad you got here in one piece.” Neal took the papers and glanced down at them casually, already herding Ansel past me and into the house. “Who’s asking for these?”

“Our new boss,” Ansel said.

“Office is back here,” Neal said, leading Ansel down the hallway.

“My office,” I tried to cut in, but they were still talking.

There were two more cats on my desk and a wood pigeon cooing demandingly at the window by the time I reached the door.

“So are you running a menagerie or a command post, lass?” Ansel asked, looking over the space. One of the cats in my arms hissed at him as I shouldered past and went to sit behind my desk.

“I’m running a working ranch,” I said. “Eighteen thousand head of cattle, last I checked. And that means barns and barns have mice, which means we need cats. Elven command post or not.”

“Speaking of, when are we moving the Court back somewhere civilized?” Ansel asked, sitting down across from me and putting his feet up on my desk. I nodded and one of the cats swiped at Ansel’s ankles hard enough to draw blood. He yelped and immediately put his feet back on the floor.

“We have more pressing issues,” I said, opening my top drawer and handing him the letter from Iksura indicating my claim on the Outer Court throne was illegitimate, another from her we’d received just this morning, and a sketch of the faceless creature that’d killed my father.

“So this is what killed your dad?” Ansel asked.

I nodded.

“We had two portals open in the span of an hour,” Neal said. “One released a smaller beast. No injuries. But the larger portal . . . and this . . . thing . . .”

He trailed off, gesturing vaguely.

“And now Iksura’s saying your claim on the title is illegitimate,” Ansel said, raising an eyebrow as he read through the letters. “And she’s sending you suitors?”