I stare at the faint and fading glow of the pink crystal on my lampstand. I don’t know what time it is, except that it is long past when I should be asleep and dreaming. I pull the covers more tightly around me and bunch them between my arms.

I should be awake from the anticipation of learning new things, not from fear. For once, that fear has little to do with the ghostly noises that creep throughout the house.

I don’t like not knowing what happened to Daddy. I didn’t see Mom or Bastien for the rest of the night. After our guests left, Max refused to talk about what happened. He simply ordered me and Dimitri to prepare for bed. Even Mr. Tielswen, who still managed to perform his nightly warm chamomile tea rounds on time, had nothing to say on the matter.

I can’t understand. I am not some idiot child who believes bad things don’t happen. Dimitri applied for an apprenticeship with Venier District’s Criminal Investigations Guild, so our family knows he’s no naïve fool. If they think we’re so bright for our ages, why won’t they talk to us about something so serious concerning our own father?

I don’t need to settle for their unsatisfying non-answers. Not when Daddy would tell it to me straight.

I throw the comforter and covers away from my body and sit up straight. The cold, late-autumn air wafts through my curtained window and into my wool pajamas. I turn and slide my feet into the slippers beside my bed. I pull my robe from its hook between my nightstand and door. I put the robe on, pick up my crystal, and walk right to the door.

I put my ear against the cool, smooth wood. Nobody seems to be roaming the hallway. I slowly open the door and poke my head out.

My breath freezes in my throat.

It hadn’t occurred to me that Mr. Tielswen extinguishes the lamps after the rest of us go to sleep. This absolute darkness, without even windows for moon- or starlight, suddenly makes my goal much more intimidating.

I pull my head back into the room and take a few deep breaths. I rub my lamp crystal against my chest. After my warmth brightens the crystal’s light some more, I release the last breath as a sigh. The answer I want won’t come looking for me, that’s for certain.

I hold the crystal over my head and step into the hallway. Daddy’s bedroom is on the same floor as mine, but on the other end of the house. As long as the house doesn’t change by night, I can make my way to his room by my heart’s eyes alone.

It’s a silly thought, a shape-changing house. Still, as I walk through halls I’ve only traveled by full lamplight, I can’t keep from feeling like the darkness beyond my crystal’s pink glow hides a new wall. Each stray sound that I know my feet do not make I hope to the gods and Evers is simply one of Mom’s cats roaming free from its menagerie instead of some shadowbeast preparing to pounce on me. Even the shadowed portraits of ancestors I’ve passed countless times before now seem to glare at me as if I don’t belong here.

Yet I push onward. I hold my breath as I approach the central stairwell. I don’t hear anything in the sitting room below or the libraries above that could hear and chase me, so I hurry across the switch-backing stairwell as quickly as my slippers would allow. I release my breath on the other side of the stairs and turn left to continue to Daddy’s room

Four doors closer than my parents’ room, a strange, vaguely bipedal circuit of silvery lights floats in the pink-tinted darkness in front of a door twenty feet away from me.

I gasp and pull the crystal down to my chest. Smothered in darkness, only the ghost’s silver trimming outlines its silhouette. Two shimmering silvery orbs near the top of its form angle down at my face. It speaks clearly, but emptily, like a ringing bell.

“Return to your room at once.”

My heart jumps up into my throat, and I spin around to obey. Before I reach the corner of the staircase, though, an image springs to mind of Rixendi Chao, the sorceress orc, standing at the gates to King Kalezasch’s castle.

I take a deep breath and tighten my grip around the crystal. I’ve come too far to return empty-handed, too.

I turn back to the ghost and nod at the door. “Is my father in there?”

I don’t think the question came out as defiant as I intended.

“Your father is healing, and has been prescribed rest without company or disturbances. Return to your room.” The “eyes” waver at their edges, but their gaze stays locked on my face.

I clench my jaw and raise the crystal high in front of me like a ward. I march forward, and the pink glow reveals not a ghost, but one of the creatures that brought Daddy into the house. I stop at what I hope is just beyond the creature’s reach.

“Absolutely not! I will not return to my room and pretend that nothing happened to my father tonight.”

The guard steps forward. I step back.

“I have my… instructions,” the guard says. “I have given you —”

“I am Klóe Miranda DiRossi, daughter of Talia Cadenza DiRossi, sister to Maximus and Bastien DiRossi, all of whom, I am certain, have full knowledge of tonight’s events. As daughter to Maximilian Eneric DiRossi, I declare that I have full rights to know the source and manner of my father’s injuries. Further, seeing that nobody is willing to give me the answers I seek, I demand you allow me to speak with him directly and immediately!”

The lights covering the guard flare, but the guard’s mask or face does not move. I take the seconds-long silence for stunned confusion. I’m rather shocked, myself; I hadn’t intended to channel Champion Rixendi so directly from the legend, but I believe I made my point clear.

The guard finally speaks with a measure of restraint.

“I am under the implementation of your father, not you. Despite your relation, I am under no obligation to acquiesce to your will. You, though, are beholden to your father’s command; therefore, you are beholden to mine. Therefore, once more, I must insist—”

The door creaks open behind the guard. Daddy leans one shoulder against the door frame and grips the knob with his free hand. The belt of his gold-and-red robe is tied more tightly around his waist than usual. He looks at the back of his guard’s head.

“One, I appreciate your resolve, but you will permit my daughter’s entry.”

The guard seems to glare at me for a moment. The moment passes when the guard pivots to give me a clear path to Daddy. I turn my head away and tilt my nose upward as I pass them and enter the room.