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’s long past when I’m usually asleep and dreaming. I bunch my covers 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 am not some idiot child who believes bad things don’t happen. Dimitri was just accepted into an apprenticeship with Venier District’s Criminal Investigations Guild. Why are our brothers treating us like we’re fools?

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. 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 on the other side of my nightstand. 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 total 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 walls don’t change around at 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 don’t make I hope to the gods and Evers is simply one of Mom’s cats roaming free from its menagerie, not some netherbeast ready to pounce on me. Even the shadowed portraits of ancestors I’ve passed countless times before seem to glare at me as if I don’t belong here.

Yet I push forward. I hold my breath as I approach the central stairwell. I don’t hear anything in the libraries below that would 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.

A vaguely bipedal constellation of silvery lights floats in the pink-tinted darkness not twenty feet away. The door it guards is not my parents’.

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

“Return to your room at once.”

My heart jumps up into my throat, and I spin around to obey. Before I pass the corner of the hall, 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 not come this far to return empty-handed, either.

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

I don’t think the question came out as… defiantly 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 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 guard’s reach.

“Absolutely not! My father is hurt, and I want to hear why.”

The guard steps forward. I step back. Nothing in the gap where the guard’s mouth should be moves as it speaks.

“I have my… instructions. 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 right 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. 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. Once more, I insist—”

The door creaks open behind the ghostly sentinel. Daddy leans one shoulder against the door frame and grips the knob with his other hand. The sash 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 stares at me. The moment passes, and 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.