Percy Richards’ body did not match the fingerprint in the catalog. Something had changed. Percy hadn’t killed himself. Someone had been riding him. “That shouldn’t be possible,” Leon argued. “Percy is bonded to me.” His knitted brow relayed his confusion. He had his men strip Mr. Richards’ body. Leon’s mark was there on his lower back, just above his left kidney. Leon opened his dressing gown, unbuttoned his nightshirt, and turned his back to me. “What do you see in that same place on my body?” he asked.

His body was covered in the marks of his Carriers but that one spot was blank. “Nothing. There is a bare place here.” I touched it, showing him exactly where.

A stream of profanities in Latin flowed from Leon’s mouth, of which I only understood half. Someone was stealing his Carriers. I suspected Archelaos. But why Percy Richards first? Why claim him only to kill him? And how the hell had someone removed a mark from Leon’s body without him noticing?

Leon tended to the body and its mess while I saw to my children. Ambrose fell back asleep almost instantly, needing no soothing. I covered him and went down the hall to Dawn’s newly acquired private bedroom. Her sobbing could be heard through the door. Dawn was devastated. This suggested two things. She had seen the whole thing and she was the one Percy addressed.

I entered, closing the door behind me. Sitting by her side on the bed, I wrapped my arm around her and asked, “Did you have a relationship with Mr. Richards?”

Her head moved back and forth against my shoulder almost imperceptibly.

“Did you love him, have plans for a future with him?”

Again, her movement indicated the negative.

“Had he feelings for you? Were declarations ever made?”

“No, Mama.” Her answer was curt and her heartbeat increased.

My next question was not an easy one. “Was he ever inappropriate—forward with you, physically or verbally?”

Dawn’s breathing quickened and she answered louder. “No, Mama, nothing was amiss in my relationship with Mr. Richards.”

“Then why did he say that to you, dear? It must have meant something.”

“I don’t know.” The sentence was terse, clipped.

“Dawn, you must tell me. I can only help you, protect you, if you are honest with me.”

“I don’t know what he meant!” she yelled at me while throwing my arm from her shoulders. Dawn stood and paced away from us.

“Then, if you had no romantic feelings toward him, no relationship, what has you so upset?”

Dawn spun around. “I just watched a man I have known my entire life kill himself. It was bloody and violent and I could do nothing about it. I can’t control anything. I am alive but I don’t affect the world around me. Things happen to me but I leave no imprint, except here.” She said the last words and lifted her shift so that I could see her bare legs.

Cuts dappled her shins, in varying stages of healing. The newer cuts lay atop older scars. I had seen this type of wound before. Archelaos, in Julian’s body, had favored self-mutilation. He wanted to feel anything after sensory deprivation for so long. That was not Dawn’s reason. She needed to feel in control of something. I did not ask why she had done such a thing to herself; she had just told me. I did ask, “How often do you feel the need to do this?”

Dawn shrugged and looked away, upset that her dark secret was out. “Not as much at first. More now.”

“Do you feel the need now?”

“Yes.”

“Would it make you feel better?”

“For a while.”

Sally reminded me that I could offer Dawn something that no other mother could for her daughter. I understood her desires and had an outlet for them already. “What if I could give you something, a place where you are in total control, where no one could tell you what to do nor that what you wanted to do was wrong? Would you give up cutting yourself if I could give you that substitute?”

Her eyes were large, wondering how such a place could exist, no doubt. She nodded.

Certain she would say anything to see my secret, Sally asked her, “Promise?” Dawn promised. “Prove it.”

“How?”

It was my turn to shrug. An idea shone in my daughter’s eyes. She dashed to her dresser, pulled something out of the top drawer and shoved it into my hands. The leather case was familiar to us. I laid it on the bed beside me, untied the thong and unrolled it, revealing its many shiny surgical instruments. I covered my mouth with my hand. This was the exact set I had seen so long ago during my first carriage ride with Julian. He had become so excited by my touch that he needed an outlet that his body wouldn’t allow him. He had cut himself with the scalpel to get the release he craved. “Where did you get these?”

“I found them in a secret cubby in the nursery after we moved here. At first l just looked at them. One day I was mad at Ambrose and the idea just popped into my head. It hurt but it also felt good.”

I feared Archelaos had possessed my Dawn as his own Carrier, that he had pushed her into a life of self-mutilation. If this was the case she and Paetus would find a way to be together just as Julian and Paetus had been, and Archelaos and Sophus before them, unless I could find a way to separate Dawn from her rider. I had Ed use his collector on her. He confirmed that her signature had never changed, not once. If she was playing Carrier to an Incola it was to one who had been with her from the start, one who had never been absent from her body for a single reading since he started his catalog.

I sent her to bed and posted a guard outside her door. She would only go after I reaffirmed my promise to show her the corner of the world where she was to be a queen. The tenebrae would be hers. My need for violence would find another outlet, like steam through a series of pipes capped at one end; however, a crack would inevitably form.

 

The next day was filled with turmoil. We had to contend with the investigator looking into Percy’s death. The bobbie suspected us. Hanging and poison were the suicide methods of choice in that time, not falling on a sword. His suspicion was reasonable, with the deaths surrounding us.

After that morning of unpleasantness, Leon moved in. Ambrose made Leon’s move into our home as difficult as possible. He protested every piece to come, though it wasn’t the things he minded but the owner.

I had spoiled Ambrose and Dawn both by taking my meals with them, even the evening meal. That night I wanted a more formal dining experience. I had them fed at their normal time and was present but did not eat. I told them the truth: there was another adult in our family now. I would eat later with him as our new custom. Ambrose would have balked then if his day’s protests hadn’t completely tired him out. They went to bed without a fight and I knew my son was asleep before the door closed.

Sally laughed when she caught me humming as I dressed for dinner. I felt bad for a moment, realizing I was giving her less time at the helm of our body, virtually neglecting her needs because my own were so well met. I attempted to apologize but Sally stopped me. She said, I only exist to handle situations you cannot. If you are happy then I am happy.

We were through the soup course when a bleary-eyed Ambrose stumbled in and complained about the seat Leon occupied. He stood in the door and fussed, “No, the head of the table is mine for when I’m master of the house!” I sent him back to bed. He went with the maid but hatred beamed at us both.

Leon said, “He’ll come around.”

My son’s displeasure was with not Leon specifically, but any man. My husband suggested that we continue as I had been, having informal evening meals with the children during the week and only do dinner on the weekends.

We fell asleep shamelessly nude, only to be awakened by a tiny hand on my shoulder. “Wake up.” I scrambled to hide my nakedness from Ambrose who stood beside the bed, which was now empty save me. “Come. We must stop him. He’s ruining everything.” He handed me my dressing gown, which I donned quickly.

My son ran down the corridor with me at his heels. We went up the stairs past the children’s floor and servants’ levels to the roof access door. It had been kicked open and hung on a single hinge. Ambrose ran through but I paused, suddenly apprehensive. I heard Ambrose scream, “I promise I’ll be good!” I surged forward.

Out on the roof, a walkway surrounded the chimneys. Ambrose clutched the railing near the door. Leon, in the nude, stood further out. He watched the door, waiting for me to arrive. Again Ambrose pleaded with him, “Please don’t do this.”

Leon didn’t even hear the child. Our eyes locked. The body was Leon’s; someone else was behind his face. He said, “I will not allow you to choose other men above me. Your blood is mine. You belong to me.” He smiled at us and took a running leap off of the rooftop.