After rent and bills, most of my wages go towards Teddy’s school fees: £8,590 a year. And since I earn £7.57 per hour for sixty-three hours a week, that’s where the thieving comes in. I know he could go to a state school, but he’s so happy at Saint Faith’s. And, after everything, I want him happy for as long as possible. So, on occasion, I relieve our richer guests of their frivolous possessions. It’s surprising what people don’t miss when they have too much.
“Excuse me?”
I glance up to see a gentleman gazing down his roman nose at me.
“S-sorry, s-sir, I didn’t—how may I help you?”
He ignores my smile, my attempts to rewind inattentiveness.
“Charles Penry-Jones,” he says. “We’re staying ten nights. My wife requested a room overlooking the courtyard.”
I nod. I have no small talk to offer. I only pray the wife’s request has been heeded. I’ve no finesse with irate guests. They twist me up with their condescension and contempt.
I tap the name into the computer and it comes up trumps, the wife’s request and all. When I look up again, he has appeared at Penry-Jones’s side.
He is tall and slender but strong, like a silver birch tree, and almost as preternaturally pale—hair blond as sunlight cresting its topmost branches. The irises of his eyes are half a dozen shades of green: the lightest of newly seeded grass, of fresh shoots in spring; dark forest green; grey laurel green; bright pine green; shining myrtle green; creamy avocado green . . . He gives me a small, self-conscious smile. I stare back at him and then, all at once, feel something I’ve never felt before—suddenly and entirely alight.
“Where have you been, Leo?”
I smile to myself; I know his name. They must be father and son, though they are not so similar. The father fits perfectly in this polished room, like a cultivated hothouse cactus, while the son seems slightly out of place.
“Where is your mother?”
“Getting something from the car. She’s coming.”
His voice is soft and posh. His hands, hanging by his sides, are sturdy. His fingers, long stems, so I imagine his touch tender and his hold strong. I feel ribbons of desire begin to unfurl inside me. I snip at their silky threads.
“She’s sulking,” Penry-Jones says. “She always clamours to come on these business trips, then complains when I conduct any business. At least you’ll be here for a few days to take the heat off.”
“Your room keys,” I say, sliding them across the polished wood.
“I’d like a wake-up call at six thirty.” The father palms the keys. “What time does the restaurant open for dinner?”
“S-seven o’clock,” I say. “Would you like r-reservations?”
“That won’t be necessary.” He looks to Leo. “Let’s go. Your mother can meet us in the bar.”
With that, the father strides off across the foyer. The son follows.
“Turn back,” I whisper. Turn back, I will. Turn back and look at me.
When he reaches the lift, he does. As soon as our eyes meet, I look down at the desk. When I glance up again, he’s gone.
10:11 p.m.—Leo
What happens when a star falls to Earth? Leo can only imagine, since he never had the luxury. He was plucked, summoned, commanded from the heavens. Might he have retained his purity, his innocence, if he’d simply fallen? Perhaps it was the act of being untimely ripped that corrupted him. Rage and despair took root in his cold stone heart and grew. Until he was capable of such things as stars would never do. Excepting the hundreds similarly plucked to do his bidding.
Leo recognizes other stars sometimes, though they are boys and men now, no longer spheres of burning gas. “Star” is no longer fitting, once they’ve fallen. They no longer shine, no longer cast light, only darkness and death. “Soldier” is more fitting. Because he didn’t bring them down to twinkle. He brought them to kill, eradicate, exterminate. An army with a single mission: to extinguish that which has become illuminated.
As former illuminations themselves, these soldiers are uniquely gifted for the task. On Earth, they can spot a Grimm girl a mile off. In Everwhere, they can mark, track, and (sometimes) kill her, without using any of their human senses. These star-soldiers, or lumen latros as he prefers, pretentiously, to call them, need only wait until their own inner light flickers in recognition of its counterpart.
It was a long time before Leo discovered that the term “soldier” was also misleading, implying the fight for a just cause against an unjust enemy. But the Grimm girls aren’t his father’s enemy but his greatest hope. And, in truth, his soldiers are cannon fodder, pitched against his daughters to test their strength, to give them a taste for blood and murder, to turn them towards the dark. Wilhelm Grimm doesn’t want a war; he wants a battle. He wants his soldiers to lose and his daughters to win. He wants a massacre.
This sometimes enrages Leo so much that he feels the urge to desert this army and abandon its general. That he doesn’t is because he can’t—his father punishes all deserters with death—and because he needs to kill in order to live; their imbibed illumination keeps him alight. Last, and not least, because he’s still revenging the death of one he loved.
Leo sometimes sees other soldiers when he’s out hunting. Although it’s rare, since they tend not to encroach on one another’s territory. They hunt every month on the night of the moon’s first quarter, stepping through gates at 3:33 a.m., from Earth and into Everwhere.
Everwhere is where they come, where they gather, where he finds them. The sisters visit whenever they wish, no matter the hour, no matter the day. While he can visit only on the set day, at the set hour. And they don’t have to walk through gateways—though sometimes they like to; the ritual is a pleasing one—they need only fall asleep, close their eyes and slip into that place between light and dark, between the waking world and the world of dreams. Some, especially the young ones, don’t even remember they’ve been, waking none the wiser. But most come intentionally, to meet their sisters, to practise their powers, readying themselves for the night when they will have to fight for their lives.
Leo can tell at a glance that Goldie doesn’t remember Everwhere. She has forgotten herself, has no idea who she is, neither how skilled nor how strong. Which, if her ignorance holds, will tip the scales in his favour. Leo smiles. He can almost feel the light of her dissipating spirit surge in his veins—like a shock of electricity bringing him back to life.
11:11 p.m.—Goldie
The astonishing sight of that man—Leo—makes me wonder how I’d describe myself. We have the same hair, I think, though mine curls to my shoulders. It used to curl down my back, but I cut it after Ma died. My skin isn’t so pale, and my eyes are blue not green. I’d like to say they’re half a dozen shades of blue: the colour of delphiniums, larkspur, bluebells, cornflowers, hydrangeas, clematis . . . But I’d be lying, and I try not to lie to myself. The blue of my eyes is a light, watery forget-me-not blue. Common, unremarkable.
It was only coincidence that he looked back at me. Though it certainly felt as if I compelled him. I know I’m being silly, yet I can’t help wondering. Thoughts, questions, and notions circle my mind, multiplying until my head aches.