Page 75 of By the Orchid and the Owl
“Yes?” I swallowed my chocolate.
Perhaps he was a Manipulator, and this was a tactic to sell more blankets: invade passersby’s minds, pick out their names, and call out to them as if he knew them personally. I stopped a few paces short of his tent, just out of reach.
“I’ve got something for ya,” the man growled.
He turned to rummage through the blankets behind him one-handedly, keeping his cigarette aloft with the other hand. Taking a step back, I said, “Oh, no thank you. I’m afraid I’ve already got enough blankets, but—”
“No, no, no.” The man turned back around—this time with a folded piece of paper pinched between one of those meaty fingers and his thumb. “This is for you.”
Emelle furrowed her brows at me. Perhaps I shouldn’t touch it, the paper, in case this was some kind of marketing ploy… a Mind Manipulating charm that would force me to buy a blanket once I read what was on it, or a Shape Shifting trick that meant the paper was actually a quilt.
But I found myself reaching out for the paper even as Emelle let out a small gasp.
I unfolded it before I could think twice. And found my full name scrawled at the head of the page.
My knees went watery, as if all my bones had melted at the sight of that scrawl.
I would know his handwriting anywhere. I had spent my childhood years, after all, watching him write things down without even touching the pen.
Fabian had finally written back.
CHAPTER
27
“He said he’d buy five of my blankets if I delivered this to the girl who looks just like him,” the vendor was saying, but I could hardly hear him over the rush of blood in my ears as I devoured each scribbled line.
Dearest Rayna,
I received your letter by crow (he gave us quite a fright, squawking outside our window in the dead of night), and I believe I’ve correctly decoded your message. However, I’m afraid, as I’ve always been, that you will come to loathe me if I tell you the details of what happened a little more than eighteen years ago. You are my greatest love, my proudest achievement, and I’ve only ever wanted to keep you safe.
Still, if this is as important as you made it out to be in your letter, if you will try your very best to understand where I was coming from before you decide to never speak with me again—then follow me.
That was it. No salutations, no signature. Justfollow me,written in a slightly wobblier hand than every other line, as if Fabian’s wrist had been shaking.
“Follow me?” I whispered, then whipped my gaze this way and that, half convinced I’d see my father pop up from behind one of the many carts or tents around us.
I returned my attention to the vendor when nothing happened.
“You said he bought five of your blankets for you to give me this? Did he say anything else?”
The vendor studied me, those beady eyes crawling with curiosity as he took a drag from his cigarette. Too much curiosity for my liking. I leaned closer to Emelle, who was glancing at my letter with an equal mixture of confusion and concern.
“No, kid,” the vendor said. “He bought five of my blankets, told me I’d recognize you by the hair—truly the same as his, I might add—and that was it. He left before I could ask any more questions.”
“Was there anyone else with him, by chance?”Had Don been there, too?I tried to imagine either of my fathers traveling all the way from Alderwick to Cardina just to buy some blankets and pass along a letter—it would have taken them a few days of travel via regular wagon, and that’s assuming they’d had enough Summoning power to propel the wheels forward over the roughest of terrain.
But the vendor scratched his nose with a dirt-packed fingernail. “No, there wasn’t nobody else with him. Just him and this paper.”
Hmm. I peered back down to study the ink of that last line again.
Follow me.
And suddenly the paper quivered in my hands. Like a pair of invisible hands had suddenly grabbed the corner andtugged.
I let go, watching as the paper fluttered away. But the breeze had died down within the stuffiness of all the commotion, so there was no way it could be flying at all right now unless—
I lurched after it, away from the vendor and his tent of blankets, back to the outer edges of the courtyard, where the monkeys were still springing forward to steal stray bits of food and clothing.
