“Oh.”
The heat drained from her at the finality of his tone. Fowler signalled a barman with a tray of cups and swapped his empty one for another. “And what’s compelled you to slip away this evening?” he said quickly, and he took a deep drink of his second beer. “The people of Camden often extend their invitations to the Zoo, but only one person is known to regularly accept them. And I was under the impression he was missing.”
Ilsa felt that kick, the one her heart gave whenever she gleaned the slightest detail about her missing brother. Gedeon mingled with his people. That was something real. Not a portrait made to flatter, or the contradictory testimony of his lover.
This was why she was here.
“D’you know him?” she asked Fowler. “Gedeon?”
Fowler shook his head. “By sight. That’s all. The Prince of Camden’s never been a friend to the Order. Your brother has lofty ideas that a society of mercenaries and killers should not have so much power.”
“Outrageous,” muttered Ilsa.
“They could have told you everything you wished to know about him at the Zoo. Had you not run away.”
“I din’t run away,” said Ilsa, fingering the worn velvet purse still clutched in one hand. “And they can’t tell me everything. Or they don’t want to. He’s gone missing when he’s s’posed to be running things, and still no one’s said a bad word about him. It’s like they’re afraid he’ll hear or something.”
“It is not that type of fear that stays their tongues, my lady. Gedeon Ravenswood holds the hope of a whole people on his shoulders. To topple him is to dash that hope.”
“So it’s wilful ignorance?”
“Who’s to say he’s not deserving? Have you uncovered his whereabouts? Do you know what made him leave?”
Ilsa huffed a sigh. “No.”
Fowler fixed her with an earnest look. “Let your friends’ trust inform your own,” he said slowly. “They know him as you don’t.”
That was the truth of it, and it cut her to her core. She was angry with Cassia, with all of them, because they had something she didn’t. No number of truths gleaned or stories told could compare to real memories of her brother, and she hadn’t been there to make any. She had been struggling to survive alone in the Otherworld.
You belong here.
Ilsa wished it were that easy. It still wasn’t the Zoo she pictured before she opened her eyes in the morning. It was the attic at the orphanage.
Ilsa’s thoughts were interrupted by a word plucked straight from them: her brother’s name.
“Gedeon!” came the call again.
Her stomach lurched. She stepped out of the tent, pulled as if by a string to whomever was calling that name. Could Gedeon be here, miraculously, suddenly? Why not? No one knew why he was gone, so no one could say when and why he might return.
“Gedeon, it’s time to go home!”
Ilsa came to a stop when she found the caller, her hope snuffed out. It was a man summoning his son. The little boy, three years old at most, was shooting his father mischievous, defiant grins as he continued to play with the other children.
Ilsa felt foolish. Perhaps she had had too much beer.
Fowler appeared at her shoulder. He could probably have told her that her brother wasn’t here if she’d given him a chance. With a Wraith’s senses, he could probably hear every single person at this party.
Little Gedeon’s father gave up with a groan and looked up, startling when he saw them standing there.
“Can I help you, miss?” he said, shooting uncertain glances at the captain, who took a couple of steps back and kept his hands far from his weapons.
“No. It’s nothing,” said Ilsa, arranging her face into a gracious smile. “It’s a lovely name, is all.”
The man smiled proudly. “After the alpha, thank his stars.”
“Oh, spare the poor girl, Bren!” A woman came running from the dancefloor, breathless and red-cheeked. She ran right into the man’s arms, and his smile widened as he wrapped an arm around her. “He’ll talk your ears off if you let him,” she said to Ilsa, rolling her eyes. She too looked the captain up and down, and kept her distance.
“Gedeon almost didn’t make it into the world,” said Bren. He spared an affectionate look for the woman, but a hardness had crept into his eyes. “Diana and I were taken for ransom by a gang of Wraiths when she was eight months gone.”
Ilsa swallowed a gasp. “That’s… horrible.”
“And common,” Fowler cut in. “It’s one of the citizens’ preferred ways of terrorising one another.”
Bren nodded. “Snatch someone from a neighbouring faction, make their leader pay to get them back. It’s one way to make money if you’re desperate, or just ruthless, and if you don’t get caught, you can’t get punished. We lived right by the border to the North, but far from the nearest guard point. No militia about. They slipped in through the walls while we were sleeping. I woke in the dark to cloaked phantoms all around me. Diana was too far along to shift, and I suffer the Changeling’s bane something terrible. We had no hope against them.”
“S’cuse me,” Ilsa cut in. “Changeling’s bane?”
Bren and Diana exchanged a look, and Ilsa realised this must have been a stupid question. Diana’s eyes drifted to the twitches along Ilsa’s right cheekbone; the proof she was a Changeling too. “That feeling when you shift?” said Bren. “The stretching or squeezing, the pain in your bones?” He shuddered. “That… burning feeling of feathers or fur growing on you.”
Ilsa nodded. “Right. Used to make me really sick at first.”
“That’s Changeling’s bane. The price of using our magic. Some of us don’t ever overcome it. I wish it weren’t the case but I never learned to use my magic all that well. I never got used to the pain.” Bren shook his head. “So I couldn’t even put up a fight when the Wraiths
