lurched sideways into the nearest room and found a darkened corner to slide down onto the floor, where she sat trying to catch her breath.
Across the room, something else was breathing. Two something elses. Two small lumps in two little wooden cot beds, rising and falling beneath the bedclothes. In the very moment when Morrigan realised whose room she’d entered, the door opened quietly. A familiar young, pretty blonde woman tiptoed inside with a rustle of her blue dress. She was humming something sweet.
Morrigan felt somehow certain that, unlike her grandmother, her stepmother wouldn’t be able to see her. But even so, she stayed hidden in shadow while Ivy checked on her sons and then left the room.
Pausing for a moment at the door, the young mother cast a quick look back at her snowy-haired boys, light from the hall illuminating her face. Morrigan had never seen Ivy look like that – all softness and maternal affection and quiet, contented joy. She felt a strange little curl of something, right in her centre, and it made her flinch to realise the something was envy.
Not just envy. Longing.
But that couldn’t be right. She didn’t long for Ivy. She didn’t even like Ivy!
It was something else Morrigan longed for, some piece of her that was missing. She couldn’t say exactly what it was. But in the darkest, most secret part of her – the part she would never share with anyone – Morrigan knew that whatever that missing thing was, she’d never had any of it at all. And little Wolfram and Guntram Crow had somehow taken her share without asking.
She felt a shadow fall across her heart.
You have a wonderful life, Morrigan reminded herself sternly. You have everything you need.
She really did. She had things in Nevermoor that these boys would never have, things they could never even imagine! She had rides across rooftops on the Brolly Rail, and trips to the opera, and spectacular battles on Christmas Eve. She had an actual magical bedroom that transformed itself according to her wants and needs, for goodness’ sake.
More importantly, she had Jupiter and Jack and Fenestra and all her friends at the Hotel Deucalion. She had Hawthorne and Cadence and Miss Cheery and Hometrain and Sub-Nine. She was a member of an elite society of Wundrous people with remarkable talents, and she had eight loyal sisters and brothers of her own! What more could she possibly want? How greedy could one person be?
But they’re not your real sisters, are they? said a small, annoying voice inside her mind. Not your real brothers.
Morrigan angled her head to the side. She stood up, stepped gingerly out of the darkness and crossed the floor to peer into the two wooden cribs, side by side. Each had a name carved across the top. Tiny, rosy-cheeked Wolfram slumbered peacefully. Little Guntram seemed to have a cold; he snuffled in his sleep.
These, she supposed, were her real brothers. Her half-brothers.
Morrigan knelt in the narrow space between the cribs.
‘Hello,’ she whispered. ‘I’m your sister.’ The words felt strange, but nevertheless, she persisted. ‘Your big sister. I bet you wouldn’t believe that. I bet nobody’s told you about me. But it’s true. My name’s Morrigan.’ She paused, considering for a moment. ‘You probably won’t be able to say that, because you’re too little. Just … call me Mog.’
Guntram stirred a little, one eye cracking open to peer up at her sleepily. For a breathless moment Morrigan thought he might wake up and scream the house down, but she whispered a soft, ‘Shhh,’ and he nestled back into his blankets.
That was close, she thought. It was definitely time to go.
As Morrigan crept out of the room, however, something caught her eye – another chubby little lump, slumped over on the windowsill behind the gauzy curtain.
She gasped. ‘Emmett!’
He was just as she remembered him. Her battered stuffed rabbit with his missing tail and black glass eyes … only now he was covered in a thick layer of dust, as if he’d been left there for a long time and forgotten. She reached out to grab him but her hands, of course, fell straight through.
Morrigan felt her throat tighten uncomfortably, and she blinked against the sudden stinging in her eyes. Emmett was the one thing in Crow Manor she missed. She imagined holding him tight, as she used to. She would never have left him slumped on the windowsill like that, all on his own. He might catch a cold, or … or