A Little Knowledge (The Split Worlds #4) - Emma Newman Page 0,14

okay?”

“Okay, dear. And we love the new house, by the way.”

Sam smiled.

“And now you’re not strapped for cash, you can come and visit.”

The smile faded. “I’d better go, Mum. Speak to you soon.”

She said goodbye three times before hanging up. He tried Cathy’s mobile in case she was in Mundanus, but it went straight to voicemail. He didn’t leave a message. She had her own life in the Nether with that twat of a husband. He couldn’t expect her to drop everything and come and see him. He frowned as he stared out into the darkness. Cathy had all those ideas about changing things, but he knew they wouldn’t have any of it. It wasn’t like the struggle Leanne faced, researching the atrocities carried out by CoFerrum Inc from the inside, gathering enough evidence to expose them catastrophically when the time was right. In Cathy’s world there was no press or public to put pressure on those in power. She had no leverage.

Fuck. Did he actually think that? The word leverage was on a “corporate wank” bingo sheet that he and Dave took to conferences. If he ever used it in conversation, along with “blue-sky thinking” and “pushing the envelope” he’d have to trash everything and go and live in a bin somewhere.

Restless, he phoned Des, killing the hours of the journey by tackling what he could from the car to free up the following morning for a lie-in. Then he filtered his emails to show the ones from Susan, the most obstructive member of his inherited team. Sure enough, every single one she’d sent him over the day contained reasons why he couldn’t just change things as he saw fit. He deleted them, a petty pleasure, knowing that it didn’t really matter. He hadn’t just been sitting around, hoping they’d change their minds. There was another team of experts he’d put together that only Des knew about and was under strict orders to keep secret. One that would start getting Sam the information he needed about CoFerrum Inc so he could start making a real difference.

By the time he got home it was late enough for the roads leading to his estate to be pitch black and devoid of any other traffic. He still wasn’t able to see the mansion without being faintly surprised that he lived there now. It wasn’t as if it felt like Amir’s home anymore, but it certainly didn’t feel like his either. He’d let the butler go, unable to cope with how awkward he made him feel, and kept the housekeeper, Mrs Morrison. She treated him like a normal person, unlike the butler, who’d talked to him like he was some nobleman from Pride and Prejudice or something. And Mrs M was happy to cook and organise the cleaners, which were a necessity with so many people staying there at the moment.

At least there were lights on and more people living there than when it had first passed into his ownership. He’d taken in just over twenty people that Cathy had rescued from some kind of dodgy asylum, people who used to live in the Nether but couldn’t handle it anymore. They kept to themselves mostly, uncertain of him and fearful of his being the enemy of their former patrons. Perhaps on some level they were afraid he’d kick them out one day, and planned to be able to tell the Fae truthfully that they didn’t fraternise with him.

Only one of them, an elderly lady called Eleanor, actually sought him out to speak with him from time to time. Unlike the other guests, Eleanor never seemed afraid of him. Cathy told him Eleanor used to be the matriarch of the family she’d been married into. From what Sam had seen of Cathy’s husband, he was unsurprised that Eleanor seemed fearless. After dealing with men like William Iris for hundreds of years, some clueless bloke with more money than he knew what to do with was probably as frightening as a kitten.

She was standing outside on the steps when the car drew up, wrapped in a shawl and leaning against the wall next to the front door. He didn’t wait for his car door to be opened for him.

“Eleanor? Is something wrong?”

She shook her head. Even now, well past the bloom of youth, she was attractive in a fiery, imperious sort of way. She wore her grey hair up in the sort of bun they had in period dramas. “I stand out here sometimes, when