father.”
4th October
Twenty-eight days . . .
2:58 a.m.—Leo
Leo has been a soldier since he fell to Earth. He was found, as an apparently human child, wailing and naked under an oak on Hampstead Heath and taken into care. Being beautiful, bright, and white, he was quickly adopted, by Charles Penry-Jones and his wife. So Leo has a double identity, as the privileged progeny of a millionaire businessman and as a soldier. He plays both parts brilliantly because that is the expectation and he has never questioned it. As Penry-Jones Junior, he is studying law at Cambridge, expected to graduate with a double First. As a star soldier, he’s fought and extinguished whichever Grimm girl was next in line. To date, he’s never lost a fight.
For nearly six years, since he first entered Everwhere, he’s lived these parallel lives, and, in that time, he’s not questioned the merits or morality of either. Yet he finds himself thinking on his latest target differently—not in the cold, calculating way he should. And in all this thinking, Leo is starting to wonder whether he’d be fighting this battle if he’d ever been given the choice.
Leo knows now why he thought he’d seen Goldie before. The familial resemblance is quite striking. Indeed, it’s surprising that he hadn’t realized it immediately. Goldie is more beautiful, though she doesn’t seem to know it, and, naturally, far more powerful, though she doesn’t know that either.
These ruminations on Goldie won’t stop him from doing his duty when the time comes. He’s been attracted to Grimm girls before and it’s never stopped him. Leo likes women well enough, though he’s never loved one. Which is fortunate, given what he’s required to do to so many of them. Admittedly, he’s never felt so strongly drawn to one before, and he wonders why he’s so drawn to her—more deeply each day. She’s clearly extraordinarily gifted, even for a Grimm, though she doesn’t know that either, not yet. But it’s more than that. Leo is curious. He wants to know her. He wants to hear all her secrets, of which he’s sure she has a good many. He wants to listen; he wants to talk. He wants to tell Goldie things he’s never spoken aloud. Which is strange. He hasn’t felt this way since he was a boy. And he’s met a good many beautiful people in the intervening years, in this world and the other, for whom he’s felt affection, even admiration, but no more than that. So why should she be any different?
7:32 a.m.—Goldie
I’m on the third floor, cleaning the hotel from top to bottom, reversing my usual habit. Garrick won’t care, or even notice, since he’s occupied with Cassie in his office.
I’ve been working at the Fitzwilliam Hotel for nine months and have developed a sort of sixth sense about its guests. I can tell, with a glance into their rooms, what their habits will be: when they’ll be in or out, if they’ll wake early or stay out late, whether they’ll be tidy or filthy. The French family in room 38 are dawn risers, sightseers, stay-out-to-lunchers, six o’clock supperers, then straight to bed.
So, when I knock at their door, I know no one will answer. I push my trolley inside and leave the door open behind me. The French family is neat and clean; most morning people are. It doesn’t take long to change their sheets, replace their towels, dust, hoover, and mop. A thick but delicate scent of honeysuckle hangs in the bathroom, and when I’ve finished scrubbing, I lift the heavy glass bottle and spray the scent onto my skin: wrists and neck. I pause to stroke the leaves of the white orchid beside the marble sink, murmuring a little poetry into its petals.
Then I get down to my real work. The child’s clothes aren’t hanging in the wardrobe but packed in careful piles in his suitcase. He doesn’t own multiple versions of the same garment, but everything he has—from socks to shirts—is of the highest quality. I pass reluctantly over a sumptuous linen jacket: navy blue, lined in silk, with the crest of a shield and crown stitched in gold thread on the pocket. Teddy would worship the thing, but it’s too risky to take it. Someone would kick up a fuss over the loss of something like that. I must be quick, so I select three pairs of silk socks and one striped cotton shirt. I slip them into my apron, take one last glance around