greens, especially an old-fashioned secretary’s desk near the window. Carved on the side of that desk was an elegant stag, its antlers branching widely. From the bed, Catherine had been studying the design for ten minutes. Similar stags adorned nearly every piece of furniture in the room.
She threw the covers off, crossed the room, and opened the curtains.
“What is it?” Archie asked. He was awake now, watching her from the bed.
She pulled over a chair and stood upon it to more closely study the carving on an ancient armoire against the far wall.
“It’s a stag,” she told him. She was tracing the design with a finger. The deer on the armoire was simplified and more angular than the others in the room—and it happened to look identical to a stag drawn in one of the old letters safely pasted into her journal, which she now kept in a locked safe in her parents’ basement.
“Yeah,” Archie said, running a hand through his messy hair, which didn’t seem too long to Catherine anymore. “Some ancestor loved stags. They’re on everything in our houses—cupboards, footstools, chamber pots. I’m surprised you didn’t notice in my father’s house.”
“I was distracted by hating you.”
Archie smiled. “Our last name is Hart. A hart is a male deer. So stag, Hart, Hart, stag.”
“Hmm,” she said. “Like ‘Renart,’ my name, is a fox, and we have foxes on everything. Where is this armoire from?”
“Country house, I think? We have piles of old furniture. At this point most of our remaining wealth is in furniture,” he said, flopping back onto his pillow. “You look very pretty. Please come back to bed immediately.”
She cast him a flirtatious look but stayed where she was and pulled open the armoire’s doors, letting light from the streetlamps spill into its interior. Archie’s clothes were hanging inside.
“You have a funny look on your face,” he told her, sitting up more attentively, “like you’re about to rip my clothes out and throw them all over the floor.”
That was exactly what Catherine did. Twenty minutes later, Archie’s clothes were strewn everywhere, and together they’d pulled out the drawers in the bottom of the armoire. They discovered a false back behind one of the bottom drawers—a space Archie had never suspected was there—and Archie’s arm was now shoved deep inside, feeling around a hidden gap within.
“There’s—something in here,” he told her. “Something hard and sort of round.”
“Can you get hold of it?” Chances were she and Archie had discovered something completely useless—a tin of old coins or someone’s lucky horseshoe collection from hundreds of years ago. But Catherine felt unaccountably excited.
“I’ve got it,” he said.
There was a scraping sound as he brought his arm back out. Clutched in his hand was a dusty helmet. Catherine inhaled sharply as she took hold of it. Though she’d never seen one in person, she recognized it immediately. It was a focal, the metal helmet Seekers had once used to train their minds.
“A motorcycle helmet?” Archie asked. “From a hundred years ago? It looks ancient.”
She wiped off the dust, revealing silver metal that flashed iridescent colors when light fell upon it. Unaccountably she thought of the Young Dread and imagined speaking to her about it. Perhaps she would one day. But she brought her mind back to Archie.
“It’s not a motorcycle helmet,” she told him.
“What is it, then?”
“It’s…”
She turned the helmet over in her hands. The interior was lined with canvas, which was torn and fraying in several places. Tucked beneath the canvas lining, visible through a small tear, was a slip of paper. Catherine slid it out carefully. She’d collected enough Seeker memorabilia from attics and basements and abandoned barns to guess what it would be, even before she saw the writing.
It was a letter, scrawled hastily, by the look of it:
Edward,
We’ve made an arrangement and hope it might be honored. What we’ve promised will not be pleasant, but the alternative is even less pleasant.
If lucky, we’ll be back with you soon. If unlucky…I shan’t finish that thought.
At least this helm remains with you. It is ours, it is yours. Keep it safe, Son. It might see you through a long walk, or a desperate fight.
Do not forget what you are.
Your Loving Parents
Archie read the letter over her shoulder, then took it from her hands and read it again. Catherine watched him, understanding more about him now than he did himself. He was from a Seeker family, probably on his mother’s side, since his father hadn’t appeared to have any knowledge