Craven Manor(42)

He didn’t want to stare, but Daniel found his attention continuously drawn back to Bran’s mapped, paper-thin skin and near-weightless hair. “Do you think you’ll ever die? Properly, I mean?”

“I do not know. I always expected to, but days blended into months and finally years, and one day, I realised I could not remember the last time I ate.” He lifted his hands. The veins were worse on them, especially around the fingertips, which were nearly black. “I have become more shadow than human. It became harder and harder to maintain my house and my garden. One evening, I carried a tray of tea out to Annalise’s crypt, as was our habit, but when dawn came, I had no strength left to lift the tray and return it to the house.” Bran clenched his hands and dropped them to his side. “I can still lift light objects. Pens. Letters. Small flowers. In times of stress, I can exert some of my former strength, but not as much as I once possessed. I have faded. Perhaps eventually, I will fade entirely and cease to exist in any realm. But for now, I still have use of this form, and a couple others beside.”

Daniel frowned. “Sorry—I was following right up until that last part. Other forms? Like the shadows?”

“Yes.” Bran’s heavy eyelids fluttered. “And others. My mother’s insanity, Annalise’s sensitivity to light, and my own peculiar condition share their roots in our ancestors. We came from a line of disgraced kings and queens. Severe inbreeding left many of them with deformities and abnormalities.”

“Do you think that’s why you and Eliza are still alive, even after death?”

“Perhaps.” His face was unnaturally serene, as though it had been carved out of stone. “My mother’s paranoia centred around Annalise being a witch, but it was not my sister she should have been concerned about. As more of my body fades and is replaced by the shadows, I have learned to shape them. Mould them.”

Daniel had been staring at the window as Bran talked. When his companion fell silent, he turned. Bran was no longer in the room. In his place, an oversized, tattered crow perched on the back of the closest chair. Daniel’s mouth fell open, but no noise came out.

The crow king—the same ancient bird that had watched Daniel move in and out of the house—hopped to the edge of its chair. Its movements were stilted, suggesting an immense age. It spread its wings with a deep whirring noise and dove towards the ground.

The bird never landed. Instead, the bone-thin cat thudded into the carpet. Its amber eyes stared into Daniel’s as the scruffy creature paced past him.

“No.” Daniel’s mind threw up a blanket objection to what he was seeing. He staggered away from the animal and pressed his palms into his closed eyelids. “I’m going crazy.”

“No more than I have during this last century.”

Daniel removed his hands from his eyes, and Bran stood before him once again. His skin was a shade paler, and the shadows around his eyes were a fraction deeper. He spread his arms in a shrug. “Some of our ancestors—the early Vikings, the kings and queens before their disgrace—called themselves shape-shifters. This is a trait I appear to have inherited.”

“Okay.” Daniel’s mouth agreed, but he found himself shaking his head. “Shape-shifter. Sure.”

Bran’s cracked lips stretched into a smile. “It is not a gift I possessed during life. As the years moved on and I began to feel less human and more shadow, I found my form malleable. Shadows are more liquid than solid, after all. I pour myself into a fresh mould. It is not magic, and it is not alarming. It just… is.”

“I’m glad you don’t find it alarming, but…” Daniel felt heat rush across his face as he remembered all of the embarrassing things he’d cooed to the cat. “Oh. Oh no. I’m so sorry.”

“For what?” Bran began pacing again.

“For trying to pet you.” The heat increased until Daniel felt as if his face might be glowing. “For making that joke about you being named after cereal.”

Rasping laughter filled the room. Bran clasped his hands behind himself as he turned to loop around the desk again. “Do not apologise. You have a compassionate soul. I cannot eat, but… I have rather enjoyed the fires.”

“Okay.” The word escaped as a squeak.

“Do you know why I chose you to tend to our garden?” Bran tilted his head as he regarded Daniel. “I would not have invited just anyone into our property. I wanted someone who would place others’ needs ahead of their own. One day, while I was in the town, I found a man sitting on the street. He had no home, no money, nothing of his own except a dirty blanket and a sandwich someone had given him. When he saw me, he pulled the meat out of the bread and offered it to me. I knew I had found my helper.”

“I—” Daniel frowned. He was sure he would have remembered giving someone his food, especially a person who looked as distinctive as Bran. Then it clicked. “The dog!”

Bran smirked.

The coal-black mutt had been so skinny that Daniel had been shocked it was still walking. It had glanced at his sandwich as it passed him on the street. Daniel had been hungry, but not so hungry that he could forgive himself for letting the animal starve. He’d pulled the steak out of the sandwich and held it out to the dog. The mutt had carried it off, tail wagging, while Daniel contented himself with the leftover bread.