Free The Office of Shadow by Matthew Sturges Page A

group is being re-formed. Chief Paet here runs the day-to-day affairs of the
Information Division. You'll be the lead Shadow."
    "You want me to work for him?" said Silverdun, incredulous.
    "You need him," said Everess.
    "More than you can possibly know," said Paet.
    Silverdun scowled. "Are you always this ... ominous?"
    Paet tapped his cane on the ground. "You'll be hearing from me shortly,"
he said.
    Silverdun and Everess watched him leave. Silverdun blinked, and that
same odd trick of the eye occurred, foreground into background, and Paet
was gone.
    "Interesting fellow, isn't he?" said Everess, once he'd vanished.
    "I can't say I'm in love."
    Everess chuckled. "Give him time. Paet's a good man. His experience has
made him what he is. All for the love of Seelie. The Seelie Heart; isn't that
what Mauritane called it?"

    "Mauritane excels at convincing others to fling themselves at death in the
service of abstractions." Silverdun sighed. "You're not helping your cause."
    "This is good work," said Everess. "We need you. And let's be frank. You
need us."
    A remark leapt to Silverdun's lips, but he suppressed it. Perhaps if he
stopped arguing the point, Everess would shut up about it.
    "Tell me this, Everess," said Silverdun, quiet. "Was I chosen for this
because of my strengths or because of my ability to get intelligence from the
Arcadians?"
    "I never do anything for only one reason," said Everess. "Either way, it's
time for you to stop pissing around and get to work."
    Silverdun wanted to disagree, but couldn't.

    "You're mad," said the goat, hopping up and down.
"I am indeed," the bear replied."But there is strength
in madness."
    from The Goat and the Bear,'' Seelie fable
    he Copperine House sat on an estate nearly a day's ride outside the City
Emerald, set back from the Mechesyl Road, just beyond a small ridge
dotted with spruce and fir trees. This was the beginning of the Western
Valley, where the high mountaintops held snow year-round, and the evergreens were the only trees that grew. Here, though, the conifers mixed in
with deciduous life, speckling the landscape with points of darkness in a
world of color.
    The house was relatively new, less than three hundred years old. It had
been donated by the sixtieth Lady Copperine after the unfortunate incident
that claimed both her son's life and the lives of the twelve others in the cafe
with him when he'd lost control of his Gift of Elements and turned them all
into sand, including himself. The incident was hushed up by the Royal
Guard, a fire set, and the heir apparent to the Copperine title was mourned
appropriately. Devastated, his mother donated the family estate to the
Crown, with the explicit instructions that it be used to prevent other such
tragedies. Once her affairs were settled, Lady Copperine drank poison and
joined her son in death.
    The house itself was large and rambling, having been added on to and
spellturned rather haphazardly in its day. The unfortunate lady's great uncle
had been something of an amateur turner and had made a number of ques tionable choices regarding the estate's architectural layout. Now the house
was three times as large as it had been when built, though there were rooms
in it that had been lost forever. The residents of Copperine House had it that
an unlucky niece had been inside one of the lost rooms when it was badly
turned, and haunted the building into the present day.

    Sela's favorite place was the tiered terrace that overlooked the small valley
behind the house. There was nothing artificial in this view. Only trees, sky,
earth, and small animals that could sometimes be cajoled into eating corn from
Sela's hand. If she were able, Sela would have waited for a rainy day, then stepped
down each stone tier, walked barefoot through the grass as the rain plastered her
hair against her face, and disappeared into the forest, never to be seen again.
    This was a fantasy, of course. Beyond the terrace was