“Very well,” Xavier finally said, giving his son a curt nod and holding out his glass for Swansea to refill. Then he smirked. “Perhaps you’ve got more of me than your mother in you after all.”
It was like a punch in Agnes’s gut. She was far better suited than Leo to join this expedition to the Knottle Plains. She had knowledge of medicine, anatomy, science. She could study the plant life, or search for footprints, or . . . anything. She was smart and capable, more than her stupid brother with his sycophantic smile.
Elizabeth and Marianne seemed to think Leo’s outburst quite bold, and they gushed excitedly about the upcoming production while Kiernan and Xavier indulged them with smiles. And Agnes kept silent, staring at the cut of tuna on her plate and fuming.
9
Leo
DINNER HADN’T GONE QUITE THE WAY HE’D HOPED, LEO had to admit.
He sat in an armchair in the drawing room, sipping an espresso and straining to hear any conversation that might make it through the door of his father’s study. Xavier and Kiernan had been holed up in there for nearly an hour now, since dinner ended and Marianne and Elizabeth had said their good nights. Agnes had long gone off to bed, but Leo stayed up, hoping to catch a private moment with his father.
He couldn’t believe Xavier had decided to stop financing new productions without telling his family first. And what were all those creatures about, that mertag and the tree? Why was the show only for one night, and why hadn’t Xavier explained this “new direction,” whatever it was? Leo had been caught completely off guard. And he hadn’t been able to sneak in a sliver of the business knowledge he’d acquired in the afternoon. The two girls had captured most of his father’s attention, and Kiernan’s too. Leo didn’t understand why his father had gotten so involved with the man. Obviously he had been useful in finding those weird Pelagan creatures, but why bring him to Kaolin?
Leo would just have to find these sprites himself and prove to his father that he was worthy of being included, too.
Perhaps you’ve got more of me than your mother in you after all.
The words made Leo feel proud and itchy at the same time. He watched the pendulum on the grandfather clock swing back and forth and wondered how much longer the two men would be.
I’ll show him, he thought. I’m his son. A McLellan, through and through.
There was no trace of their mother in this house, no picture or token, nothing except Eneas. Eneas, who never stopped telling Leo how much he looked like her, no matter how many times Leo asked him not to.
Xavier had never loved their mother, and Leo’s face must have been a daily reminder of the fact that he had been forced to go against everything he believed in, to marry a heretic, because he needed the money. But he didn’t need Pelagan money anymore.
Or maybe he did. Leo remembered the declining figures he’d seen for The Great Picando, and how his father had said the play’s run had been cut short. Maybe the business was in trouble. Was that why he was branching out into something new? Sure, there had been more theater companies popping up lately, as Xavier had noted, but none of them had the prestige and panache of the McLellan empire. Or was Leo just too biased to see the competition?
He put his espresso down and began to pace the room. Tomorrow he would be on his way to the Knottle Plains. He hadn’t realized how unsure he’d been that Xavier would even let him go on this expedition until he was halfway through asking. The humiliation of his father’s refusal would have been severe. Elizabeth would have told her brother, and Robert would have tried to make Leo feel better in all the ways that actually made everything worse. Robert was a great friend, but he was a fool sometimes. He assumed all fathers were proud of their sons. He assumed everyone had mothers who loved them and sisters who weren’t complete and utter embarrassments.
Leo couldn’t do much about the mother or the sister, but he could damn sure make his father proud. And starting tomorrow, that was exactly what he was planning to do.
The study door opened and the sound of voices made Leo jump.
“. . . not likely to be able to produce any again,” Kiernan was saying.
“That is not what you told me when we had it shipped here,” Xavier replied sharply. “You said that tree could make hundreds of them.”
“I told you we were entering uncharted territory. Factors are different here—climate, soil, water quality . . .”
“I am not interested in a geology lesson.”
“I’m merely saying we should have kept the sprites in Pelago if you are so sure they can find the island.”
“I am aware of what we should have done,” Xavier said, and his words were threaded with warning. “But you yourself said it would be far too dangerous to leave anything behind that could be traced back to you.”
“To us,” Kiernan said.
Leo had no idea what was going on. He’d thought the sprites were from Kaolin. And what was this island Kiernan was talking about? Pelago had hundreds of islands, but the way Kiernan said it, Leo did not think he meant Thaetus or Cairin or any of the major ones.
Something about the tone of this conversation made Leo hesitate to reveal himself. He had been hoping the men would let him in on whatever it was they were planning, now that he was part of the expedition and all. But he did not want to interrupt his father during an argument. In fact, he was pretty sure his father would be livid if he knew Leo was overhearing this. He wondered if he had time to make it upstairs when the voices came closer, the men walking down the hall toward the front door.
“It is as I said before: if you truly wanted to understand these creatures, you should have come to Pelago yourself.”
“I will never set foot in that goddamned country again for as long as I live and you know it, Ezra. Don’t act the fool, it doesn’t suit you.”
Leo was less stunned by the vulgarity and more by this revelation. As far as he was aware, Xavier had never been to Pelago in the first place. So how could he set foot in it again?
“We do not have limitless resources, Xavier.”
“Don’t we?” There was a cold silence. “Do not forget, Ezra. I know who you are and I know what you’ve done. I can protect you here. Do not test me, though, or you will be back on a ship to Pelago in the morning. And that bitch will not be as forgiving as I am.”
“Yes, yes, I know.” The Pelagan sounded frightened. “You should not have told them the sprites lived in the Knottle Plains,” he said after a moment.
“That’s where they would go, you said. Grasslands.”
“Yes, but that isn’t where they are from!”
“I honestly don’t see how it makes a difference.”
“Credit should be given where credit is due. The creatures are Pelagan.”
“Don’t tell me you have developed a sudden pride in your heritage?” Xavier sneered, and Leo felt there was an insult in the words that he did not quite understand. “Besides, the creatures are dead, if what you have told me about them is correct.”
“Then why search for them at all?”
Leo pressed himself against a bookshelf, his heart pounding.
“Because I do not give up until I have exhausted all options,” Xavier replied. “If there is the slightest chance of reclaiming them, we have to try. Unless you have another idea, or a magic compass or map that will tell us where the island is.”