“She was innocent, but strong, too. I didn’t think it, not back then, but that just shows what I knew, doesn’t it? Like a rock under snow. I got her wrong, in lots of ways. She defied me, in the way that only a woman can.”

“What do you mean?”

He shook his head, and Heather experienced a moment of pure despair. They would talk in circles forever, the two of them, and he would always dangle this information just out of reach.

“Michael? Please. Tell me what you mean. Did you … did you love her?”

“I wanted to tell you another story,” he said. “Would you let me?”

Heather pressed her lips together and swallowed down her frustration. Parker had moved so that he was standing behind her chair, and she wondered if she was close to being removed from the room again.

“There was a king, and he was known for being the wisest king that ever lived. He was truly the … father of the land, and seemed to know about things almost before they’d happened. It was a mystery, but the people, his children loved him anyway. They didn’t ask how. They just trusted that he would always know.

“Every day, he would be served dinner in his royal dining room, and the final course would be served on a covered silver platter. No one knew what was in the dish, as the king always dismissed his guests and servants before he ate it, and the servant who brought it was always instructed never to lift the lid.”

Reave took a slow breath. Something about the telling of the story seemed to have calmed him.

“One day though, the servant couldn’t resist any longer. When the king had finished and asked for the dishes to be taken away, the servant took the mysterious silver plate to his own room, and locking the door, he removed the cover. Lying on the plate was a little white snake, it’s eyes red like drops of blood. Curious, the servant sliced a slither of snake flesh from it and put it on his tongue. Instantly, the room was filled with strange whispers and hushed conversations. Voices all around—it was the fleas in his bed clothes, the ants under his bed, the birds at his windowsill. They were all talking, talking, and he could understand them. He could understand them all, those little souls.”

Reave cleared his throat, and glanced at the note, which was lying between them on the table.

“Eventually, the king found out what had happened, and the servant was certain he would be executed for such a crime. But instead, the king took him, alone, into the heart of an enormous dark forest. They rode together for three days and three nights, until they came to a deep hole in the ground. The bottom of it, Heather, was littered with animal bones, and there were many white snakes, slithering across the dirt floor—so many, it was difficult to tell which were snakes and which were bones. ‘You see the price?’ said the king. ‘For such knowledge as we have, the land demands meat. It demands flesh and blood, for it is always hungry.’ And with that …”