*Polly*
The petition to declare a formal end to the life of the Alpha Prince of Islay is wending its way through the Courts of Alphas when I receive a message from yet another of the twenty searchers who had returned to England.
But this message is different: it claims news.
I sit quite still with the note in my hand, staring at it.
If Fennec is alive, the searcher, a man by the name of Mr. Badger, surely would have written ‘I found your husband,’ rather than I bring news. Desolation feels like a palpable thing in my stomach, like another heart beating under the first.
I summon my new butler, Maydrop, and instruct him to request that Mr. Pinkler visit this very afternoon. Mr. Badger turns out to be swarthy and hirsute, a bow-legged and fierce-looking individual. I have the distinct i
