What Feasts at Night (Sworn Soldier, #2)

by T. Kingfisher

It’s not that I’m a skeptic, you understand. It’s just … look, so far as I’m concerned, ghosts are rather like ostriches. (“But Easton,” you say, “ostriches? Really?” Hush, I’m getting to that.) I don’t doubt that ostriches exist. Many people who are far more intelligent than I am have traveled to the lands where ostriches dwell and reported back on their existence. There are photographs and taxidermy and centuries’ worth of anecdotes and whole civilizations local to the ostrich who have produced great quantities of art depicting this noble bird. Nevertheless, I personally have never seen an ostrich. They simply don’t play a large part in my life. If I woke in the night and heard footsteps in the hall, I would not immediately assume it was an ostrich. Why would I? Ostriches are things that happen to other people, far away, in countries more Serengeti-adjacent. If you want to tell me your saga of your encounter with an ostrich, I will listen appreciatively, but it’s just not something I worry about happening to me. Likewise, ghosts do not play any significant role in my life. I have slept in reputedly haunted houses and never seen anything worse than a stray cockroach. The howls of banshees and Gray Ladies fall on deaf ears (or at least ears rather badly affected by tinnitus). I’ve never attended a séance and while I have a vague skepticism about mediums, it’s the same kind that I have about landlords and minstrels. Undoubtedly some of them are fine people, and I do not que...