by Kay Kenyon
As they continued their trip north she heard a startling piece of news. News lightly delivered, so as to remove its sting: Alice Ward and James Hathaway had been married on Christmas Eve.
Kim remembered how last summer Alice had told James of her trauma view Talent, and his reaction that it was against scripture. The very reason she had never told him before. She and Kim had been sitting on a hotel porch in Wales after stopping the youth serial killer. Alice had told her that she had finally decided James could love her for what she was or leave her. How heartening that he had finally made the right decision. Perhaps he saw that it was a spiritual decision as well, not to cast off people who were a bit different.
Julian watched her carefully to see how much it hurt that she hadn’t attended the wedding of her closest friend. But Kim knew which things deserved mourning and which didn’t. “I’m so glad,” she finally said. “And I suppose once they decided, they had to move quickly, or one or the other of them would have gotten cold feet.” She cut a look at him. “Did you go?”
“Yes. And the whole village turned out. She wanted me to tell you that she can hardly wait to see you.”
A small shadow fell over Kim. Actually, missing the wedding did hurt. But just a little, once she remembered how long Alice had been waiting for a proposal.
They pulled into Uxley, passing All Saints, Alice’s knittery, then past the park memorial with Robert’s name carved in it. They swung around the curve in the road where the animal shelter had been, the one that had gotten rid of unwanted cats and puppies, but not in the way they had planned. It all seemed new, or if not new, then perceived through new eyes. The rich normalcy of Uxley and the places that anchored it. For all its imperfections, today it seemed impossibly tender and kind.
Julian pulled the car off onto the verge and killed the motor.
“Something else has been . . . I mean, I’ve been trying to tell you. But we’ve had so much to talk about, Kim.”
“My God, what it is?” He was not usually at a loss for words. “You’re not ill, are you?” A diagnosis, a grim hospital report. She desperately hoped not.
“No, no, nothing like that. It’s about Olivia.”
“Who?”
“Olivia. The woman I’m going to marry. After she gets a divorce.”
Kim stared at him, feeling a smile warm her face. “The woman you’re going to marry?”
He told her a little about Olivia, how she worked for the Office, and now that he no longer did, that they had decided they needed to be together.
“She’s at the house, waiting to meet you.” They drove on. The late-afternoon sun should have been queued for a cheerful appearance, if the weather was going to match the joy in the car, but instead it began to pelt down rain.
When they pulled into the yard at Wrenfell, Julian went around to her side of the car, shaking out his umbrella, but Kim saw Mrs. Babbage and Walter and Rose on the porch and ran up to them through the rain. A woman stood with them, a lovely smile on her face.
Shadow came racing from inside the house, pushing open the door that had been left ajar and shouldered past people to get to Kim first. She knelt on the steps and hugged him.
Then someone put a sweater over her shoulders, and the welcoming party moved indoors where there was tea and sherry and the delirious fragrance of a roast in the oven. Kim dearly hoped her portion would be rare. But in the scheme of things, she thought she would take it as it came.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Deepest thanks to my husband, Tom Overcast, who through so many novels has never blanched when I say I’m writing another one. I’m so grateful for his unflagging support and his feedback on early drafts. Also, fortuitously, it was in his extensive bookshelves that I came across William Manchester and Paul Reid’s biography of Winston Churchill, The Last Lion, which brought me so vividly into the 1930s and the fascinating run-up to World War II.
Heartfelt thanks to my editor, Navah Wolfe, for her care in bringing the Dark Talents novels into the world. When an editor so clearly understands and believes in what a writer is trying to create and skillfully guides them along the path, it is a rare and prized gift. I am grateful for feedback and advice from fellow authors in Wenatchee: Andy Dappen, Dan Gemeinhart, Heather Ryan, Ben Seims, and Molly Steere. My appreciation to my agent, Ethan Ellenberg, for his belief in this series, his work on my behalf, and his valuable suggestions. I am indebted to Cora Buhlert for her advice on German locales and her nuanced translations of German dialogue lines, which she also provided for At the Table of Wolves.
An important inspiration for this series was the incredible and often overlooked stories of the women who worked undercover during World War II as couriers, agents, radio operators, and resistance fighters. Often I found their stories in obituaries because in many cases it was only after their deaths that their contributions came to light. I have highlighted some of these women’s stories on my website in a blog series, Women Spies of the World Wars.
More from this Series
Serpent in the Heather
At the Table of Wolves
More from the Author
Prince of Storms
City Without End
A World Too Near
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
KAY KENYON is the author of fifteen science fiction and fantasy novels, including the first two Dark Talent novels, At the Table of Wolves and Serpent in the Heather. Her work has been shortlisted for the Philip K. Dick Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Endeavour Award, and the American Library Association Reading List. Her series The Entire and the Rose was hailed by the Washington Post as “a splendid fantasy quest as compelling as anything by Stephen R. Donaldson, Philip José Farmer or, yes, J. R. R. Tolkien.” Her novels include Bright of the Sky, A World Too Near, City Without End, Prince of Storms, Maximum Ice (a 2002 Philip K. Dick Award nominee) and The Braided World. Bright of the Sky was among Publishers Weekly’s top 150 books of 2007. She is a founding member of the Write on the River conference in Wenatchee, Washington, where she lives with her husband. You can visit her at kaykenyon.com.
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ALSO BY KAY KENYON
At the Table of Wolves
Serpent in the Heather
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2019 by Kay Kenyon
Jacket illustrations copyright © 2019 by Mike Heath
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kenyon, Kay, 1956– author.
Title: Nest of the monarch / Kay Kenyon.
Description: First edition. | London ; New York : Saga Press, [2019] | Series: A dark talents novel ; book 3
Identifiers: LCCN 2018002294 | ISBN 9781534429734 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781534429758 (eBook)
Subjects: LCSH: Women intelligence officers—Fiction. | GSAFD: Spy stories.
Classification: LCC PS3561.E5544 N47 2019 | DDC 813/.54—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018002294