Suited by Jo Anderton - Sample Chapters

kitchen below. Perhaps he wasn’t feeling anything at all.

We’d been here before. Since we’d discovered the Keeper, and the puppet men had revealed themselves, we’d asked that question many times. Still, I didn’t have an answer.

The only difference was that now we really needed one.

What could we do? Those seamed, expressionless bastards were members of the national veche, Varsnia’s highest authority. We didn’t even know how many there were – and it was difficult to tell, they all looked the same. How was a bunch of bottom-ofthe-social-rung debris collectors – who spoke to an invisible man most people believed was a long-dead superstition – supposed to prove the veche was putting the entire world in danger?

So I hoped, instead, that Kichlan was talking about something I could answer.

“I told you, I will look after him.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m not his brother; I can’t be a replacement for you. I know that. But I don’t want him to suffer either, or be taken away.”

Kichlan watched me. His eyes were guarded, mouth set in a heavy line teetering on the edge of a frown. It was always the same with him. He held so many walls around himself, he kept the world at a distance, all to ensure his brother’s safety. And after so many years he had trouble recognising the appropriate time to let down those barriers, or the right people to let in.