Luc and Gabby peered out into the churchyard and saw not Vander Burke’s gleaming new carriage—his old one having suffered irreparable damage in a crash—but a rough and chipped hansom cab.
Gabby frowned. “I wonder who it is,” she whispered. Luc saw her fingers swish through the black veil once again. She worried about those scars, but they weren’t as hideous as she imagined them to be. At least, Luc didn’t think so. Then again, he was a monster.
The hansom drew to a stop, the brake lever was thrown, and the carriage door opened. Luc and Gabby waited as the set of steps crashed down. A pair of polished oxblood boots appeared on the first step, and then the visitor himself filled the frame of the door.
Gabby gasped. Then let out a high, tinny moan.
“Who is it?” Luc asked as the man, tall and broad-shouldered and wearing what looked like an expensive greatcoat, stepped onto the snowy drive just in front of the rectory’s front door.
“Oh no,” Gabby whispered. “It’s Papa.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Vander’s wagonette came up rue Lagrange. The abbey’s twin bell towers stood like stone exclamation points at the far end of the street.
“I think you’re overreacting,” Ingrid said, not for the first time since leaving Clos du Vie.
Vander sat beside her at the reins, straining for control over his temper. He’d lost it when Monsieur Constantine had asked them to enter the Paris sewers to search for the missing Duster, Léon. He had grabbed hold of Ingrid’s arm and all but dragged her from the orangery. Since leaving the chateau, Vander hadn’t said more than three words: In when they had reached his carriage, and Hold on as he’d slapped the reins and torn down Clos du Vie’s long, winding drive.
He’d breathed loudly, inhaling and exhaling with little growls when Ingrid had asked why he’d reacted so badly. Finally, as the abbey and rectory loomed on the horizon, he spoke.
“Do you have any idea how dangerous the sewers are, Ingrid?” he asked. “Constantine does. He knows how many demons, and how many fissures between our world and the Underneath, are down there. And he still played on your sympathy to force you to risk yourself for a boy who murdered his entire family.”
The sewers did seem like the perfect place for demons to lurk. Vander’s assessment of the dangers didn’t surprise her. But something else did.
“He’s a Duster,” Ingrid said. “Like us, Vander, but alone. We have each other. He has no one.”
Like them, Léon would have somewhere on his skin the two strawberry ovals that could easily pass as birthmarks. Ingrid and Grayson had always thought the matching marks on their calves were just that. But then she’d seen the same marks on Vander’s neck, and Axia herself had explained to Ingrid what they really were: the brand of a Duster.
Vander took another long breath. This time, he chased it with a glance at Ingrid. He’d calmed, and she knew it was because of what she’d said. We have each other.
“I know,” he said. “But if we’re going to go into the sewers to look for him, we’re going to do it smart. We’ll need more Alliance. More silver. Maybe even a pair of wings.”
Luc. He means Luc. Ingrid smiled as Vander steered the horses through the break in the hedgerow along the cross street of rue Dante. The hedges stayed thick and green during the winter months and blocked the view of the old stone rectory from the street.
If Vander was jealous of Luc, he didn’t usually show it. Luc was Ingrid’s protector, and because of that, Vander accepted him. In fact, Vander had accepted much about Ingrid that she’d never thought he would. He knew about the fire that had harmed her friend, Anna. He knew she’d made a fool of herself over Jonathan Walker. It had taken a heavy dose of humility to part with the secrets, but Vander had rewarded her for it. He hadn’t judged her. Hadn’t done anything more than stroke her cheek and say “Jonathan Walker sounds like an idiot.”
The only time a flicker of jealousy flared underneath those wire spectacles of his was when he came upon Luc and Ingrid together. It didn’t happen often. Luc had made her a vow that whatever he’d led her to believe was happening between them was over—and impossible anyway. He’d been true to his word. But now and then, Vander would come to the rectory and see Luc either handing Ingrid down from the landau or working with her in the abbey, cleaning it out to make way for the gallery. It always made Ingrid uneasy. Which of them was she supposed to look at? Speak to?
She quickly scanned the carriage house and stables, then the abbey’s doors. No sign of Luc, even though she knew he’d already sensed her return. Vander held out his hand once he’d braked and descended.
“I’ll send word to Constantine,” he said as they walked to the front door. “Maybe Chelle will help. Gabby, perhaps?”
Her sister was training for the Alliance, yes, but Ingrid still shook her head. “I don’t want her in any danger.”