“There,” he murmured, though his fingers lingered on the loose laces a moment longer, his thumbs skimming along the upper edges of the stays, ghosting against the fabric of her shift. Etta held herself completely still, too afraid to lean forward into the touch; too afraid to move, or do anything that might end it.
The dizziness was back. She felt the warm breath of his sigh fan against her collarbone, an instant before he stepped away. He kept his gaze down as he said, in a voice like warm honey, “Sailors. Good with knots.”
It wasn’t until he turned back around to let her finish that Etta’s mind cleared again enough to remember the scissors she’d taken and stowed in her bag, for this exact reason.
The dress he’d chosen fit her well enough, but Etta would have to make do with the lace-up leather boots she’d taken from Sophia, and just ignore their pinching until there was a better option. She reached up, touching her earrings to make sure they were still there.
“Okay,” she said, smoothing her hair back over her shoulder. “How’s this look?”
As he stared, she reminded herself very firmly that he was staring at the hideously bruised lump jutting out of one side of her face, and only the hideously bruised lump.
After a moment he said, “You’ll do, pirate. Now, tell me what your mother’s letter truly says.”
As he balled up the gown, rolling the fabric up into a tidier bundle, Etta retrieved the letter and pen that had rolled to the bottom of the bag. Using the wall, she sketched the outline of a star over the face of the letter, studying the flow of words that were contained inside of its shape. Nicholas stepped closer, reading over her shoulder. Around them, the morning was picking up in pace, bursting with voices and the smell of fire and gasoline; but they were tucked inside a quiet pocket, a passage of their own.
“Rise and enter the lair, where the darkness gives you your stripes. Tell tyrants, to you, their allegiance they owe,” Etta read, running a finger beneath the words within the star. “Seek out the unknown gods whose ears were deaf to lecture. Stand on the shoulders of memory. Bring a coin to the widowed queen. Remember, the truth is in the telling, and an ending must be final.”
“My God,” he said, with a hint of delight. “How did you know to do this?”
With as little explanation as possible, she told him about the secret messages her mother had hidden in her violin case, and in her suitcase when she traveled.
“She wanted you to be able to read it,” he said, practically glowing with excitement. “She thought that someday you might have to find the astrolabe. Do you understand any of the clues?”
Etta shook her head, scanning the words over and over again, wondering if she’d been wrong—if it was meant to be another shape. The words didn’t make any sense.
“If we assume this is a list of instructions, directions, then I believe we can ignore the first clue,” Nicholas said, taking the letter from her. “The second, Tell tyrants, to you, their allegiance they owe, refers to the place where Nathan Hale was killed—the passage we came through—meaning the next one is likely relevant to us now: Seek out the unknown gods whose ears were deaf to lecture. Does that stir anything in your memory?”
Helplessness tugged at her as she shook her head, and she felt her hope start to fray. How were they going to figure out multiple clues like this in seven days?
“What do ‘unknown gods’ have to do with London during the Second World War? Are they people? A certain faith? The last clue tied the location of the passage to one man’s death.” And the clue had used a song that her great-grandfather was fond of belting out now and then. Would this one relate to her family in a similar way—be as personal?
Something nagged at her as she thought back to the Dove, the Artillery Park, but she brushed it aside as Nicholas said, “Lecture…lecture, lecture, lecture…”
He spun toward her so quickly, he almost knocked her back a step. His eyes lit up, making the planes of his face seem almost boyish. “Is it possible it’s referring to St. Paul’s Areopagus sermon?”
Etta returned his eager expression with a blank one.
“Heathen!” Nicholas teased. “Acts 17:16–34. The Apostle Paul gave a sermon—a lecture, in fact, as it was against Greek law to preach about a foreign deity—in Athens, at the Areopagus.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
He chuckled, absently brushing a featherlight finger along her chin. He didn’t seem to realize he’d done it, but every inch of Etta’s skin was sparking with awareness.