I stiffen for an instant and then allow him to usher me forward. Aside from being a fighter, Peter must also be an incredible actor. It’s the only way he could have managed to blend in with human beings for this long.
I smooth my dress for the hundredth time, the weight of a pearl bracelet tugging at my wrist. Batuo’s tool roll is stuffed into a sparkling clutch purse, tucked under my sweating armpit.
Peter and I have just had the most efficient shopping spree imaginable.
A limousine driver, unseen behind a tinted divider window, picked us up at a private airport and drove us straight into London. The car took an unmarked road leading directly beneath Harrods department store. Through a plain door in a blank concrete wall, we entered a wonderland of smiling salespeople.
After five minutes, I realized we were the only customers.
Careening between departments, it finally began to sink in that a race of automatons has been living alongside us for centuries—all the while creating a new, unimaginable level of wealth. With a quick phone call, Peter requested the luxurious department store be emptied just so we could shop in total privacy.
How utterly sickening. And what guilty fun.
I began to understand why the store had complied when Peter led us to the jewelry boutique. Inside, he began picking out pieces with disinterested efficiency. Necklace, earrings, rings—a blur of attendants in orbit around us, bearing velvet cushions loaded with fat, glittering gems embedded in precious metals. Each new piece reminded me of an exotic, dead insect displayed on a pushpin.
Meanwhile, Peter seemed to be speaking in code with the attendants.
“Kashmir?” he asked, peering down at a teardrop sapphire. The attendant nodded and Peter motioned for them to wrap it up.
“These have been in style since Shakespeare was playing the Globe,” Peter said, examining a gem-encrusted brooch in the shape of a curved feather.
He meant it literally.
After forty-five minutes, Peter and I were in new clothes, our hair hastily styled and both of us languishing under a cloud of perfume. An ungodly amount of money had changed hands and my collarbones were chafing under a diamond necklace that came with its own name and a handwritten list of previous owners.
The jewelry is pretty, but it gives me satisfaction to think that the most valuable piece is still Huangdi’s relic—hidden in the clutch purse, pinned tight under my arm.
Now Peter and I are walking together under a stone archway, husband and wife, my heels echoing off the flagstones. It’s a long, wide tunnel, ending in a crescent of sunlight ahead, serving as the entrance to some kind of elite, girls-only preparatory school, though there is no signage of any kind. We entered on a quiet, leafy street, with a nondescript man in a black suit watching us, speaking into a collar microphone.
Beside me, Peter is dapper and somehow not terrifying despite his size. He wears a charcoal suit prepared by a little old man who claimed to be his personal tailor.
“How do you hide all this money?”
Peter keeps facing forward, answering in a low voice. “Art, mostly,” he says. “Humanity is remarkably narcissistic. You have always valued your own creations above all else.”
Peter takes a few more steps, then glances at me.
“Of course, I collect plenty of precious metals, too.”
“Of course,” I parrot.
But Peter is already breaking into a winning smile and striding forward with one hand out. A portly silhouette has appeared in the archway before us—a small, pinch-faced woman wearing a neat blazer with a small silver phoenix on the lapel. She is compact in size but intimidating, clutching a clipboard like a shield. Smiling at Peter, she shows no teeth, just a slight rise of her strawberry blonde eyebrows.
“Welcome to Whybourne College,” the woman says, shaking hands with Peter. “I’m headmistress Timms.”
Gesturing, she directs us to follow her toward an open, grassy quad that must occupy a city block, hemmed in by the slate walls of school buildings. We continue along the gleaming flagstone walkway, ambling around the perimeter of the quad, passing walls lined with class photos. Each image is mounted in an elaborate wooden frame, displaying a class of thirty or forty girls wearing matching uniforms, posed but never smiling.
The first photo is dated 1848.
The headmistress walks ahead of us, her voice booming off the walls, heels clicking on polished stone. I scan the faces of every adult I see, but I don’t even know who I’m looking for.
I tune back into the headmistress when she stops and turns to us.
“Despite regularly achieving superior test scores,” she says, “Whybourne is not driven by a one-dimensional hunt for academic glory. We are focused instead on developing the spirit, values, and logical thinking of our pupils. As they leave us and enter the world, our young ladies will continue to represent the college for the rest of their lives. Many of our Whybourne families go back generations. My own family has been employed here for more than two hundred years, starting with my ancestor Georgie Timms.”
At that, she turns and continues walking. Giving her a few feet, I jab Peter in the ribs with an elbow.
“Where is she?” I ask.
Peter is walking slowly, hands clasped behind his back with his eyes trained on the photos. I jab him again and he turns to me.
“Near,” he whispers.
Quietly, he plants a finger on a class photo, next to the round face of a little girl with curly black hair. “Here, for instance,” he says.
The photo is from 1898.
Continuing to walk, he taps his finger on more pictures. “Here,” he says. “And here. Her appearance changes a little. She has made herself a bit older.”
1902. 1928. 1951.
Each face he points to is slightly different, but across the photos she is clearly the same dark-eyed girl.
“She’s a kid?” I whisper.
“Sorry?” asks the headmistress, turning and stopping her informative monologue.
“Nothing,” I say. “How charming.”
“Yes, well,” she says. “Follow me, please.”
The headmistress guides us out across the grassy courtyard, still damp from a recent rain. It’s a vast expanse, green and flat, and I hear the sharp calls of girls playing field hockey in the distance. Wearing helmets and brightly colored uniforms, the players chase one another on a rectangular field, fighting for the ball.
“As you can see,” says the headmistress, “we instill quite a competitive spirit in our girls.”
She looks at us expectantly.
“Uh, yeah,” I say. “Wonderful.”
“Yes,” she continues. “It’s our tradition, passed down as a founding principle since our inception in the mid-seventeen-hundreds. Look there.”
The headmistress points to a pathetically small two-story wooden building. Made of rough timber and crumbling stucco, crawling with ivy, it has nonetheless been perfectly restored, squatting near a meandering cobblestoned pathway. Even the stones look several hundred years old, meticulously maintained.