As young as she had been and with the family she came from, she’d risked her life leaving their house, and she’d risked everything else in trading her loyalty to him for protection. Not that she had trusted him enough to tell him everything that had happened. But he’d found out on his own. He always did.
Still, he’d never forget the day ?Viola arrived at the Strega, her lip split and crusted over, the skin around her left eye as purple as the iris. She’d walked through the saloon doors with her chin up, her shoulders back, and had promised him that she would do anything he asked of her if he would keep her family from dragging her back. Because if they tried, she would kill them rather than live under their control, and she didn’t know if she could live with that.
Viola had kept her promise to him for more than three years now, and he’d come to depend on her. Come to almost enjoy her flashes of temper and to respect her intractable will. But he didn’t have the patience for any of it that night.
Viola was silent at first as she took the seat opposite. Then, after a thoughtful moment, she leaned forward and spoke in low, halting tones. “We could wait awhile, you know. There’s no reason to rush. Or we could do as Jianyu suggested and only take the art. It would be enough to embarrass Morgan without risking everyone to a green girl we still don’t know.”
Any other time, Viola’s point would have been well taken. Usually, he’d spend months watching and waiting before he’d even consider taking someone new into his confidence. But this time . . .
“We can’t wait.” He’d been searching for answers for too long now, and he was still missing an important piece of the puzzle. He pushed a sheet of paper that held a list of names.
“What’s this?”
“More have gone missing.”
Viola studied the list, her eyes squinting and her mouth moving soundlessly as she tried to make out the names. “People always go miss—” She stopped short and looked up at him in surprise. “Krzysztof Zeranski?”
Dolph nodded. The city had a tendency to swallow the weak, but Mageus with stronger affinities, like Krzysztof, were usually better at avoiding that fate. Lately, though, it seemed that some of the most talented—and most powerful—were disappearing again, exactly as they had last year. “He helped with a fire on Hester Street last week. It’s possible he was seen.”
Viola handed him back the list. “What does this have to do with the job at the Metropolitan?”
“The Order is up to something. Look at that list, Viola. Krzysztof has a talent for calling to water. Eidelman grows nearly impossible blooms at his flower shop over near Washington Square, and anyone knows you talk to Frieda Weber if you want the sun to shine on your wedding day. They all could be confused for elementals.”
Viola shook her head. “But they’re not. Water, air, earth—they all are part of one another. To call to one is to call on the very core of magic itself.”
“I know that and you know that. Hell, every Mageus was born with that knowledge deep in their bones, but the Order and their like—people who’ve never felt the call to connect with the world around them—fall back on the myth that you can separate the parts of magic to make it more manageable. Look at the Brink itself—as though you can separate the affinity from the Mageus without damaging both? It’s impossible. No Mageus can fully recover from what it does to them, and every time one of our rank is laid low by it, magic as a whole is weakened.
“Maybe I’m wrong about this. Maybe I’m seeing patterns that aren’t there, but I don’t think so. This happened before, when we lost Leena. These names suggest that it’s starting again. I can’t ignore that fact, just as I can’t forget that every day we wait is a day closer to the Conclave. They’re planning something—something bigger than we’ve seen before—and we’re running out of time to figure out what it is. ?We need the Ars Arcana.”
“This is about the Book again?” she asked, clearly irritated.
“It is,” he said.
“You really think a simple book is so important?”
“Leena never would have sacrificed herself for a simple book, Viola. Not unless it was exactly that important. I trusted her in life, and I’ll trust her in this. I’m convinced the Order has the Ars Arcana, and I’m convinced we need it to beat them.”
Viola’s violet eyes were still unsure. “If we were truly brave, we could take on the Order without worrying about some stupid book. What chance could they stand against us? Conigli, all of us, for not fighting them.”
Dolph shook his head. “Maybe once that would have been true, but now? Magic is dying, and it has been for some time. Away from the old countries, every generation forgets a little more. You’ve seen it yourself, haven’t you? How each generation is a little weaker than the one before it. Maybe one hundred—even fifty—years ago, we might have stood a chance, but I wouldn’t risk a stand now. No one with any sense would.”
“So we wait until we’re ready. We build our power,” she argued. “We could take our time, chip away at the Order’s power until they’re weak enough to defeat.”
“You don’t understand. . . .” He leaned forward a bit. “What I’m trying to do is about more than simply bringing down the Order. If I’m right about the Ars Arcana, it contains the very secrets of magic itself.”
“We have the secrets of magic.” She tapped her chest. “It flows in our very blood.”
“True, but we’ve forgotten. We could be so much more. The Order wouldn’t be able to stop any Mageus from fulfilling their destiny ever again. We could make this whole country a haven for our kind.” When she continued frowning, he pressed on. “This has become bigger than me, bigger than what I lost when the Order took Leena from me.”
“What does any of this have to do with the museum? The Book isn’t there.”
“The Morgan exhibit has pieces I need to examine,” he said, sliding the exhibition program toward her. Jianyu had managed to lift one from the printer where it was being made, so Dolph knew exactly what Morgan had. He knew exactly what he needed.
She glanced up at him, a question in her eyes.
“Getting into Khafre Hall won’t be enough—the Order will have the Mysterium protected by more than a locked door. I’m expecting something like what they kept Leena in before they killed her—something that would hurt any Mageus who tried to come close. We’ll need to break through that protection,” he said, taking the program back from her and pointing to one entry in particular. “I think this might work.”
She studied the entry doubtfully. “Morgan wouldn’t put anything so dangerous—so important—on display,” she challenged.
“He might if he didn’t realize what he had,” Dolph argued.
“You can’t know that for sure.”
No, of course he didn’t know for sure. But it wasn’t as though he could simply walk into the museum and examine the piece himself without raising suspicions. “I know enough, and Nibs is optimistic.”
Viola studied him with narrowed eyes. “No . . . There’s something more. Something you’re not telling us.”
“If I’m not telling you, then it’s not your business to know,” Dolph said, his impatience seeping into his words.