The light wavered, and then the woman turned a corner and the passageway fell into shadow. Beams of light filtered through small holes in the wall, and Esta went to one and peered through to find a private dining room. From the looks of it, the passage was lined with more openings, probably so the management could keep tabs on their patrons without their knowledge.
She peered through the next set of openings and found another room, this one filled with men smoking cigars and talking in voices amplified by alcohol and a sense of their own invincibility. Among them was the man who had assaulted her weeks ago, Charlie Murphy. His nose was still crooked, but the bruises on his face had healed. Not that it improved his looks any. She watched them, trying to follow the flow of their conversation. They were discussing some event—a gala to celebrate the spring equinox, from what she could understand. That was when it hit her—they were all members of the Order.
“It didn’t last long enough,” a bald man was arguing as he pounded on the surface of the table, causing the stemware to shake.
“Nearly a year,” another said.
“In the past it was more like a decade. The stones are dying.”
The stones?
“They aren’t dying,” the bald man insisted. “But I agree there’s something fundamentally wrong. I can’t believe it’s the artifacts themselves, though. Maybe there was a problem with the ritual?”
“I’d like to see you tell the Inner Circle that.” Murphy laughed. “More likely it’s a problem with the maggots we’ve been able to find. My father used to say the Irish were bad, but these newest arrivals? Dirty and uneducated, and don’t even get me started about the Jews and Catholics.”
“You’re probably right. What power could possibly be derived from rabble like that? I’ll tell you what needs to happen—”
A waiter entered carrying trays of food, and the men seemed to take it as a signal to change the topic. Dolph had talked about people going missing. She wondered if this was connected to it in some way.
The end of the hallway beckoned as the server made a show of carving the roast. In his presence, the men turned their conversation to mundane topics. Sports and stocks and the damnable traffic that was growing every day. Anything but magic.
Esta was growing impatient. Too much time had passed already. If she was going to get Dakari’s knife, she had to go now. If only she could use her affinity . . . If she could slow time, she could be done in a blink. But she couldn’t chance that. She had to make a choice. Did she go for the knife or stay and see what more she could discover? Dakari or Dolph’s crew? Her own past or her new present? There wasn’t time for both.
She had one job—to get the Book and to get home. Nothing was more important than that, not even Dakari. But the men on the other side of the wall were talking like there was a problem, like the Order had a weakness. Which was a fact that could only help them. Dolph and Professor Lachlan—all the Mageus.
Dakari would understand.
She peered through the openings and listened again, but before she could catch the thread of their conversation, she heard a familiar voice.
“What are you doing here?” Bridget Malone was suddenly there, next to her in the darkness, and looking none too happy to see her.
A TRAP IN A TRAP
Harte glanced over the dance floor below, looking for some sign of Esta’s return. She’d been gone too long. Had she run into trouble? Or was she up to something?
“So tell me, Darrigan, how did you really meet the lovely Miss Filosik?” Jack tipped what was left of the bottle into his glass. The champagne fizzed and foamed over the edge of the bowl, dampening the white cloth on the table. “Are you and she . . . ?” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“We’ve been friends since we were children,” Harte said, leaving his answer open enough for Jack to make his own assumptions.
“Really?” Jack smirked.
“Yes. Believe it or not, the story I told onstage was true. I know Esta from my travels abroad. Her father was one of my first teachers. Perhaps you’ve heard of him . . . Baron von Filosik?”
Jack’s face bunched, and Harte could practically see his alcohol-soaked mind trying to place where he’d heard that name. It took a moment, but then Jack’s bleary eyes widened a fraction. “Not the Baron Franz von Filosik?”
“The same,” Harte said easily, relieved that Jack had finally made the first step toward entering his little game.
“You knew the baron?” Jack asked.
He pretended he didn’t notice Jack’s surprise. “I was lucky enough to have lived with the baron when I was just beginning my quest for knowledge about the mysteries of the elemental states. He saw some talent in me and admired my drive to understand the secrets of the occult arts. It was he who directed me to the Far East and provided me with the introductions I needed to finish my studies. This was all before his untimely death, of course.”
Jack frowned, puzzled. “I didn’t know he had any family.”
“Few did. Franz never married Esta’s mother. It’s maybe the only thing that saved her when his estate burned to the ground. I’m sure you’ve heard about that, the great tragedy it was. All of his breakthroughs were lost. His vast knowledge, gone.”
“It probably set us back fifty years, maybe more,” Jack agreed.
Harte leaned forward, his voice low. “Except, I don’t think everything was destroyed.”
Jack’s brows went up, and even though his eyes were barely focusing, Harte saw interest in them. He could practically feel Jack’s willingness to be convinced, to believe. It wouldn’t take much more to push him the rest of the way.
“Esta has a trunk she keeps under lock and key. Won’t tell me what’s in it, won’t let me see what it contains.” Harte glanced to the left and right, making sure it looked like he was worried about being overheard. He lowered his voice. “I think it might be some of her father’s papers.”
“You don’t say?”
Harte nodded. “You know what he was working on when he died, don’t you?”
Jack looked momentarily thrown off. “Oh, yes. Wasn’t it the . . . ?” He hesitated. “The, um . . .” He snapped his fingers, as though the words were on the tip of his tongue.
“The transmutation of basic elements,” Harte supplied helpfully.
“Of course,” Jack agreed. Then he blinked through his alcoholic haze like someone just surfacing from sleep. “You’re not saying he created the philosopher’s stone?”
“Rumor had it that the good baron was very close to a breakthrough.” Harte leaned forward. “In his last letters to me, he hinted that he’d been successful at isolating quintessence—”
“Aether?” Jack whispered, excitement clear despite the glassiness of his eyes.
Harte nodded. “But he died before he could answer any of my questions or tell me anything more.”
“Right,” Jack agreed. “Terrible tragedy.”
“It was.” Harte hesitated, like he wasn’t sure if he should share a secret. “More so if, as Esta believes, his death wasn’t the accident it appeared to be.”
Jack blinked. “She believes it was foul play?”