Before I retire to bed, Balthazar calls me into the sitting room. He stands up as I enter and offers his hand as an invitation to sit, which I do, directly across from him. “A mesmerist’s power can be a strong force, Jessamine,” he begins. “The mysteries of one’s mind can be laid open and observed to great detriment.”
I don’t answer, only nod. He crosses his legs at the knee. “I am curious about your gift and would like to try an experiment.”
“Certainly,” I tell him.
“You have to trust me, though,” he says slyly. “Do you trust me, Jess?”
Quite frankly, I’m still not sure how I feel about Balthazar. Didn’t faeries steal young maidens in the stories—?never to be seen or heard from again?
The thought is unsettling. But he is a friend of Mother’s and Father’s, I tell myself. He would not harm me. Except for the spear at my throat. “Yes,” I say, nonetheless. “I trust you.”
He smiles and reaches inside his jacket. I tense for a moment, but he only withdraws a length of narrow black cloth. “I will bind this around your eyes so you cannot see. I will then ask you several questions. Does that meet with your approval?”
I nod.
He stands up and walks behind me, then places the cloth over my eyes and ties it at the back. Darkness. I hear his footsteps as he walks back to his side of the table. A match is struck. The acrid scent of sulfur fills my nostrils, then the waxy smell of tallow as a candle is lit.
“Is it too tight?” he asks.
I blink underneath the cloth. “No,” I answer.
What is he up to?
I hear a drawer sliding open and the clink and clatter of objects being placed on the table. “Jessamine,” he begins, “there are three things in front of you. I’m going to touch each one, and I want you to tell me what it is.”
I nod and let out a breath. The woodsy smell that surrounds Balthazar is stronger now, as if being sightless makes my other senses more keen.
“Now,” he says. “What am I touching?”
I breathe in and sense something hard in my mind’s eye, like an impenetrable wall or an ominous standing stone.
“A rock?” I venture.
Balthazar doesn’t answer, only says, “And this?”
Something soft and delicate, like a cloud or a pillow, appears in the darkness. I can almost feel it under my fingertips. “That’s a silk cloth.”
“Does it have a color?”
“Red,” I answer immediately.
I realize I can almost sense Balthazar smiling. All I have to do is concentrate, and the pictures come to me.
“And one more,” he urges.
This one brings a strange sensation, as if I am being watched. It roams over me, and I feel exposed, as if something is looking into my very soul. “An . . . eye?” I guess, although I have no idea how that can be possible.
Balthazar’s chair scrapes the floor, and I hear his footsteps as he comes to stand behind me again. He gently unties the knot of the blindfold and returns to his seat. I blink several times at the candlelight and then look at the objects on the table. There is a black stone—?that was the first object. The second is a small square of silk cloth with a pattern of red roses stitched into the fabric. I look down the length of the table again. “Where’s the other thing?” I ask. “The last one?”
Balthazar taps a long finger at the corner of his eye. “That was my eye,” he says. “For I will always be watching.”
I don’t know whether this is a reassuring thought or not.
“Looking into another’s mind is an invasion,” he tells me, “and can be a dangerous journey. The seeker opens herself up and is vulnerable to attack. One can become lost in another’s thoughts, as if in a maze, and never find her way out again. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I say, although I am thinking of something else. “My father. Tell me of him. You were . . . close?”
Balthazar seems taken aback, but then a sad smile forms on his face. This is not a question he expected, I would assume. “Alexander was a dear friend and colleague,” he says. “Brave, generous, and always the first to rush into battle.” His smile broadens a little, perhaps at the memory of better times.
“How did he die?”
He exhales a weary breath. “Mephisto laid a trap, with your mother as the quarry. I told Alexander to wait—?that we needed to think it through. But his love for her could not be swayed by logic. He rushed in too quickly, and there, he met his end.”
Anger wells up inside of me. “But he did not die in vain,” I insist, looking for solace. “He killed one of them. Malachai Grimstead. You said that he delivered the killing blow.”
“That is true, Jessamine. And soon after, Mephisto fled into the shadows.”
“Until now,” I say.
“Yes, my child. Until now.”
My left hand tightens into a fist. I think of the gentle father I knew, and see another side of him, that of a fierce warrior. Always the first to rush into battle.
“Already I can see his bravery in you, Jessamine,” Balthazar says. “And your mother’s.”
I unclench my fist. Yes, I think. I see it too.