Which meant I had to get to her room first.
With a muffled sob, I clutched my napkin to my eyes. “I’m…I’m sorry,” I burbled from behind the linen. “It’s just such a…such a shock! To think I believed Irene a friend…”
I let out an inconsolable wail and fled the table. “Let her go, the poor thing,” Mrs. Yagoda said, her words nearly drowned out by the clatter of my shoes on the stairs.
Once I was safely on the third floor, I lowered the napkin. My stomach complained of its emptiness, and I silently cursed Irene for costing me dinner. But if I’d waited, the other boarders would strip the room, and any chance at finding a clue to her disappearance would be lost.
Mrs. Yagoda had locked the door, no doubt in hopes of preventing us from stealing anything. Fortunately, Mr. Flaherty had once shown me how to pick the lock to Dr. Whyborne’s office with a hair pin, after Dr. Whyborne had wandered off to some distant storeroom with the key in his pocket and left me no way to retrieve his correspondence to mail. A quick application of his lesson, and I was inside.
I paused a moment, wondering where to start. The bed had been tidied, no doubt by the maid on Mrs. Yagoda’s orders, but otherwise nothing seemed to have been disturbed. The desk seemed a likely place, so I began with it.
Nothing, save for letters from Irene’s family. Only dust gathered beneath the bed. It seemed doubtful she’d hide anything under the mattress, since the maid would find it the next time she aired the bed. Irene’s pocketbook sat atop the dresser, but a quick look through it revealed only the things I’d expect any woman to have. I took it anyway; if Irene was found safe, I could return it to her. And if not, I still needed a replacement for the one ruined by the dead squid.
The only place remaining to look was the dresser. I began opening its drawers, running my hands underneath the frocks and underthings. My search disarranged them from their neat folds, but hopefully anyone else would assume the police had gone through the drawers.
My fingers encountered something hard at the very back of one drawer, buried beneath Irene’s stockings. I pulled it out, and discovered it to be an object just large enough to fit comfortably into the palm of my hand, wrapped in silk.
It couldn’t be.
There came the sound of footsteps on the stairs. I hastily shoved it into my pocket and shut the drawer. Moving as quickly as I could, I relocked her door behind me and let myself into my room.
As soft voices sounded from the room across the hall, speculating how to get past the locked door, I put the silk-wrapped object on my desk. Hands trembling, I pulled back the cloth, revealing the carved stone inside.
A summoning stone. Just like the one Persephone had given me.
Bile coated the back of my throat. The summoning stone had made me feel special. Set apart. It meant Persephone and I were friends. That she wanted to see me, even if she was a chieftess and I was just a secretary.
But it seemed I wasn’t so special after all.
So much for my stupid dreams of being kissed. No one was going to kiss me.
Persephone had never mentioned Irene to me. And Irene had never said anything about knowing the ketoi. Of course, I hadn’t either—if our positions were reversed, no doubt she would have been equally shocked to find a summoning stone in my possession.
It didn’t matter Persephone hadn’t mentioned Irene to me, or me to Irene. What mattered was that if Persephone knew Irene was missing, she’d want to help find her.
Mr. Quinn had been right. I had to ask the sea for help.
Chapter 4
I sat on the stairs until I was certain everyone else was abed. Of course, Mrs. Yagoda chose that night to gossip with one of the neighbors, and it was nearly midnight by the time I heard her close and lock the door. She rattled around the kitchen for a time, then finally retreated to her own room. I waited for another half hour, giving her enough time to fall asleep, before creeping down the stairs.
I went as quietly as I could. If Mrs. Yagoda caught me coming downstairs fully dressed at this hour, she’d know I meant to sneak out. She had very stringent ideas about the behavior of young ladies, and instituted a strict curfew. If she caught me breaking it, I’d be turned out for certain.
Her restrictions had never really bothered me before. Other boarders had come and gone, as they met beaus and got married. A few young men had asked me to dinner or the theater, but never the one I wanted, so I’d declined all invitations.
I wished I might take Persephone to dinner. Then again, given her mania for waffles, perhaps breakfast would be better. I tried to imagine her at a café, sipping coffee and eating waffles with her rows of shark’s teeth.