“With protection?”
She sighed, obviously irritated. There was the Edith he knew.
“If you want protection,” he said, “let me go with you. I know this world better. I can help you stay out of trouble.”
“This is my investigation,” Edith said briskly. “I will see it through myself. If I were facing an ordinary enemy, I would have a pistol. But I’m not.”
Gabe slouched back in his chair. “Is that what you want? A magic gun?”
“Does such a thing exist?”
Gabe laughed, one harsh bark before he saw the fire in her expression and shut himself up. “I can give you some protective charms,” he offered.
“Charms,” she said, rolling the word around.
“Yeah. Little premade things. You activate them, usually by snapping them in half, and the magic will work for anybody. No training required. “I’ll pick them up from Bar Vodnář and have them for you by this afternoon.” He paused. “Edith, you should let me help you. This—this magic stuff is a lot more complicated—”
“This afternoon would be fine for the charms, Mr. Pritchard. Thank you.” Edith stood up and swept out of the quiet room, leaving Gabe alone with his cooling coffee.
He’d get her the charms. But he wasn’t just going to throw her to the waiting jaws of the Flame, either. Wouldn’t be fair. Wouldn’t be right.
Gabe sighed, drained the last of his coffee, and started thinking about the best way to tail Edith Lowell.
• • •
Edith opened her purse and peered down at the charms Gabe had brought her—after lunch, as promised. They reminded her, unsettlingly, of the mobile she had found at the safe house. Bits of shaved wood wound around with twine, a bundle of dried flowers encased in a cage of copper wire. A jar filled with sand and flecks of silver.
Gabe had explained, quickly, how to work each charm, explained to her that the two bundles were ways to deflect magical attacks, and the jar, once its contents were emptied, would help keep her out of sight. “Invisibility?” she’d asked, feeling absurd, but Gabe had shaken his head.
“No. It will just—make people look past you.”
Like what had happened to her that night at the bar, when her eyes watered and her head pulsed if she tried to look at Sasha and the tall man. God, Langley would kill to get their hands on something like that, wouldn’t they? She wondered why Gabe hadn’t gone straight to his superiors with all this magical intel. But then, she knew why. They would have had him committed. She would have done it herself, had she not seen the power of magic firsthand.
Her phone rang, trilling into her thoughts. She shoved her purse back into her desk drawer and answered with a brisk “Lowell, here.”
“Ah, Miss Lowell.” The accented voice on the other end sent a shiver of anticipation down her spine. It was Izák, from the Prague records office. “I have your information.”
“Yes, wonderful. Thank you.” Edith picked up a pen. “And?”
“Our records show that the property belongs to a woman named Anastázie Dvořáková. We don’t have much information on her, but our birth records show she was born here in Prague, in 1936. I can of course send the file over to your offices.”
Edith stared down at the name, written in the soft loops of her own impeccable cursive, trying to latch on to a connection. Nothing.
“That would be excellent, thank you.”
“You’re most welcome, Miss Lowell. We’re always keen to help the authorities when we can.”
Was that a hint of sarcasm? Edith didn’t care—she had bigger concerns. She hung up the phone and ripped the sheet of paper away from the pad. Anastázie Dvořáková.
The first thing she needed to do was to check the name against the list of suspected KGB operatives working in Prague. Sasha’s apparent connection to all of this would demand it, if nothing else. She called up Frank’s secretary and asked her to bring the list of suspected intel officers over to her desk. It was a start.
But fifteen minutes later, she was no further from ‘nothing’ than when she began.
Of course it wouldn’t be that easy, Edith knew that, but it hadn’t kept her from hoping. She recorded the names from the list that had the initials A. D.—forty-three total—and set them aside to look at later. Then she set to work scribbling out potential anagrams. Tzarina. Avian. Anorak. All nonsense. Nothing that even remotely looked like a name that would appear in the roster of potential spies.
She was hunched over her desk, spelling out another worthless anagram, when she heard the sound of a throat clearing. She looked up, her mind still whirring, to see Joshua Toms standing by her desk.
“What are you doing?” Josh’s eyes settled on the stack of discarded slips of notepaper, the scratched-out writing, the letters swirling together into a confusing muddle.
“I’m working on my investigation,” she said. “This is the closet I’ve come to a lead.” She had not told Josh about the safe house. If she was going to follow this through line, she wanted to do it as independently as possible. The fewer officers embroiled in this magical conspiracy, the better for everyone at Langley.
Keep it simple. Keep it direct. Find out what happened to Dom, and then move on.
“Anastázie Dvořáková?” Josh said. He frowned, a line forming between his brows. “That name sounds familiar to me.”
Edith’s heart leapt in her chest, but she sat unmoving. “Oh?” she said. “She’s not on the list of suspected officers.”
“No.” Josh shook his head, his frown deepening. “That’s not where I heard it. Do you think this person had something to do with Dom’s disappearance?”
“I don’t know,” Edith said carefully. She knew that Josh was aware of the magic, but she still didn’t want to drag him into the strangeness of this investigation. Even after what happened at the docks, she didn’t want to tell him about the safe house with the lock that sent energy shimmering through her fingertips, with the pieces of scrap metal hanging from the branches of a tree in the yard. “Perhaps.”
“Anastázie,” Josh said, drawing the name out, like he was tasting it. “Maybe look into some of the names of guests at the embassy parties. I feel like I’ve seen it there, somehow. Like it’s something…” He waved his hand around. “… more up and up, if that makes sense. Not a spy.”
Not a spy. Hmm. It wouldn’t have to be, would it? Not if magic was involved. Edith nodded. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll do that. Now, can I help you with something?”
Josh blinked, looking vaguely surprised. “Oh! No, no, I was just passing by on my way to the break room. I’ve always liked puzzles, so.” He shrugged. “Let me know if you need anything else from me.”
Edith nodded. The party guest lists. It was a good idea. She put in a request with one of the secretaries and then turned back to the anagrams, just in case. It wasn’t long before the lists arrived; the secretary dropped the files in a messy pile on Edith’s desk. Edith didn’t waste any time before flipping through them, eyes scanning up and down the litany of names for the elusive Anastázie Dvořáková. She scanned and flipped, over and over again, until her eyes and neck and back all started to ache. Nothing. Maybe it was pointless; maybe Josh had misremembered. Or deliberately given her false information, although she doubted that. There was nothing in his history to suggest he would mislead her investigation.
But then…
The name leapt out at her, and she snatched up the paper and squinted at it, holding her breath. An Anastázie Dvořáková had attended one of Zerena Pulnoc’s parties, not two weeks ago. As the plus one of an invited guest, it seemed. Edith glanced over to the invited guest, half-expecting to see Sasha Komyetski’s name spelled out in black and white.
But it wasn’t Sasha. It wasn’t a KGB officer at all. It was, in fact, a man that Edith knew, with whom she had worked, on not one or two but several occasions, when Langley sent her into Europe to liaise with the NATO offices there.
Lieutenant General Daniel Car
twright. The Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.
• • •
Josh ducked into the restroom, his chest tight. He’d managed to keep his cool in front of Edith—no small feat, to be sure—but he didn’t think he could face the secretaries lounging in the break room.
Anastázie Dvořáková. Not a spy, he was certain of that, and yet she was connected to Dom’s disappearance somehow. The things he had seen the night of the dock, the things Alestair had done—he hadn’t really let himself think about them. And yet, hearing an ordinary name—a seemingly ordinary name—in connection with Edith’s investigation had sparked something he hadn’t fully allowed himself to admit inside his head.
Magic was real.
Alestair knew it. Gabe knew it. Those Russian officers, Tanya and Nadia—they knew it too. They were involved with it.
And they were apparently all on the same side. Alestair was no traitor. Josh knew that. He realized now Gabe wasn’t either. That conversation he had heard last winter, Gabe and Tanya sitting together in Jordan’s bar, muttering in a strange code. Ice and Flame.
Anastázie Dvořáková. Not a spy. But not exactly an ordinary citizen either.
Josh gasped and gripped the sides of the sink. His head spun. This wasn’t about East and West, he realized, his thoughts thrumming hard. There were other conflicts in the world. Conflicts he couldn’t even begin to imagine.
5.
Lieutenant General Cartwright was still in town. And, moreover, he was going to a party tonight.
It had been two days since Edith found the list that linked Cartwright with Anastázie Dvořáková, and she had been searching furiously in that time, asking the right questions in the most disarming version of her Brahmin accent she could muster, knowing full well that it would smother any suspicion of her. People had been dismissing her as a creature of privilege for years; she’d learned early on how to spin it to her advantage.
The party was at the French ambassador’s house, which meant Edith had a good two- or three-hour window to make her way to Cartwright’s hotel room in the center of Prague before he returned. She prepared in the small, cramped bedroom of her apartment, pulling on a frumpy, forgettable outfit that would have eyes passing over her as easily as Gabe’s invisibility charm. Or not-quite-invisibility charm, as the case may be. She refused to believe that old-fashioned tradecraft had no place in this world of magic and sorcery.
Still, she tucked the three charms in her bag. Just in case.
It was dark when she set out, driving to the hotel and then parking three blocks away. She took a circuitous route to the hotel as well, toddling along in her comfortable shoes, a cheap cardigan thrown loosely around her shoulders, a scarf tied around her hair as if she were some forgotten babushka. The only difference was that she carried a gun in her oversized bag, and she knew how to shoot it.
The Lieutenant General had been put up at the Grand Hotel Praha—in town, it seemed, for a routine arms inspection. At least, that was his story. Edith threaded her way through the half-empty lobby and rode the elevator to the twelfth floor. It had been easy enough to get Cartwright’s room number. All she had to do was call down to Langley. She only hoped her questioning hadn’t gotten back to him somehow.
Edith stopped outside number 1293. Silence inside, just as she’d expected. Cartwright was well mannered enough to always arrive not-quite-fashionably-late to any party. She knew that much about him.
She picked the lock and slid the door open. The small room was dark, and there didn’t appear to be any traps in the vicinity. She stepped inside, eased the door shut behind her. The maids had clearly been by already; the sheets on the bed were turned down in anticipation of Cartwright’s return. Edith reached into her bag and pulled out the bundle of dried flowers and the gun, and then she moved over to the desk, arranged with the detritus of Cartwright’s routine, pens and a typewriter and files stacked neatly beside a desk lamp. Edith began to search.
• • •
Gabe watched Edith enter the hotel from the vantage point of his borrowed car. An extra precaution, really—he’d used the same sand-and-aluminum charm he’d given her to hide himself. It worked, too, as far as he could tell. Which was a relief, as magic was the only way he was going to pull something over her.
Once Edith was inside, Gabe stepped out of the car and strolled up to the entrance. The hitchhiker stirred a little, and if Gabe concentrated he could feel the faint humming of some kind of magical energy on the air. But he couldn’t pinpoint it, not exactly. He wasn’t sure if it was even coming from the hotel at all.
He entered the lobby. The lights were bright and syrupy, and in that wash of sudden incandescence he felt the charm shudder, then swell, wrapping around him to keep him on the edge of people’s perceptions. Edith was over at the elevators, just as he expected. The doors slid open. Edith stepped in. Gabe moved closer. Beyond the soft blanket of his protection charm he could still feel that faint thrum of magic. He watched the pointer on the elevator move to number twelve and stop. He pressed the call button and waited—for the elevator, but also for that magic to explode with malevolent power. He waited for Edith to be trapped inside it.
Nothing happened. The elevator chimed. He rode up to the twelfth floor, and found it empty.
He made his way down the hall, sending the hitchhiker out, trying to sense the source of that strange energy. Did it feel stronger up here? He couldn’t tell. It was still so faint. Edith wasn’t in the middle of a magical firefight. At least not yet.
• • •
Edith flipped through the files on the desk, reading as quickly as she could in the near-dark. All of it was official paperwork, the sort of thing she would expect to find. Nothing damning, of course. Cartwright wasn’t a fool, as much as she might have hoped otherwise. She opened up the first drawer. Empty save for some pens, loose paperclips, a menu for the bar downstairs. She opened the second drawer.
It contained a lockbox.
Interesting. Edith took it out and set it on the desk. A bit dinged up and rusted, with no actual lock on the latch. But scratched into the metal was a scribble of runes. The same ones she’d seen on the door at the safe house.
Immediately, Edith picked up the bundle of flowers from where she’d left it on the desk. She had no idea if this would work, but Gabe had said the charm would combat magical attacks. She took a deep breath and held the flowers over the box. She felt self-conscious and absurd, but still, she snapped the bundle in half. A scent that reminded her of her grandmother’s house wafted on the air. She thought she heard a chiming from far away. The latch on the box glowed, covering the desk with a pale white light—
And then the light faded, and the box was dull again. Cautiously, Edith reached out with one hand and unhooked the latch.
Nothing happened. No sparks of energy like the safe house door. Just an unlocked, unsecured lockbox.
She flipped open the lid.
The box was filled mostly with papers—assorted documentation, from the looks of it. She thumbed through the papers. Most of it was nonsense to her. Half of it wasn’t in English, or in any other language she recognized.
At the bottom was a map.
A map of Europe, in fact, with a red ink circle around Prague. Someone had drawn a line from Prague to a spot in West Germany, right along the French border, then another line leading off the edge of the page. On to Washington, she assumed.
Edith’s heart fluttered.
Below that was a third line, done in blue ink, which traced a path she had memorized before ever coming to Prague. It was the path that Dom Alvarez’s plane was supposed to have taken when he escorted Maksim Sokolov—but hadn’t.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed. Realization rolled over her like a sickness. “Oh, my God.”
The room spun. Edith pressed her hand against the desk, not tearing her eyes off that map. No wonder his plane had exploded where it had. He had been planning to stop in West Germany.
She didn’t know why. She
didn’t know, exactly, what this meant. She only knew that she had uncovered something she wasn’t supposed to. She quickly folded the map and shoved it in her bag. Blood pumped in her ears as she strode from the room. Her face was hot. She did not let herself stop moving, just slipped out of the room and into the hallway and down the elevator. The map seemed to smolder in her bag. She had to find a safe place for it. Not her apartment. Not the office, either. Not if Cartwright was somehow involved. This could be a conspiracy bigger than anything she’d imagined when she’d first touched down in Prague.
She was out on the street in front of the hotel when it came to her. Bar Vodnář. Gabe trusted that woman, Jordan. In this moment he was the only one she felt with any certainty wasn’t involved with Cartwright. She couldn’t deny Gabe had been nothing but honest with her since his secret had been revealed.
She forced herself to stay calm, to walk out to her car as if nothing had happened. When she turned over the engine, she didn’t allow herself to go too fast, despite the pounding of her heart, the urgency in her breath. It took twenty minutes to arrive at Bar Vodnář, the neon sign glowing like the North Star in the darkness. She parked, pulled the scarf off her hair with trembling hands. Gathered her bag and went in.
The place was almost empty, just Jordan behind the bar and a couple of intelligence types lounging in one of the booths in the corner. Jordan peered up when Edith came inside and seemed to look straight through her. Edith squeezed the strap of her bag and walked up to the bar.
“Whiskey,” she said.
Jordan studied her for a moment. “Did those items Gabe got for you work out? Need more?”
Edith smiled. “I just want a drink. Thank you.”
Jordan nodded, then mercifully turned away. Edith let out a breath. She quickly examined the two men sitting in the booth. They ignored her. Too deep in conversation.
Jordan brought the whiskey over. Edith slid her payment across the bar, then walked over to an empty table near the jukebox. No music was playing.
What the hell was she going to do with the map?
She touched the whiskey to her lips, her swallow a pantomime, and leaned back in her chair, stretching her legs out in front of her. The jukebox’s lights flashed in the corner of her vision. She glanced at it. Took another fake sip.
The Witch Who Came In From The Cold: The Complete Season 2: The Complete Season 2 (The Witch Who Came In From The Cold Season 2) Page 38
