by Bec McMaster
"Wouldn't miss it," he replied, and followed the pair of them into the darkened bowels of backstage to Cross's private rooms.
"Well?" Cross asked, pouring them all a finger of whiskey once they arrived. "What brings you to my door?"
"Bad tidings, unfortunately," Miss Martin said, tossing her pretty hat on a chair and turning serious as she accepted the glass he offered.
"Whiskey?" Cross challenged, and Lucien accepted the glass, sniffing at the amber liquid as he surveyed the room with all its various accouterments.
There was a sarcophagus shaped item in the corner, painted to resemble an artifact from ancient Egypt. Lucien crossed toward it, the gaslight lengthening his shadow so it loomed over the wall. A pile of artifact lay dusty on the shelves—a small mini portrait of a man in Tudor fashions, a set of gemstones, and a coiled snake that almost seemed to watch him—
"Don't touch it."
Lucien froze, violence notching each muscle in his outstretched arm as he met Cross's stare. Something about the man rubbed him the wrong way.
"Don't touch anything," Cross added, pouring himself another dram, his fingers wrapped around the neck of the bottle. "You never know what might bite you."
Lucien looked at the lifeless statue of a cobra, which he'd been about to touch. Oriental scrawling's tattooed its skin in black ink. Or what he hoped was ink. As he stared at it, he almost felt like it moved, the jewel in the center of its forehead shimmering.
"There's sorcery here," he said, tucking his hands into his trouser pockets, as if of his own accord. "Though it's foreign to me."
"It's Hindu magic. That of the Nagi," Cross explained, sounding as if he was settling in for a lecture. "Used to protect against the rakshasa."
"Indian demon spirits."
"In a simplistic version, yes." Cross set the glass to his lips, his eyes glittering. "I consider myself somewhat of a collector of relics and artifacts."
"Which is precisely why I came to you," Ianthe cut in, before he could elaborate. "I need to know, if a particular relic went missing, who might have taken it? Or commissioned the theft? You belong to the Dark discipline. You should know."
"I haven't been a part of that Order mess for years," Cross snorted, though his interest looked piqued. "Which relic?"
She stayed silent.
Cross scowled. "It would highly depend on the relic, but if it's something that tends toward the darker studies, I'd say Magnus Cochrane, Lord Tremayne, Lady Hester Lambert, and the not-so-Honorable Mr. Elijah Horroway. If you're simply after information, I'd direct you to talk to Lady Eberhardt first, however. Tickle the tiger's chin before you stick your neck in a snake pit. She has an unsurpassed collection, apparently, and might know who to deal with, though if it's on the black market, Cochrane's your next best bet."
Lady Eberhardt. Even Lucien arched a brow. Tickling the tiger's chin was putting it mildly. There were a few people in the order whom he wouldn't cross, and Eberhardt's name was on that list. But still... "I thought Horroway was dead."
"Some say he is. He studies the Gravest of Arts, does he not?"
A pun, the likes of which apprentices uttered. There were three disciplines within the Order; Light, Dark, and Grey. The Light discipline was primarily inhabited by healers, astronomers, and diviners. Lucien's natural affinity was for the Light, thanks to his divining talents, whilst the Grey was Ianthe's discipline, as indicated by the chip of hematite in her rings. It also held the most practitioners of any category, considering the broad spectrum of their talents. Being of the Dark did not automatically mean that one was inclined to mischief, but Luc privately thought most of the Dark adepts pushed the boundaries of that. The Dark was where you found those who sought power beyond their own, and they were often the strongest sorcerers, though not always. The darkest of all arts was necromancy, and the Prime had been forced to set certain policies in place regarding the use of Grave Magic.
Necromancers were rarely stable, at best, nor did they own the purest of motives, and Elijah Horroway was the strongest necromancer around.
"I thought it was impossible to defeat Death," Lucien said.
"Some still try." An indecipherable look penetrated Cross's gaze. "It is an inescapable truth, that where a man is tempted by power and mysteries, he will always try to halt Death."
"And it never works out well," Miss Martin muttered. "One is not intended to live forever."
Both she and Cross exchanged a look.
"No. It doesn't." Cross tipped his head to her. "So a relic has gone missing, and Drake has sent his right hand scurrying after it. Which one is it? The Circlet of the Dawn Star? The Pentacle of Merlin? The Blade of Altarrh—" Some expression must have given her away. "That's it. That's the one, isn't it?"
"Remy," Miss Martin warned.
Ignoring them as they bickered, Lucien glanced at the miniature portrait again. There was something familiar about it. Nothing tingled when he reached toward it, and frowning, he blew the dust from it.
He was right.
Remington Cross looked back at him, but Luc's psychometric abilities were tingling, plunging him back through images of wet paint and an Italian estate, fat grapes, a painter dressed in renaissance dress as he licked the brush, a pretty blonde woman opening a present and finding the miniature, then blood, darkness, jealousy, and death... Lucien gasped and nearly dropped it. This portrait was over three hundred years old, and Cross didn't look a day older. How—? He looked up sharply, only to find Cross staring at him.
"Nothing good ever comes of it," Cross repeated softly, before turning to Miss Martin. "If you need me, you know where to find me."
"I thought you didn't like meddling in Order affairs."
"Not since the 18th century, at least," Cross's eyelids drooped, "but I would make an exception this one time, just for you. I can feel a vortex of power moving out there, somewhere in London, sucking in mass amounts of energy. It's flares at odd increments of time before vanishing, but it's been there for a week. I've never felt anything like it."
Colors danced over Miss Martin's skin; uneasiness, fear, and something else that he couldn't quite put a finger on. A yellowish-gray color. "Drake knows nothing of this."
"Drake doesn't have my depth of experience," Cross replied, then caught Lucien's gaze, holding it there through sheer force of will. "Nor does he have my scrying abilities. There is a knot of shadows woven around the pair of you, and it has something to do with the Blade and this mysterious vortex of power. Swear to me that you'll keep her safe."
That was the second time someone had asked this of him. "I swear."
"Good." Cross relaxed somewhat, then frowned. "Something dark is stirring in London, and I don't know if either of you are going to come out of this alive, but I do know this—you need each other if you have any hope of surviving."
CHAPTER 4
GOLDEN LIGHT suffused the air around the mansion as Lucien stepped down from the carriage, hinting at a glorious sunset within an hour. He turned and offered his hand to Miss Martin, her skirts swishing around her ankles as she stepped onto the curb and looked up at Lady Eberhardt's home. The black wrought iron fence encircled the property like a warning, and the gardens were lush and overgrown, with faint chittering sounds whispering from within its bushes, as if something lay in wait.
"Charming," Luc drawled. "It has the welcoming ambiance of an ambush."
Miss Martin's voice was hushed. "I would be careful with your words here. Lady Eberhardt is somewhat... eccentric. And powerful. We don't wish to offend her."
Lucien pushed the gate open, its hinges squealing. The chittering in the bushes stopped. Not at all eerie, he thought, with a shudder. "I thought the correct term was 'mad as hatters'?"
"Yes, well. They said that about you too, my lord." Miss Martin swept past him, slanting a sideways look up at him from beneath the brim of her jaunty lavender hat. Its black ostrich feather trailed behind her, like a war banner. Everywhere she went, she strode briskly, as if to make her p
resence known to the world.
Luc followed, allowing himself a tight smile. "And do you find their assumptions correct?"
"I think... that there's a little bit of madness in all of those who choose this path."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you're going to get, just now."
Miss Martin rang the buzzer at the door, and an enormous ding-dong sounded from within, its echo vibrating. Their eyes met.
"I've had little to do with Lady Eberhardt over the years, though I know of her reputation," he said. "She's buried three husbands, all in suspicious circumstances."
A frown furrowed Miss Martin's brow. "The first two I'll grant you, but what was suspicious about the third? I believe it was a fall, was it not? He broke his neck."
"He fell off the chamber pot at a brothel."
Those eyebrows rose. "I hadn't heard that part of the story."
"Innocent ears, and all."
Miss Martin snorted.
The door swung open. A somewhat cadaverous butler appeared. "This way, my lord. Ma'am. Lady Eberhardt is expecting you."
Which was somewhat disconcerting. At the lilt of Ianthe's brow, Lucien gestured her forward. "Ladies first."
The door slammed shut behind them with little evidence of the means, making both of them jump. A lion's head leered off the wall, a tiger stuffed beside it. The entire hallway was a display of some hunter's prowess, and Lucien had the eerie suspicion that some of those glass eyes were staring back at him.
He'd been in creepier places—Bedlam sprang to mind—but there was something about the detonating silence here that made him feel watched.
Voices murmured from behind the sitting room the butler led them to, but when he opened the door with a flourish, there was no one inside.
"If you'll wait here," the butler murmured, "her ladyship should be with you momentarily."
A dozen candles sat on a mirror on the small table, their wicks still smoking, as though they'd been blown out but an instant before the doors had opened. A Wedgewood tea set sat beside them, smoky shadows filling the teacup, shifting as though in a slight breeze. Lucien peered into them, catching a glimpse of something... Lady Eberhardt was an acclaimed mistress of the Divination Arts, but he'd never seen the like before. He leaned closer, making out small images. The dark smoke seemed to suck at him, drawing him in, until he fell into Vision.
An older woman he didn't know was lying back on red silk sheets with her raven hair spilling across the pillow as she curled an adder to her breast and laughed up at him. "Three sons," she whispered. "Three brothers. Three sacrifices." Her smile turned vicious and triumphant. "One relic in hand and one to come. And one that is lost. Where is it?" Those slanted green eyes became distant, as if she stared into nothing. "There," she breathed. "There it is. Right behind you."
Lucien glanced over his shoulder into the room, and the woman vanished, leaving nothing more than her laughter echoing in his ears.
"I'm coming for it."
The vision twisted, leaving him watching from above as a man strolled out of an alley, swinging an ivory-handled cane. The Prime's face stared back at him, only he was younger, devastatingly handsome, and his eyes were as dead as liquid mercury. For a moment, those silver eyes turned as if peering up from the depths of the cup and seeing him looking back. Chains bound his wrists, though they were made of shadows, and the Prime didn't seem to be able to see them. Then something tore the center of that handsome face apart and a demon crawled out from within, discarding the fleshy husk like a piece of abandoned clothing. A demon he knew.
"Hello there, Master," it hissed, and Lucien cried out, though he couldn't move all of a sudden. Couldn't escape. Cold speared out through his body, but he was locked in stasis, that awful whisper branding itself on the inside of his mind in burning letters.
“Lucien?” someone called, and he felt a tug at his arm.
“Revenge is a dish bessst served cold...”
Then flames were roaring over his skin, burning away at him from the inside, burning him to nothingness. He screamed—
A hand dashed between him and the teacup, shattering the vision.
Lucien staggered back, and Miss Martin's hands directed him onto the nearest daybed. He collapsed there, panting, slapping at his clothes from where they still smoked. Bloody hell. The demon was still out there, somewhere. Somehow. Perhaps he hadn't banished it after all? Agony lanced through his head at the thought, and he pressed his palm into his forehead, trying to stop it from splitting his head open. He felt like there was something within him, trying to tear him open from the inside, like the demon had done to the Prime in his vision.
"Mercurah abadi di absolom," Miss Martin murmured in a hollow voice that rang with power, growing louder with each word, as she traced glowing sigils in the air around him with her finger. They shone brightly, then sank into his flesh, like menthol brands, both hot and cold. "Mercurah abadi hessalah di abscrolutious."
"You are not welcome here, creature of darkness," someone else intoned. "Begone, begone. Take thy foul self and leave this place."
Someone blew a candle flame out with a clap, and the pain and pressure in his head abruptly disappeared, leaving him shaking and sweating.
The world began to leech back into him. There was a warm weight on his lap, one that smelled like lilacs and rustled as she moved. Miss Martin. Her arms curled around him, drawing his face against her shoulder, and she stroked her fingers through his hair. "Shh. It's all right. It cannot touch you here. You're safe. It's gone."
Luc shuddered, clinging to her as he fought his way back to sanity.
"You should know better than to look into another's living dreams, boy," said an older woman, not unkindly. "What did you see?"
He couldn't stop shaking as Miss Martin drew back. Was this the vortex that Cross had mentioned? "Bloody hell." A hand through his sweaty hair did little more than dislodge its style.
"Rathbourne." Another small hand took his and laced its fingers through his own. The hematite and emeralds on Miss Martin's fingers winked up at him. "It cannot get to you here."
"What was that?" he asked hoarsely.
"Shadows of Night," the other woman murmured, pouring the smoky not-quite-liquid back into the teapot where he couldn't see it. She owned a mannish, husky voice. A voice quite used to command. "Impenetrable, unless one has a gift for Divination, and you, my boy... have quite a gift."
Taking him by the jaw, Lady Eberhardt tilted his face up to examine it through eyes as black as pitch. "Ah," she murmured. "Now the wheels are turning. No wonder Drake sent you here to me."
Hers was an arresting face, strangely ageless. Broad cheekbones hinted at an exotic beauty once upon a time, and the straight patrician nose hearkened back to Roman days. She would never have been a pretty woman, but he could see men stopping in their tracks as she walked by, not quite able to take their eyes from her. Knowing that here walked a woman of power, someone who owned every inch of herself, and probably them too.
"Tell me what you saw," she commanded again. Black crinoline whispered about Lady Eberhardt's legs as she walked to the opposite chair and settled into it. Her feet were bare, long toes sinking into the carpets, which was shocking. Her large, angular eyes seemed to hint at secrets. If not for the curtain spill of silvery hair around her face, he would have been quite unable to pick her age.
Lucien ground the heel of his palm against his forehead. It was aching again, but he tried to work through the multitude of images in his head and translate them into sound.
After he'd finished, Lady Eberhardt simply stared at him, chewing on one of the figs that sat on a plate on the table. "Interesting," she murmured, looking inward. "Describe the woman."
"I think the greater concern would be the demon, would it not?" he replied.
"Describe the woman," she said again.
Miss Martin gave him a nudge.
"She was possibly the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, though ther
e was no blush of youth upon her. Dark hair, with a few strands of grey that looked like they'd been dyed, and green eyes." He thought about it. "She looked mysterious, as though she knew secrets that I didn't—as though she enjoyed knowing such secrets. And I'm fairly certain there was a tattoo on her inner wrist. A snake, perhaps. Or Ouroboros. She said she was coming for the last relic."
Lady Eberhardt paled. "That's not possible."
"You recognize her?" Miss Martin asked.
Lady Eberhardt found her feet, swishing to the cold fireplace and staring into the coals. "Maxwell!"
The butler appeared at the door, as if by magic. "Milady?"
"Send word to Bishop. Tell him I want him here immediately."
A slight arch of the brow, and then the butler disappeared again.
Lady Eberhardt rubbed her hands together. "Three sons," she muttered. "Three relics. Bloody hell. Now this."
Miss Martin rose and went to her. "You're not making any sense. Who is this woman?"
Lady Eberhardt's mouth thinned. "Morgana de Wynter, by the sounds of it, though I'd not thought to see her on this side of the Channel again, after the scandal of the divorce."
A tiny itch of distress lanced through the bond between them, and Lucien looked up sharply. Miss Martin had paled. "The Prime's ex-wife," he said.
"Yes," Lady Eberhardt replied grimly. "That bitch is back."
* * *
IANTHE KNEW THE STORY, of course, though only from hearsay. Drake never spoke of his ex-wife, or the scandal of the divorce.
Only once had he breathed word of Morgana: "Her Arts were that of Illusion, and what is illusion but deception? What I did not understand when I married her was that her very nature was that of illusion too. She gave you exactly what you wanted to see, and underneath lurked the deception. Underneath..." His face had grown somewhat sad then. "Underneath was a stranger who you didn't even know."
"It all started nearly thirty-five years ago," Lady Eberhardt said. "A young girl had come to the Order a couple of years earlier, begging for sanctuary. She would not reveal her name, only that she knew sorcery and that she wished to be called Morgana, after Morgan le Fay." A faint arch of the brow dictated her thoughts on that. "That should have been the first warning sign.
