Eleanor tilted her head and allowed herself a little relief at his words. “But you don’t believe it to be anything more than a ring.” He certainly did not know about the ring she wore, either; his head might shatter like a toppling mechanical pterodactyl if he did.
“What I believe does not matter.” Her father shook his head, and his scientific mind turned to the problem at hand. “What matters is what the thief believes. You unearthed the Lady with your mother. You were there when she vanished.”
“When the riders took her, you mean.” Vanished was a vague word, one her father had never used before. It had always been his belief that the riders abducted and later killed Dalila when they discovered they lacked one of the Lady’s rings.
“I don’t know what I mean.” Renshaw hung his head and scrubbed his hands through his thinning silver hair.
“Miss Folley.”
She looked up to find Mallory before her, appearing recovered from his tirade. His jacket hung open, his gun holstered at his side; the revolver she had used was tucked into his waistband.
“Is there somewhere private we could speak?”
Her father gestured beyond the back of the booth, to a much-worn door in the far wall. “Take the storage room,” he said, and before Eleanor could say another word, Mallory claimed her arm and escorted her there. She felt the prick of curious stares as they progressed toward the door. Even Professor Twine stared, shaking his head when Eleanor nodded as they passed by.
The storage room door fell shut behind them with a thump, the room colored in shades of gray. While little expense had been spared in the main hall, a storage room was a storage room, the windows here small and miserly. Eleanor drew the door shut behind them.
“Hell,” Mallory said and took in the extra displays and crates from exhibitors that packed nearly every bit of space within the room. A path wound its way through them, narrow but navigable. “The Holy Grail might be in here.”
“No, that’s under lock and key in the States,” Eleanor said, and before Mallory could make another quip, took his hand and dragged him deeper into the room. She wanted to ascertain both that they were alone and that no one might eavesdrop from beyond the door. Somewhere between her father’s extra crates and those of Professor Twine, the aisle made a neat loop, leaving a small island of low crates in the center. Eleanor stopped and turned to Mallory. “You said you knew those men. How?”
“They were Mistral agents, Miss Folley,” he said, eyes not meeting hers. He looked up one stack of crates and down another.
His answer only further confused her. “Presently in Mistral’s employ? Are agents so expendable then?”
“No.” Mallory’s fingers slid against the worn edge of a crate. “These agents were on probation, which seems to have been revoked. Miss Folley—”
Whatever he meant to say, he stopped himself. Eleanor hadn’t known this man long, but he was clearly as bothered and confused by what had happened as she was, if not more so. Mistral agents on probation; Mistral agents who had now been eliminated?
Eleanor thought of the Negro in the display hall, his calm face and steady hands. Of the way he had tried to calm Mallory down.
“The Negro in the hall,” she said, and only then did Mallory meet her eyes. “He knew they were Mistral agents when he arrived, didn’t he?”
“That man is Michael Auberon, my partner, and yes, he knew. They all knew.” Mallory pushed away from the crates, stalking a few steps before turning back to Eleanor. Did he snarl, or did she imagine it? “It would appear my own agency no longer trusts me, Miss Folley. I told them you would comply, for what choice did you have?”
“You told them I would . . . what?”
Mallory closed the short distance between them, his eyes flashing with an anger that made Eleanor swallow hard. She wanted to take a step backward, but held her ground.
“What choice do you have? You are haunted by your mother’s disappearance and think the ring holds the answers. That ring is stolen and you—what?—ignore it and go on with this half-lived life?” He growled those words—she didn’t imagine it. Mallory gestured to the crates around them. “This place is not you. I told Mistral I felt you would assist in the ring’s recovery, but they felt the need to threaten, to make certain you understood what’s at stake. You know what’s at stake—I’ve seen it in your eyes—but they didn’t believe me.”
The defeat in Mallory’s voice sounded familiar to Eleanor. She stiffened her spine and her resolve. She thought of the way he had been sure she was on her feet before he walked away in the hall, but not even that could wholly sway her to his side. He felt she would assist? How could he know anything about her? He was Mistral. He was too dangerous by far.
“Librarian saves world from ruin,” she murmured, trying to make light of it, trying to make this something it wasn’t.
“You are not a librarian,” Mallory said.
He straightened from the crates and came at her, forcing her to step backward now, and round the low-stacked island of crates.
“You have ties to Christian Hubert, raided with him for a good two years in a desperate attempt to discover what became of your mother. Or—” Mallory’s head cocked. “Was it love, Miss Folley? Was it love that kept you bound to his side?”
There was something curious in his voice at that question, something that made Eleanor’s stomach drop into her boots. He either knew or had made a well-placed guess. “You have no right—”
“What did happen, Miss Folley?” Mallory advanced on her, but as he came around the left side of the crates, she skirted to the right, keeping the solid mass of wood between them. “You were there—by all accounts given in your file, you saw the portal. Was there a hand? Did you see the dark god?”
Eleanor faltered, surprised by the line of questioning. His questions reached beyond taunting, for he sounded interested in her answers even as he pressed her. And the things he said—What he knew, he shouldn’t know, by God!
By all accounts in her file . . . Her file? Good God, what did Mistral know? Or worse, what did they presume? Eleanor held her silence as Mallory strode forward and grabbed her right hand. She flinched, thinking he meant to peel her sleeve back and expose her scars.
“Your mother stepped backward in time, didn’t she?” Mallory asked. “Unlucky her, the ring was left here, which trapped her there. Can you imagine what might happen if the wrong person went back?”
Mallory pulled Eleanor to his side and, again, she found comfort in his solid warmth. She found herself shaking, unhinged by the idea that he knew what she believed of her mother. How could he? Staring into impenetrable brown eyes gave Eleanor no answers.
“Hubert took the ring and means to go back to that ancient time,” Mallory said, pressing Eleanor into the stacked crates.
She shook her head and in order to keep her eyes on his, found herself looking upwards more than she had a moment ago. Had Mallory grown? “No.”
“He means to change the entire future, Miss Folley—for you.”
Ridiculous. “No!”
“Do you think he means to bring you every treasure this world has to offer? Lay them at your feet so you and your father might receive the recognition you deserve? Perhaps the portal allows one to move forward as well. What treasures of the distant future might he bring you? Things we cannot even yet imagine, Eleanor.”
Her given name on his tongue jolted her into motion. “No.”
She shoved Mallory from her and moved a few steps away, placing the island of crates between them. She couldn’t think with her heart pounding in her ears, could only stare at him even as she knew he was wrong. Christian would never do such a thing, and certainly not for her.
Mallory turned and headed toward the door and, although little had been resolved, Eleanor exhaled, thankful for the reprieve. Christian Hubert didn’t burn for her today the way he had all those years ago; nothing could be further from the truth.
Marrakech, Morocco ~ September 1884
&n
bsp; Eleanor watched Christian slide into the chair opposite the woman they had met earlier that morning. It remained a mystery: How had the woman known of the remote ruin when she and Christian had only spied it from his airship? As curious as it was to have met someone else in the uninhabited area of their first encounter, it was less surprising to find her here, the only tavern for miles.
The rickety building crouched behind rough trees and scrub between the Wad Tensift River and the Atlas Mountains, a desolate place few came to willingly. This woman looked completely out of place, even with Christian’s attention on her. The woman’s hair, pale blond and bobbed at her ears, spiraled into gentle curls under the guidance of Christian’s fingers. The woman’s expression moved from annoyance to interest in a heartbeat.
Eleanor could not hear Christian’s words, but she had once been in that woman’s position, angry at coming away from a tomb empty-handed. Eleanor could almost hear him calling the woman “little girl,” could picture him sipping from her beer before he ordered his own. When he finally did lift the woman’s glass and drink, Eleanor looked away. His hands were coated in Moroccan dust this time, not Egyptian.
It wasn’t the first time Christian had played someone to get what he wanted. Eleanor had seen it time and again, but this time, this woman had nothing they needed. The rest of the trip was to be pleasure only—just them and the airship and whatever they might find to explore. As they had journeyed to the tavern, Christian had betrayed his interest in the woman. And now he made his play for her, as Eleanor had known he would. It was his way.
Eleanor still lived with the vague idea that she and Christian would marry, as society expected them to. It would, if nothing else, stop the press from clucking like old crotchety hens when word of their exploits reached civilized shores. Living an unconventional life was one thing, but romping about old ruins in the midday sun—in trousers—with her supposed lover was a scandal Renshaw Folley shouldn’t have to endure, and what a cruel, heartless daughter she was to force him. So sayeth the newspapers.
Eleanor didn’t want to think about how long it had been since she had spoken to her father. She took a sip of cool beer and closed her eyes. Thinking of her father made her think of Dublin, and Dublin made her think of rain. Out here, rain was a luxury they didn’t have.
She peered over her shoulder at Christian and the woman. Neither had noticed her. His interest in Eleanor had waned these past months; it was easier to pay attention to the next adventure than it was to her.
It wasn’t her; Eleanor understood that. It was very much him. Wanderlust filled Christian the way breath filled normal men. He was not the kind of person to be tied to any one life. That they had stayed together this long was surprising to her even now.
As she watched the pair, the woman withdrew a small muslin pouch from her vest. She offered it to Christian, but he refused. The woman tugged the drawstring open and dipped a finger inside.
That finger came out encircled by a ring but Eleanor didn’t have to be any closer to recognize. She could picture it all too easily on the hand of the Lady.
Christian took the woman’s hand to study the ring, then slipped it free. He held it into the stream of light that pierced the wooden window slats. Even in the dusty air, the gold caught the late afternoon sunlight and revealed a scarab upon the ring’s face. It was the kind of thing that could have been used as a seal, pressed into liquid gold or wax.
Eleanor forced herself to calm as Christian tucked the ring into his pocket. She turned away, paid for her beer, and left the bar, trying not to look like she was hurrying as she moved to their shared room above the tavern. The cramped space smelled like warm beer, but the real bed and bathtub more than made up for it.
Christian stepped into the room moments later. Eleanor looked up from her bag and worried over what to say, if he would tell her. But his hands were gentle on her shoulders, his mouth likewise as he kissed the back of her neck.
“Ready to go, then? I saw that woman in the bar—the one from the ruin?” Relief flooded her, sweeter than any Dublin rain. He meant to tell her. He would tell her about the ring, they would laugh at their luck and—
“She knows of another, a few hours north of here,” he continued as he readied the last of his own bags. “It’s Roman, and she says no one goes there, but she’ll guide us.”
“She’s a guide?” Eleanor watched Christian grab his pack, unease creeping up her spine. “She doesn’t look like a guide.”
It wasn’t jealousy but confusion that colored Eleanor’s voice. Random women encountered in distant ruins didn’t simply happen to possess a ring Eleanor had last seen the day of her mother’s disappearance.
Christian drew on his coat. “She knows who I am. I think she means to impress me. Us. At the worst, we give her a little ride northward, mmm?”
Eleanor wanted to say no, she would not go. She wanted to demand the ring from Christian because it was more hers than his. Why had he not shown it to her? Why had he not told her? Another part of her wanted very much to go. Wanted to see this woman and the ruin she supposedly knew of; wanted to talk with her in an effort to understand how she possessed one of the Lady’s rings.
And so Eleanor found herself smiling at the woman when they met her at Christian’s tethered airship a few paces from the tavern. The Remous was not a pretty ship by modern standards; she had been used well and it showed in her every line. This was not to say the ship was ugly, for Eleanor found beauty in all things old. The airship was smaller than her modern counterparts, capable of precise maneuvers while over a city, and swift among the clouds. Her copper-trimmed iron hull still managed to gleam despite its dings and scratches, and her wooden deck was sturdy, polished to a deep glow by Christian himself. The Remous had seen them from Egypt and Paris to deeper parts of the Sahara, to the mountains of Switzerland and the rivers of Russia.
“Miss Folley, this is Miss Irving,” Christian said in introduction and welcomed both of them aboard. “Our intrepid guide.”
“Intrepid guide,” Eleanor echoed as she shook Miss Irving’s hand. The woman was not dressed for desert exploration; dust coated her bustle and dirtied her gloves.
“The location is Roman, then?”
Miss Irving nodded, causing the ridiculously small hat with its blue satin flowers pinned atop her pale curls to bob. “Roman ruins, not entirely explored, so goodness knows what awaits us, and please, call me Caroline.” She squeezed Eleanor’s hand, then stepped onto the deck of Christian’s airship. “This ship is amazing. I’ve never seen its like.”
Eleanor tuned Caroline out as she praised the ship and kicked her own bag down into the hold. Caroline trailed after Christian, blue skirts sweeping the wooden deck while her petite gloved hands reached up in an effort to touch the inflated balloon above them. Eleanor pondered Christian’s lack of . . .
“Common damn sense,” she muttered and turned to examine the lines, to be sure the Remous was sky-worthy. When Christian queried her as to the readiness, Eleanor only nodded. The sun was nearly gone, so, one by one, Eleanor lit the glass lanterns rimming the deck, and drew a delighted laugh from Caroline as she did. The lanterns expelled their light through metal hoods cut with images of birds. Sparrows, pelicans, and owls of light danced across the iron hull, some lifting into the sky. The ship followed after.
Two hours into the flight, a lamp near Eleanor went out and she startled at the sudden lack of light. She was about to relight the globe when Christian’s gloved hand stayed her motion.
“Look at that, little girl,” he said and gestured to the horizon.
Christian had taken a course as close to the coast as he could without losing the proper trail to the ruin Caroline wanted them to see. Without the lantern’s light, the starlit sky spread everywhere, making a neat seam against the black ocean water. Pinpricks of light gleamed on the water, turning its surface into another sky.
“I’ve never seen a thing like it!” Caroline exclaimed as she wedged herself against Christia
n’s side, as if being closer would enable her to see better. “Haven’t been on a ship like this in my life.”
Eleanor said nothing, but tried to gauge Christian’s opinion of the woman at his side even so. His face was closed to her, thoughts shuttered away. What was he planning? When would he tell her about the ring?
Likewise, she considered Caroline, who surely knew more than she pretended to. Eleanor learned to tune out Caroline’s voice, to watch eyes and body instead. Both said that she had done this before. She had been on an airship, for she walked steadily; she had sought ruins, for her eyes lit up when she spoke of stones and marvels she had wandered. That was something Eleanor understood. Whatever Caroline was actually doing, she loved the exploration.
The night air stayed clear, and by the time they began their descent, Caroline had grown silent. It was hard to tell if she had run out of things to discuss, or was simply captivated by the view of the world above. She lingered by Christian’s side, her arm threaded through his as he let enough air out of the balloon to take them to the ground.
“We’ll stay here tonight,” Christian said.
The airship touched the ground with a gentle bump. He and Eleanor leaped the rail as they had dozens of times before, and secured their anchor lines around sturdy old trees. “We’ll scout more at dawn, but for now, let’s see what there is to see.” His expression was more confident than Eleanor felt. She was thrown off balance with the addition of Caroline to the group.
Christian offered Caroline a lamp and another to Eleanor, before he finished securing the ship.
Eleanor turned the flame on her lamp low while Caroline scampered ahead as best she could in her abundant skirt. Every now and then, a small cry of surprise would arise from her, but Eleanor turned her attention toward the vestiges of buildings before them.
There was a strange beauty to the place, a beauty shared with ruins across the world. Eleanor stepped between fallen stones, letting her eyes adjust to the night; across the far horizon, lightning sparked, briefly throwing columns and architrave into sharp relief. A scattering of columns dotted the land farther out. It was easy for Eleanor to imagine this place as a thriving community, columns still supporting walls, stones aligned into roadways, men coming and going on horseback. She walked deeper into the debris, until she found a broken column to rest her lantern upon. The light illuminated a rectangular space of columns, most tumbled down to their plinths. Beyond the columns, stones spilled over the hilly ground. On the far hills, a light sparked. A campfire? Eleanor shivered at the idea of someone out there. She turned to find Christian nearby.
Rings of Anubis: A Folley & Mallory Adventure Page 6
