“Then there are a few less legal methods we can manage. You might as well be honest first, though. You don’t have the face for a scoundrel.”
“You’re just worried I’d be better at deception than you.”
“Never.”
Stephen drummed his fingers on the table. “Unless getting the key takes far longer than it should,” he said, eyeing his brother’s arm and the still-white look of his face, “you’ll be staying here. You’ll be no good at tiptoeing about and picking locks, not like this. I’ll need a set of eyes here at any rate, and ideally one familiar with magic.”
“Nice of you to try and make me feel useful,” said Colin, “but I’m quite happy to be idle and ornamental. Still, I’ll keep a lookout. What about your Miss Seymour? Are you planning to leave her here and risk the wards?”
“No,” Stephen said. “She knows that part of town better than I do, and she’s good with a bluff if need be. I think it’d be best if I didn’t end the evening in jail or with my name in the paper. Besides, a human—and someone who knows London—might spot something neither of us would.”
“You’re just repeating what she told you, aren’t you?” Colin smirked.
“You’re a remarkably unpleasant wee churl,” said Stephen, and confiscated a muffin by way of vengeance.
“You’re insulting an injured man, and you haven’t denied the charges.”
He hadn’t. He couldn’t. Five minutes with Mina’s ruthless logic and hard eyes, and Stephen had known a lost battle. He also hadn’t wanted to stay and see where the fight would lead.
Well, he had wanted to. That was the problem.
“She says she’ll keep well out of danger,” he said, “and that having two people along is better in case one of us needs to go and get help.”
“You’ll be able to send me a message anyhow,” said Colin. “At least, if you’ve still got the ring Judith forged.”
“Aye,” said Stephen. Each of the rings contained blood: his, Colin’s, Judith’s, and their father’s. Wearing it, he could speak to Colin at some distance, though Judith and Alasdair were each, in their own manner, too far away. “But if I need more immediate assistance, it’d be good to have her there.”
“If I had to choose a human to go with you,” said Colin, “she’s the best of the current lot by far. I never thought you’d take the opinion of one into consideration on a venture like this, though.”
“She’s the sort of lady who should have her say in things,” Stephen said and fixed his gaze on his brother’s face. “She’s got a good head on her shoulders—and a good heart as well.”
Colin looked up from his tea, blue-black eyebrows rising in graceful arcs. “From what I’ve been hearing lately, quite a few people think all ladies should have their say in things,” he said, “but you sounded as if you were particularly warning me, Stephen.”
“Well—perhaps I am.” Stephen set his plate down on the nightstand and stood up. The chair he’d been sitting on, like most of the furnishings in the room, was covered with roses, an artifact of either a housekeeper’s tastes or his mother’s. It was rather ludicrous for the room’s current tenant and particularly for the current discussion.
The whole discussion felt a bit ludicrous, at that. “I mean to say,” Stephen went on, “that is, she’s not like the lasses back at Loch Arach. She didna’ grow up knowing how strange we were, and—and the world’s different for women outside the valley.”
“I’d imagine I know that better than you,” Colin said, “having spent a few decades more in the outside world of late.”
“Aye, but Mina’s not like your actresses and your widows, either. She’s not got very much to fall back on if anything goes amiss—and she’s her family to think of—and she’s not the sort to like depending on a man—”
“Exactly what do you think I’ll do to the girl, pray tell?” Colin asked, smiling infuriatingly.
“You…I—I don’t know.” Stephen sat back down, defeated. “And she’s a grown woman, so there’s not much I can say in the matter. I just—treat her well. Honestly. Don’t let her think you’re in love with her.”
“It was never on my mind,” said Colin. “For one thing, you’ve given her the real sentiment already. How could I compare?”
He might have announced that he’d slipped arsenic into the teapot. Stephen went completely still for a second, then managed to make a half-choked sound of interrogation and disbelief.
“Don’t swallow your tongue,” said Colin, clicking his tongue reprovingly. “And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, either. It’s perfectly obvious that you’re in love with Miss Seymour.”
Stephen gathered himself to deny it—and found that he couldn’t. Memories flooded back to him: Mina warm and frantic against him, her hair like silk in his hands and her mouth moving skillfully beneath his; Mina at the breakfast table, mouth pursed and eyebrows drawn together as she considered an article in the Times; Mina joking with him in the library; Mina reaching out to console him when he was worried, and prepared to face thieves with a poker, manes with a kitchen knife, and an entirely new world with the keenness of her mind and the strength of her will.
He loved her. How could he not?
The idea simply felt right, settling into his blood and his bones. When Colin had spoken it aloud, it had been the crystallization of some long-guessed-at formula.
“But it’s hardly sensible of me, is it? She’s mortal.”
Colin shrugged. “So was Mother.”
“Barely. Her whole line were magicians. And even so, she turned Father down the first time he proposed.” The family story had been funny when Stephen had been young. Now he couldn’t quite appreciate the humor. “Mina—she’s got an entire life of her own, one that’s got nothing to do with magic. She’s got a family who’d never believe we exist. She loves them enough that she demanded I let her write to them when she first came here and she’d no reason to think I’d treat her very kindly. She couldn’t go off and leave them without explaining.”
“Plenty of women are close to their families, and there are wonderful trains these days. And I’m certain she could make up a suitable story to tell them, one that would let her keep in touch. She’s good with a bluff, you said.”
“If she wants to be,” said Stephen, endeavoring to squash a small bit of hope that was sprouting inside him.
“Yes, yes,” said Colin, impatiently. “If she wants to be. Which she will.”
“Certain, are you?”
“Not as certain as I am of your feelings. But the lady isn’t my brother, for which we should all be thankful. Really, Stephen, you’ll not know until you ask her. ‘She’s the sort of lady who should have her say in things,’” he added, in a heavily accented baritone.
“I sound nothing like that.”
“You sound exactly like that, but I’m sure she’ll accept you anyway. She’s a forgiving sort of girl.”
The prospect was too tempting; there had to be a flaw somewhere. Stephen searched and, with a sigh, found it. “I can’t ask her now. Not with Ward, and her having to stay here, and me paying her. If she says no, it might be awkward enough to get in the way of magic, and if she says yes, it might be just because she feels obligated.”
“Doubt it, knowing the lady,” said Colin, “but wait if you’d like. Just tell her eventually, and meanwhile stop blundering about the place like a cat with its head in a sardine tin. Good Lord, Stephen, you wouldn’t catch me in such a state if you offered me the Crown Jewels.”
“Colin, if someone offered you the Crown Jewels, you’d say they didn’t go with your complexion. Or you’d lose them at cards.” Stephen got up. “I’d best go find the owner of that Brick Lane building. Otherwise, this conversation will remain academic for quite a bit longer.”
“At which point I will put poison in your whiskey.”
“Good luck trying with one arm.” Stephen paused at the door. “Colin?”
“Hmm?”
“Thank you.”
Thirty-six
A few weeks had made a night journey a much more pleasant prospect than it had been last time. The wind was gentle against Mina’s face, and the night, for once, was clear. She could even see a crescent moon hanging overhead as she and Stephen got out of the carriage.
“No stars, though,” Stephen said when Mina pointed it out.
“Of course there are. There’s one over there—and another—” She gestured, squinting against the lights of the city.
“They don’t hide so much at home,” Stephen said. “A night like this would look like a spill of diamonds in Loch Arach.”
“Sounds lovely,” Mina said, picturing it. It wasn’t the first time in the last few days that Stephen had mentioned his home. Talking with Colin must have made him miss the place, she thought, and no wonder. Everything he said made it sound halfway to Eden. “Not much like here. We’re just lucky there’s no fog. Though it might hide us, if there was.”
“Aye,” said Stephen, “but I rather enjoy breathing.”
Even without the fog, Mina didn’t think they’d be too obvious. People had come out to enjoy the night—walking to music halls or dances, or down along the river, trying to sell refreshments to the strollers, or just sitting on their front steps and talking. High laughter drifted through the evening air, and the need to let a group of young women pass pushed her closer to Stephen’s side.
He didn’t step away, even after the crowds had passed, but rather put an arm around her shoulders. “Disguise,” he explained when Mina looked up at him. “May as well look as if we’ve a purpose in being out here, aye?”
“Might as well,” said Mina, and leaned against him. After all, they were in public.
Meandering, they rounded a corner, and Stephen nudged her gently. “That one there,” he said, looking toward a narrow brick building on the corner. The doors were closed, the windows shuttered, and it looked both thoroughly respectable and totally anonymous.
No light came from under the shutters, or at least none that Mina could see from outside. Either the building was abandoned or the shades were very good—or Christopher Ward was at his best in darkness these days. She felt the weight of the revolver in her pocket, a new addition to her wardrobe, and was glad of it.
“You can stay out here, if you’d like,” Stephen said, “or we can find a place where you’ll be more comfortable. A tea shop, perhaps—”
“No,” said Mina. “We’ve talked about this already.”
“That we have,” he said. “I just wanted to know you were sure.”
“Thank you,” she said and smiled, both because his intentions were good and because she was glad he’d asked. Having to say her will aloud had made it stronger; she felt her feet more firm on this path, whatever it was.
“Now,” said Stephen, and they started forward, both still trying to look casual, both inwardly anything but.
***
The door led to a dark, narrow stairwell where the harsh smell of carbolic soap lay thinly over years of mold. Following Stephen up the steps, Mina kept her hands at her sides and stayed to the center, well away from the walls. She didn’t look down, either. All the cleaning in the world wouldn’t keep rats out of city buildings, and though she was too familiar with them to be precisely afraid, she had no desire to see one of the creatures scurry past.
Instead, she counted steps: one-two-four-six-eight-twelve and a landing. Two doors flanked them there; Stephen didn’t stop at either. Twelve more steps went past and another landing, and they kept going. On the third floor, Stephen stopped, hesitated, and then turned right.
There was no light from under the door. Stephen bent and pressed his ear to it and then, after a moment, straightened up with no sign of alarm on his face. Still, Mina held her breath as he turned the key in the lock and let the door swing slowly, quietly open.
Nothing moved in the room beyond. Mina let her breath out in a not-quite-silent sigh of relief.
Inside, Stephen lit the gas lamps on the walls, which did nothing much for the room’s appearance. It was a cheerless place with graying white walls. Someone had scrubbed those walls well, though. The smell of soap was much stronger here than it had been in the hall. A shining mahogany monster of a desk, all pigeonholes and drawers with brass fittings, sat near the window.
“I don’t envy the woman who has to polish that.” Mina eyed the pigeonholes, many stuffed with paper. “I’ll take the right side, you take the left. Anything that looks odd?”
“Or that mentions a particular place. You’ll know as well as I.”
“Oh,” she said, and turned to the desk so she could hide her smile. She’d never thought to hear those words from Stephen.
Taking a sheaf of paper from one of the pigeonholes, she shook it hard, tapping the bottom edges of the papers against the top of the desk. “Centipedes,” she explained when Stephen gave her a curious look. “And similar. They like paper, and they love old buildings.”
“Do they?”
“Mm-hmm. I learned typing in a place like this. We used to find them in the machines some mornings.” Mina shuddered at the memory.
“But you kept going.”
“It was what I could afford,” she said, hearing her voice get brittle and clipped. Even the cheap, dirty school she’d attended had taken a year of saving. “I didn’t have much choice, did I?”
Stephen leafed through a stack of papers. “Because you wanted to be a secretary?”
“I wanted to see more of the world, even if it was secondhand. I figured I might get a position with some old lady, type up her letters and all that.” Mina smiled, remembering nights of circling advertisements in the Times. “Then I saw the Professor’s advert, and I thought a scholar would be even better.”
She put a few more papers aside. Either Ward and his correspondents were very vague, or the messages were in a code that she couldn’t make out. There were many discussions of meeting “at the usual place” or “where we talked last night,” but nothing more concrete. From the way that Stephen was rifling through documents and stuffing them back into the desk, he wasn’t finding anything, either.
Then, pulling papers from the last cubbyhole, Mina stopped and caught her breath.
She hadn’t spent a great deal of time with wealth or land, but even she knew what a property deed looked like. “Stephen,” she said, and he was instantly at her shoulder, his hair brushing against her face as he leaned forward to look.
“Anywhere you recognize?” he asked. “I’m not as familiar with the city these days.”
Mina frowned down at the address. “Not off the top of my head, no, but it looks like it’s down by the docks. Could be a warehouse.” She blinked. “Why would he need a warehouse?”
At first, Stephen didn’t answer, not until Mina looked up at him and he seemed to realize she wasn’t going to drop the question. “He might want room,” he said quietly, “and a place where most people couldn’t hear what happened inside. Creatures like he uses often have a price.” He drew a sudden low breath that was half a snarl.
“What is it?” Mina asked. Stephen’s teeth were very white even in the dim room, and they looked sharper than a normal man’s would, but she didn’t look away. She didn’t even feel the urge to do so.
“The creature that came to the house last time. I think it was human once.”
***
In a way, Mina was glad that they’d found the deed so late. It meant they could leave soon afterward. She’d known Ward could and had killed. Now she couldn’t escape the thought that what she knew about might be the smallest part of the blood on his hands. The building seemed very dark as they walked down the stairs, and very empty.
“Are you going to go and”—she cleared her throat, unsure what word she should use—“find him now?”
“Tomorrow, I’d think. Midday. The manes don’t have as much power then, and hopefully Ward won’t, either.”
“And the…other things?” Min
a asked, remembering the gelid hand that had punched through the door.
“I don’t know. I’ve not seen anything like them before.”
She couldn’t go, of course. She was small, human, and neither a warrior nor a witch. She couldn’t reliably shoot anything more than a foot or two away from her. In a pitched battle, she’d do more harm than good.
“Will you take anyone?” she asked, her eyes on the back of Stephen’s neck.
“I can’t,” he said, “Not unless Colin’s arm heals sooner than any of us think. If I catch Ward off guard, it should go all right.” He began to say something else and then stopped, so suddenly that Mina nearly ran into his back.
“What is it?” she asked, whispering again.
In answer, Stephen pointed to the window above the door, too high for Mina to see. “There are men out there. Two of them. And from the way they’re talking, they’re not moving for a while.”
Thirty-seven
Every curse Stephen knew, in a variety of languages, went through his mind in a moment. Rather than utter any of them, he bit his tongue and motioned for Mina to go back up the stairs. He followed her. Every so often, he turned to make sure the door hadn’t opened, but it stayed shut. The men outside didn’t seem to have heard their footsteps.
On the second-floor landing, they stopped. Mina sat down on the first step, and Stephen sank down beside her.
“They don’t know we’re here,” he said, once he’d started to think the situation through. “They’d have come in if they did. Or Ward would have.” Ward might also have sent demons after them if he’d known, but Stephen didn’t want to say that aloud just now. He glanced at his pocket watch: quarter past midnight. “He must have them guard the place regularly, this late.”
Legend Of The Highland Dragon Page 21
