“—kept you up there—”
“—was wondering where he’d gotten off to—”
“—aren’t you a sight—”
But there was one cool voice that seemed to unfailingly climb over the others. Winifred came up behind them, touching Henry’s shoulder. He turned away from the men who were slapping his back and giving him handshake after handshake.
“That creature you insist on working with is here to make her report,” she informed him. “Would you like me to tell her to wait?”
Henry’s brows rose. Interested. “No—no, I’ve been waiting for her report for days. Is she in the hall?”
The women were urging Etta deeper into the throng of Thorns, eagerly absorbing her, peppering the air with questions. She turned, searching for Henry’s dark hair, and found him passing through the door, back into the hall.
With the morning light coming through the high windows, she could see the small figure waiting there in the entryway. Julian was out there as well, chattering away beside her. He gave her a playful punch to the shoulder, and whoever it was returned it in earnest, socking him hard enough in the solar plexus to send him staggering back, choking on his laughter.
As Henry approached, she pushed Julian aside altogether and straightened, flicking her long, jet-black braid back over her shoulder. She wore a cornflower-blue silk tunic buttoned at the throat, its wide sleeves embroidered with an intricate pattern. She tucked up her hands inside of the sleeves as Henry began to speak. Her loose matching trousers shone as she moved, heading toward the stairs. Just before she took the first step, the girl looked around Henry’s shoulder into the room and caught Etta’s gaze. Her lips parted, as if in disbelief. Etta wondered what the woman had that Henry wanted.
Julian hesitated at the door, watching the others, until one of the guards—Jenkins—shooed him away. Only the Ironwoods, it seemed, were unwelcome where the Thorns were concerned.
Etta turned back to the men and women around her and, for once, silenced the questions, the doubt that had chased her through the centuries. She fell deeper into the hands that reached out to greet her, and let herself find relief in their elation.
A family.
Meant to be, she thought. This is what was meant to be.
But in the back of her mind, there was a face: Nicholas.
Nicholas alone, the desert blowing hot and blinding around him.
I’m coming, she thought. Stay alive. I’ll find you.
But not yet.
JULIAN HAD ONCE SAID SOMETHING to him that struck Nicholas now, as he breathed in the fog and cold mist: All cities are jealous of Paris, but Prague is the envy of Paris.
Tucked into the alcove of the building where the passage had released them, he had only been able to see the busy market in the open courtyard before him. As the weather turned and night crept in, the stalls rapidly emptied. Footsteps and cart wheels clattered over the cobblestones as all manner of people, in all manner of simple, colorful dress, fled the rain, carried off by surprised laughter and shouts.
Though he’d hoped his breeches and shirtsleeves would be unremarkable enough for him to pass among the century’s occupants unnoticed, Nicholas was rather dismayed to find that it was not the case, unless he wanted to commit to the part of a peasant and rend his clothing. The men of this time wore doublets and jerkins, in the sort of style that made them appear to be strutting around with their chests puffed out like pigeons. Or, in the case of the paler fabrics, enormous eggs with limbs.
He turned to Sophia, only to find that she had shed her jacket, pulled the shirt out of the waist of her breeches, and affixed her belt over both, in a close approximation of a tunic. Perhaps not exactly correct, but perhaps not quite so incorrect, either. At least they’d both managed to keep their hose from ripping. Whatever small consolation that was.
Although he felt less aware of the color of his skin than he had in the eras they had passed through to arrive here, Nicholas now was struck by the first stirrings of doubt that the residents of the city might explain his presence away as a Moor or Turkish merchant. It was a blessing, then, to have the soaked, darkened city streets to themselves for a short time, and he meant to make the most of it.
Of course, that was before he stepped out from under their shelter and truly took stock of the place.
He understood what Julian had meant now. Rather than charge forward, Nicholas’s feet came to a sudden, halting rebellion. Rain ran down his face in rivulets, soaking him as he studied the twin spires of a Gothic church. Around him, the sweet faces of the buildings stretched up into the low-slung clouds, the precise curves and angles of the gables and finials glowing in the odd light. At first look, it had all seemed rather simplistic in design, but he was almost delighted to find that the city defied him, that it refused to be absorbed in a single glance. The roads and paths away from the market curved into shadows, inviting mysteries. There was an unreal quality to the place, one that made it seem as though it had been someone’s dream, imagined into stone and timber.
Sophia smacked the back of his head, knocking him out of his reverie.
“‘We must make haste! We cannot delay!’” she said, in a mocking version of his voice. “So let’s stand around and gawk where anyone can see us!”
Despite having sworn to himself that he wouldn’t keep rising to her taunts, Nicholas felt himself bristle. “I was—”
“Good evening, sweet lady and kind sir.”
Nicholas spun around, searching through the sheets of rain for the source of the small voice. A young blond boy dressed in a gold-and-ivory doublet and jerkin, his hose dampened by mud and rain, stood a few feet away, glowering at them. The feather on his jaunty little cap was wilted, and flopped as he tilted his head. “My mistress has invited you to take tea with her.”
A hot cup of tea sounded like heaven itself, actually. But Sophia answered before Nicholas could accept. “We take wine, not tea.”
He could have argued against that, very strongly, but the boy pouted in response and executed a smart little bow. Sophia smirked at Nicholas, just as he’d begun to suspect he’d missed something—some sort of code.
“If you and your…guest…would please follow me?”
Their golden child led them around the tower the passage had emptied into, and Nicholas was arrested by the sight of a large clock on its side layered with symbols, arms, charts. At first glance, the intricate layers of its face reminded him of nothing so much as the astrolabe.
Sophia retraced her steps back to him, her eye squinting at it. “Will you please take that ridiculous look off your face? It’s an astronomical clock.”
Which told him nothing other than that this, perhaps, was like a great geared astrolabe that also served the useful function of telling time, rather than corrupting it.
The boy continued on through the streets of Prague with the ease of a native, ignoring the architecture, the art embedded in the city’s skin. Behind him, Nicholas was so absorbed in the wonders of the city that it took him longer than it might have otherwise to notice the peculiar thing unfolding around him.
He slowed his pace, wondering if it was his eyes, or…Nicholas was exhausted, practically dragging himself forward. But, still, he’d felt the sting of invisibility and dismissal far too many times to let this stand.
The next small cluster of men and women approached quickly, giving him another opportunity to investigate. But—again. He sucked in a breath, watching as the soldiers, the young woman, an elderly man, all stopped despite the rain, and turned their backs as he, Sophia, and the boy passed them.
“What are you huffing and puffing about?” Sophia asked. “You sound like a teakettle about to go off.”
“We’re being shunned,” he said in a low voice, so the child wouldn’t hear. “Or at least, our guide is.”
Sophia’s bewildered expression turned to one of muted surprise when he pointed it out to her, splashing through the puddles of the next narrow street. What confused him, t
ruthfully, was that, despite their firm action, these people bore no signs of disgust, or even scorn. No obvious markers, such as sneers, or hateful, distrusting eyes. In fact, their expressions were as serene as marble statues, and once their party had passed, the men and women would turn back around and continue on their way. It made his skin prickle and tighten around his bones.
The boy glanced over his shoulder and must have caught his expression, for he said, “Don’t be troubled, sir. They cannot help it.”
Which meant…what, precisely? They were somehow being compelled? And in such perfect uniformity?
“Oh, I’d forgotten about this,” Sophia said, waving away his attempts to engage her on this. “Some trickery to ensure there are no real witnesses. Grandfather—Ironwood—believes the Belladonna loaded everyone in this city with so much gold they don’t dare breathe her name, let alone acknowledge her or her guests.”
While money could buy a great deal, no matter the century, this seemed a step beyond mere coordinated cooperation. Nicholas crossed the short distance between himself and the nearest woman. She looked to be a servant, perhaps, as she was older and wore unadorned clothing. On closer inspection, the basket over her arm carried a small heap of vegetables, covered with a piece of burlap. She went impossibly still as Nicholas stepped closer to study her impassive face, and risked a faint tap between her shoulder blades.
The woman did not move, except to breathe. Not so much as a blink.
“You said she was not a witch,” Nicholas whispered as he caught up to Sophia and the boy again. “You swore it!”
“She isn’t,” Sophia insisted, glancing back over her shoulder just as the woman shook herself, as if coming out of a deep sleep, and turned to continue on her way. Nicholas did not miss the rare flicker of uncertainty on her face as she admitted, “At least…I am reasonably certain she is not.”
THE BOY BROUGHT THEM AT LAST TO A STREET OF STORIED MANSIONS. Perhaps “small palaces” was a more apt description, each marrying different shades of colors and styles of stonemasonry. The homes announced themselves to passersby with doors that looked as though they could withstand battering rams if necessary, and windows from which candlelight and the gazes of servants fell softly over the three of them.
At the very end of the street, past the splendor of Prague’s wealthy, lived a narrow little shop, which leaned so severely to the right on its haunches that the windows and door had been installed on a slant. Its front window was covered with a curtain, blocking the interior, and it bore no sign.
Nicholas reached up to touch Etta’s earring on its leather cord and took a steadying breath. As he followed Sophia inside, the shop coughed up warm dust and the smell of rotting earth. Dozens of candles were scattered around the room like guiding stars. The dingy light, however, only served to make the shelves of bottles and jars, many cracked and half-full, seem filthier than the lace of spiderwebs connecting them.
Half of these same shelves had buckled and snapped, spilling their contents onto the floor, where they had been promptly forgotten. Wax from the candles was dripping onto the glass cases and chairs, many of which were torn or broken altogether. As much as he had longed to be in a place warm enough to begin drying out his clothes and thawing his blood, Nicholas’s skin only felt an overwhelming itchiness amid the decay.
“Madam!” the boy called.
A crimson curtain behind the far counter rustled, and out from under the portrait of a doll-faced child came a young woman. Her hair was like a raven’s wing: black, with a natural sheen that caught the candlelight, even without the gold-and-pearl netting that had been pinned to it. A heavy gold cross hung around her neck, dipping into the low bodice of her strawberry-pink silk gown—at odds with the filth that seemed to be steaming around her. Her face, with its too-large eyes and lips, was oddly arresting, so much so that Nicholas took a step toward her without meaning to. The thoughts that had been trying to sort themselves out went soft at the edges.
The woman received the boy warmly, leaning down to ghost a finger along the bridge of his nose, her smile as sweet as pure honey. He nodded at something she whispered in his ear and happily skipped off to a stool a short distance away, reclaiming a thin leather volume.
The woman glimmered in the candlelight as she smiled at them. Her skin, the gold, the beading and metallic thread shot through her gown—all called to him, shining and bold. The light caught her like flame on glass.
Nicholas leaned back against the pull of her, cocking his head to the side to better study her. There was something in the way she didn’t move so much as flicker around, like the candles burning on the counter near her hands—something that made him question his eyes.
“See?” Sophia scoffed. “I told you you’d forget Linden soon enough.”
He whirled on her, grasping for the words that only a moment before had been poised on the tip of his tongue. It wasn’t that. Nicholas didn’t feel a rush of attraction that set him back on his heels, the way he had with Etta, but…this was…it seemed closer to the flush that came with too much whiskey on a too-empty stomach. A sickness.
“Welcome,” the woman said, in such a soft voice that Nicholas and Sophia took another step forward to hear her. The candles mimicked their movement, and, for just a moment, he was able to tear his eyes off the woman—the Belladonna—and notice that, in the middle of the stack of reeking, swollen tallow candles was one burning a sullen blood red.
“Welcome, weary travelers,” she said again, this time with a smile that revealed beautifully white teeth, like seed pearls—something unheard-of for anyone in this era. “How may I assist you?”
This woman? This was the woman who had dueled with Cyrus Ironwood and won her independence from him? Perhaps this…beguiling charm…worked even on the stone-hearted.
“We’ve come to trade for information,” Sophia said, leaning an arm and hip against the counter.
Nicholas glanced up at the slight vault of the ceiling, not quite a dome. Much of it was covered with a damp cloak of dust and mildew, browned by time, but here and there he could make out the strange, mystical symbols that bordered its edges. At the peak was a large silver crescent moon, half masked by the dark clouds painted around it.
“I possess many remarkable objects,” the woman hedged. “And know of many more.”
“Can we cut through this nonsense and get to the heart of this?” Sophia said. “I was made to believe that you know everything and everyone. If that isn’t the case, we’ll take our business somewhere else.”
“Perhaps if you were to be more specific about what it is you’re searching for?” The Belladonna’s voice sounded as though it were being coaxed out of a violin.
“We’re looking for information pertaining to, ah,” Nicholas said, “travelers of a particular nature.”
“Perhaps you could be a little less specific and a bit more cagey,” Sophia muttered, shaking her head. “I’d love to be here to greet the next century.”
A sound shuddered up from beneath the floorboards—a heaving, stomping sound that seemed to rattle even the timber beams overhead. A portrait of a benign, pale man tumbled from the nearby wall behind where the boy sat. It smashed out of its frame when its gilded corner struck the ground. The steps passed beneath them—Sophia straightened, tracking the sound with her eye. Nicholas kept a hand on the knife at his side.
“Who the devil is that?” he asked.
The woman smiled serenely. “I sell the finest of elixirs, sir. Perhaps I might interest you in a set for your pretty little wife at home?”
“That’s not what he asked, you stupid cow—”
Sophia’s words were cut short by the tremendous bang of the door behind her as it struck the wall, and the sudden appearance of a bundle of black-and-silver silk and netting. All of which didn’t appear, so much as roll toward them with the force and menace of a thundercloud.
A woman nearly as tall as Nicholas strode forward. The bottom half of her face was hidden beneath a veil
of black lace, but her eyes were a gleaming, almost feline yellow. Somehow, either by piercing or some art, three small pearls trailed down from the corner of each eye like tears. Her décolletage was modestly covered by a sheer panel of white fabric, but what Nicholas initially took for lace was anything but. The markings were the climbing, swirling lines of what appeared to be a tattoo. When she spun toward Sophia, Nicholas saw that her snow-white hair had been braided, intricately looped and knotted together.
“Who—?” The woman leaned toward Sophia, sniffing the air around her.
Sophia let out a small cry of surprise, swatting at her, but the woman had already moved on. Nicholas leaped back instinctively as she swung her attention toward him, subjecting him to the same sniffing. Truly, she sounded like a pig searching out a truffle, her teeth clattering behind the veil. He was dosed with her scent—that earthy undertone he had detected when they’d first entered the shop.
“Ma’am,” he began, with as much composure as he could gather, “if you would be so good as to—”
She spun, carrying the same hint of damp soil and lavender away with her.
“Sir, please let me show you our latest arrivals,” the woman behind the counter said, her smile never once faltering. The other woman glanced back, first at her, then the boy.
“Put her out.” If the first woman sang her words, this one crushed them between her teeth.
The golden boy marked his place in his book and went over to the counter. He planted two hands on its dusty surface and jumped up, just high enough to blow out the bloodred candle Nicholas had noted before.
The Belladonna vanished, disappearing into the candle smoke that trailed up toward the groaning rafters.
That settled, the boy returned to his stool, picked up his book, and resumed his place in the story.
Sophia jumped forward, a wild expression on her face as she looked behind the counter for the woman—she met Nicholas’s gaze when she looked up again and shook her head.