The sound of her name on his lips made her shudder.It was meant to.Jacobs wanted her to leave.
Ellie stepped closer instead.“You’re after justice.That means someone wronged you.”
Something flashed behind the perfect control of his expression.
“Or maybe not you,” Ellie deduced, her mind whirling with furious calculations as she read the dark nuance of his look.“Someone you cared about.A man like you doesn’t have friends.Family, then.A sister?A mother?”
The anger in him sharpened at the sound of the word.
“Itwasyour mother,” Ellie spilled out with a burst of surprise.
Jacobs seethed with threat as he loomed over her.She might as well have been baiting a cobra—but she had to keep going.If Ellie could get to the heart of Jacobs’ motivations, she might find the key to getting him to help her… help that could mean the difference between saving the Brahmastra and rescuing her friends.
She would solve this mystery, once and for all, using all the power of her reasoning to pry it from Jacobs, whether he liked it or not.
“You aren’t a man who had the care of a loving parent,” Ellie reasoned.“Whatever happened to your mother, it took her from your life a very long time ago—but you don’t know who did it.You would have killed them already if you knew.You’re trying to find out who it was—only you must have some idea, or you wouldn’t know where to search.And where are you searching?British Honduras?Egypt?”
She read the rage on his face and knew she was pushing him—but it didn’t matter.She wasn’t going to stop.Not this time.Not until she’d learned what she needed to know.
“No.It isn’t about the places the Order has sent you,” she pressed.“It’s the Order itself—who they are.What they can grant you.”
More of the picture took form—and started to make sense.
“Your accent.The way Borthwick treats you.You were born poor.That’s why the Order matters.There’s one thing they can grant you that you can’t find anywhere else—access to the upper echelons of society.They’ll let you get closer because they need a tool—a weapon.You don’t know who killed your mother… but you know he’s powerful.That he’s one ofthem.”
A fragment of Ellie’s other life tumbled into place, woven through with memories of purple sashes and wooden placards.The suffragists had advocated for more than just women’s right to vote.Desperate people had been drawn to them, hoping that perhaps a group of ladies brave enough to go up against Parliament would be able to save them from threats more intimate and terrible than disenfranchisement.
Ellie recalled what she had learned from that experience with a wrenching burst of sympathy.“Most women are hurt by someone they love.”
His face washed over with an uncharacteristically raw rage, and Ellie knew that she had gone too far.
Jacobs yanked her around the corner of the building, put his hand to her throat, and pinned her against the stones.
With a twitch of his fingers, his grip tightened.
Ellie couldn’t breathe.Instinct took over, and she clawed at his hand where it held her.
His eyes were wild.She had stumbled into a secret that had shattered what little tolerance the man had left for her… and unleashed murder.
With an awkward rustle of leaves, Dawson stumbled around the corner of the building.He stared at Ellie and Jacobs like a startled deer.
For a moment, Ellie felt a desperate, irrational hope that he would intervene—that this weak-willed, self-absorbed man might actually do something to save her.
Dawson took a step back.“I didn’t… That is…”
He turned and ran back into the trees.
A battle raged inside of Jacobs, fury wrenching against his iron habit of control.Ellie watched him pull himself back from the brink.It happened slowly, with immense effort, as the need for air consumed her, blackening the edges of her vision.
Jacobs slammed her violently against the ancient stones, and then let her go.
Ellie fell to her knees in the dead leaves at his feet, gasping rawly.
A storm roiled behind his eyes as he stared down at her.The control he had just regained had been hard won—and remained dangerously precarious.
Without another word, he turned and walked away.
Adam burst around the corner and dropped to the ground.“Ellie!”
