“Blue?” Kuni recoiled in mock horror. “Any respectable Balcovian aristocrat would never be seen in anything but our national pink.”
“My wife would be happy to loan him a more appropriate frock coat,” Graham told Viv with a grin. “Why aren’t you off with Jacob?”
“Why should I be with Jacob?” she countered, defensive.
“Didn’t you say something along the lines of, ‘I shall be your second shadow until my cousin returns home’?” Graham asked mildly.
Oh. That.
“I perceive how you might draw the conclusion that a shadow would be near its object,” she mumbled. “I tried that. It didn’t go well.”
“Jacob was unfriendly to you?” Graham said in surprise.
“I… might have been unfriendly to him,” she admitted. “I provoked him, and he got upset. Out of sorts enough to allude to something dark in his past, which he refused to elaborate on.”
“Well,” said Graham. “You’re the advice column writer, but if you ask me—”
“I did not ask you.”
“He’s about to tell you anyway,” said Kuni.
Viv tightened her jaw. That washerunwelcome trick. She was starting to see how annoying it could be.
“Whether you ask me or not,” said Graham, “the truth is this: You can’t demand to be in someone’s confidence. You have to deserve it.”
Ouch. Sharp blade, right through the chain mail. Touché.
“You know what?” said Viv. “I think I’ll go and meddle in someone else’s life now.”
Halfway through the list. Things were going… well, perhaps not swimmingly, but things were certainly going.
Elizabeth and Stephen’s London residencelookedsafe enough to the naked eye. However, the moment Viv lifted the ordinary brass knocker, something metallic clicked three times and the doorjamb shattered into pieces.
She jumped backward, only for the wooden pieces to be swept away down a previously hidden channel. The door itself flew upward, as if inhaled to a higher story. Behind it now hung a wall of ceiling-to-floor fringe made of yellow yarn glistening with… oil?
As the dripping liquid pooled onto the floor, Viv gingerly smudged it with the tip of one shoe. Definitely oil. The growing puddle covered the marble entryway three feet wide, inviting anyone who dared cross to slip and break every bone in their body.
“Have you considered simply hiring a butler?” she called into the void.
No one answered.
Were they not at home? Or were they ignoring her?
Viv knew they had other cases. She’d helped plan half a dozen of them. The mother had been reunited with her child, the gambled dowry had been restored to the distraught daughter in time for the wedding, and the church’s landlord had been forced to repatch the roof.
She glared at the yawning darkness. Either Elizabeth and Stephen weren’t home, or the bizarre blanket of oily fringe had muffled Viv’s words. Lord help her. She hadn’t planned to ruin her best bonnet today, but there was no way through except forward.
She found a stick to push the wet fringe aside, and placed a tentative boot onto the slick marble.
Two things happened at once: The fringe jerked to one side, disappearing as though a team of invisible stagehands had yanked the curtain away for the final show. More concerning, however, was that the floor beneath her foot did not stay put. The marble heaved, as though giving a great belch.
Viv windmilled her arms to keep her balance. She barely managed not to tumble arse over teakettle. What had previously seemed solid marble was now a thin checkerboard pattern of tiles, with every other square half an inch shorter than its neighbor. The result was that the oil drained away.
A pulley to her left clacked, drawing Viv’s attention and alarm. An object that looked like a gigantic fireplace bellows emerged from a panel above the baseboard and gave a great heave, depositing not air but a thin layer of sand over the floor. Making it as safe to transverse as Viv supposed it was ever going to be.
She crossed with care, narrowly avoiding a gossamer thread poised to launch a chute of overripe plums atop the unsuspecting visitor.
At the other end of the six-foot entryway was an innocuous-looking wooden door. Viv wasn’t certain whether to attempt to knock on this one or simply to fling it open and take her chances.
