“Yes, but I thought we’d go to Nickleby House after this.”
He likely also worried she’d be seen and recognized walking along the street.She threw herself at him, hugging him tight.
He hugged her back, nestling his face in the crook of her neck.“Sweet Juno, Diana, you really have been miserable, haven’t you?”
“No.”She cupped his cheek.“Not a bit.Only… I long to be free.”How silly it sounded, but how difficult to say, too.The words and ideas most important to the soul were often the ones held closest, coveted in dark silence.
He nodded, and his throat bobbed, then he helped her down in front of the museum.Together they passed through the grand columns and joined the crowd inside.
“We can simply walk through the door?”she whispered.
He squeezed her hand, tugged her toward the back of the large open hall.“This way.”He pulled her between a wide Egyptian statue and the wall.
A doorway waited in the shadows, and though it was in plain view of everyone, no one seemed to notice it.They passed inside the dimly lit hallway, and Temple slowed.
“This the Hall of Alchemy.No one particularly cares about our history.Besides, we don’t let them have the good stuff.”
“Of course not.”
“Stop here.We can go no farther, and Nico promised to meet me here.Wait by this painting.”
She did, leaning close to read the plaque beneath it.“Gilbert Crane.”
“Founded the Alchemist Guild.”
He was one of those gentlemen with hair everywhere except on the top of the head.In the ears, on the jaw, in the nose.The painter had not been shy about depicting every scraggly specimen.As well, he possessed a magnificent mustache.Thick and lustrous, it curled up at the ends into little spirals.“He’s?—”
A door opened across the room.Diana had not noticed it before, but now another room beyond splashed light into their little abandoned hallway.Temple stepped behind her, shielding her in his shadows.
“See you tomorrow, Stone,” a man called out from behind the door.
“See me tonight, why don’t you, Nico?”This another voice, deep and dour.“Dinner at my place.Mrs.Stone wishes to meet your wife.”
The one called Nico laughed, but there was not a single merry note in the sound.“You invite me to your home after how you’ve treated the Grants?You spent the last hour deriding my dearest friends.Surely you do not expect me to accept your invitation after that.”
“The Grants broke the rules and defied our customs.You know that.Besides”—the second voice grew more venomous—“what do they need us for now?Sir Knightlyis the king’s lapdog.”
Oh.Oh no.Diana swung around and pressed herself against Temple’s back.Hard as a rock and tight as a bowstring.She rested her cheek against his muscle and wrapped her arms around his waist.A proud man like Temple… he would hate being called a lapdog.
He did not pry her off his body, but he remained stiff in her embrace.
“That’s not fair, Stone,” Nico said.“You were courting Sybil.She’s a lovely woman.And you dropped her with the first whisper, married another woman not a month later.How can you?—”
“Because she’s an apple from a tree I cannot stand.You’d do well to keep your distance from it, too.”
Diana jerked away from Temple, stepping to the side, arms ready to swing if they must, to defend those who had given her highness.In this Stone’s voice was the same disparaging venom she heard from Apollo.She wanted to strike this man down, and she felt heat gathering in her palms to do so.
But an arm yanked around her waist.A chain, anchoring her in the shadows.And instead of doing something to the man called Stone, she watched him march down the Hall of Alchemy and into the darkness beyond.
“Twat,” the other man hissed.
Temple was shaking.With laughter.“Do you have what I came for, old friend?”
“That you, Temple?”
“Yes.And I’ve brought someone to meet you.”
The other man stepped fully into the hallway, closing the door behind him.“Thank Juno.I almost pissed my trousers.”He wandered closer, and in the faint light from the large hall beyond, she saw him now.Tall and broad like Temple, but slenderer, too.He had rich red hair, and the kind of mouth that seemed to want to smile.
