His grip tightened, hard enough to make me flinch. The orchestra began to play a tremulous melody, instrument after instrument joining in to a rising chorus. Intermission was over, and within moments Mr. Wake and I were surrounded by merry patrons hurrying back to their seats.
I jerked in his grip, but the confusion had failed to distract him. He prodded me against the tide and into the mouth of a staircase.
Wake led me around the bottom of the stairs to the upper boxes and downwards instead. The light shifted, shadows taking over. My threads prickled, though not enough to show, I hoped.
I brushed at that power. Memories swept over me, transferred by the painful grasp of his hands. I glimpsed his recent passage through the crowd, his watching the window of Pretoria’s hotel room from the shadows across the street, and following the pair of us back from my apartments. Seeing us leave again, and enter the Opera House.
“Clearly my disguise was not as good as I hoped,” I observed.
Mr. Wake snorted and pushed me against the wall. I kept my shawl tight.
“You are Entwined?” he asked, still grasping my arm. “I saw the papers. Ottilie Rushforth, alias Fleet, was arrested for murdering her employer. A prison cell to the opera in two days?”
“Guild privileges. You are very brave, accosting me in sight of their box,” I said coolly.
Wake’s grip twitched. “No one would notice us in that crowd, not even a Silver.”
“You are adorably naive.”
He ignored me, continuing, “Besides, you are not a Guild mage, you are a Rogue, and I have done you a favor by whiskingyou away. Your handler is looking for you. You can thank me by telling me where the fuck the artifact is.”
“I see we have resorted to foul language now,” I commented, buying my scrambling mind precious seconds. Given how he had followed Pretoria and I from my apartments, he must have mistaken her for my Guild handler.
He moved closer, crowding me into the wall.
I frowned up at him. “Brute intimidation? Really.”
“Enough. Fleet. Rushforth. You, allegedly, killed Mr. Stoke. Oh, and I spoke to the professor. I know the artifact is connected to the Entwined, so it’s no stretch to realize you would have an interest in it. Perhapsthatis why you are in an opera house instead of a Glass Coffin. Have you given it to the Guild? Buying forgiveness for your reprobate ways?”
The chill that prickled down my exposed arms had nothing to do with the cool wallpaper, with its patterns of waves and birds on the wing. I felt myself on a precipice, a point of decision that might save or condemn me.
As Pretoria had said, a thug like Wake was the least of our concerns, even if he had proved himself capable of following us. But he was also the most efficient route to Lord Stillwell, and potentially, finding out where Perry had gone.
It was time to take another chance.
“I want to speak to Stillwell. In person,” I said flatly. “Then I will tell you where I hid the artifact.”
He stared me down for a long moment, clearly debating whether to believe me. “You did take it?”
“Of course I took it,” I scoffed, as if my supposed crime was the most natural thing in the world. “But I have not handed it over to the Guild, not before I have proper assurances, which are being negotiated.”
“At the opera?”
“Why not at the opera?”
“Fucking Guild,” he said, disgusted. His grip slipped down to my hand where he grasped my fingers—rough, and slightly sweaty. “Follow me.”
We emerged from the stairwell to find the performance back underway. On the stage, a woman sang in Kessan,reminding the watchers of her woes and setting the tone for the second act. I could not resist glancing towards the Guild balcony. Only Madge’s face was distinguishable, her bold features set in a slice of gaslight.
A steward quietly opened the doors for us. The music hushed as its sturdy, carved wooden face closed once more and Wake and I proceeded across the lobby hand in hand. My palms were sweating, and I resisted the urge to pull away.
I looked for Pretoria among the tidying stewards and spattering of patrons, but did not see her.
A few people lingered outside the doors as we exited onto the street, mostly a group of young men. I kept my face down in the play of light and shadow, forced my gaze ahead, keeping pace into the night.
Our hansom passed through the heights of New Harrow, a lattice of meticulously patterned streets below the palace hill. The roads were broad, built for motor cars with walks for pedestrians and room for intermittent trees. The latter were a burnished plum, the first of their fallen leaves scattered across broad paving stones. The houses were adorned with bold, square columns and geometric patterns to their pale bricks, along rooflines, mantels, and lintels. Electric streetlanterns shone bright, not a single one in disrepair.
As we exited, a troop of drunken young well-to-dos clattered by, surrounding one fellow on horseback, bedecked as a god of the sea. One grabbed my hands and spun me around, heading for an inebriated kiss—he was rank with the smell of wine—but before I could deliver him a well-deserved knee to the groin, Mr. Wake grabbed him by the back of the neck and thrust him on up the street. The fellow flailed, just managed to keep his feet, and threw an obscene gesture back at Wake.
