Mr. Stoke’s dead face flashed through my mind, his shattered jaw and the clawed, deadly bruise. Then I recalled the mad smile on Wake’s face, and a chill raced over my skin.
I knew it was him. He had killed Mr. Stoke. I knew it like I knew my mother’s face and the swift, graceful characters of Lewis’s writing.
But if I was right, Mr. Wake was the most powerful Silver I had ever encountered, had ever evenheardof. How had the Guild misplaced him?
Mr. Moran’s steady stare sifted up in the back of my memory.
You asked Madge what Entwined can kill with the touch of a hand. Why?
My blood began to race.
“Miss Rushforth.” Baffin tilted his head to one side as he considered me, then prodded me with a foot, none too gently. “Get up.”
I fumbled to do so, coaxing my drained muscles into a semblance of life. I made it to my knees, then staggered to my feet as Baffin watched, unimpressed. Wake took up vigil by the window, most of his attention turned to the world below.
“I have had a long day,” Baffin said. Behind him, I could see the portrait of his younger self, holding Empress Alessandra by the hair as he prepared to kill her. “I am impatient, andtired, and will brook no deceptions. Tell me where the artifact is. Mr. Wake will fetch it. If your word has proved true, I will not kill you. If you lie, I will see you tormented in every way I know, and only after you are wholly broken, I will open your throat from ear to ear.”
I had no quip this time.
Time. If I could buy time, maybe Pretoria could track me down. But with Perry still in the wind, her attention would be divided. And what if the Guild had spotted her last night? Perhaps she was as much a captive as I.
A dozen lies spun through my mind, but none of them would buy me enough opportunity to regain my strength and forge my own escape.
Then, it struck me.
“Emrys Harden. The smuggler,” I said. Guilt, fear, warning battered at me, so forceful I could barely wall it out. I had to be rational. If anyone could handle Wake, it would be another Silver. It was the Separatists. Even given my suspicions about the level of Wake’s power, Harden was smart. And, I assured myself, there was a chance Wake wouldn’t even find him.
“He is a friend,” I said, aware of the irony of that word as I set a killer on his trail. “I left the artifact in his care. Tell him I sent you, and he will comply.”
“Where does he live?”
“I do not know.”
“You do not know where your friend lives?”
“He is a criminal, sir, he does not keep visiting hours.”
Baffin came closer, looming over me and taking in every bit of my expression. I stared back, not bothering to hide my growing fear. It was a stomach-turning, maddening pressure, aggressive and unstoppable.
Abruptly, Baffin looked at Wake. “Put her back to sleep, stow her away and go find this Harden.”
“Stow me away? What does that mean?” I shot a look between the two of them and instinctively raised my hands to ward off Wake. “Honestly, I am very tired, if you would just show me to a guest room, I will not bother trying to escape.”
Wake took my wrist.
***
I awoke for the second time to screaming muscles and a pounding of blood in my skull. I tried to turn my head, discovered I could not, and pushed outwards.
I met resistance on all sides. I struggled and made a frustrated cry, only to deafen myself.
I was in a closet. No, that was not right, gravity pulled in the wrong direction. I was in a box. My mind jumped to the chest in Baffin’s office, beneath the painting.
“Baffin, you bastard!” I shrieked.
There was no answer.
I pressed my hands, still bound at the wrists, up against the lid. It did not budge.
