“Are you well?” Lewis asked.
“The stone is acting like twilight. Did you touch it?”
“Not since Sarre, and I noticed nothing at the time.”
I fell quiet again, overtaken by a maelstrom of disordered, anachronistic images. There was no order to them, no structure. Just a tempest of power and recollection.
I glimpsed Dr. Maddeson, setting the artifact reverently down. Detective Supford, examining it. Lewis carefully wrapping it in canvas, back in The Sarre. The darkness of its box. Seaussen rebels, their faces covered in brightly colored cloths, bore it through a smoky forest. Then I saw a lavish house, perhaps Lord Stillwell’s former residence in Sarre Grand, with pale painted plaster, gauzy curtains, and crashing waves.
Last of all, I saw Mr. Stoke. My sorcery flared and I snatched at the vision like a rider at a runaway horse. The image slowed, broadening and clarifying until I stood in a hotel room. Mr. Stoke cupped the orb in his palms and considered it, speaking to someone I could not see.
“The only thing I can,” Stoke said, frowning at the piece. He looked harried and battered, bruises clear on his face. “If what the professor has told me is correct, I cannot put her at risk, nor any other Entwined. Until I know more, I will ensure this does not fall into the wrong hands.”
Someone must have spoken, out of contact with Mr. Stoke and the stone, and thus inaudible.
The detective replied, “Thank you, Jon.”
Jon. I delved further into the stone’s memories, searching for any clue as to who that was.
The last memory the stone possessed of Mr. Stoke washim tucking it behind a wall panel in what I surmised was his hotel room. Then there was darkness, a tremor of feet here and there. A new light, a hand, a face. A police constable with the nameJ. Hopgoodon his breast pocket.
I reeled back into the present. Lewis stood beside me now, one hand resting on my back and his expression writ with concern.
“Ottilie? What is it?”
For a few heartbeats I could not speak, overcome with emotion at the sound of Mr. Stoke’s voice and the implications of his words.
“He knew. Mr. Stoke knew what I am. He hid this”—I raised the artifact, voice thick with gratitude and grief—“to protect the Entwined.”
“He was a detective,” Lewis pointed out, but not unkindly. His brows furrowed. “He could still have warned you about Wake.”
I shook my head, shrugging as if the physical movement could detach the pain of my agreement. “He looked injured,” I admitted. “Perhaps the situation simply escalated too quickly.”
Lewis made a noncommittal sound.
I charged on: “A constable who works with Supford, I saw him, too. He recovered this, the orb, from Mr. Stoke’s hotel room. I cannot see precisely when… but the memory is quite recent. Perhaps even today?”
“That would seem reasonable.” Lewis nodded vaguely towards the ceiling. His hand was still on my back. “Considering a detective is here now.”
I nodded, trying to corral my emotions and focus on the facts. But my eyes burned and I felt, in that moment, sapped of strength.
I had the artifact. I had it, and with it, hope of reclaiming Lewis’s and my future. But Mr. Stoke was still dead, killed for his good intentions, for his attempt to maintain peace and protect me.
He clearly had not believed the artifact would be safe from Baffin in Stillwell’s hands. Perhaps he was right, perhaps he was wrong, but my excuses had begun to feel both flimsy and selfish.
I clenched my eyes shut, trying to block out my emotions, to steel myself. We would have to find another buyer, one with no connection to Baffin. Pretoria could do that, though it would complicate matters.
Lewis’s hand slipped up, cupping my shoulder and allowing me to bury my cheek in his neck. His other hand, however, remained on the table—a statement, a lingering separation, which I could not help but interpret.
Heart aching all the more fiercely, I straightened and put the stone into the pocket of my coat. It sat heavy, but secure.
“We ought to find Pretoria,” I said.
A deep, long creak echoed through the vault.
We both snapped our heads around. In the same movement I stepped towards one of the other tables and took up a saber.
Lewis drew his pistol.
