“There must be a secondary lever!” I shouted—or, felt that I shouted.
But if there was, we could not find it. We searched and cursed as my eyes ran with tears and sweat, and the smoke sent us into fits of coughing.
The door swung inwards without warning. A dark, moody blue orb rolled before it, tapping a pattern of blood across the floor.
I snatched up the dodecahedron, and Lewis and I charged through the gap.
There was too much smoke to see our rescuer, or if they were indeed a rescuer. Just then, it did not matter. Together Lewis and I pushed the door closed one final time, blocking off the heat of the fire. Smoke curled across the ceiling.
The closing of the door cut off the light of the fire, but the passage was not dark. It was lit by a lantern in the hands of none other than my dear sister, Madge.
Lewis gave a wheezing, coughing groan.
I felt much the same, and wished quite passionately I had not lost my saber.
The artifact was heavy in my pocket.
Madge raised a pistol. Her voice was still muffled in my damaged ears, but the passage was quiet, and I caught enough to understand. “We have little time, so I shall make this quick. I am here only to warn you. Baffin and his people are on their way to secure the artifact. Do you have it?”
“No,” Lewis said firmly.
I conjured a defiant glare.
“You do,” Madge stated and stuck out her hand. “Give it to me and run. It is safest with the Guild, you know that. You have no time to waste.”
No, we did not. Furthermore, the vault door at my back was beginning to radiate heat and hiss unsettlingly.
“Does your husband have a son?” I asked suddenly. I probably shouted it, which was indelicate, but I did not care.
She looked at me with wide, startled eyes. It was answer—and distraction—enough.
I charged. As I expected, she did not fire her pistol, not at me, and especially not in such a small space. She did try to strike me over the head with it, though.
I dodged and slammed her into the wall. Lewis reacted with alacrity, commandeering her weapon despite his lingering limp.
I took advantage of the momentary press—close enough to an embrace to make my sisterly heart ache—to snatch at Madge’s memories.
I saw her slipping into the museum in the shadow of Mr. Moran. Following him with careful, measured distance. I saw a confrontation between the two of them, caught my own name.
“Ottilie,” Lewis broke in.
I broke off and shoved Madge ahead of us. “Move,” I said, though my voice was not as harsh as I intended.
Madge. Me. Moran. Wake. Lewis. There were conflicts and connections afoot that I could only begin to parse.
With our prisoner, we hastened back through thebasements. Lewis was limping even more now and I was frighteningly weak, but we kept Madge in check and eventually spilled out onto the marble floor of the corridor above ground in a drift of smoke.
Pretoria and Perry converged on us. Wake was nowhere to be seen.
“You!” Pretoria threw out a pointing finger ahead of her, glaring at Madge. Madge glared right back. “What are you doing here?”
Madge did not speak.
Pretoria made an exasperated sound and hastened to look back down the stairs, batting away smoke that now curled up into the ground floor. Lewis grabbed her, giving some warning that slipped past me—likely of Wake.
Now that we were back in Pretoria’s company my Leeching-induced weakness came on again in full force, my heartbeat fluttering too lightly in my skull, my ears ringing.
Geoffrey, Maddeson’s assistant, was here too, looking pale and haggard. Maddeson himself gaped at us, his bound wrists held by Perry. A third figure, a night guard, was trussed up against the wall at the end of the hallway and appeared to be unconscious. Detective Supford was not present, but I was far more concerned about Wake’s location just then.
