Miss Martin snorted.
The door swung open. A somewhat cadaverous butler appeared. "This way, my lord. Ma'am. Lady Eberhardt is expecting you."
Which was somewhat disconcerting. At the lilt of Ianthe's brow, Lucien gestured her forward. "Ladies first."
The door slammed shut behind them with little evidence of the means, making both of them jump. A lion's head leered off the wall, a tiger stuffed beside it. The entire hallway was a display of some hunter's prowess, and Lucien had the eerie suspicion that some of those glass eyes were staring back at him.
He'd been in creepier places—Bedlam sprang to mind—but there was something about the detonating silence here that made him feel watched.
Voices murmured from behind the sitting room the butler led them to, but when he opened the door with a flourish, there was no one inside.
"If you'll wait here," the butler murmured, "her ladyship should be with you momentarily."
A dozen candles sat on a mirror on the small table, their wicks still smoking, as though they'd been blown out but an instant before the doors had opened. A Wedgewood tea set sat beside them, smoky shadows filling the teacup, shifting as though in a slight breeze. Lucien peered into them, catching a glimpse of something... Lady Eberhardt was an acclaimed mistress of the Divination Arts, but he'd never seen the like before. He leaned closer, making out small images. The dark smoke seemed to suck at him, drawing him in, until he fell into Vision.
An older woman he didn't know was lying back on red silk sheets with her raven hair spilling across the pillow as she curled an adder to her breast and laughed up at him. "Three sons," she whispered. "Three brothers. Three sacrifices." Her smile turned vicious and triumphant. "One relic in hand and one to come. And one that is lost. Where is it?" Those slanted green eyes became distant, as if she stared into nothing. "There," she breathed. "There it is. Right behind you."
Lucien glanced over his shoulder into the room, and the woman vanished, leaving nothing more than her laughter echoing in his ears.
"I'm coming for it."
The vision twisted, leaving him watching from above as a man strolled out of an alley, swinging an ivory-handled cane. The Prime's face stared back at him, only he was younger, devastatingly handsome, and his eyes were as dead as liquid mercury. For a moment, those silver eyes turned as if peering up from the depths of the cup and seeing him looking back. Chains bound his wrists, though they were made of shadows, and the Prime didn't seem to be able to see them. Then something tore the center of that handsome face apart and a demon crawled out from within, discarding the fleshy husk like a piece of abandoned clothing. A demon he knew.
"Hello there, Master," it hissed, and Lucien cried out, though he couldn't move all of a sudden. Couldn't escape. Cold speared out through his body, but he was locked in stasis, that awful whisper branding itself on the inside of his mind in burning letters.
“Lucien?” someone called, and he felt a tug at his arm.
“Revenge is a dish bessst served cold...”
Then flames were roaring over his skin, burning away at him from the inside, burning him to nothingness. He screamed—
A hand dashed between him and the teacup, shattering the vision.
Lucien staggered back, and Miss Martin's hands directed him onto the nearest daybed. He collapsed there, panting, slapping at his clothes from where they still smoked. Bloody hell. The demon was still out there, somewhere. Somehow. Perhaps he hadn't banished it after all? Agony lanced through his head at the thought, and he pressed his palm into his forehead, trying to stop it from splitting his head open. He felt like there was something within him, trying to tear him open from the inside, like the demon had done to the Prime in his vision.
"Mercurah abadi di absolom," Miss Martin murmured in a hollow voice that rang with power, growing louder with each word, as she traced glowing sigils in the air around him with her finger. They shone brightly, then sank into his flesh, like menthol brands, both hot and cold. "Mercurah abadi hessalah di abscrolutious."
"You are not welcome here, creature of darkness," someone else intoned. "Begone, begone. Take thy foul self and leave this place."
Someone blew a candle flame out with a clap, and the pain and pressure in his head abruptly disappeared, leaving him shaking and sweating.
The world began to leech back into him. There was a warm weight on his lap, one that smelled like lilacs and rustled as she moved. Miss Martin. Her arms curled around him, drawing his face against her shoulder, and she stroked her fingers through his hair. "Shh. It's all right. It cannot touch you here. You're safe. It's gone."
Luc shuddered, clinging to her as he fought his way back to sanity.
"You should know better than to look into another's living dreams, boy," said an older woman, not unkindly. "What did you see?"
He couldn't stop shaking as Miss Martin drew back. Was this the vortex that Cross had mentioned? "Bloody hell." A hand through his sweaty hair did little more than dislodge its style.
"Rathbourne." Another small hand took his and laced its fingers through his own. The hematite and emeralds on Miss Martin's fingers winked up at him. "It cannot get to you here."
"What was that?" he asked hoarsely.
"Shadows of Night," the other woman murmured, pouring the smoky not-quite-liquid back into the teapot where he couldn't see it. She owned a mannish, husky voice. A voice quite used to command. "Impenetrable, unless one has a gift for Divination, and you, my boy... have quite a gift."
Taking him by the jaw, Lady Eberhardt tilted his face up to examine it through eyes as black as pitch. "Ah," she murmured. "Now the wheels are turning. No wonder Drake sent you here to me."
Hers was an arresting face, strangely ageless. Broad cheekbones hinted at an exotic beauty once upon a time, and the straight patrician nose hearkened back to Roman days. She would never have been a pretty woman, but he could see men stopping in their tracks as she walked by, not quite able to take their eyes from her. Knowing that here walked a woman of power, someone who owned every inch of herself, and probably them too.
