“What you’re saying is that Vlad was no candidate for the Noble Peace Prize.”
“Nobel. Not noble.”
One side of his mouth curled like paper in flame. “I thought it was given to noble people.”
“Guess they won’t be giving it to you, then, huh?”
“Oof!” he said, clutching his chest. “One point awarded to Miss Theodora Fox.”
I smiled to myself. Maybe this wasn’t so bad after all. If I didn’t think too hard about Black Sunday or why he hadn’t written me back all these months, or how he’d turned me into an empty shell of a person with a giant Liberty Bell–size crack in my heart... Well, then, I supposed I could pretend none of it ever happened. We were simply friends, like we used to be when we were children. If he could ignore the elephant in the room, so could I. After all, we were always at our best when we were competing. This was just another sledding race down the hill in our backyard after Christmas dinner, or sneaking into Father’s office to see how many priceless antiquities and medieval regalia we could rearrange before the housekeeper found us.
I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, adjusted my black beret, and crossed my arms on the edge of the table. “Say, you know those photographs of Mr. Rothwild’s bone ring that were stuck in Father’s journal?”
“Sure. What about them?”
“I studied them last night when I was trying to crack Father’s cipher. And I kept looking at his next-to-last journal entry, about how he found a ‘gruesome’ way to authenticate the real ring. Did he tell you what that was?”
Huck shook his head. “He kept most of the details to himself.”
Not surprising. “Well, both the photographs and that ‘gruesome’ comment led me to wonder why Mr. Rothwild hired Father in the first place.”
“Because Rothwild thinks his ring is fake.”
“Right. And that’s when I remembered the woodcut depiction of the ring inBatterman’s Field Guide to Legendary Objects.”
“Your evil mythological object catalog.”
“They’re not all evil or mythological. They are—” I shook my head. “Never mind. I’m just saying that I pulled out myBatterman’slast night to look at the woodcut. The illustration is crude, so it’s hard to tell, but there seems to be a symbol on the top of that ring—a dragon with its tail wrapped around its neck, forming a circle. Almost like an ouroboros.”
“A what-o-whatus?”
“A serpent eating its tail. I think it symbolizes eternal life, or cyclical time. Regardless, the bone ring in Father’s photographs—Mr. Rothwild’s ring—didn’t have a dragon on top. It was just a single band with some strange carvings. Don’t you think that’s strange? That Rothwild’s ring doesn’t at all look like the one in the woodcut?”
“Maybe the person who did the woodcut took a lot of artistic license. I wouldn’t believe everything in that book of yours.”
He waved a dismissive hand through the air, and I had the sudden urge to pick up my fork and stab that hand, but became distracted when something tickled my foot. I lifted the tablecloth to peer underneath and was startled to find a large husky-like dog with fur the color of freshly fallen snow and pointed ears, straining against a leash.
My first thought: why was there a dog in the restaurant car?
My second thought, when my gaze traveled up the leash to the hand that held it: this wasn’t the first time I’d seen this dog’s owner.
The dark-and-brooding Heathcliff from the hotel lobby back in Istanbul. Before I found Huck in my room, the bearded man in the long black coat who handed me the banknote...
“Please forgive my Lupu,” he said in a deep, rich Eastern European accent. “She is suspicious of strangers.”
“I’ve seen you before,” I said.
“Miss Fox, isn’t it?” he said, and then he canted his head apologetically. “I don’t mean to be rude. Please forgive me. I heard the concierge talking to you in the Pera Palace lobby when I...” He mimicked handing me money. “You remember.”
Oh, I remembered, all right. Why was this man here? Was it a coincidence? Any other time, I might have thought so, but after what had transpired since I’d last seen him? No. Something was very, very wrong about his being here.
“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” I said, schooling my features to appear bland while my heart thudded hard and fast beneath the cotton of my striped shirt. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
“I am Mr. Sarkany,” he said. “Small world, yes? I was in Turkey on business.”
“With your dog?” I said, glancing at the animal.
He made a wry noise that wasn’t quite a laugh. “I take her everywhere. She makes quite the impression, no?”
