“I got falsely accused of shoplifting jewelry when I was only trying to take photographs of a haunted wall in the Grand Bazaar—”
“Wall?” he said, gaze dropping to my camera case. “Should I ask?”
“Probably not.” Huck was superstitious and maintained a “best leave it alone” attitude toward anything ghostly or occult. “It’s been a lousy day,” I mumbled.
He nodded sympathetically. “That fellow downstairs mentioned your tutor quitting.”
“She took all the traveler’s checks, ran off with a lounge singer, and left me here alone!”
“I see...”
“No, I doubt you do, but let me explain. While you were running around Turkey behind my back with Father, I was being held hostage in the Grand Bazaar and then accused of being a she-demon, and now I don’t have any money except this”—I pulled out the banknote that the stranger in the black coat had given me and waved it angrily in front of Huck’s face—“which probably isn’t real currency and definitely isn’t mine, but apparently I’m a magnet for the uncanny today, and did I mention how long it took me to hail a taxicab that splashed me with excrement? But if it hadn’t stopped, I was likely well on my way to being murdered in some back alley and being torn apart by wild dogs. So yes, that’s been my day.”
Wide hazel eyes blinked at me. Forget Helen of Troy: those eyes could launch a thousand ships. Sometimes golden, sometimes green, they peered out from a dark fan of overlong lashes.
“Well, then,” Huck said evenly. “Good thing I showed up when I did, yeah?”
I started to lash out with a catty response; yet in that moment a glacier thawed inside my rib cage and flooded my chest, and I was just so thankful he was here. Not because I couldn’t take care of myself. I could. Not because I’d mourned him as if he were dead and buried, sobbing my eyes out for months like some silly child.
It was... just such an enormous relief to see his face.
But I would’ve rather hacked off my own arm with a rusty butter knife than tell him that.
The light above the bathroom mirror cast deep shadows, and Huck’s towel was thin and damp. Unexpectedly, my imagination filled in the blanks with gratuitous detail, and I felt my cheeks catch fire. I prayed he didn’t notice. When our gazes connected, I knew that he had, and I wanted to fold myself up until I disappeared.
“Seriously, Huck. What is going on?” I said, flustered, making sure my gaze didn’t slide downward again. “Where is my father?”
“Aye, Fox,” he said. “I couldn’t say exactly.”
“What do you mean? Is he not with you? Why exchange our train tickets? Are we leaving Istanbul tonight?”
He blew out a long breath, and his cocky exuberance faded. “Your father is maybe, just possibly, a tiny bit missing in action.”
“Missing? What do you mean? You lost him?”
“He lostme, if you want to be technical about it. On purpose.”
I blinked. “He left you?”
“I think he has a plan, but I’m not entirely sure. Things got... complicated in Tokat. But not to worry. I’ve got instructions, and Fox will no doubt be fine. He has balls of iron, so there’s no cause for worry.”
I couldn’t understand why he was being so blasé about my father’s well-being. “He’s in trouble? Is he trying to avoid arrest?” It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been detained for violating international antiquities laws. “If he needs bail money, I can’t—”
“No, it’s not the police or the government. The people who are after us are unpleasant. I’ve seen strange things, banshee....” He shuddered briefly and said quite seriously, “We never should’ve come to Turkey.”
“I’m going to need more than that. Is Father in trouble or isn’t he?”
“Aye, maybe. The short version of the story is that I flew out to Tokat to meet up with him, and we hiked up the mountains to search for... the thing he was searching for.”
My jaw clicked as I flexed it. “Vlad the Impaler’s ring.”
“Right,” he said, as if he would’ve been happier if he could have talked around it. “He mentioned that was a sore spot.”
“Oh, isthatwhat he told you?”
His eyes narrowed. “Do you want to hear this or not?”
I nodded curtly.
