Dust motes danced in a sloping column of afternoon light that slanted through the front window, casting thehamsatalisman onto the floor. My eyes flicked first to the shadow and then to the back wall of the shop toward a wooden counter. Standing behind it were two rail-thin elderly white-haired gentlemen wearing identical red bow ties. Identical heavy, broomlike mustaches covering their upper lips. Identical bushy brows and curious eyes twinkling behind round, tortoiseshell eyeglass frames.
Twins. Most definitely twins. The only way to tell them apart was that one wore a suit jacket and the other stood in his suspenders and white shirtsleeves, cuffs rolled up to his elbows as he held an old quill over a ledger.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” I said in Romanian.
“Good afternoon,” the man on the right said.
“Lovely day,” his twin with the quill said.
“Do you speak English, perhaps?”
“But of course,” the first man said, switching languages with ease. “You are American, yes?”
“American,” I confirmed.
Huck removed his flat cap. “We’re looking for Mr. Zissu?”
“You found him,” they answered in chorus, both smiling.
“I’m Mihai,” the man on the right said with a crisp cant of his head, “and this is my brother, Petar.”
Petar gestured with the feather on his quill. “May we help you find something?”
“I certainly hope so,” I said. “Miss Theodora Fox and Mr. Huxley Gallagher. We’re looking for my father, Mr. Richard Fox. I’m hoping he may have come here to see you?”
Mihai said, “We know of him,domnisoara.”
“American treasure hunter,” Petar said. “It’s possible our paths have crossed, though not directly. We travel frequently. Sometimes we are interested in the same objects. Sometimes we hear gossip about places he’s been or things he’s found....”
The twins gave each other a look that I couldn’t quite interpret.
“You haven’t seen him today?” I asked. “Or yesterday?”
They blinked in unison. “No,” Mihai said. “He has never set foot in our shop.”
But the business card... and the cipher. He said plain as day in the journal that he needed to retrace his steps from this summer’s trip to Romania. Had he intended to come here but never made it? Had I missed something?
My gut twisted as a heavy hopelessness settled over me. I wasso surehe’d come here. Where else could he have gone? Had he given up on the ring and gone to Paris? Back to New York? Was he dead in a ditch? WAS HE? I shared a worried look with Huck.
“Do not be sad,” Mihai said, giving me a kind smile. “We may still be able to help you. We’ve heard rumors about what Mr. Fox is seeking.”
His brother leaned against the edge of the counter. “He isn’t discreet. And neither is his employer.”
I stilled.Steady, I told myself.
“Do not look so surprised,” Petar said. “We know of Mr. Rothwild.”
“You... do?”
“Though he has never set foot in our shops, either,” he added, gesturing with his quill toward the walls.
“Can’t enter what you can’t find,” Mihai said, and the brothers snickered together with dark delight.
I sneaked a glance at Huck’s leery face. Oh, he wasdefinitelyregretting coming here. Should we be backing out of this shop? My gut was useless. I had no instincts about these strange brothers. I felt as if everything I’d learned in Father’s journal was just torn into a thousand pieces and thrown into the air.
Petar smoothed out his thick mustache with two fingers, taming both his bushy hair and his smile. “But you found us, didn’t you? Which was no surprise. We had a hunch you would.”
“You... did?” I said, feeling as if the walls were closing in. Like I was the victim of some massive inside joke and the world was laughing at me.
