Pax appears to be weighing if he can simply blurt out our plans to boost the Hope Diamond and avenge her client in the process. He opts against it: “I can offer you job security and safety.” His magnetism is wavering in the presence of this peacock.
“Pax, I’ve told you: I see anywhere between four and eleven clients a day. Three-quarters of them are women, so of very little danger to me.” Mlle DuBois clucks. “Such needy characters, most women.” Her eyes dart to me and back to Pax.
My eyes narrow at her.
“What about the other quarter of your customers, mademoiselle?” Pax asks. His smile positively shines at her. “Surely the other twenty-five percent aren’t all perfect gentlemen around the likes of you?”
The likes of her? I glance at Nirav, who cups his chin and looks at her like she’s made of spun sugar. Kiyoko isn’t even listening to this conversation; she paces the edge of the room, examining knickknacks and artifacts.
“Aren’t you a charmer?” Mlle DuBois coos. “But indeed. There are easier ways to make a buck than to expose others’ secrets. Not many folks are willing to take the chance of being run clean through with a pitchfork.”
Truth.
“Won’t you please join us?”
“I’m not easy, Monsieur Princip.”
“That’s clear to see.”
Mlle DuBois tosses her head back and laughs, her throaty chuckle rattling my nerves. She takes a drag off her cigarette and spins, sashaying down the hallway.
“I am not a no,” she says over her shoulder. Her deep voice crawls back down the hall to Pax: “I am more interested, now that you have assembled your little team. But if you want me, you’ll chase me.”
I am one of Pax’slittle team? This woman makes me itchy in my own skin. I stand. “Let’s go.”
Pax blinks back the spell he’s been placed under. “I haven’t yet won.”
“I was wrong. We don’t need her,” I lie. We do.
“She doesn’t have a pet,” Kiyoko adds. “Bad sign.”
Pax sets his jaw. He hiss-whispers the next part: “She knows Blanck. She’s our ticket in.” Now he’s the one convincing us. That woman does indeed have powers of some kind.
“She shouldn’t be on the list,” I say. “Stead’s telegram? She shouldn’t be on it.” And then, I don’t know what comes over me, but I become quite petty: “I think she’s a fake.” I wince even as the words leave my lips. Me, calling someone else a fake.
Pax’s brow wrinkles, like he’s now understanding that he’s been bewitched. “Stead wouldn’t have recommended a fake. There’s been some sort of gaffe…”
William eases forward. “May I have a word?”
Pax paces the white marble floors. We have little more than two weeks until Blanck’s party, and Mlle DuBois is name enough to get our crew through his doors. Yet she insists on playing cat-and-mouse games.
William leans forward in his chair, and the leather seat squeaks. “I’m the one you want.”
Kiyoko puts down the crystal she was examining and listens. Pax leans back, sizes William up. William is beyond fastidious; not a hair is out of place, not a fleck of dust coats his glasses. He is maybe twenty-two, but his mannerisms make him seem easily forty.
“What do you bring to this game, sir?” Pax asks.
William’s nostrils flare. “You don’t think it’s a game.”
His forthrightness surprises Pax. “Go on.”
“I’m supposed to go with you,” William says. “When you said those words—Julia’s Bureau?” William’s eyes glass over with tears. He wrings the blanket in his lap.
Pax leans in. “Yes.”
“I can hear the sincerity in your voice,” William says. “This organization. It means a lot to you.”
I take a seat next to William. I try to look him in the eyes, but I can’t—it’s too intense, like sunlight reflecting off snow. My gaze falls on the intricate worn rug.
