Chapter Eleven #2
“Then I’ll stick to my jewels,” Raphi said with a wrinkle of his nose, turning his attention to his work.
“You’re not just a jeweler.” Felix’s words broke the rhythm, quiet but resolute as he looked up.
Raphi quirked an eyebrow. “Oh? What am I, then?”
“You’re an expert,” Felix replied, threading confidence through his tone.
“You don’t simply craft jewels. You studied geometry and graduated from the University of Edinburgh with honors.
The connections between shapes and angles, along with your calculations and sketches for the Royal Service—I’ve seen what you are capable of.
That’s why you’re one of the Crown Jewelers. There’s art in precision, Raphi.”
Raphi considered this, his normally calm expression softening with something close to gratitude. “I suppose you’re more than a dentist, then?”
“Yes,” Felix said, surprising himself with the stark honesty of the word.
“I am someone who helps. There’s good work in preserving what others might discard.
” His fingers clenched briefly over the handle of the press.
“I’m not like the butchers and barbers who don’t truly understand teeth, who leave people worse than before.
” Felix didn’t want to say it, but he’d seen what those crooks did: extracting teeth too early or with pieces of the jawbone.
They damaged adjacent teeth and caused patients such harm that they were left terrified of ever seeking help again.
No, they were not dentists; they were perpetrators of assault on the human body. Despicable.
Raphi nodded, handing over another flattened wire. “And yet,” he murmured, “those less skilled often thrive. The dishonest ones profit from chaos. There’s no lack of them, not even across the street, making false jewels and taking shortcuts.”
“There’ll always be those who sell glass beads as pearls. Those who cut corners may get to their goals faster, but don’t learn much along the way,” Felix said quietly, though his jaw tightened at the thought. “But I admit, they get away with more than they should.”
The room stilled. Felix adjusted the press, his movements slower now. Felix adjusted the press, his movements slower now, as his mind drifted to the man who had gotten away with the most, and who didn’t deserve to continue.
Baron von List. His crimes—poison, attempted murder, kidnapping—were numerous. But his punishments were not.
“I’m afraid to ask about Baron von List,” Felix said at last, watching for his friend’s reaction.
Raphi’s expression darkened. “Then don’t,” he said sharply.
“Ask me anything else. He’s taking the shortest path to victory and gets away with crimes twice and again.
” He paused as if the name of the baron smelled bad.
“Instead of using glass beads, List is the sort of man to put dung balls on a chain and get the world to admire it as if it were pearls—he’s the sort of criminal who dazzles with threats. ”
“Blindingly so,” Felix remembered him well—the patient who had strutted into his chair, muttering that he’d never trust a Jewish dentist. Felix’s name had hidden him then, Leafley instead of Blattner, like the camouflage, but List wasn’t a natural predator; he was a menace.
The memory still made his stomach tighten.
Confidentiality kept him from speaking, even if the patient had been Baron von List himself—the same baron who carried his venom from Vienna into London, who cloaked his cruelty in titles and influence.
List had not only unleashed Bailiff Nagy against the Klonimus family—under cover of the Austrian Kaiser’s authority—but had made himself a parasite in Parliament, using his noble guest-rights in the Lords to block every measure that hinted at equality for Jews.
To him, success was contagion; if a handful of Jewish families prospered in London, others might follow, and the thought of that ambition spreading struck him as the greatest threat of all.
List was dangerous. And Felix hadn’t forgotten the ride in the Spanish Riding School back in Vienna, the one who’d said that List was related to Hofst?tter. A tightly-wound network of enemies across Europe. At least List hadn’t found out about Felix’s true identity, his connections to Vienna.
List was busy with the Jews in London. Specifically, to break the Klonimuses, whose commissions from the Prince Regent relied on steady gold, he’d gone for the source.
Bands of men—his men—had stripped the mines in Transylvania, trying to starve the family’s supply and topple them from favor.
If the ore ran dry, the Crown’s patience would run out, too.
Felix exhaled slowly, rolling the tension out of his shoulders.
Baron von List was a reminder of everything Vienna had taken from him and everything London still demanded.
He couldn’t go back—not now, not with 87 Harley Street depending on him, not with the Royal Warrant binding them all to their patients and to the Crown.
Leaving would be betrayal. He told himself he’d never do such a thing.
He turned to Raphi, his voice even, though something hard pressed against his ribs.
“Your contacts at the docks. Tell me—any word?”
Five years of silence. Five years of hope clung to like glass shards—cutting, but impossible to let go.
Raphi’s pause spoke before his mouth did. And then, softly, the blow: “Nothing.”
The room seemed to dull at once, candlelight paling, shadows thickening.
Felix blinked hard, forcing the sting back, refusing to let it spill here.
Not in front of Raphi. A man doesn’t bear the wound that hasn’t healed.
And yet, Maisie’s absence still felt as raw as the day she’d been torn from him.
“She’s still out there.” His voice was low, meant for no one—or perhaps only for himself. His hand tightened on the press until his knuckles blanched. Raphi’s hand came down, firm, steadying.
“You’ll find her,” Raphi said. Simple words but weighted with the kind of loyalty that never mocked hope, even when it hurt.
Felix met his friend’s eyes. For a moment, he nearly said the truth—that if words alone could bridge the sea, he’d have been back in Vienna long ago.
But Harley Street tethered him, and he couldn’t risk undoing everything they’d built.
Worse, searching blindly meant passing her in some port or inn, missing her by a day, an hour.
Better to stand fast and send the net wide—Raphi’s letters, his trade contacts, his quiet inquiries stretching farther than Felix could reach without raising suspicion.
But standing still was its own torment. Every unanswered letter was another lash, every empty ship’s list a blade across the hope he refused to release. He was fighting blind, chained by duty, yet still—still—he never stopped turning stones, never stopped pressing forward.
He looked down at the gold in his hands. Cold, unyielding, yet promising something lasting. If he could mold this metal into crowns, bridges, lives rebuilt, then surely—surely—somewhere in the city’s shadows lay the answer he was searching for.
And even if tomorrow crushed him again, he would keep searching.
Always.