CHAPTER 47 JAMESON
JAMESON
For the past seven hours, Jameson had received a steady string of deliveries at the London flat. Crucibles—so many crucibles. But as yet, he had not received the two items he most wanted: the Alchemist drawing and an invitation to the Devil’s Mercy.
“You are making a mistake.” That was Branford, aka Uncle Broken Record. To say that he had not been pleased that Jameson had gone to his brother would have been an understatement. Threats had been issued. Personal space had been invaded. Branford’s accent had gotten posher and posher.
But it was too late. If Jameson had made a mistake—well, it was already made. Branford had asked him what he’d offered up to Bowen in exchange for this favor—or rather, these favors, plural. Jameson had answered in a single word: Vantage.
As much as that hurt, Jameson didn’t regret it. He wasn’t capable of regretting a gambit, not when it still might pay off. He was the Hawthorne known for Hail Mary passes, the one who took risks, and if there was anything on this planet worth risking everything for, it was Avery.
Heads she’d wanted him to look for her, tails she hadn’t, but either, he was hers.
No regrets, Heiress. So Jameson continued to pass his time scouring each and every crucible that Bowen Johnstone-Jameson sent him, looking for something—anything—that might make sense of that postcard of Hannah’s. If it really was Hannah’s.
A rap at the door broke Jameson from his thoughts.
“I’ll get it,” Xander volunteered, jackrabbiting toward the door.
This time, when the door opened, there was no package.
There was instead a man holding a silver tray.
The man didn’t speak. He didn’t blink. Jameson came up behind Xander, looking over his brother’s shoulder at the objects lying on that tray.
There were three of them: a black envelope embossed with a platinum design, a curled scrap of paper, and a cell phone.
Jameson reached to pick up the envelope—marked by a triangle inside a circle inside a square, on and on. Patterns repeating. The phone rang the moment Jameson touched the envelope’s edge.
The man holding the tray remained motionless and unblinking. Jameson picked up the phone and answered it. “You have impeccable timing, uncle.”
“Before you open that envelope,” Bowen said on the other end of the line, “you might ask to hear my terms.”
“Your terms? I thought we’d agreed on terms.” Jameson turned his back on the tray—and on Xander—and found himself face to face with Branford.
“Did you?” Bowen’s voice said on the other end of the line. “Well, young Hawthorne, your lack of attention to detail is hardly my problem.”
Jameson realized then: He’d offered up Vantage, but Bowen had never accepted that offer—not explicitly. He’d just told Jameson to go back to the Hawthorne flat and wait.
Branford made a grab for the phone, and Jameson dodged.
“Feel free to set it to speaker, if you would like,” Bowen told Jameson, like he knew Branford was there, like he could see them.
Jameson set the phone to speaker and didn’t even have a chance to tell his uncle he’d done so before Bowen spoke again, addressing his next words to Branford. “Say a word, Simon, and I will consider the young man to be in default.”
Bowen did not specify what it would mean if Jameson was determined to have defaulted.
Apparently, he didn’t have to. Branford clamped his jaw closed.
“On the tray, there is a scrap of paper,” Bowen said in that not-rough, not-smooth, impossible-to-ignore voice of his. “Now would be the time, Jameson Winchester Hawthorne, that you pick that up.”
Jameson did as he’d been instructed.
“Unroll it.”
Setting the phone face up on the tray, Jameson did as he’d been bid, uncurling the scrap of paper. On it there were three words, written in impeccable cursive.
Firethorn. Promethium. Augustus.
“In exchange for the favors I’ve done for you this day, I want a favor in return.
” Bowen’s voice was every bit as aristocratic as his brother’s, but there was the slightest lilt to it.
“Any favor of my choosing. Those three words will be the key. No one will know those words, except you and me. When I call in your debt—with those words—you will give me whatever I ask of you. That is the cost of your invitation to the Mercy, should you choose to open it.” Bowen paused for one second, maybe two. “Now, you may speak, Simon.”
It didn’t escape Jameson’s attention that Bowen used his brother’s given name, not his title.
“Do not do this,” Branford told Jameson, his voice low.
“Persuasive, isn’t he?” Bowen quipped. “My elder brother.”
“Any favor?” Jameson directed that question to the phone.
Branford locked fingers around his forearm. “Jameson—”
“Nothing that will cost you Vantage,” Bowen clarified on the phone. “Nothing illegal. Nothing that will do direct harm to you or anyone you love.”
“No direct harm,” Jameson echoed, pulling his arm from Branford’s grasp. “What about indirect harm?”
“I can hardly be held responsible for every possible downstream effect.”
“How about this, then,” Jameson countered. “No anticipated harms to me or to those I love.”
“Jameson.” Branford was practically vibrating with intensity now. “Do not do this.”
“I can agree,” Bowen said on the phone, “to your stipulation.”
“And the favor has to be from me.” Jameson ignored Branford and focused only on the task at hand. “Not Avery.”
“Agreed.” There was a note of finality in Bowen’s tone, and Jameson knew instinctively: That was the last stipulation his uncle would agree to.
“Now,” Bowen continued, “should you find these terms acceptable, you will walk out to the terrace alone, close the door behind you, and say the three words on that scrap of paper where no one else can hear them. But before you do that, young Hawthorne, be sure that you mean it. Because those who default on a deal with me tend to find the consequences… most unpleasant.”
“Jameson—don’t.” Branford tried one last time, but when Jameson plucked the phone off the silver tray, his uncle didn’t stop him.
As Jameson walked out onto the terrace and closed the door behind him, no one stopped him.
“Firethorn.” Jameson said the first word, fairly certain that was a flower. “Promethium.” An element. “Augustus.”
And just like that, it was done.
“Your invitation is for midnight,” Bowen said, “and not a minute before. You’ll find further instructions in the envelope. Do dress appropriately.”
The muscles in Jameson’s throat tightened. “I will.”
“It was a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Hawthorne.”