Chapter Fourteen
Pax’s eyes widen, dark and deep, and I almost fall in. “This is it! This is how we destroy him. This is the soiree in Nirav’s painting.”
Stella, girl, this is a dangerous path.
Think HARD before you proceed. We cannot support revenge.
You will be abandoned.
I ignore this. I’ve begged Spirit to leave me be. And that is now their threat? I can’t help myself: I grin at Pax’s zeal. “Yes.”
Pax paces the empty space. His steps leave footprints in the dust, like in sand or snow. It feels ominous somehow, this evidence of his existence, as we discuss revenge.
Pax is roiling, his desire practically like a pot on boil. “The Hope Diamond. It’s almost too perfect. A scandal involving that gem will ruin his reputation. If we can steal that diamond, it will destroy his social standing, once and for all.”
“Is it enough, though?” I ask. “Is destroying him socially enough?” Oh, is it easy to be swept into a wave of revenge. How quickly I could drown in wanting more.
Pax licks his full, pink lips. “Yes. Yes, it is. He’s hanging by a thread on the New York social scene. His reputation will not survive this.” He leans in the doorway, fists in pockets, and cocks an eyebrow at me. “We’ll be a merry band of bandits, Stella!”
I do find that catchy. It seems rather unimportant to me, social standing, but Pax seems to think it’s a powerful way to seek vengeance.
I look to tiny Nirav, drawing pictures of koi fish in the dust with his fingertip.
“A merry band of bandits,” I repeat. “Just us? Three people, stealing the world’s most famous diamond? ”
“No,” Pax says. “We’ll definitely need others.” He turns his mischievous grin on Nirav. “And I’d say we’re closer to two and a half people.”
Nirav stops drawing, crosses the room, and stomps on Pax’s toes.
Pax pretends to be gravely injured, hopping about on one foot.
His playfulness with Nirav must be how he interacted with his sister Julia.
It’s so pure and lighthearted. It’s information I’m both glad to know and wish I didn’t.
“Tame your pet, would you?” Pax teases. Nirav laughs silently, which warms me.
“Absolutely not,” I say.
Nirav grins at Pax and nods once. He returns to drawing in dust.
“Who’s going to help us?” I ask. “I know no one in this city. Or at least, no one I can ask to assist us in a felony.”
“I know lots of folks in this city, and every one of them would assist us in a felony,” Pax says, then pauses. “But that’s a life I’m trying to escape.”
I respect that.
Pax stops pacing and reaches inside his jacket pocket.
“The list,” he says, unfolding a small, yellow piece of paper and smoothing it across the countertop.
It’s a telegram. I don’t get a good glimpse at it, but it appears to have five or six names there, total.
He taps it twice. “This is the list of psychics and mediums that Stead developed. He sent it before he departed London. And Clarice DuBois is on this list. I’ve already tried to recruit her for the Bureau, but she, well. She laughed in my face.”
Heavens, I wish I’d seen that. “She’s rather successful.”
“She’s rather infuriating.”
“Infuriating. I like her already.”
“No, you don’t,” Pax says, and there’s a tinge to his voice that lets me know: Clarice DuBois did not give Pax what he wants, and Pax Princip is very used to getting what he wants.
Am I playing right into that?
I glance at the telegram again. Pax picks it up off the countertop and holds it like it’s a key that unlocks something big, something important. “This is the talent William Stead wanted for Julia’s Bureau. We’ll recruit them.”
He is so excited about this idea, but it makes my stomach clench. Stead warned us not to do this. Specifically this.
Spirit bombards me with a barrage of messages: a snake, coiled tight, hissing and rattling its tail. A dog, snarling, drooling, growling. Alarm bells like those on a firehouse, clanging loudly. Smoke.
Their signs are unmistakable: Warning! Do not tread here.
But the darkness creeps in alongside those messages, and that message is simple: This will work. And the signs they offer are apple pie and cinnamon rolls and lemon sorbet: delicious and sweet and tempting.
And so I tread there: “We’re going to recruit total strangers to help us pull off a heist?”
Pax positively beams. “Who better than a team of psychics to pull off a heist? What could possibly go wrong?”
Questions with no answers.
I was unsure, to this point, if Pax also had the gift of Sight.
Now I know for sure he does not. And I must say, I’m relieved. Two of us, together, with Sight? It would be far too intense. And honestly? Knowing that I’m the one here with a connection empowers me. He truly does need me. Needs my gift, actually. I must keep that straight.
But Pax has no idea how this gift actually works.
He thinks I can ask questions and receive answers.
He thinks I can see the future.
No.
This is a stingy relationship on Spirit’s part.
Oh, Stella, I’d give you my own heart, if I could.
Yah. But a taste for revenge? That, we will not give you.
That is of your own making.
I mull over these messages, and the clockworks shop next door begins binging. Bonging. Coo-cooing. Tweeting. Ringing. Buzzing. It’s high noon, and the clocks go wild. Nirav crouches, covers his ears. Pax closes his eyes and inhales every second tossed at us.
His breath, in sync with time itself. I feel myself getting lost. I am pulled toward him, his passion, his desire for justice.
He might not have a psychic gift, but his gift is one of persuasion.
He almost seems to coax time and space to his bidding, his influence is so powerful. I cannot look away.
Bong. Tweet. Buzz. Tick tick tick.
We have three weeks until Blanck’s party.