Chapter Forty-Seven
Three hours later, after much debate with myself on whether I should show, we meet Pax outside his apartment. He looks tired but striking in a world-weary way. His jacket is smooth camel hair, his cap is flat and crisp. I am angered that I notice these details.
“Grand Central Station,” he says. “I think that’s where we’ll find Kiyoko.”
I’m already shaking my head. “She’s not going to run.”
“It’s where we first met her. I think we start there.”
I look to William, who is as clean and spiffy as ever, and Nirav, who looks like he slept on a doorstep. Which he did.
I suddenly feel gritty. I must look atrocious. I don’t care.
“I suppose that’s not a bad idea,” I say with hesitation.
We walk east down Forty-Second Street, under rumbling trains, beside steaming gyro carts, past bodegas and cigarette advertisements and rats.
The large arched windows of Grand Central come into view. A sharp, shrill whistle pierces my brain. I instinctively cover my ears and freeze.
Spirit isn’t showing me an image of prey, exactly, but they are sending me the sensation of being stalked. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
Pax and William have kept moving, but Nirav stops. Looks back.
My eyes dart about, searching for danger. “We’re not supposed to be here,” I whisper. Every sense is on high alert—the city smells too much and the painted signs are too bright and the morning air is too thick off the East River. “This place—it’s dangerous.”
Pax tilts his head at me. I expect him to argue, but instead he eyes Grand Central.
“Okay, let’s get out of here.” Pax cups my elbow, and we begin to walk away. I yank my arm from his grasp. The farther I get from Grand Central, the more my heart steadies.
Thank you, I say to Spirit. For that warning. I’m grateful that even when Spirit won’t help me seek revenge, they still won’t lead me into danger. They won’t let me get caught.
Pax nibbles his thumbnail. “I think we have to go back to the Bureau. If you feel she’s not at Grand Central—”
“I didn’t say she’s not there.” I fight to level my voice. “But I hope she’s not. Danger most certainly is.”
“She’s smart,” William says. “She’ll know not to go to the Bureau.”
“But where do we meet her? We can’t abandon Kiyoko,” I say.
“Stella. Right now she’s far more likely to abandon us than we are to abandon her.” Pax winces as he says this. He’s thinking of the stash, and it stokes my ire.
“She wouldn’t steal from us,” I spit. “I trust her completely. You obviously do, too, or you wouldn’t have asked her.”
Pax nods but doesn’t verbally agree. He strokes the stubble on his chin.
My impatience rises, stabby pangs of anger and annoyance. How dare he accuse Kiyoko! “This is your own fault, Pax. You could’ve met those guys if you hadn’t been plotting murder.”
“Well, we could’ve waited at our meetup spot if you hadn’t needed to one-up Blanck,” Pax fires back. “We don’t even know if she showed.”
The silence that follows is thick, heavy. Spirit…, I start. But I can’t ask a question. We continue north. My every step feels like I’m wearing concrete shoes.
William says at last, “Clarice is a good hypnotist; I’d be willing to bet Blanck doesn’t remember the Bureau or where it is.”
Bet. “He knows it’s near the racing stables, though. That’s how his goons found our boardinghouse. He was looking for us near the stables.”
Pax nods. “Any other ideas?”
We’re quiet before William says, “Les carottes sont cuites. I suppose we must return to the Bureau. We have nowhere else to go.”
Spirit jolts me with an annoying shock, the sensation they’ve used over the years that means PAY ATTENTION YOU NEED THIS INFORMATION. I used to loathe the sensation—a searing-hot flash, momentarily disorienting me. But now I smile, grateful.
We have nowhere else to go.
Those words. It might’ve been me remembering our earlier conversation, or it might’ve been Spirit repeating her words back to me.
A memory or a voice—I still cannot tell which is which.
I might never discover the difference. I’m beginning to think it doesn’t matter.
Perhaps for me, their voice is mine—our voices are one and the same.
I’m beginning to see that as the gift that it is.
And I know I’m right, regardless.
“I know where to find Kiyoko.”
“The library is where you go when you have nowhere else to go. She said that. It’s where we’ll find Kiyoko.”
We stand at the corner of Fifth and Forty-Second, near the lion known as Leo Astor. The sun peeks over the buildings to the east, illuminating the front of the New York Public Library in a soft, orange glow. Otherworldly.
Light does that.
It turns the ordinary into the extraordinary.
We wait on the vast, wide steps until the building caretaker unlocks the rotating front doors at 10 a.m. How long have I been awake? When we hear the click of the lock, we whir through the doors and I dash to find the book I know Kiyoko has sought out.
A quick flip through the card catalog tells me exactly where it is.
Nirav and Pax follow as I weave through Astor Hall to the north stairwell, past the telephone booths, past the elevators.
Up one story to the nonfiction collection.
Halfway around the room, fingertips skimming the wrought iron bookshelves.
There!
Hopeless: A History of the Hope Diamond.
I pull the book from the shelf. The pages are warped around an object. A small brass key drops from between the pages, these pages that detail just how cursed the Hope Diamond is, the gem we stole mere hours ago.
I hold up the key in the dim light of the Reading Room.
Remember how powerful it would feel, to own a key?
Like every lock a possibility.
“A key?” I ask. “There must be a million locks in New York City. How are we supposed to know where this key fits?”