Chapter 2
There was no need for the pistol in the end.
The clue at the zoo was hidden in one of the lampposts by the tiger’s cage, sending the quartet back to the fanciest automobile Ezra had ever seen.
The cream-colored Hispano Suiza came with its own chauffeur, who’d polished the silver stork hood ornament so thoroughly that it looked like a tossed cocktail.
It was too nice to belong to Lord Blackwood.
Too showy. All eyes turned their way as they were bused from place to place, following clues.
One had been baked into a slice of chocolate cake at London’s finest restaurant.
This guided them to a department store, where new dresses had been laid out for the ladies.
Next came a series of clubs, where paper scrolls were hidden in trumpet cases and twisted into garnishes.
“Thank heavens we’re out of those feathered gowns!
” Minnie exclaimed, taking a swig of her cocktail.
The drink menu was the length of a small novel, but all four of them had ordered the Imperial Opal, at the last clue’s suggestion, and were now nursing the beverages at one of the club’s round tables. “I hated that outfit!”
“It tickled too much.” Rose nodded emphatically—a motion exaggerated by the fact that her glass was already empty.
“Not to mention they cost a damned fortune,” Biz sighed as she picked apart the clue from her drink’s lemon garnish.
“That’s a bit rich, coming from a woman who’s wearing Callot Soeurs,” teased Minnie.
Ezra had no idea who Callot Soeurs was, but he had to agree that Biz’s new dress was nicer than the last. She’d changed into a green velvet piece edged with blue and gold embroidery that flowered into a Byzantine-like pattern.
“Why were you wearing so many feathers in the first place?” he wondered.
A costume party, as it turned out. The concept was new to Ezra—the parties he’d braved at Oxford were more practical affairs.
A few glasses of wine. Some introductions.
A few more glasses of wine. Dinner jackets thrown to the side.
Ties loosed. Nothing like the outfit changes Biz and her friends started describing.
The Bright Young Things—as they so proudly called themselves—had made an art of party-going.
Seven nights a week they would dress up as shooting stars, bishops, acrobats, and butterflies.
Togas were donned for a Senate session, where they drank Bacchanalian amounts of wine.
There were Wild West parties, masquerades, carnivals, tropical parties, Mozart parties, Victorian parties, parties where everyone wore only white and danced in an orchard until dawn, parties on boats, parties on airships, parties at country estates.
There was even one very notable midsummer’s night trip to Stonehenge, where the gilded youth picnicked on ancient stones.
There were parties where guests were instructed to imitate babies.
Or pirates. Or, in this evening’s case, their favorite bird.
“It’s kind of like a game,” Biz explained, after seeing the look on Ezra’s face.
“Each party has to be more outrageous than the last. That’s why Lady Hilsbury bought a bunch of exotic birds to decorate her Mayfair mansion for this Flights of Fancy party.
There were scarlet macaw cages hanging by the chandeliers and parakeets perched beside the punch bowl!
” she laughed. “The invitation told us to dress like birds, which meant that all of London’s dressmakers were scrambling for feathers two weeks ago. ”
“That sounds… excessive,” Ezra said as he lifted the Imperial Opal to his lips.
It didn’t taste like jewels. The mix was mostly absinthe and Chartreuse—a heady, green combination that reminded him of Paris between battles. The jazz band brought back war memories as well. Certain notes hit just the same pitch as incoming artillery, causing Ezra to flinch.
“It is,” Biz shot back. Though they were both in agreement, she sounded combative. “But it’s better than the alternative.”
Ezra raised his eyebrows. The drink had started to go sour on his tongue.
“I go along to get out of the house,” Rose said, almost as loud as the trumpet solo.
“It gets too big and empty—especially at night. Mum goes and shuts herself in Anthony’s room and cries like a ghost even though he’s been dead almost ten years now.
” She gave a tight shrug. “I know it’s silly to dress like a bird, but I figure it’s better to be silly than sad. Anthony would have laughed…”
Across the table, Minnie appeared stricken.
No doubt she’d lost someone to the war as well.
A brother, a father, an uncle… There was more than enough grief to go around the table.
And then there was Biz. The leader of the socialites picked up her glass and tipped its contents back until there was nothing left inside.
“What about you, Mr. Bright?” Minnie pivoted. “How do you spend your evenings?”
Falling asleep on medieval angels, apparently. “I’ve been conducting research for my doctoral dissertation.”
“Oh? And what are you disserting?”
“It’s difficult to explain…” He looked back at the satchel by his feet.
There were a healthy number of notes inside, recording the different winged archetypes that he’d found at the British Museum so far.
But Professor Blythe was right—the concept was too scattered.
If he couldn’t explain his thesis to a twenty-year-old flapper, how could he expect to defend it to a table full of professors?
Even still, it seemed a better distraction than dressing up like an ostrich.
“Our ancestors needed myths in order to understand the natural wonders around them,” he began.
“Take lightning, for example. We now know that lightning is the natural result of charge differences between the sky and the ground. But all the ancient Greeks saw was magical fire from the heavens—they tried to explain the phenomenon by creating Zeus, a god who could fling lightning bolts as weapons. The Scandinavians created Thor. The Hindus had Indra. We humans tell ourselves stories to make sense of the world. It’s how we survive.
When I was fighting in France, I heard all sorts of wild tales in the trenches.
Soldiers need myths too, you see. They needed stories about angels blocking bullets with their wings and stopping shells with their flaming swords—”
“The Battlefield Angel!” Rose interjected excitedly. “I loved that song when I was a girl!”
Ezra had appreciated it too—the verses made him feel less alone in his own apocryphal visions.
“That’s right. The Battlefield Angel was one of the first legends, but there were countless others.
The Flower-Girl of Flanders. The Veiled Women at Verdun.
The way men told these stories, with such religious fervor, well, it got me thinking.
Why did all these heavenly intercessors have wings?
What is it about flying that grips our imagination so strongly?
It’s a bit trickier to explain than lightning, but it’s what I’d like to address in my thesis.
I’m combing through the British Museum’s collections to find evidence of how this motif appears in almost all of the world’s ancient cultures. ”
“You’re hunting for angels?” Rose paraphrased. “That’s awfully poetic.”
It certainly sounded nicer than the truth: Ezra was hunting for his sanity.
Or, at least, proof that there was some sort of method to his mind’s madness.
If it followed archetypes, it could be predicted, and thus contained.
He would never again find himself waking to such a nightmarish scene as the one in that foxhole.
Across the table, Biz’s kohl-lined eyes had narrowed. “Aren’t you getting your doctorate in Egyptology?”
“The ancient Egyptians used wings in their mythology too. Isis is serving as one of my prime examples.”
“Biz always said you were smart. Now I know why,” Minnie laughed. “You’re making my head spin!”
“That could be the cocktail,” Ezra muttered.
He wasn’t used to such compliments. True, he was one of the top-performing scholars in his year, but that achievement always came with vicious whispers: Of course Ezra would know the answers—he’s the bloody subject matter. It’s little better than cheating, in my book!
There had been very few people he’d befriended at Oxford.
Even fewer who could convince him to stay out for a drink or endure a barrage of bandstand songs.
Biz’s black-struck eyes were still narrowed across the table.
She was spinning an empty glass in her hand, so fast that he feared she might drop it.
Ezra wasn’t here for the gun.
Or a second round.
Not really.
He was here for her. At last. And far too late.
The final, lemon-tinged clue led them to a venue known as the Gargoyle Club. Despite its name, the building wasn’t covered in grouchy medieval statues. The facade was quite plain compared to what lay within.
“Henri Matisse designed this place,” the doorman informed Ezra as he stopped to gape. “You’ll see some of his paintings hanging on the walls of the dining room!”
These turned out to be difficult to spot given the nature of said walls.
The famous artist had decided to mosaic them with mirrors—glass from an old chateau had been shattered and pieced back together around the outer edges of the dining room.
The effect was dizzying as Ezra followed Biz into the crowded space.
There had to be close to two hundred people here, but none were seated in the restaurant’s cane chairs.
No, they stared at the newcomers in silence, gripping glasses of champagne.
One man stood out from the rest. He wasn’t holding a champagne flute, but a black velvet case.
For the first time since Ezra had joined them on their hunt, Biz’s steps faltered.
Ezra slowed too.
He blinked.
London couldn’t possibly be this small, could it?