Chapter 4 #2
“Why stay where they might see you, then?” asked Ezra. “It sounds like France has far better opportunities.”
“I’m not French,” Celia said, voice as steely as her fork. “I’m a Sinclair.”
And Sinclairs don’t surrender.
Even if their family name no longer meant much.
It didn’t turn heads or garner invitations.
Though Celia and her mother hadn’t moved so very far from their old Mayfair town house, they’d dropped off high society’s map entirely.
The Bright Young Things, at least, were a little more egalitarian.
And opportunistic. You didn’t have to have a fortune to attend their parties…
You could be a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker…
As long as you were interesting, you were invited.
And Celia, with her tragic loss of fortune, had become something of an albatross for the other young women.
Plus, it didn’t hurt that she gave them discounts on dresses.
“Besides,” she went on. “If I went abroad, who would step in for girls like Rose? What would have happened to you if I hadn’t stopped you from touching that mirror?”
The young man’s jaw knotted. “I’m not helpless.”
Celia had gathered as much. Her shoulders were sore from the amulet slamming her into a glass wall, and if she shut her eyes she could still see Ezra’s shining outline traced against her lids.
Then there was the matter of the Germans.
Thanks to a special tea, she understood their language.
She knew Ezra had killed those men. Of course, it wasn’t shocking for a soldier to shoot someone…
But according to Ezra’s ghosts, that was not how they’d died.
“You’ll need to act that way if you’re going to be spending more time around the Bright Young Things. No more lighting up like an acetylene torch.”
Ezra stared down at his arms, covered in ragged, dull tweed. “It’s not as if I did it on purpose!”
Did she believe him? Celia glanced at his shadow, then back to where hers fell over her half-eaten plate.
Nothing about this handsome young angel hunter quite added up.
He wasn’t like the sorcerers Papa had warned her about—who used people’s shadows like puppet strings.
Nor did he match any of the other tales Celia had learned about magic.
Sancts always cast their spells from their masques.
Even shadow-stringers. What did it mean that Ezra’s whole body glowed?
And then there was the mystery of his mother.
An Egyptian Sanct… According to certain Order members, those no longer existed.
The region sat under the thumb of foreign magicians, all of whom were racing to replicate Lord Carnarvon’s discovery.
Egypt’s best magic was buried. The relics rumored to be waiting underneath its sands were beyond anything the Order had locked away behind those two infuriating sphinxes.
Oh…
“Why are you staring at me like that?” Ezra asked.
“Like what?”
“Like I’m another piece of bacon.”
Celia bit her lip. She’d always had a bad habit of jumping into things headfirst—Patience, my girl!
had been Papa’s constant refrain. Do your due diligence!
Ezra could not be an exception. She needed to slow down and do a bit more research about masque-less Sancts before involving him in her own translation project.
“Sorry,” she told him. “I was just thinking of ways we might learn more about your magic.”
His eyebrows lifted. “We?”
“Well, yes. I feel a bit responsible for enlightening you. That’s with a lowercase e,” she added. “And I do love a good mystery.”
Ezra leaned back in his seat, hands dropping into his lap. “I’m not some Sherlock Holmes novel.” There was an edge to his voice. One that immediately softened as his eyes met hers. “I—I don’t know if it’s a good idea to go too deep with this. You might not like what you find…”
The Germans’ screams echoed in Celia’s ears. Her shadow prickled across the table—it seemed to reach for Ezra naturally, along with the slant of the morning sun. “You don’t know the first thing about what I do or don’t like,” she told him.
He jerked his chin at her half-empty plate. “You like bacon.”
Celia fought back a smile. It died, quickly, once she caught sight of a sparkly herd of guests taking their seats at a nearby table.
Ah, bollocks. The Gargoyle Club must have closed down—nearly a dozen Bright Young Things were now calling for coffee.
Within earshot of their table. Eyeshot too.
Vincent Cain hopped up from his chair not two seconds after he’d sat, making his way to their booth.
“Well, well. What have we here? I was wondering why you snuck off so early, Bright.”
They were on last-name terms… Had they served together?
Yet there was a camaraderie between the two men that went well past soldiering.
Celia didn’t miss the way Ezra brushed back his hair.
The tips of his ears had gone red—impressively so.
Vincent’s body language had shifted as well.
He was leaning extra close to Ezra’s side of the table, as if he was quite used to sitting there.
“Vincent, this is Miss Sinclair.”
The other gentleman gave an over-easy smile.
“Celia Sinclair. Of course! We’re birds of a feather: always flitting in and out of the same parties!
You know, I was meaning to introduce you two this evening, but then you both disappeared on me.
What luck that you connected regardless!
” He waved at their plates. “Come join our table! I insist! It’s so much easier if it’s all just one check.
” He winked at Celia. “Also, that way, we can plot out our storming of Savile Row. I’m determined to get this man a suit that actually fits! ” Another wink.
Celia really had no desire to go back to conversations about how many peacocks were plucked for a dress or which Mayfair family was the latest to fall victim to the stringent new tax laws.
But it wasn’t as if she could keep talking about magic with Ezra, who’d already grabbed his plate and was walking with Vincent to the larger table.
Their evening together was over.
She could let him go. Finish the breakfast on her own, pay and be on her way.
But there was a pull… something that went well past the edges of Celia’s shadow.
Something that told her it wasn’t wise to let Ezra Bright walk off for good.
He was much, much better than bacon. Also, a free meal didn’t hurt.
She hadn’t stolen back her family’s good fortune yet.