Chapter 7
Celia had tried her best to be patient.
She really had.
She’d done some due diligence over the past forty-eight hours as well—walking down to the Thames to chat with mudlarks as they combed the river’s muddy banks for forgotten treasures.
Woolly mammoth teeth, potion bottles, Tudor rings, Georgian buttons, all sorts of magical things too small for the Order to bother with.
These were collected by a wizened old woman who knew their histories.
Many of the younger mudlarks called this woman Mum, and she took care of them thus, feeding the children biscuits and tucking them in with bedtime stories about what magic once looked like in England.
When swords chose kings and knights hunted for holy grails and witches refused to burn.
She’d shared plenty of stories with Celia as well, on the creaky deck of her riverfront hovel.
Tips and tricks on how to slip past the Order’s notice, even if you were collecting magical objects right under their noses.
“Hello, love!” The older woman had waved her up to the deck with the promise of a cup of tea. “Come to peruse?”
“No shopping today.” Celia had huffed when she reached the final rickety step.
It afforded her a wide view of the Thames—murky water where barges drifted with about as much speed as a dead body.
The river held plenty of secrets… That was why the Mum’s children were shin-deep in its mud, picking through beer bottles and rotting pilings.
“Finally come to sell me that key, then?” asked the Mudlarks’ Mum, nodding at the ever-present chain around Celia’s neck.
She couldn’t help but clutch it, same as she had at the edge of her father’s deathbed. This was the last piece of Papa that Celia had. She’d sooner part with it than a ship with its anchor. “I had some questions about Sancts. I was hoping you might be able to answer them.”
“Ask away.”
“Would it be possible for a Sanct to exist without a masque?”
“There are ways to hide such things, yes.” The lady’s eyes twinkled as she poured Celia a cuppa. The tea was plain peppermint—none of the special language-learning brews were served here. “Though, outside of Britain, there’s not much reason to.”
Ezra might be keeping a secret or two, but Celia didn’t think the scholar was hiding a masque. It would take an immensely skilled liar to fake the shock he’d shown at the Seek and Find, and given that he flushed so badly around Vincent Cain, Celia figured both reactions were genuine.
“What about Sancts who never had a masque in the first place. Sancts who don’t even know they’re Sancts…”
The Mudlarks’ Mum frowned at this. “Could you be more specific?”
“What if you met a man who’d seen magic all his life, but simply believed it a product of his own madness?”
“I’d pity him,” the older woman said.
“His mother was a Sanct.” Despite the peppermint tea, Celia’s mouth was starting to feel dry.
“I saw him handle one of the Order’s Egyptian relics—an amulet that allowed the dead to speak through its wearer.
No one could get it off Rose’s neck. It threw me into a wall, but when this man reached for the necklace, his entire body started to glow.
He didn’t seem to understand any of it. I don’t either. ”
The other woman’s frown grew as she looked back down at the river. “His mother was a Sanct, you say?”
“I believe so. He says she had a masque and talked about the gods of ancient Egypt as if she knew them… She was Egyptian.”
Tea slopped from the mug the Mum was holding. Her eyes went as wide as the Roman coins her children sometimes fished from the mud.
Celia’s hand tightened around her own chipped cup. “You don’t think she’s an Ageless One, do you?”
“Anything is possible when you’re talking about the magic of ancient Egypt,” the older woman replied slowly. “And there is evidence that such Sancts have produced children over the years.”
Celia took a deep breath and felt the weight of the key between her breasts. “Do you think Ezra’s power could be inherited?”
“I think you should steer clear of this man, Miss Sinclair. If he has anything to do with the Ageless Ones…” The Mudlarks’ Mum shook her head.
“They cut out their own hearts and lock them away. It’s about as awful as it sounds.
They can’t love anyone or anything. I don’t think that’s worth living forever, do you? ”
Celia’s hand wandered up to the key that hid beside her heart. She tried not to think of her father’s last breath, and failed. It hurt so much, she reminded herself, because she loved him.
My death is not worth your life.
Yes, she ached to say, but what about your murder?
Celia hadn’t just lost her father.
He’d been taken…
He’d been taken and she’d been powerless.
“If you want my advice: Stick to the small magics, love,” the Mum went on softly. “They’re far safer.”
Their conversation had dwindled after that. The tide was rolling in, and the mudlarks marched up the porch’s steps with their offerings. More coins. More buttons. A pewter toy soldier that gave animated salutes. One young lad had found a Roman lamp with its flame still burning.
Pretty, yes. But Celia had had enough of small magic.
Bits and bobs and trinkets… Even her wearable wings couldn’t make up for what the Order had taken from Papa’s study.
She wasn’t content to scrounge around in the dirt while the Sinclair family relics sat behind some vault. She needed to get those treasures back.
And she needed Ezra Bright to do it.
One tiny translation shouldn’t take long. The scholar wouldn’t even need to use any magic. All Celia had to do was show him the sphinxes and stand guard while he interpreted the hieroglyphs.
The statues looked just as intimidating as always.
Celia had approached them countless times, but the way they turned their sandstone heads and opened their bloodstained mouths never failed to make her shiver.
Even Ezra took a step back. Anyone else would’ve looked like a child playing ghost, wearing that moonlit bedsheet, but somehow the scholar pulled it off.
Probably because he had such nicely sculpted calves—
“Why are their teeth red?”
“I haven’t had the chance to ask.” Celia’s dry reply echoed around the gallery.
Ezra’s green eyes brightened. “They talk?”
She shook her head. “I kept waiting for them to pose a riddle or something—”
“Only Greek sphinxes do that. Egyptian sphinxes were placed in front of temples or tombs to ward off evil spirits.”
The sphinxes’ pupilless stares followed Ezra as he dropped to the floor to get a better view of the symbols carved around their base.
Celia held her breath. She knew that—technically—any statue could be animated if you found the spark of anima left by its sculptor.
But these statues struck her as more sentient than the stone gnomes her father used to send running through their garden.
As soon as Papa’s attention went elsewhere, the figurines went stiff.
These sphinxes moved almost like real cats: haunches bunching, as if they might pounce at any moment.
Their tails twitched as their stares bore down into the back of Ezra’s neck.
Celia could taste her own heartbeat at the top of her mouth.
“Interesting…”
The scholar moved slowly on his hands and knees. The sphinxes’ heads tilted.
“What is it?”
“I’ve never seen hieroglyphs like these before. I don’t think all of them are original… Some have been filed off and re-carved.” Dark hair fell out of his face as he stared up at the sphinxes.
“What does it say?”
“We are the eternal guardians of the sacred vault. That last part was rewritten. Only through the blood of the… Well, I’m not quite sure what this symbol here is trying to say.
Magicians, maybe? Only through the blood of the magicians may the gate be opened.
I guess that explains the color of their teeth. ”
The statues’ jaws unhinged a bit wider at this. Celia’s own teeth clenched. “They must have altered the spell on these sphinxes so that only Order members can have access to their gate.”
“Why blood?” Ezra asked. “That seems like an awfully inconvenient security system.”
“Blood holds anima.” It was one of the reasons that the Order magicians enforced so many rules—or so Papa had once explained.
The magical world beyond Britain was wonderful, yes, but it was also full of Sancts who acted like vampires, draining people’s souls to enhance their own power. “That’s impossible to fake.”
The sphinx on the right let out a sandy hissssss. The other opened its jaws wider, leaning as close as it could toward Ezra without falling off its pedestal. The scholar stared back at the stone, his brow furrowed. His hand twitched. Then it started to lift.
“No! Ezra! What are you—”
Stone teeth sank into the man’s palm. It had to hurt, but he didn’t cry out, not even when red started to drip down the sphinx’s tongue, taking on a glow it hadn’t displayed in the scholar’s veins.
Bright blood fell to the floor and found the grooves in its tiles, snaking up the far wall, sketching the outline of an elaborate door.
It looked almost like a neon sign… Scarlet patterns burned themselves into Celia’s retinas—the shape of a rising, winged sun.
Or, it would have been, if the second half of the gate was glowing.
As it was, the first sphinx had drawn only enough blood for a portion of the door to appear.
Ezra winced as he pulled his palm from the statue’s mouth. More droplets splattered to the floor, but they didn’t glow. Only the second sphinx’s teeth would do the trick. The scholar must have come to this same conclusion, because he was turning toward the next set of teeth.
Celia stepped forward instead. “Here. Let me.”
“Are you sure?” Ezra frowned.
“It’s only fair.” They were here to settle her personal vendetta, after all. “I’m a Sinclair.”