Chapter 10
It was well past noon by the time Ezra and Celia pulled back into the gravel drive of the Pratts’ Cotswolds house, returning the Hispano Suiza to its former spot beneath an arch of roses.
No one had seemed to miss the vehicle. Vincent did not burst out the front door.
Nor was Biz staring through the curtains.
Ezra was relieved. He wasn’t quite sure he could face his half sister yet, after everything he’d seen.
Celia let out a sigh as he cut the engine. “I suppose that wasn’t as disastrous as it could have been. At least now we know we’re looking for the fourth pyramid—”
“We are?” Keys jangled as Ezra stuffed them into his pocket.
“Aren’t we?” Her eyes looked almost as bright as faience when they gleamed like this. “Your mother wanted you to find this treasure. Don’t tell me you’re going to let the ravings of some lunatic lord dissuade you.”
“I used to think I was mad too…”
“It’s not the same,” Celia pressed. “His madness isn’t just seeing magic…
It was… Well, something was clearly wrong with him.
” She bit her lip. “Minds crumble, sometimes, if too many thoughts are taken at once. Hugo made that mistake one time, at the Seek and Find. Poor Grace Everington got shipped off to Bedlam to treat her female hysteria.” She let out a bitter laugh that filled the car.
“Because there’s nothing more hysterical than a woman… ”
At least Grace’s family could afford an asylum. A terrible thought, but true. “You think the Order stripped Lord Blackwood’s mind along with his bank accounts?”
Celia turned her gaze back to the house dripping with roses.
After their visit to Thornhill’s ruins, this place looked a little too picture-perfect.
“I think that if you want answers about your mother, we’re going to need to look for them elsewhere,” she said.
“It wouldn’t hurt to find her treasure too. ”
Something deep underneath Ezra’s skin bristled at this. He was careful not to let this feeling reach the surface. “You keep saying we,” he pointed out.
From this angle, he could see pieces of Celia’s face reflected in the window. Her stare was sharp. Her brows arched like a queen watching her capital being besieged by an enemy armada.
“There’s nothing left for me here. My chances of getting back into the vault are shot.
My inheritance is out of my reach. But yours isn’t.
” She turned back to look at him, and there was no less battle in her gaze.
This woman was ready for war. “If I can help you find the treasure your mother left you, then maybe you can help me in return.”
“Your revenge isn’t mine.”
“I’m not asking you to destroy the Order,” Celia said pointedly. “I just want a chance to keep going.” Her voice dropped. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
From here, Ezra could see the patio where he and Vincent had last night’s smoke.
The bow tie was still draped over the potted geranium.
The dining room beyond was no doubt still piled with sand.
He thought of Biz in her weeping white dress and Hugo painted so small in that portrait.
He thought of Vincent’s burning touch. All of them had been faced with dead ends…
That’s why they were so good at running in circles. Around and around and around…
Ezra could stay here: going dizzy until he died.
Or he could return to Egypt.
The thought cracked open inside him—memories of brilliant skies and treeless horizons. What waited there?
What had Ezra’s mother left him?
More than this.
“All right.” These words landed heavy on the Hispano Suiza’s leather, but Celia’s expression lit up.
She wasted no time opening the car door. “Excellent! Let’s get packed!”
The floorboards of the Cotswolds house creaked as Ezra followed Celia inside.
Most of the party from the previous night had been picked up by dutiful staff—though traces of sand remained scattered across the halls.
This grew more concentrated by the parlor, where many of the Bright Young Things had gathered for yet another game.
Vincent leaned in the doorway, his eyebrow arching into a question mark when he caught sight of Ezra and Celia.
“Gone for a joyride?”
Not as joyous as you might think. “I did borrow the Hispano Suiza. I hope you don’t mind—”
“Ah.” Vincent waved him off. “What’s mine is yours!”
“What’s going on here?” Celia peered past the young man, into the parlor.
Ezra did the same. Almost all the house’s guests were seated, their faces in various states of excitement and suspense as they stared at Elizabeth Ellington.
She stood by the unlit fireplace, still dressed in Cleopatra’s long linen gown.
The kohl around her eyes remained a mess, but she looked alert. Something was clenched in her fist.
“It seems my darling fiancée has made a discovery,” Vincent said. “Someone wants to send us on another treasure hunt! Though I doubt they’ll be able to make it as riveting as mine.”
A hole opened up at the bottom of Ezra’s stomach as he watched Biz unroll her clue.
It looked just like the scroll he’d left tucked away in the top drawer of his wardrobe.
It was.
Her translation was slightly off, but not by much. “He who seeks the treasure must walk through night to the special pyramid.”
Celia’s breath cut against her teeth. “Oh fuck,” she said, not softly enough.
Vincent frowned, his spine straightening.
Others in the parlor were doing the same.
Hugo no longer looked as if he was napping on his family’s antique settee.
Everett had perked up in the seat next to him, so quickly that a bit of champagne slopped out of Elizabeth Ponsonby’s glass.
The flapper drank up the drops from the side before shouting out.
“Well, there’s only one pyramid around here! I suppose we’ll have to party in the dining room again tonight!”
“Hear, hear!” another one of the Bright Young Things yelled.
Hugo stood. He was no longer wearing a jackal head, but he still reminded Ezra of a predator as he moved toward the hearth. “Let me see that!”
Biz seemed to sense his toothiness too. She rolled the scroll back into her fist. “You’ll get your turn,” she replied pertly. “First, I propose that we divide ourselves into teams—”
“This isn’t a game,” Hugo snapped.
The way the magician was staring at her made Ezra move.
He knew he should probably walk away instead of shoving through a maze of chairs toward the hearth, but Biz needed him.
She had no idea the danger she was in… If Hugo had sent a young socialite to an asylum simply for attending one of his parties, what would he do to get his hands on Nour’s note?
Much less the treasure the clue led to…
Ezra moved faster.
Minnie let out a squawk when he shoved past her seat and stepped in front of the fireplace, placing himself between Biz and the encroaching magician.
“Wait! There’s been a mistake.” His body had stilled, but his mind kept scrambling. “Hugo is right. It’s not a game. Biz, you found this in my room, yes? I was practicing writing hieroglyphs for my dissertation.”
Everett had risen from the settee too, causing another slop of champagne.
Ezra’s blood began to fizz.
At the very edge of the room he could see Celia: all tense lines. Vincent shadowed her. Almost as closely as Biz stood to Ezra. There were too many people here, and magic didn’t seem to care if you could see it or not.
A curse could kill you either way.
And Ezra?
Ezra would die before he let anything happen to Biz.
“You practiced writing on ancient papyrus?” Hugo must have a keen eye if he’d spotted the paper’s age from across the room. He’d closed that distance, though, and was poised in front of the hearth close enough for Ezra to see the gap in his bared front teeth.
“Yes. I had a theory about the kind of writing utensils Egyptian scribes used—”
“But I thought your dissertation was about wings,” Rose interjected most unhelpfully.
Their host’s stare landed on Ezra’s shoulders. His keen eyes narrowed, perhaps recalling the gold feathers that had once sprouted there.
“Step aside, Mr. Bright.”
The command itself was quiet, but Ezra felt some strange force tug at his feet, urging them to comply. When he looked down, he saw that the ground was one long shadow between his toes and Hugo’s—quite a bit darker than the presence of Nolan in the Pratts’ family portrait.
That is… until Ezra’s shoes started glowing.
Hugo saw this too. His knuckles clenched. The ring on his finger was an exact match to the one Thomas Ellington had worn—only it fit this magician better. Ezra felt the lack of his own signet as he raised his own hands. Palms open.
“I don’t want any trouble, Mr. Pratt.”
“Who are you?”
“This is Ezra,” Biz broke in. “Remember? Vincent and I brought him along. He’s like a brother to me—”
“Shut up!”
At Hugo’s command Biz’s jaw snapped shut so hard that she bit through her own lip. A scream swelled up behind this bloody mess, but it stayed caged. Ezra felt a similar redness claw up his own throat—rage. It made him want to snap Hugo in half.
He kept the anger in check.
Barely.
Vincent was also a fine portrait of fury as he pushed out of the parlor doorway. “Now see here, you can’t go speaking to my fiancée like—”
“All of you shut up!” howled Hugo.
It was eerie, the sound of so many teeth snapping closed at once.
Not all too different from Rose’s encounter with the amulet.
Hugo seemed to make this connection as well.
“Egyptologist, my ass. You, Mr. Bright, are a Sanct. That’s why you were able to remove the Duat necklace.
You’re sniffing around here for more relics, aren’t you?
” His eyes flicked to the scroll still squeezed in Biz’s fist. “You’ve been sniffing around and you’ve found something… ”
“Didn’t the Order’s vault get raided last night?” Everett called out.
“That’s right,” Hugo said slowly. “An Egyptian relic went missing, and now this neat little note shows up, pointing the way to a treasure.” His gaze kept cutting past Ezra’s featherless shoulder. “I know an opportunity when I see one. Biz, be a dear and bring me that clue.”
She took a rag-doll step, her arm flopping out.
“No!” Ezra stepped in front of his half sister. Some of the scroll tore as he plucked the paper from between Biz’s fingers.
Blood braided down her chin as she turned toward him. He could see fear in her green Ellington eyes. Red nails rose to retrieve the parchment he’d just taken. Bring me that clue. She wasn’t going to stop and Ezra didn’t know how to stop her. Hurting Biz was the last thing he wanted.
But the scroll was the first.
Ezra clutched it in his wounded fist. This flimsy paper. This final fragment of his mother.
Most of the room watched mutely as Biz started into Ezra with her fingernails—as if in a trance—but Vincent was making his way toward the hearth.
Righteous fury lit his face. Metaphorically, at least. He wasn’t actually shining as he marched over to Hugo and swung his fist, catching the magician square in the nose.
Hugo howled. Several more screams rose from the audience as fresh blood spurted down their host’s face.
Now his chin matched Biz’s. Biz: who’d stopped clawing at Ezra’s arm and was now staring at her hands in horror.
My son. That was the piece she’d torn. The drawing of the seated child fell to the hearth stone, looking not unlike ash.
Because Ezra was watching the parchment, he did not see Everett pull out his knife.
Celia’s scream caused him to turn, and only then did he glimpse the dagger falling, falling as fast as a wishing star. He could not throw up his hands. He couldn’t do anything but watch as the point of the blade hit the center of his chest.