Chapter 18
Celia Sinclair sat in the dining car, watching the sun rise over the Nile Delta.
The cup of tea brought by the server had long ago stopped steaming—different heat danced on her palm as she flicked open the top of her reacquired lighter.
Flames bloomed into flowers and airplanes and miniature dragons.
It was like riding a bicycle, repeating the shapes her father had shown her.
Lions and swallows and a pirate ship. Complete with a tiny Jolly Roger.
The sight had brought Celia such joy in her younger years, but it shimmered differently now.
It made her feel the absence in the seat beside her, where William Sinclair would have been scooping too much sugar into his tea and telling her about the mirror magic of Murano’s glass masters.
She’d hoped she would be happier, with the fire back in her hands.
More complete.
But how could you be satisfied with a few sparks when there was life and death and life after death at stake?
Celia watched the flame sputter in her palm.
She brought it back with a zip of the lighter.
A resurrection relic. Such a thing had been hypothesized by members of the Order.
Debated and doubted and often dismissed.
If that magic was possible, then we’d see evidence, no?
But there had been those, like her father, who’d always believed that the power was out there, waiting to be discovered.
By bolder magicians than me, he’d once joked.
Would he be laughing now, if he knew what his daughter had stumbled upon?
She could find out.
She could use the ivory wand to bring Papa back.
Celia flicked the top of the lighter shut at this thought.
The flames faded, and this time she didn’t replace them.
Her first sip of tea was unsatisfyingly cold.
She couldn’t quite swallow it. Beware what you unlock, for what is sealed was never meant to open.
Curses might be common as camels, but even camels bit sometimes.
And curses? Well, those were far worse. The sight of her father’s black arm withered through Celia’s memory; she spit her tea indelicately back into her cup.
There could very well be something rotten at the bottom of all this.
But she wasn’t the kind of woman who squirmed from such things.
No. She’d cleaned the icebox and fed the cat and pressed on when others would have collapsed.
And if she wanted to tangle with the likes of the Apex?
If she wanted a life for a life? Well, then, Celia Sinclair might just have to get her own hands a little bit dirty…
“Up and smoldering, I see!” Biz’s voice had a too-bright cheeriness as she slid into the opposite seat. “Were you playing with that lighter all night? I swear I fell asleep counting comets instead of sheep…”
“Sorry.” Celia paused. Elizabeth Ellington was the only person who could wring an apology out of her so easily.
“Oh, don’t be. I would’ve been dreaming of it anyhow—the way that tiger exploded into Hugo’s smug face.
Absolute perfection! Couldn’t have managed it better myself.
Though I did try.” She let out a sigh as she helped herself to the tea service.
The liquid that poured out of the pot was just as cold as the rest.
“That gun would’ve gotten you shot.”
Biz watched with interest as Celia clicked the lighter’s lid back open. Her eyes lit almost as bright as the tiger that sprang out with the flame—delighted as the vicious little beast circled her teacup.
“It’s funny,” Biz said, once the tea started steaming. “Ezra gave me that pistol to keep me safe from tigers, but I think, when it comes down to it, I’d much rather be one. Metaphorically speaking.”
Celia knew exactly what kind of poetry she was talking about.
Rage sharp as broken bones, the need to scream into a pillow, into the sky, to be heard, if not by the stars, then at least by the rest of the night—that giant void that blanketed them all.
Why did being a woman feel so damn lonely?
Was it because—like the stars—they sat shining, yet so far apart?
“This is the first time I’ve been so far from home,” Biz went on.
“I didn’t know what to expect, when I gave that river-witch my ring.
I just didn’t want to get left behind again…
The men, they always do that: set out into the great unknown without a second thought.
No one ever questions if they’re safe. They just get to live.
” The other young woman paused. “I want that. And these past few days, trekking through deserts, discovering lost gods… How the hell am I supposed to go back to London scavenger hunts after this?”
“Who says you have to?”
The socialite’s face scrunched. She ran a finger around her steaming teacup. “We’re still swanning about on Vincent’s shilling.”
We haven’t found our freedom yet. That was the dark truth, filling the unspoken space between them.
“Do they have any bacon on the menu?”
Celia jumped at the sound of Ezra’s voice. He stood at the end of their table: hair wild with sleep, his eyes matching the lush delta that streaked past the windows. There was a hesitancy about him—as if waiting for some formal invitation to sit.
“I’m not sure,” Celia began, but before she could gesture for Ezra to join them, Biz was sliding out of her own seat: a piece of toast from the tea tray wedged between her teeth.
“Don’t mind me!” Crumbs sprayed between Biz’s words. An absolute mess. Quite out of character. “Just popped in for a nibble before I go back to bed—I was tossing and turning all night!”
Ezra frowned as his sister disappeared down the aisle, leaving more bread bits in her wake. Then he turned back to Celia. “Did you sleep well, at least?”
“Like the dead.” He raised an eyebrow at this common expression. It has, Celia supposed, taken on a whole new meaning. “You?”
“I had too many dreams. Not bad ones, exactly. Not the trench, but… I think I tossed and turned all night as well.”
“We are on a train,” Celia pointed out, scanning the menu the server had left on the table. No bacon. No pork whatsoever. She scowled and shoved the paper aside.
“Is something the matter?” Ezra cocked his head.
She looked back out the window, past the rushing palms. “You mean other than the fact that Hugo Pratt has most of the map that leads to an unparalleled relic? If the wand does take a life for a life, I don’t doubt he’d drop us like flies as soon as he got his grubby hands on it.”
“That tomb… yesterday… It almost became ours. But not because of Hugo.”
Celia directed her glance back across the table.
Ezra sat with his hands folded over the place setting.
There were dark circles under his eyes—a restlessness that made it easy to imagine what his masque might look like.
His Adam’s apple bobbed in a pained swallow.
“I seized everyone’s shadows and I—I almost—” His eyes searched hers, begging for something.
She had no idea what. “I need more than flowers, Celia. I need control.”
Don’t we all? She wanted to laugh. That was the entire point of this treasure hunt: to steal a chance to choose her own damn future.
Celia looked back at her lighter instead.
Slowly, she placed it on the table between them. “Here. I’ve never strung another person’s shadow, but I’d imagine there are some similarities between that and fire…”
The scholar’s brow furrowed as he palmed the relic.
When the lid flicked open, wild flames crowned his knuckles.
“That’s another thing the ancient Egyptians were right about—they called a person’s shadow their shut.
They believed it represented a part of the soul, and if it was stolen it would weaken them in the afterlife. ”
Celia focused on the fire—the way it licked and curled around Ezra’s steady hand. Not turning the skin black, black like Papa’s… She forced her thoughts past this, into even more distant memories.
“Fire likes to be wild.” She repeated her father’s old instructions. “That is its nature. To shape it you must first immerse yourself with the flame—feel it.”
Ezra wiggled his fingers, and the fire danced in turn. “It’s not hot.”
“Not to you. You’re holding the lighter. But it will burn anyone else,” Celia warned. “I meant feel the way the fire moves. The way it wants. Meet it there and mix your own wants with it. That’s when you’ll start to make shapes—”
A small fiery man was already walking across Ezra’s hand, leaping into the air and sprouting wings. Sparks showered their table, catching the menu. Celia smothered these just in time.
“Pull it back,” she warned. “The fire wants to grow. It’s your job to contain it.”
The miniature flaming angel circled their heads, once, twice, before coming back to land in Ezra’s cupped palms. Here, the fire transformed into a tiny tree.
Branches crept up toward the scholar’s face, and roots laced through his fingers.
Inside this tangle was a woman, asleep. A minute crown on her brow.
The detail was breathtaking.
Celia was sure that, if she leaned close enough, she might even see eyelashes on the sleeping queen. Though, if she did that, she’d have no eyelashes of her own.
“You seem to have a good grip on it,” she said.
A frown grew on Ezra’s face as he flicked the lighter shut. The flaming tree vanished, leaving burnt green traces across Celia’s vision. “It’s not the same… I need to learn how to let go.”
“Ah.” She licked her lips, wondering if, perhaps, she was about to make a foolish mistake. “I suppose, then, you can practice with mine.”
This seemed to catch her companion by surprise. “What?”
“My shadow. My shut.”
“Are—are you sure?”
Sure? No, Celia Sinclair wasn’t sure. This was a simple calculation.
No risk, no reward.
No reward? No future.
She needed Ezra Bright.
She needed Ezra Bright to need her.