Stranger:

Book 4: Blades of the Rose

by Zoe Archer

Genres: Paranormal Romance

Synopsis

He protects the world's magic—with science. But even the best scientists can fall prey to chemistry: “You're gonna love The Blades of the Rose.”—Ann Aguirre, New York Times -bestselling author of Strange Love Looking For Trouble Gemma Murphy has a nose for a story--even if the boys in Chicago's newsrooms would rather focus on her chest. So when she runs into a handsome man of mystery discussing how to save the world from fancy-pants Brit conspirators, she's sensing a scoop. Especially when he mentions there's magic involved. Of course, getting him on the record would be easier if he hadn't caught her eavesdropping. . . Lighting His Fuse Catullus Graves knows what it's like to be shut out: his ancestors were slaves. And he's a genius inventor with appropriately eccentric habits, so even people who love him find him a little odd. But after meeting a certain redheaded scribbler, he's thinking of other types of science. Inconvenient, given that he needs to focus on preventing the end of the world as we know it. But with Gemma's insatiable curiosity sparking Catullus's inventive impulses, they might set off something explosive anyway. . .

Release date: December 1, 2010

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 496

Sample

The steamship Antonia, two days from Liverpool, 1875.

Three guns pointed at Gemma Murphy.

She pointed her own derringer right back. Two shots only. Maybe she could get her hands on one of the revolvers aimed at her. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.

A sane person would have fled the cabin. But Gemma wasn’t sane. She was a journalist.

So, instead of running, she confronted three faces ranging in expression from curious to outright hostile. And their guns.

The culmination of weeks of hard travel. On the trail of a story, she had journeyed all the way from a small trading post in the Canadian Rockies, across the United States, to New York, where she boarded the Antonia. Horseback, stagecoach, train. Clapboard boardinghouses with thin mattresses and thinner walls. Food boiled to inedibility. Groping hands, speculative leers. Rats and dogs.

She’d faced them all, pressing onward, always a day behind her quarry—but that was deliberate. She couldn’t let them see her. To be seen was to risk being recognized. Maybe she flattered herself to think that any of the people she followed would remember her. After all, she had only seen them twice, and spoken with one member of their party once. Weeks, thousands of miles, had passed since then.

But there was a strong disadvantage to being a redhead. People with bright copper hair and freckles had a tendency to be remembered—like a flare’s afterimage burned into the eye. Sometimes Gemma used her appearance and gender to her advantage. It always helped a reporter to have an advantage. Other times, her looks and sex were a damned pain in the behind.

As soon as she learned that her quarry had booked passage on the Antonia, bound for Liverpool, Gemma also reserved a cabin on that same ship. To follow at sea, even a day behind, meant the possibility of losing them. So, for the past week onboard the ship, she’d led a nocturnal existence. Staying in her cabin during the day, to avoid being spotted. In those close confines, she wrote articles until her hands cramped. She had little to go on but speculation. That did not stop her from piecing together events with her own prodigious imagination. Night saw her skulking about the ship, getting some much-needed fresh air. And, once the other passengers had retired for the evening, listening at doors.

Her quarry met in one another’s cabins. Often, their conversations held no information. But tonight had been different.

“When did the Heirs activate the Primal Source?” The woman’s voice. Her English accent was refined, but her words were tough and strong.

Gemma pulled from her pocket her notebook and began scribbling furiously in it.

“Some two and a half months ago.” Another English voice. One of the two men. His voice, so impeccably British in its accents, was deep and sonorous. Even now, with a door between them, his voice played havoc with her normally reliable sensibilities. She remembered the impact his voice had on her at the trading post, and ruefully reflected that none of that impact had been lost in the intervening time and distance. “But they haven’t the faintest idea what to do with it.”

“That’s why they came for me in Canada,” said the woman.

“If the Heirs can’t use the Primal Source,” the second man noted, “then there shouldn’t be any danger.” The accents of western Canada marked this man’s voice, yet he held a natural authority in his tone.

“It does not work that way,” the woman answered. “The Primal Source has the power to grant and embody the possessor’s most profound hopes and dreams.”

“Even if said possessor does not actively attempt this?” asked the Canadian.

The woman replied, “All the Primal Source needs is to be in close proximity to the one who possesses it, and it can act on even the most buried desires.”

Good gravy! What could this Primal Source be?

Just then, a sailor on watch walked through the passageway. He looked at Gemma, standing alone outside a cabin door, with a curious frown.

“Can I help you, miss?” he asked.

“Just looking for my key,” she murmured, careful to keep her voice down. Her notebook was concealed in the folds of her skirt. “I’m such a ninny—I can never remember where I put it.”

“The purser can get you another one.”

“Oh, no,” Gemma said. She made some wave of her hand, the universal sign of a woman who doesn’t want to be a bother. “I’ll find it. Please, carry on with whatever you were doing.”

“Are you sure, miss?”

Blast these polite sailors. “Yes, quite sure.” She smiled and, God help her, fluttered her lashes. Gemma never considered herself a beautiful woman—red hair and freckles weren’t often considered the height of female loveliness—but she did know that batting her eyelashes generally worked as a distracting device.

Correct. The sailor, hardly more than a boy, flushed, stammered, and then ambled away. The moment he disappeared down the passageway, Gemma pressed her ear to the cabin door, notebook at the ready.

“And what are the Heirs’ deepest desires?” This was asked by the Canadian. He was the newcomer in the trio, she deduced.

The reply came from the Englishman, an answer arising from long experience. “The supremacy of England. An empire that encompasses the entire world.”

Gemma pressed her hand to her mouth, horrified by the idea. It seemed the stuff of a despotic nightmare, to have one country in control of the whole globe, with one set of laws. One monarch. The American in Gemma rebelled at the idea. Nearly a hundred years ago, her country had been forged in blood, fighting to free itself from the tyranny of oversea rule. Thousands of lives lost to secure freedom for its citizens. And to lose it all again? Just as every other nation would lose its independence?

The woman added, in hard, bleak tones, “Somehow, the Primal Source will embody this. Which means destruction and devastation on a global scale.”

“Unless the Blades stop the Heirs’ dream from manifesting,” said the Englishman.

“I pray to God we aren’t too late.” This, from the woman. A grim hope.

On that somber note, the voices within wished each other a good night. Gemma scurried away, into the shadows, to watch from a safe distance. Peering around the corner of the passageway, she saw the door to the cabin open, yellow lamplight falling into the corridor. A woman and man emerged, holding hands. The woman was fair in coloring, slight of build, but she radiated a steely strength matched by the bronze-skinned man beside her.

When they stepped into the passageway, the man tensed slightly. The change in his posture was so subtle, Gemma barely saw it, but the woman felt the change at once.

“What is it, Nathan?” she asked.

He peered around, much the way a wolf might search for prey. “Thought I sensed something … familiar.” He gazed up and down the passageway with sharp, dark eyes, and Gemma could have sworn he was actually smelling the air.

She flattened herself against the bulkhead, hiding, heart knocking against her ribs. She’d come too far to be found out now, so close to the story.

She heard the man take a step in her direction, then stop. “It’s this damned sea air. Can’t get a bead on anything.”

“We’ll get you on land again soon. Come to bed,” murmured the woman, and Gemma knew from the throaty warmth of the woman’s voice, bed was precisely the destination in mind. Gemma’s own face flushed to hear the husky promise in the woman’s words. Words one would speak to a lover. And it affected the man, most definitely. Gemma thought she heard him literally growl in response, before their footsteps hurriedly disappeared toward their stateroom.

Once they had gone, Gemma poked her head around the corner again. She saw the third man in the group standing outside the cabin, locking the door. He was a tall man, and had to bend a little to keep from knocking his head into the low ceiling. Gemma recognized his long, elegant form immediately, and would have lingered longer to observe him, but she did not want to risk being spotted. So she pushed back into the shadows, listening to him lock his door. It seemed to take rather a long time, but at last he straightened and began walking.

Straight in her direction. On feet well used to keeping silent, Gemma hurried away.

She waited in the stern for several minutes. Once she felt confident she wouldn’t encounter any of her quarry, she jogged quickly back to the cabin. She pressed her ear to the door. No sound within. Bending low, she looked at the small gap between the door and the deck. Dark. The lamps inside were extinguished. He wasn’t inside—unless he’d come back within minutes of leaving and immediately gone to sleep. Unlikely.

Now was her chance to do some investigating. Surely she’d find something of note in his cabin. A fast glance up and down the passageway ensured she was entirely alone.

Gemma opened the cabin door.

And found herself staring at a drawn gun.

Damn. He was in. Working silently at a table by the light of one small lamp. At her entrance, he was out of his chair and drawing a revolver in one smooth motion.

She drew her derringer.

They stared at each other.

In the small cabin, Catullus Graves’s head nearly brushed the ceiling as he faced her. Her reporter’s eye quickly took in the details of his appearance. Even though he was the only black passenger on the ship, more than just his skin color made him stand out. His scholar’s face, carved by an artist’s hand, drew one’s gaze. Arresting in both its elegant beauty and keen perception. A neatly trimmed goatee framed his sensuous mouth. The long, lean lines of his body—the breadth of his shoulders, the length of his legs—revealed a man comfortable with action as well as thought. Though Gemma had not been aware how comfortable. Until she saw the revolver held easily, familiarly in his large hand. A revolver trained on her. She’d have to do something about that.

“Mr. Graves,” she murmured, shutting the door behind her.

Behind his spectacles, Catullus Graves’s dark eyes widened. “Miss Murphy?”

Despite the fact that she was in danger of being shot, it wasn’t until Graves spoke to Gemma that her heart began to pound. And she was absurdly glad he did remember her, for she certainly hadn’t forgotten him. They’d met but briefly. Spoke together only once. Yet the impression of him remained, and not merely because she had an excellent memory.

“I thought you were out,” she said. As if that excused her behavior.

“Wanted to get a barometric reading.” Catullus Graves frowned. “How did you get in?”

“I opened the door,” she answered. Which was only a part of the truth. She wasn’t certain he would believe her if she told him everything.

“That’s not possible. I put an unbreakable lock on it. Nothing can open it without a special key that I made.” He sounded genuinely baffled, convinced of the security of his invention. Gemma glanced around the cabin. Covering all available surfaces, including the table where he had been working moments earlier, were small brass tools of every sort and several mechanical objects in different states of assembly. Graves was an inventor, she realized. She knew her way around a workshop, but the complex devices Graves worked on left her mystified.

She also realized—the same time he did—that they were alone in his cabin. His small, intimate cabin. She tried, without much success, not to look at the bed, just as she tried and failed not to picture him stripping out of his clothes before getting into that bed for the night. She barely knew this man! Why in the name of the saints did her mind lead her exactly where she did not want it to go?

The awareness of intimacy came over them both like an exotic perfume. He glanced down and saw that he was in his shirtsleeves, and made a cough of startled chagrin. He reached for his coat draped over the back of a chair. One hand still training his gun on her, he used the other to don his coat.

“Strange to see such modesty on the other end of a Webley,” Gemma said.

“I don’t believe this situation is covered in many etiquette manuals,” he answered. “What are you doing here?”

One hand gripping her derringer, Gemma reached into her pocket with the other. “Easy,” she said, when he tensed. “I’m just getting this.” She produced a small notebook, which she flipped open with a practiced one-handed gesture.

“Pardon—I’ll have a look at that,” Graves said. Polite, but wary. He stepped forward, one broad-palmed hand out.

A warring impulse flared within Gemma. She wanted to press herself back against the door, as if some part of herself needed protecting from him. Not from the gun in his other hand, but from him, his tall, lean presence that fairly radiated with intelligence and energy. Keep impartial, she reminded herself. That was her job. Report the facts. Don’t let emotion, especially female emotion, cloud her judgment.

And yet that damned traitorous female part of her responded at once to Catullus Graves’s nearness. Wanted to be closer, drawn in by the warmth of his eyes and body. An immaculately dressed body. As he crossed the cabin with only a few strides, Gemma undertook a quick perusal. Despite being pulled on hastily, his dark green coat perfectly fit the breadth of his shoulders. She knew that beneath the coat was a pristine white shirt. His tweed trousers outlined the length of his legs, tucked into gleaming brown boots. His burgundy silk cravat showed off the clean lines of his jaw. And his waistcoat. Good gravy. It was a minor work of art, superbly fitted, the color of claret, and worked all over with golden embroidery that, upon closer inspection, revealed itself to be an intricate lattice of vines and flowers. Golden silk-covered buttons ran down its front, and a gold watch chain hung between a pocket and one of the buttons. Hanging from the chain, a tiny fob in the shape of a knife glinted in the lamplight.

On any other man, such a waistcoat would be dandyish. Ridiculous, even. But not on Catullus Graves. On him, the garment was a masterpiece, and perfectly masculine, highlighting his natural grace and the shape of his well-formed torso. She knew about fashion, having been forced to write more articles than she wanted on the subject. And this man not only defined style, he surpassed it.

But she was through with writing about fashion. That was precisely why she was on this steamship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

With this in mind, Gemma tore her gaze from this vision to find him watching her. A look of faint perplexity crossed his face. Almost bashfulness at her interest.

She let him take the notebook from her, and their fingertips accidentally brushed.

He almost dropped the notebook, and she felt heat shoot into her cheeks. She had the bright ginger hair and pale, freckled skin of her Irish father, which meant that, even in low lamplight, when Gemma blushed, only a blind imbecile could miss it.

Catullus Graves was not a blind imbecile. His reaction to her blush was to flush, himself, a deeper mahogany staining his coffee-colored face.

A knock on the door behind her had Gemma edging quickly away, breaking the spell. She backed up until she pressed against a bulkhead.

“Catullus?” asked a female voice on the other side of the door. The woman from earlier.

Graves and Gemma held each other’s gaze, weapons still drawn and trained on each other.

“Yes?” he answered.

“Is everything all right?” the woman outside pressed. “Can we come in?”

Continuing to hold Gemma’s stare, Graves reached over and opened the door.

Immediately, the fair-haired woman and her male companion entered.

“Thought it was nothing,” the man said, grim. “But I know I’ve caught that scent before, and—” He stopped, tensing. He swung around to face Gemma, who was plastered against the bulkhead with her little pistol drawn.

Both he and the woman had their own revolvers out before one could blink.

And now Gemma had not one but three guns aimed at her.

“Astrid, Lesperance,” said Catullus Graves as though making introductions at a card party, “you remember Miss Murphy.”

“From the trading post?” demanded the woman. Gemma recalled her name: Astrid Bramfield. She had exchanged her mountain woman’s garb of trousers and heavy boots for a more socially acceptable traveling dress. Yet the woman had lost none of her steely strength. She eyed Gemma with storm-colored eyes cold with suspicion, an enraged Valkyrie. “Following us all the way from the Northwest Territory. She must be working for them.”

Them?

“Let’s give her a chance to explain herself,” said the other man, level. Though he didn’t lower his gun. Nathan Lesperance, Gemma recalled. He wore a sober, dark suit, as befitting his profession as an attorney, but the copper hue of his skin and sharp planes of his face revealed Lesperance’s full Native blood.

A white woman, an Indian man, and a black man. Truly an unusual gathering. One Gemma was glad she’d followed.

“I retrieved this from her,” Graves said, holding up the notebook.

“What does it say?” Astrid Bramfield asked sharply.

Graves glanced down at the notebook. A frown appeared between his brows. Gemma nearly smiled. Her handwriting was deplorable, mostly because she deliberately made it illegible to anyone but her. No sense letting other reporters read her notes. She may as well give those buffoons in the newsroom all of her bylines.

“I don’t know,” he answered.

At this, Astrid Bramfield looked surprised, as though Graves admitting a deficiency in any knowledge was shocking.

“If I may translate,” Gemma said, holding out her hand. She did not miss the careful way in which Graves returned her notebook, avoiding the contact of her skin.

Wanting her own distraction, she looked down at her notes, although she hardly needed them. Every word of the conversation she’d overheard was inscribed permanently on the slate of her memory. She recited everything she had heard.

“Eavesdropping,” snapped Astrid Bramfield. “I prefer to call it ‘unsupervised listening,’” Gemma answered.

A corner of Graves’s mouth twitched, but he forced it down and looked serious.

Gemma closed her notebook and slipped it back into her pocket. “All very strange and bewildering, you must admit.”

“We need not admit anything,” Astrid Bramfield replied.

“You’re a journalist,” Graves said with sudden understanding. His keen, dark eyes took note of her ink-stained fingers, the tiny callus on her right index finger that came from holding a pen for hours at a stretch. “That’s what you were doing at the trading post in the Northwest Territory.”

Gemma nodded. “I had planned on writing a series of articles about life on the frontier. But when you crossed my path, I knew I would find a hell of a story. And I was right.”

“A journalist,” Astrid Bramfield repeated, her tone revealing exactly how she felt about reporters.

No doubt most members of Gemma’s profession deserved their reputation. But Gemma wasn’t like them. For one thing, she was a woman. Not an automatic guarantee of integrity, yet it was a small mark of distinction.

Something that looked suspiciously like disappointment flickered in Catullus Graves’s eyes before being shuttered away. “You’ll find no story here, Miss Murphy.” He took a step back, and she found, oddly, that she missed his nearness. “It is in your best interest, when this ship docks, to turn around and go home.”

Back to Chicago? She would never do that—she had crossed a continent and an ocean for this story.

“Who are the Heirs?” Gemma asked.

Graves, Lesperance, and Astrid Bramfield all tensed. None of them spoke as a sharp silence descended. Very surprising, considering recent developments. Then—

“They’re called the Heirs of Albion,” Lesperance said.

“Nathan!” Astrid Bramfield exclaimed, and Graves looked alarmed.

Yet it couldn’t be stopped now. “A very powerful group of Englishmen,” Lesperance continued. “They want the entire world as part of the British Empire, no matter the cost. But Astrid, Graves, and I are going to stop them. With the help of the other Blades of the Rose.”

“Lesperance, enough,” growled Graves.

Astrid Bramfield was at Lesperance’s side in a heartbeat, alarmed and concerned. Though she still held her pistol pointed at Gemma, her other hand cupped Lesperance’s face with tender anxiety. “What are you doing, revealing such secrets? This woman is a stranger.”

Frowning, Lesperance murmured, “I don’t know. I only know that we can trust her.”

“But she’s a journalist,” was Astrid’s reply. Her words fought against a sense of betrayal by one held so deeply within her heart. As Gemma had seen thousands of miles ago in the Northwest Territory, the connection and bond between Astrid Bramfield and Lesperance was palpable, enviable.

She’d never had that connection, that bond. And never would, given the choices in life she had made.

Gemma shouldered aside that familiar loneliness. “Don’t blame him,” she said quickly. “It’s an … ability I have. To get answers.”

“Ability?” Graves repeated, raising an eyebrow.

She did not want to dwell on something that might derail the entire conversation. “But Mr. Lesperance is right. You can trust me.”

“There is no such thing as a trustworthy reporter,” retorted Astrid Bramfield.

“You did say you were after a story,” Graves added, somewhat more gently.

Gemma thought quickly. “I can write about these Heirs of Albion and expose them. Stop whatever it is they plan on doing.”

Astrid Bramfield, despite her refined English accent, gave a very unladylike snort of disbelief. “It would not be so easy as that.”

If Gemma was to find an ally, it would not be with this tough, guarded woman, so she turned to Catullus Graves. He watched her carefully, commingled caution and interest in his expression.

“Exposure in a national newspaper can bring even the most powerful men down,” she said, meeting his gaze. Even behind the protective glass of his spectacles, his eyes were a dark pull. He observed her as if not entirely certain to what species she belonged.

“Astrid is right,” he answered. “If it was simply a matter of publishing an exposé, such a thing would have been done long ago. A few printed words would not even dent the Heirs’ armor. They are above trifles such as exposure and public opinion.”

“Surely no one is that powerful.”

“Miss Murphy,” he said, holding her gaze, “you have no idea.”

The gravity of his words, the seriousness of his handsome face, shook her like the deep tolling of a bell. Which meant she needed to know more.

“What could they possibly have at their disposal that gives them so much influence?”

Again, that tense silence fell, and Gemma could feel them all struggle against it, against her question.

“Magic,” Astrid blurted, then clapped a hand over her mouth. She stabbed Gemma with an angry scowl.

Over the course of her life and professional career, Gemma had been the recipient of more than one angry scowl, and Astrid Bramfield’s could not upset her. Gemma was much more interested in what the Englishwoman had just revealed. “Magic,” Gemma repeated.

This was not a question, and so no one spoke.

With a deliberate gesture, Gemma put her derringer onto a nearby table, then gave it a small shove so that it moved out of her immediate reach. Now she was entirely unarmed.

Graves saw the move for what it was: a sign of faith. Theatrical, but effective. He tucked his own revolver into his belt, never taking his eyes from hers.

Lesperance followed suit, but Astrid Bramfield put away her gun only with great reluctance. Clearly, some great injury lay in her past, to make her so cautious.

Gemma’s attention moved back to Graves, drawn to him as if by some inescapable force. He had been watching her, assessing her, and she prayed she would not blush again under his scrutiny. God! She was hardly an innocent child, and had seen—and done—rather a lot in her twenty-seven years. Yet nothing and no one made her blush as Catullus Graves could with just a look.

He narrowed his eyes. “Yes, magic, Miss Murphy.” He spoke lowly as though recounting to a child a tale of terror. “There exists in this world actual magic. It is too dangerous for any civilian reporter to confront—and live.”

“I know.”

“You might scoff, but—wait. You know?”

“Yes.”

“About magic?”

“Yes.”

“That it is real?”

“Yes.”

He gaped. As did Astrid and Lesperance, who traded looks of disbelief with one another. Obviously, everyone had anticipated that she would not believe in magic. And, had she been anyone else, perhaps she wouldn’t have.

“How—?”

Gemma turned to Astrid. “Assist me with something.”

Guardedly, the Englishwoman approached.

“Please, stand out in the passageway.”

“Why?”

The Englishwoman’s caution grated. Gemma said, teeth gritted, “Just … please. I promise I won’t seduce or kill anyone while you do.”

With one final, suspicious glance over her shoulder, Astrid opened the cabin door and stood in the passageway. Gemma shut the door in the woman’s face. A yelp of outrage penetrated the door.

Lesperance strode toward Gemma with a dark scowl, as ferocious as a wolf protecting its mate.

“I’m not going to harm her,” Gemma said, raising up her hands. Without question, Lesperance would utterly annihilate anyone foolish enough to try to hurt Astrid. “Just a brief demonstration.”

Barely appeased, Lesperance held himself back. A pulse in her throat proved to Gemma that she had narrowly avoided danger. “Now,” Gemma said, turning to Graves, “lock the door.”

A small frown knitted his brow, but he came closer to do so. His boots brushed past the hem of her skirt, and, even though the gesture could not have been less intimate, Gemma’s heart sped into a gallop. She’d spent months in the Canadian mountain wilderness, living close with trappers and miners and men of every stripe, the raw and the refined. Almost nothing any of them did or said affected her the way a simple brush of Catullus Graves’s boots against her skirt could. And he seemed equally flustered, despite the fact that he was well past boyhood and most definitely a grown man.

Gemma made herself focus on the lock. It wasn’t an ordinary lock on the door, but a small device that clearly was his own invention—an intricate network of metal fittings that looked as if it was assembled by tiny, industrious Swiss watchmakers. Graves’s long, agile fingers worked quickly over the lock, and she heard a click.

“There,” he said, straightening. He cleared his throat and stepped back, and Gemma realized that she had drifted closer to watch him at work.

“Now, Mrs. Bramfield,” Gemma said through the door, “try to come in.”

The doorknob rattled, but the door remained closed. “I can’t,” came the muffled reply.

“Use a little force.”

This time, the knob rattled harder, the door shaking a bit, but it still remained shut. “Still can’t,” Astrid said. “I could try to kick it in.”

“Not necessary.” She turned to Graves, watching avidly. “You agree that I didn’t kick the door open when I came in a short while ago.” When he nodded, Gemma said, “If you would, unlock the door and let Mrs. Bramfield in.”

He did so, and the Englishwoman strode back into the cabin, looking puzzled. “What did that prove?” she asked.

“That, when the door was shut and Mr. Graves’s lock was set, you could not open the door.” Gemma walked to it and opened the door again. “I’m going to stand in the passageway, and I want you to lock the door behind me. Just as you did with Mrs. Bramfield.”

Graves, still frowning, gave a short nod. So Gemma did exactly as she said she would, going out into the passageway and letting Graves close and lock the door.

“All set?” she asked through the thick wood.

“Yes—all set,” he answered.

Gemma placed her hand on the doorknob. And opened the door.

Instead of being met by a gun, three stunned faces greeted her entrance into the cabin.

She shut the door behind her again. “You asked how I might know of magic, Mr. Graves? There it is.”

“Could be a trick,” Lesperance noted.

“No,” said Graves. “Nothing can open that lock except the key that I made.” He gazed at her with a mixture of admiration and surprise. “Nothing, but magic.”

“It’s called the Key of Janus,” Gemma explained. She felt a strange little glow of satisfaction to amaze not just Astrid and Lesperance, but a clearly brilliant mind such as Catullus Graves. “Something that’s been in my mother’s Italian family for generations. Dates back to ancient Rome. With it, we can open any door. Doesn’t matter how strong the lock, how heavy the door. The Key opens them all.” Though lately, even that had changed. But there was no need to mention that now.

“How did your family keep from becoming thieves?” Graves asked.

She grinned. “Many didn’t.” Then sobered. “But even more remained honest, despite the temptations to do otherwise. So you see “—she opened her hands wide—” I know that magic exists, since it’s been in my family for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.”

Astrid muttered something that might have been, “Blimey.”

Graves thoughtfully rubbed his mouth. After staring at her fo