He was trying, too. And it wasn’t as if their circumstances were entirely his fault.
“I’d be glad to,” said Mina. “Will you actually have instructions for me?”
“Perhaps,” said MacAlasdair, startled. “Nothing immediate comes to mind. I’m in the habit of handling my affairs personally.”
That was possibly the least surprising thing Mina had seen or heard since she’d crossed MacAlasdair’s threshold. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from saying as much.
“Today,” MacAlasdair continued, “we’ll go and retrieve whatever belongings you need. Whenever you’re ready: my own plans are far from set.”
It took a moment for Mina to realize what he was saying. When she did, she couldn’t help laughing. “We won’t do any such thing, thank you.”
MacAlasdair raised dark eyebrows. “Pardon?”
“I live in a lodging house, my lord. A female lodging house.”
“Ah. And they won’t—”
“Not hardly,” Mina said. “No men. Not even wealthy men with titles. Maybe especially not wealthy men with titles,” she added, and saw MacAlasdair look away. Ha.
“I’ll wait for you outside, then,” he said after a moment.
“You’ll wait for me in the tea shop,” said Mina. “There’s one on the corner. If I suddenly can’t walk safely from there to my flat and back in the middle of the day, neither of us has any business staying in this city.”
“You’ll not talk to anyone on the way.”
It wasn’t a question, and Mina narrowed her eyes. “I won’t be rude to anyone I know, but I’ll be quick—and I’ve been looking after myself for a few years now. I gave you my word on your secrets, if that’s what you’re getting at, so you’ll just have to trust a little bit that I meant it. You can’t watch me every minute. For one thing, I won’t let you.”
“We have a bargain—” MacAlasdair began, glowering at her.
If Mina let him continue, his look and the authority in his voice might start working on her. She glared back instead and raised her voice. “Which says I’ll stay here. So I’m staying. And I’ll put up with more supervision than most people have outside of Newgate, because it’s an awful situation all around and because you’re paying me, but I have my limits. Anyone would.”
Part of Mina was surprised that the table between them didn’t start smoking in the seconds to follow. Apparently he didn’t breathe fire, or he had it under good control if he did. All that happened, after a very long moment, was that he sighed like a man beset on all sides. “Verra well.”
His accent was stronger again. From her own experience, she knew that wasn’t a sign of composure. Mina wasn’t sure whether she was pleased about that or not.
Either way, she had to take one more step. Walking about with MacAlasdair might cause enough talk to be trouble, even as careful as they were being. She wanted to be sure of her future before rumors started. “And before we do anything of the sort,” Mina said, “I want to talk to Professor Carter. Alone.”
Seven
So, for the second time in less than a week, Stephen cooled his heels in Carter’s outer sanctum while Miss Seymour and the professor held their own council beyond the door and up the stairs. This time he was waiting longer—long enough to sit down, grow tired of sitting down, and begin pacing the room again.
He hadn’t tried to argue this time. Carter was his friend, even if the two of them hadn’t seen each other in a long time, and Carter had less than no love for Ward. Even if Miss Seymour did decide to betray Stephen, Carter would be no accomplice to her treachery. She had to know that. Granting them privacy carried very little risk. It certainly hadn’t seemed worth another wrangle with the woman. Stephen had encountered actual bulls who were less stubborn.
Besides, he did want to put her at ease, as much as he could manage. Much as Stephen hadn’t wanted Miss Seymour—or anyone else—entangled in his affairs, he had to admit that her entanglement had come from noble motives, and that she’d showed more courage over the last day and night than he would have expected from most mortal women. And, even had those things not been true, she would still be living with him for some unknown length of time.
Still unknown, dammit. Stephen glared ineffectually at a figurine of Anubis.
The manes provided some clue: the summoner had to be in the same city as his target, more or less, and the rite to summon them was far from common, even where magic was concerned. Stephen, who was no scholar, had only heard about it from a demon hunter he’d met some decades ago and who’d been dead for the last twenty years.
That was a pity. He could have used Abraham’s insights into this particular matter. He would also have welcomed the German’s company again. As it was, he was stuck with letters to the occultists he knew, ineffectual requests to talk with Ward’s remaining family, and whatever information Scotland Yard wanted to pass his way. It wasn’t much.
Now he could add one sharp-tongued, mistrustful mortal female to—well, not to his list of resources. Typing and correspondence wasn’t likely to be Ward’s bane. Miss Seymour went on the list of encumbrances, then, which was quite long enough already.
A sound from outside stopped Stephen’s pacing and spun him toward the door.
Someone was coming up the steps outside, someone moving quickly and more furtively than most people on legitimate business ever did. Stephen crossed the room in three steps and seized the doorknob, just as the letter slot banged open and something spherical dropped through onto his foot.
Instinct sent him backwards, kicking the thing toward the wall before it could bite or sting or explode. The footsteps outside scurried off.
The sphere was about the size of a man’s fist, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. It wasn’t hissing or ticking. It didn’t smell like smoke. Still, nobody with an ordinary package to deliver dropped it through the letter slot and ran, and Stephen doubted that Carter had any secret admirers.
Miss Seymour might have, of course. She was a pretty lass with an undoubtedly nice figure, that mass of honey-gold hair, and a set of very red lips in her sharp little face. A man could take quite a fancy to her until she spoke, and perhaps one who had spoken to her wouldn’t have the nerve to give his gifts properly.
The thought made Stephen curl his lip. They bred a spineless lot of young men these days, if that were the case.
There was nothing for it. Stephen faced the east and said a few quick Latin words, invoking the Wind That Parts the Veil, and saw the world before him turn misty and gray. The desk shone faintly golden through that fog, and the bookshelves were a bluish violet, but the package stood out like a full moon, glowing an eerie, shifting silver-green.
Stephen took a few steps toward it but made no move to touch it yet. At this distance, with the Wind at his back, he could see through both the physical wrappings and the object itself, and knew that it was no coward’s courting gift—though it would look like a harmless bauble of some sort, probably a polished crystal or a metal bowl. It would be something to keep on the mantel or to put flowers in, so that the mist inside it would have as much time as possible to disperse.
That mist would be somebody’s eyes and ears, and a truly skilled enough magician could whisper suggestions through it. It would take a great deal of power to change a human mind that way, but one could certainly change moods, twisting a target toward despair or madness. Even if Carter or Miss Seymour had gotten rid of the thing, the mist that came out on opening the package would probably have been enough to suit Ward’s purposes.