“So that wasn’t you who gave my good friend Rory a concussion, then?” I asked.
“Okay, fine, yes,” he said. His hands slid between my arm and his throat, and he pried himself free with a mighty shove, forcing me back from him. He held his hands up in the air. “But I can explain!”
I walked away from him and leaned back on the reading table in the middle of the room, careful not to knock over one of the gorgeous green banker’s lamps on it.
“This should be interesting,” I said.
The man let out a long sigh and straightened his long brown coat while he collected himself. “I did break into your building,” he said, “but that’s not something I want the Libra Concordia to know.”
“Oh no?”
He shook his head. “I’m not really part of them,” he said. “I’m more of a freelancer. Yes, I do a lot of jobs here for them, but there’s much I do on the side, some things I suspect the Concordia would not like to hear about. By the way, thank you for that save out there with Locke.”
“Why wouldn’t they like to hear about your other jobs?” I asked, ignoring his thanks. I wasn’t quite sure whether or not I was going to regret that decision just yet.
Caleb paused, and I saw him struggling to find the right words.
“They would consider much of my life outside them a bit too proactive in the magic department,” he said. “They’re more of a watchdog group. They generally shy away from, you know, actually interacting with the arcane. Me? I’m much more of an . . . interacter.”
“And Desmond Locke trusts you, a freelancer?”
Caleb held his hand out flat, moved it back and forth. “They trust me well enough,” he said. “Locke and his people are not really fans of getting their hands dirty. So they hire freelancers when it comes to their more arcane or shady dealings.”
“And breaking into my building isn’t shady dealings?” I asked.
Caleb’s face screwed up into a look of indecision. “It is, and it isn’t,” he said.
I folded my arms across my chest. “So tell me how breaking and entering both is and isn’t shady.”
Caleb walked past me to the other side of the table and settled himself into the large leather reading chair there. “It’s all a matter of perspective, I suppose. Eight months ago, your family’s lot on Saint Mark’s was a pile of collapsed rubble, and before that it was a building no one had touched in decades. It was vacant. No one lived there, but there was something special to be had at that location for someone in my line of work.”
“And what exactly is your line of work?” I asked.
He pulled open his coat, revealing tubes and vials lining it in a well-stitched array up and down both sides.
“Alchemy,” he said.
Hearing the word actually gave me pause.
Many of the roots of Alexander’s Spellmasonry were in alchemy. Despite Caleb’s having been an intruder in my home, I couldn’t help but soften a bit, focusing on the fact that I was dealing with a fellow practitioner of my solo endeavors in an arcane art. I couldn’t help but smile at that.
“Is there a secret handshake I need to know?” I asked.
He smiled back.
“We could make one up, I suppose,” he said, “but as far as I know? No.” He closed his coat and leaned forward. “So here I am, a year ago, an alchemist who discovers an unguarded, unattended stash of one of the great lost alchemical properties in the world. Kimiya. Do you know what a find that was to an alchemist? It changed everything as far as my profit margin was concerned. It’s a universal conductor in so much of a specific line of magic. Finding that stash of it on Saint Mark’s made a lot of my freelance work child’s play comparatively. Potent stuff, that.”
“And in limited supply,” I remind him. And mine, I thought to myself.
“And in limited supply,” he repeated with a nod, leaning back in the chair. He crossed his hands over each other. “And here we are.”
That smug look was back on his face, only this time I was more curious than angry. “So what now?” I asked.
Caleb shrugged. “Well, you heard Desmond Locke,” he said. “He wants us to work together. He and the Libra Concordia are concerned with this ‘angel’ that watches over your family, but we both know that’s no angel.”
“It isn’t?” I replied, not wanting to give anything up too willingly.
The man shook his head. “I’ve seen things in this city,” he said. “I’ve seen your golem, your winged stone man. When your building collapsed on Saint Mark’s months ago—cutting me off from my supply, by the way—I watched that site with a very vested curiosity for some time. I’ve seen you and your friends there, including that flying automaton of yours. Yes, I’ve seen him, too.”
My heart jumped. He’d seen Stanis? I tried to keep my face reactionless. He stared at me in silence, and all I could do was meet his eyes, not talking. I still didn’t trust this stranger. I already felt violated enough that we had been spied on.
When I offered him nothing, he sat up and spoke once more. “Look, I don’t care about whatever that golem is to you,” he said. “Frankly, I was glad he was around to help you clear all that rubble, which made it possible for me to once again access the Kimiya kept in that impervious room of yours. But I’m imagining right about now you and I share a very similar problem, alchemically speaking.”
“Which is . . . ?”
“I haven’t been able to figure out how to make Kimiya,” he said. “And I bet you haven’t, either. The Concordia has some notes on Alexander Belarus, but they are speculative, incomplete . . . They don’t provide a recipe or the ingredients I need to create that elixir. I’ve thought about trying to reverse engineer it, but there are too many unknowns. Your great-great-grandfather has kept this secret well, Alexandra.”
“The man loved him some puzzles,” I said, a pained smile coming to my lips as I recalled the shattered statues and boxes back in the art studio.
“Between the two of us, I sense potential for some real genius happening,” he said. “I’ve got access to a lot of information here at the Concordia, and I’m sure you’ve got some family knowledge, right? I can feed Locke some dead ends looking for this angel of his, and the two of us can find your great-great-grandfather’s secret. Think about it. We won’t have to rely on what little Kimiya is left in Alexander’s legacy. I wasn’t lying when I said I was a big fan of his work.”
Part of Caleb’s needs were the same as mine. I was going to need more Kimiya; Rory, Marshall, and I were going to need it if we were ever going to push through the arcane creative wall of creating other large-form animated statues. All we had was Bricksley to stand against Kejetan and the Servants of Ruthenia. Spirited though he was, I didn’t think he was going to cut it as the “army” Stanis had instructed me to prepare in his time-buying absence. Trusting an admitted thief went against my grain, but Caleb might prove helpful both in figuring out how to produce Kimiya and in using it to move past our army of one.
“No more breaking and entering?” I asked.
Caleb shook his head. “Consider your home off-limits,” he said, crossing his heart. “Besides, I’m pretty well stocked up right now.”
The smile faltered on my face. “Don’t remind me,” I said.
He leaned over the table, lowering his voice. “And it’s probably best if we don’t let Desmond in on any part of this plan of ours.”
I looked to the door, making sure it was still closed. “I would prefer he not know anything about our family’s ‘angel,’” I said. “For now, anyway.”