“I don’t believe you. You and your pirate whore have been all over, collecting information. You know the secrets, and you had goddamn better tell me, because I do not want blood all over my carpet.”
“All right, all right.” Cliff let his shoulders sag. “I know how to use the book. But I can’t give you what you want. I need to have the book and the coded message together.”
“Not a problem.”
Barton withdrew a key from his vest pocket and unlocked a drawer in the desk. He lifted a single sheet of paper from the drawer and laid it on the desk. The top third of the paper was covered with handwritten lines of random letters. Cliff sucked in a shocked breath. Sabine’s code. Not all of it, but a significant chunk.
“Where did you get that?”
Barton’s smug grin widened, and he took a long drink of brandy before replying. “Adriana has many talents outside the bedroom.”
“She copied it.”
“Just so. Unfortunately, some sneaky little bitch stole the original before Adriana could finish the job.” His smirk morphed into a scowl. “And then she bought the damned house right out from under me. Used that bloody hero reputation. At least she’s done the work of finding the book for us. Now, tell me how to read my message.”
“You’ve been in this all for yourself from the start,” Cliff mused. It finally made sense. Barton wouldn’t work for Redbeard. But pretend to work for him to further his own purpose? Absolutely. “You’ve been offering your services to Redbeard through Adriana. He agrees because you’re in England, which is outside his usual area of operations and is a safe haven for Sabine. You get to make use of his machines, the Sisters, and his information. And all the while, Adriana is betraying him.”
“I told you we have similar tastes in women.” Barton jabbed a finger at the encrypted message. “The book. Or I will begin to take more drastic measures.”
“Okay.” Cliff dragged the book closer and flipped it open, running his finger down the table of contents.
Shit. What do I do now? How long can I drag this out?
“Each letter has a corresponding chapter.” Thirteen chapters. Two letters map to each chapter. That seems believable. “So the N that begins the code is chapter…”
“One,” Barton interrupted.
“Nine. You didn’t think he’d start with A equals one, did you? Nine, from the ‘90 A.D.’ that was inscribed on the reliquary of St. Felicula.” The lies began to pour out as an audacious plan came together in Cliff’s mind. He pictured the places they’d been and the fake antiquities where the duke had concealed the clues. Why not tell Barton exactly where they’d been and what they’d found? He knew at least some of it already.
Cliff turned the pages slowly to chapter nine. He had no idea what a water-meadow was or how one could devote an entire chapter to such a thing, but the text was usefully dense and incomprehensible.
“Here we are,” he announced. “The chapter. Each letter in the coded document then also has a corresponding page.” The hospital and the Greek pot. “Then a line.” The helmet from the castle. “And a word.” Cat mummy.
“Each step gets progressively more complicated,” Cliff continued. “The man was a mad genius and probably thought the whole thing was one great mathematical joke. To find the page we need to add our letter to the letters on both sides, then divide by the number of pages. Round to the nearest whole number. Here, A equals four, for the ‘444 B.C.’ inscribed on the fake Greek pot. So our N is a seventeen, plus eight for the E after it, plus zero for nothing in front.” He frowned. “That could be wrong and we need to use the very last letter of the message, which you don’t have. It won’t matter, much, though. We can guess that letter if we solve the others. Back to the formula. Seventeen plus eight is twenty-five. With what appears to be fourteen pages in the chapter, we will get an answer of… one point… eight, approximately. Rounds up to two.”
Cliff flipped to page two of the chapter. Barton’s eyes had begun to glaze over. Not a fan of mathematics, apparently. Perfect.
“Could I get some paper and a pencil?” Cliff asked. “In order to find the specific line, we need to do a similar calculation, but we need to multiply. And A equals… Damn. What was the third number?”
Barton pushed his chair back from the table. “The Illyrian Institute. What did you steal there?”
“A spider. Eight legs. Right. Thanks.”
“If you are trying to dupe me with this mathematical prattle you are going to rue the day you ever heard the name Hartleigh.”
“Oh, I already do. I was in this to escape the dukedom, not to find some stupid gemstone, or whatever the hell it is.”
A look of surprise flashed across Barton’s face before he schooled it into his usual smug smile. He believed Sabine capable of hiding the true nature of the Heart of Ra. Which meant he would believe their relationship to be more casual than it truly was. Good.
Barton rose from his seat. “Here’s the deal, Hartleigh. You sit here with that book and my message until you’ve decoded the entire thing. I doubt your pirate friend will be willing to take up with you again after this, but you’ll be free to walk away with your brat and go back to America. If you don’t decode the message, or if I find out that you’re lying to me, I’ll send Barton’s Bandits to murder both La Capitaine and the girl. My men are the most experienced housebreakers in all of Great Britain. I don’t imagine they’ll have any difficulty infiltrating a rented townhouse.” He pivoted and strode for the door. “Enjoy the rest of your day, Your Grace.”
The door closed with a heavy thunk and the lock clicked into place. Cliff clutched the desk with both hands, willing himself to breathe. He had bought himself a few hours, at least. Hours during which he could plot an escape. Hours during which Sabine would be working to find him. He wanted to tell her not to. He wanted to tell her to forget the Heart and just take Lola somewhere safe. He wanted them both somewhere far from all this madness.
Escape. Leave me.
She wouldn’t. Whatever claims she may have made in the past, they were partners, and she would never leave him behind. He vowed to find his own way out before she came rushing headlong into danger.
38
“Tea? Coffee?”
Amy gestured at the tray of steaming drinks and delicious baked goods that Hawkes had carefully arranged for just this purpose. Yvette sat perched on the edge of Sabine’s bed in the small airship cabin, stiff as a board. Her eyes latched onto the food, however. She’d always been a skinny girl in constant need of sustenance.
Sabine shifted slowly into a more comfortable position, careful not to make a sound. The spyhole was useful for exactly this sort of purpose, but the storage room outside her cabin wasn’t the coziest place to sit and watch.
“Coffee, s’il vous plaît,” Yvette replied at last. “And something to eat.”
Amy piled sweets onto a tiny plate, poured a cup of coffee, and carried both to Yvette. She moved her chair closer to the bed and sat down with tea of her own. She smiled brightly. Oh, she was good at this.
“I’m so sorry to hear that you and Miss Diebin have had a falling out,” Amy began. “She can be terribly stubborn and demanding, I’m sure you know.” She lowered her voice. “Did you know, she kidnapped me once on this very ship? Locked me in this cabin, just as she’s done to you. I was stuck here for days, all because she was too busy rushing around looking for silly clues to allow me to return home.”
“That sounds like her.”
“She’s on some quest for a heart. Sounds like nonsense to me. She’s not all bad, though. Lady Luella, my companion, wished for an aerial tour of the city, and as you can see, Miss Diebin was happy to oblige her.”
Actually, Sabine had decided the air was safer than the house for the moment, and Amy had been pleasantly eager to assist in a high-skies intrigue. She’d been bored, Sabine suspected, since Hartleigh’s illness had thwarted many of her social plans.
“I don’t like heights, personally,” Amy c
ontinued. “I’d much rather stay here, in this pleasant little cabin with good food and a charming companion. Tell me, how do you know Miss Diebin? She called you ‘sister,’ but you are French and she is German, so that cannot be.”
“Sworn sisters. Daughters of Redbeard. We gave our oath to be his eyes and ears and his helping hands, but she betrayed that vow.”
“Oh, dear. She is so terribly independent, isn’t she?”
“Oui.”
Yvette had an independent streak of her own, Sabine remembered, and she hoped it would work for her here. Yvette had always been the tag-along, the younger sister, the one who helped out on mission after mission but never led one of her own. Never trusted. She disregarded rules too often and didn’t do as she was told. It had happened again today, when she confronted Sabine instead of snatching Lola.
“Well, I’m certain you and your ‘sisters’ are better off without her. No sense in fighting amongst yourselves. You’d never get anything accomplished. Mmmm. These biscuits are delightful, don’t you think?”
“Yes, thank you.” Yvette sipped at her coffee while Amy patiently waited for her to speak again. “I wish we could do without her, as we had done for years. But then she came and stole the document.”
Amy leaned in. “The secret to the treasure? She stole it?”
“Yes.”
“How awful!”
“We had to pursue her to reclaim it, but she’d taken refuge here in England. The British sky navy is hostile to many outsiders.”
To Redbeard, for murdering British citizens, Sabine corrected. They never pursued me with any great diligence.
“How on earth did you come to be here, then?” Amy asked.
“Adriana had made a particular friend in Paris who was a British citizen.”
Adriana. Sabine’s spine straightened. Barton’s mistress. She was a Daughter of Redbeard? It all made sense. Sabine could have predicted Yvette’s next words.
“She moved to England with him, and invited a number of us to visit, with the hope that we would be able to locate the stolen document and return it to its rightful owner.”
Sabine had to smother a snort. Cliff was the rightful owner. That document should have remained with the duke’s other papers, and would have done if one of his solicitors hadn’t stolen it and spread news of the Heart of Ra throughout the criminal world. Redbeard had offered him payment for the document and then promptly killed him.
“It sounds like a terrible misunderstanding,” Amy sighed. “There must be something you can do to halt this ridiculous feuding.”
Sabine left her to continue playing the compassionate duchess and slipped out of the storage room. She walked the few feet to her cabin door, paused for a moment, then made several heavy footsteps to mimic stomping through the hall. She unlocked the door and strode in without knocking, scowling at the cozy scene in front of her.
Amy gave her a cheerful smile. “Sabine, how nice of you to come below to join us.”
“You know Lord Barton, don’t you?” Sabine asked abruptly. Yvette didn’t flinch, but her eyes widened, just for an instant.
“Yes, a bit,” Amy replied. “We are not friends, but I have met him at many a party. He is in town, I believe.”
“He is. He and his charming companion came by our box at the theater just last night to chat.”
Was it really only last night? Good Lord. Since sitting through that awful show at the theater she’d invaded the king’s box during a power outage, Cliff had taken her to unparalleled heights of sexual bliss, she’d slept more soundly than she had in years, they’d found the last clue to the Sphinx machine, and Cliff had been kidnapped. All in less than twenty-four hours. Damn.
“I was thinking I might like to visit them,” Sabine said.
Yvette did flinch this time, and Sabine turned a triumphant smile on her. “Is there a problem with that, Yvette? Are you afraid if I go they’ll find out all about your latest mistake?”
“If you go, you’ll find nothing there,” Yvette lied. “They had nothing to do with this.”
Sabine stalked over to her, glaring down. “They took Hartleigh, and he may be wounded. I will not rest until I have found him. You can either confirm who took him and where he is, or I will report your failure to them and to Redbeard, including how much you’ve divulged to the lovely duchess here.”
“Who’s going to believe a traitor like you?” Yvette spat. Much of her anger, Sabine suspected, was self-directed. She’d made too many mistakes and she knew it.
“I’m willing to offer you a deal,” Sabine said calmly. This is it, Yvette. How much of that independence do you really have? How much have you longed to escape your subordinate role? “You tell me what I want to know and you can join me. I have only one mission, and it’s for you and you alone. Because you’re the only one who can do it.”
Wariness warred with eagerness in Yvette’s pale eyes. “Tell me what the mission is.”
“Not until you tell me where Hartleigh is.”
“At Barton’s. Adriana and Gretchen went after him. You’re to surrender the document and the method to decode it if you want him back.”
“You’re all making quite the assumption about how much he means to me.”
Yvette sniffed and tossed her hair. “Don’t be silly, Sabine. I saw the way you reacted. I can see those clenched fists right now.” Her laugh was a high trill. “The street thief is in love with a duke. C’est mignon.”
“I’m not…” Sabine cut herself off. Denying it was exactly the sort of thing someone would do if it were true. “That’s irrelevant. I want the address and everything you know about the house.”
“I know plenty. Much more than the others think. I do watch and listen.”
“Redbeard should have made you a scout. You’re good at flirting and you read people well. But that’s not why I need you. I need you because you can fly an airship.”
Out of all the Daughters of Redbeard Sabine had known, only she and Yvette had been insubordinate enough to learn that particular skill. Women didn’t fly his ships, or work on them in any capacity. He kept a strict division of labor: men operated the ships and did all physical work. They learned fencing, marksmanship, and hand-to-hand fighting. Women were his spies and thieves. Knives and small, concealable firearms were all they trained with. His men were brawn, his women brains.
Sabine had chafed at such arbitrary restrictions, teaching herself to use a sword and pilot a ship. She’d bribed the men to give her lessons, or snuck off during missions to practice on small, stolen vessels. Yvette had been the only one to join her. Sabine had thought of her as just a little sister, but she wasn’t. She was a fellow rebel.
“I can fly as well as any man,” Yvette declared.
Sabine nodded. “Your task is this: steal an airship that could be mistaken for mine. When I leave London, you will do the same. We will go at a busy time and fly in different directions to cause as much confusion as possible. After that, you are free to do as you please. Take the ship and go anywhere. Build your own crew or simply see the world. And if you want future jobs, simply keep in touch, Captain.”
Yvette’s face lit up with joy, and Sabine couldn’t suppress a grin. Victory. And all it had taken was to give the girl what she’d always wanted: a chance to prove herself.
Sabine took a seat on the bed beside Yvette. “Now, tell me everything. The house, the people in it, what they might have done with Hartleigh. Leave nothing out.”
Yvette squared her shoulders and nodded.
39
Sabine shifted the unwieldy bag of rags to her opposite hip and continued her unhurried walk down the street. No one glanced twice at the ordinary woman in a tired gray dress and a sagging cap. She counted the houses, marking her target well ahead of time.
Barton owned a fancy house in Mayfair, but it was nothing more than a showpiece. His real work was conducted here, where the neighbors would ask no questions and the staff was well-paid and close-mouthed.
&nb
sp; The building was a pretty, brick terraced house, four stories tall and well-maintained. The windows on the lowest floor were barred, to keep criminals out—or prisoners in. If Cliff was well enough to pose an escape risk, he would be there. If his injuries were severe, he could be anywhere. The memory of the blood-stained ground flashed in Sabine’s mind and she shivered.
The street was narrow, and the buildings cut off much of her view of the sky, but Die Fledermaus was up there somewhere, ready for her part in this rescue. Sabine took another small step. Walking at the pace of an average person was almost painful, but her usual fast, powerful strides would give her away.
Which of these windows hold spies? she wondered. Barton and the sisters had to have a lookout. They would be expecting Sabine to stage a rescue. She’d crafted her plan with that assumption.
A shadow crept over the street, the oblong shape too regular to belong to any cloud. Her helpers had arrived. Sabine continued her methodical walk, sparing only a brief, curious glance at the dirigible blotting out the sun. None of my business. I have work to do. Need to put bread on the table.
The airship dropped lower, hovering directly above Barton’s residence. Ropes unfurled. A small, ceramic container fell overboard, shattering on the street below. The contents burst with a thunderous crack.
Sabine covered her mouth with a handkerchief as smoke spread over the area. Up above, a woman in trousers and a high-necked, long-sleeved shirt descended through the haze. A single gunshot obliterated a fourth-floor window, and the woman swung inside.
A second smoke bomb fell. Inside the house, two more explosions sounded. Sabine rushed through the fog, her disguise abandoned. She scurried down to the basement entrance, pulled a small, square device from her pocket, and positioned it above the lock. It vibrated beneath her hand, scratching and clicking as it worked the tumblers faster than any human lockpick could hope to achieve. She’d bought it from an American engineer for one hundred dollars, and it had proved its worth many times over.
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