Anne turned to leave. Elodie made an urgent face at Jane, who, fearing another kick to the shin, cleared her throat. “Um, so I just came in from . . . the train,” she improvised, realizing belatedly that she had no idea where trains came into King’s Cross from. “And my cousin—” she seized the opportunity to kick Elodie, who waved like a pageant queen, “—will be working all week and doesn’t know this part of the city well, anyway. Is there anything around here you can recommend? For, um, sightseeing?” It was a long shot, if the sights on their way to the pub had been any indication, but at least Elodie kept her pointy toes to herself this time.
Anne pursed her wide lips thoughtfully. “Well, we’re not far from Regent’s Park, and that’s pleasant enough, especially in good weather. There’s a theater and a zoo. Madame Tussaud’s is over there, too, if you like wax, but it’s a bit eerie for me.”
Jane shuddered in agreement: the silent, motionless, shiny-faced celebrities at the New York branch had made her distinctly uncomfortable. “The park sounds better.” She nodded. “It’s always good to get a local’s perspective—or someone’s who works here at least,” she corrected herself, although this time her awkwardness was entirely faked. “I suppose you could live anywhere.” Could she have run away? Was she kidnapped? Did she just get lost? Nothing made sense. The six-year-old’s disappearance and presumed death had made national headlines for nearly a week. And her witchy mother had an even more effective way of finding her daughter at her disposal, as Jane had obviously demonstrated. Even now that Jane had found Anne, something major didn’t add up.
Anne snorted a sarcastic laugh, leaning against the back of Elodie’s side of the booth. “Don’t know about that. You wouldn’t believe the rent at Buckingham Palace these days.” Anne waved her hand dismissively, and her follow-up sounded sort of like an apology. “I’ve been around here since I aged out of my foster place. I’d moved a bit, so I like sticking to just the one flat now. People rag on this neighborhood, but it’s home, you know? Didn’t mean to snip just then. I’ll go see if the cook’s in yet.”
Jane smiled as warmly as she could, but Anne was already heading off again. Does she even remember that she used to have a different home? “Well, now I want to adopt her,” she murmured to Elodie.
Elodie was craned around to watch Anne go. When she turned back, Jane could see that her face was troubled. “I wouldn’t, if I were you,” she whispered.
“Think what she must have been through,” Jane urged as quietly as she could. “You don’t know what it’s like to grow up without parents—”
“Shh. You still grew up with family. Jane, I’m sure she’s had it rough, but she didn’t have your Gran keeping her in line, either. And she . . . I just get a weird vibe.”
“She’s a witch,” Jane whispered, taken aback by Elodie’s reaction. “We give off weird vibes.”
Elodie looked doubtful but tried to hide it with another sip of Guinness. “I liked you fine.”
Jane laughed out loud, prompting a new round of stares from the university kids. “And what’s that supposed to say about your instincts? Look where that’s gotten you.”
Elodie smiled. “You, miss, needed my help. Obviously.”
“And she needs mine,” Jane retorted, but she had doubts of her own. I can give her her family back. She seems to want to belong somewhere, and I can show her where that really is. But that means turning an innocent girl who’s already had a tough life over to Lynne Doran. That’s not what most people would call “help.”
Elodie seemed lost in dark thoughts of her own, and by the time their food came out—crispy, oily, and, most of all, hot—it was a merciful distraction from their gloomy silence.
Jane never could have predicted it, but finding Annette seemed to bring up yet more questions and problems—rather than solving any.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jane poked at a sliver of Cornish mackerel with her fork, pushing it around her plate for a moment before remembering where she was and carrying it politely to her mouth. It was better than the oily, deep-fried fish she and Elodie had gulped down that afternoon, definitely. And any sane person would cheerfully have taken a late dinner at the celebrated Hibiscus with a dangerously sexy man over an early one of reheated standbys at a grimy pub.
Guess I’m feeling insane again, Jane admitted complacently. The gray, gold, and ivory tones of the dining room were soothing, the food was extraordinary, and the wine was plentiful, but her companion’s obvious bad mood made it impossible to really enjoy.
“The white-onion ravioli is delicious; would you like a taste?” Tonight, André’s accent sounded coarser somehow; instead of purring, it almost grated.
What are you still doing here and why won’t you leave? Jane wanted to shout at him. She still had no idea where he was going after London, because, day after day, he just wouldn’t go. And while she was sort of curious about the private guided tour of the Tower of London he had insisted on planning for the next morning, thanks to his near-constant attention, she was starting to feel more like a prisoner than a spy. She tapped her fork nervously against the rim of her plate. “No, thanks,” she replied weakly.
He tilted his head in a fashion that suggested genuine concern for her mood and well-being, and Jane cursed her overly suspicious mind. Just because she and André were both lying to each other didn’t mean they couldn’t get along for the moment.
She smiled wanly. “I know I must seem like a bit of a drag today,” she admitted. “I’ve been having a lovely trip so far, but my business has taken some unexpected twists.” She and Elodie had eventually had to accept defeat earlier in the evening. The Cheeky Dragon wasn’t much to look at, but apparently it was an extremely popular after-work stop for a lively blue-collar crowd. By the time they had eaten enough of their food to decently call it “finished,” there was barely room to turn around. Having another pseudo-casual chat with Anne would have been impossible, so Jane and Elodie had agreed that they had done all they would be able to do right then. Jane would just have to return—during lunch, she thought might be better—and try again. “How about you—what’s on your horizon this week?” she prompted, dipping her fork into a strawberry-balsamic reduction and sucking it thoughtfully.
“I believe passionately in unexpected twists,” André replied with a twist of his full lips that Jane could practically feel on her own skin.
That’s not an answer. “I don’t mean to press, but I would at least like to know your travel plans. I might need to take a side trip to Europe, and it might be awkward to run into you on the street somewhere after you’ve gone through all this trouble to be mysterious.” That was a lie, of course: she intended to be back on a plane to New York as soon as humanly possible after convincing Anne to come with her. But it was a pretty low-risk lie and well worth the trouble if André believed it.
He seemed frozen for a moment, although he continued to chew his ravioli and reach for his wine. But just as quickly, the impression was gone. “You haven’t even told me what you’re doing here,” he pointed out reasonably. “Not the truth, at least. But you want to know where I’m going next? Ella, my dear, this is hardly in the spirit of our . . . arrangement.”
Of course he didn’t buy the hard-partying cousin thing. Jane sighed to herself. Probably because I completely forgot to ever mention her again after the jet touched down. André swirled his thick red wine inside the crystal balloon of his glass and watched her expectantly. She stared into his black eyes intently, trying to read something from them the way normal, non-witch women so often claimed that they could. The last time I was in a Michelin-starred restaurant on this side of the ocean with a too-handsome man, he was playing me, too, she recalled sadly. When Malcolm had swept her off her feet, she had imagined having a real family, a loving partner, and an unshakable place in the world. To an orphan who had been raised in near isolation by a grandmother so fearful that she had cut herself and her ward off from the world, those hopes had been irresistible. E
ven her six successful years in Paris hadn’t been enough to allow Jane to shake off the lonely confusion of her childhood, but Malcolm’s arrival had promised to finally do the trick. But I’m not fooled this time, and surely I have more reasonable expectations than I did back then, she reminded herself hopefully. Now all I want is to be left alone.
“I’m here about Malcolm Doran,” Jane heard herself say, and felt momentarily dizzy with her own daring. She had no idea if it was brilliant or stupid, but the die was cast, so she finished the roll: “And Jane Boyle.”
André stared at her for what felt like forever, while her heart tried to pound its way out of her chest. There was no mistaking the predator behind his handsome face this time; he looked as though he might leap across the table to go for her throat.
Emboldened by his total shock, Jane swallowed another bite of mackerel in a way she thought actually passed for nonchalant. “Do you know where they are?”
André finally seemed to collect himself, although he picked up his fork and set it down a couple of times for no apparent reason. After the third time, he set it carefully on the tablecloth, and Jane saw a real smile playing around his lips. “Ella, once again you amaze me.”
“I figure they couldn’t have stayed hidden so long without each other,” she pointed out, hoping her adrenaline would pass for conviction. “After all, he’s got all that money, and she’s got . . . other gifts.”
“And you think they’re in London,” André prodded, and then frowned. “But now you ‘may’ have to go to the Continent. Ella, darling, have you been playing me the whole time with this London nonsense?”
“Have you?” Jane countered. “You said you were thinking of ‘making a stop’ here—which I assumed was a convenient fiction anyway—but now, three days later, we’re touring the city and sipping wine like we’ve got all the time in the world. I can’t help but wonder if we’re not following the same lead.” The same fictional lead, she reminded herself sternly. So keep it simple and vague.
“Katrin and I have been looking for them as well, of course, for some time now,” he admitted casually. He went on to say more—she could see his mouth moving—but a crazy roaring sound had filled her ears. It was as if she were standing directly under a waterfall.
Of course they have. She felt like she might laugh out loud, or burst into tears, or fall to the floor in a seizure. Katrin’s sharp body and short black hair appeared clearly in her mind, but unlike the times when she had only half-seen André’s sister, this time she knew exactly what the woman’s face looked like. It really had been a coincidence that Mystery Witch, who had been stalking Caroline Chase all over town, was also staying at the same hotel as Ella Medeiros. Her being there had nothing to do with Ella at all . . . she was just staying in the same hotel as her brother. When she lost track of me in New York, they thought I might have gone . . . gone back . . . “You’re going to France,” Jane concluded dully. Her tongue felt thick and clumsy. “You thought—she might have gone there. Home.”
André shot her a strange look, and she thought she might be stupidly repeating what he had just said. But she couldn’t help it; she couldn’t make her ears or even her eyes focus right. Everything was swimming in front of her, even André’s dangerous purr of a voice.
Lynne hired them, she thought frantically; almost hopefully. Finding me was a condition of the merger. But things were starting to make an even uglier kind of sense than that. If Lynne found Jane alive, she wouldn’t really need the Dalcascus for anything. All the parties and shopping trips and negotiating sessions were moving things along between the Dorans and the Dalcascus, but the best way to seal the deal would be to make sure Jane didn’t pop back up again.
My lover is coming to kill me, she realized sickly. She had thought that she was just flirting with danger, but it had been in her bed nearly every night for the past two weeks.
“Now. Tell me why you chose London,” she heard André insist from what sounded like a great distance, and she shook her head in confusion. She tried to speak, but no sound came out. “What brought you here?” he asked again, and this time the threat in his voice was barely masked at all.
Jane reached for her water glass, watching the hand that brought it to her mouth in sudden fascination. Is my skin getting paler? she wondered wildly. She had a panicked urge to try to hold up her knife to check her reflection. “A friend,” she blurted out randomly. “I got a tip.”
André’s stare grew darker. “And?”
And now I’m going to turn back into a pumpkin. Into Jane, I mean. She knew it was too early, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she should be hiding her face, that it was changing back by the minute. She could practically feel her hair growing. “And nothing,” she gulped desperately. “It turned out to be nothing.”
“Ella,” André rumbled, “I’ve been more honest with you than that.”
“I’m sorry,” she told the sickly spinning air around where she thought his face should be. “I need a couple more days to . . . run down leads. From my friend. But I think this was all a mistake.”
“Apparently,” he replied archly, but his eyes were blackly furious. A waiter approached their table, but paused and then turned away quickly. No help. Just me and my stalker, here. André leaned closer, and Jane focused on the way his black hair scattered the light. “Ella, we both know that Jane and Malcolm went their separate ways weeks ago. And I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I don’t believe this ‘tip from a friend’ nonsense, either. We could be helping each other look.”
“Sure, if I tell you everything I know,” Jane retorted. I don’t even know what I know. “It’s not like we can split the reward—the real one, I mean.” Three million dollars would be easy enough to divide up, but not the advantage some lucky hunter could get from bringing Jane Boyle back to Lynne. And as it stood, the Dalcascus would gain even more from Jane’s untimely death than from anything Lynne might offer them for her.
“Ella.” André smiled confidently, and Jane shrank back in her chair. “We can work out all sorts of rewards.” He slid his hand across the table and grasped her left one before she could pull it back. His olive-skinned fingers traced the plain silver ring on her middle finger; it felt as though he had slid his hand under her skirt right there in the middle of the restaurant. “With your . . . talents . . . I’m sure we could find a mutually acceptable agreement.”
He knows we’re using each other, Jane reminded herself, dedicating every muscle in her body to not jerking her hand away. He’s just wrong about why. No wonder he had remained so attentive even after finding out she was a witch. He was just as interested in Malcolm and Jane’s whereabouts as Lynne was; Jane’s bluff to interest her mother-in-law must have been equally intriguing to the Dalcascus.
Jane stared at her hand under André’s. It looked tiny and trapped, and most important, it kept looking like Jane’s. Didn’t Misty say the disguise could . . . slip? “I feel sick,” she whispered in perfect honesty. “Thank you for dinner, but it seems to be disagreeing with me.” She yanked her hand free of his, gave an impossibly bright smile to everyone and no one in particular, and all but ran from the restaurant.
I have to get to Annette, she heard herself thinking distantly as she reached the street and began to run. I’m not safe without her. Until she’s back home, I’m not safe anywhere . . . not as anyone.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Cheeky Dragon was considerably less crowded for lunch than it had been for dinner. But there were enough customers to keep Anne fairly busy when Jane first arrived. Jane thought she saw a faint glimmer of recognition on the waitress’s face, but if she had made an impression on her last visit, it apparently wasn’t favorable enough to warrant Anne slowing down to chat.
Jane made herself stop staring at the busy waitress, instead turning to the dusty window below its neon Guinness sign. She had been examining her reflection almost compulsively since she had left André at Hibiscus the night before, but she had
n’t come to any definite conclusions. Her hair was still dark and shoulder-skimming, her cheekbones still wide, her breasts and hips still narrow. There’s something around the eyes, though, she fretted, leaning closer to the window. She touched a couple of walnut fingertips to her eyebrows, pulling the skin gently first one way, then another.
A second face appeared behind Jane’s in the murky reflection, and she whipped around. Anne refilled Jane’s empty coffee cup, and then swept on before Jane could catch her eye. If I hadn’t been so busy staring at myself . . . She bit her lip; Anne’s wavy golden hair had been close enough to touch.
Jane sipped her coffee, and immediately regretted it. It was bitter and watery and oddly acidic, and the more refills she got the worse they tasted. I should just tell her, she thought as Anne passed by her again with a tray of empty pint glasses, so close that Jane could have grabbed her free hand. The small lunch crowd had thinned out to almost nothing; it was as good a time as any. I could just . . .
The neon sign in the pub’s window flickered warningly, and Jane tried to suppress the magic she realized was starting to build up in her system. The difficulty was sobering: it made Jane remember her one very good reason for not startling Anne. Before Jane had known about her own powers, she had thought she simply had atrocious luck with electronics—especially when she was upset. Once she had found out her real family history, she had guessed that Gran’s magic had manifested her uncontrolled emotions as weather. She had no idea what Annette’s magic might do when the girl was agitated, but it would be safest for all concerned to keep the drama to a minimum. She pressed her hands flat on the scarred wood of the table, working to calm her power.
Or, she decided suddenly, I just get two birds with one, you know, whatever.
As Anne rushed by again, this time with a stack of dirty plates balanced on one arm and two glasses pinched in her other hand, Jane lashed her magic out like a lasso. It caught Anne just above the ankle, and Jane watched in horrified happiness as the girl, the glasses, and the stack of plates wavered for a long moment and then crashed to the ground.
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