A FINAL GAMBIT
1902—New York
James Lorcan watched the disbelief flash in Viola’s eyes and then harden into hatred.
“Never,” she said, practically spitting the word.
It was no more than he’d expected, but it wasn’t enough to dissuade him. He inclined his head, conceding her point. “Then allies, perhaps.”
She shook her head, and he knew she wanted to argue—she always wanted to argue—but he continued before she could deny it.
“We want the same thing, don’t we?” he asked, measuring her mood. True, she could kill him in a blink, knife or no, but he knew her weakness, the secret that Dolph had hidden from everyone else—a misplaced sense of morality that kept her from killing with her affinity. Besides, if there had been any indication that she might strike, he would have known long before she did. So he pressed on. “We both want the end of the Order. Freedom for our kind.”
“Dolph wanted those things as well, but you killed him,” she pointed out.
“Is that what he wanted? Truly?” James paused, letting his words penetrate. He’d watched Dolph and Viola in the days before everything fell apart. Dolph’s preoccupations had made this particular play more than easy for him. “Did Dolph tell you that himself? I don’t think he did. He never told any of us the entirety of his plans. He didn’t tell you what might happen at Khafre Hall, did he? He let you walk into a trap set by Darrigan without bothering to warn you.”
He watched as her jaw tensed, but she didn’t deny it—she couldn’t.
“I would wager the Strega itself that he didn’t tell you how he drove Leena to her grave.”
“Lies,” she hissed. “He did no such thing. He would never have hurt her.”
James forced himself to keep his expression doleful and to hide every ounce of satisfaction this conversation was giving him. “You wear his mark, don’t you, Viola? How do you think he found the power to make them into weapons against us?” he asked. “He took it from her. Why else would she have been taken so easily by the Order?”
She shook her head, as though refusing these truths, but he could tell that his words were worming their way beneath her skin, wriggling into her thoughts. Eating away at her sureness.
“You don’t have to take my word for it,” James said, pulling a package from his coat. “Here—” He offered it to her.
The moment she took the paper-wrapped parcel in her hands, he could tell she knew what it was. Her eyes narrowed at him, as though waiting for the trick. She wasn’t stupid, after all. But that didn’t mean that she was any match for his cunning.
“It’s just a little gift, to show that I mean you no harm. You’ll find everything you need to know within it,” he told her. Thanks to the notebooks in the apartment, he could offer her proof in Dolph’s own hand that everything he’d told her was true . . . or at least it would appear so. “Unlike Dolph, I don’t keep secrets from my friends.”
“We are not friends, and I don’t need your tricks,” she told him, but he didn’t miss the way she held the package close to her. “But I will keep my knife.”
“No tricks, Viola.” He took a step back and started to go. He took three steps toward where Mooch was still lying unconscious—but not dead—on the ground. He gave her those three steps to think about all that had just happened, to let her doubts start to grow, before he turned back to her. “One thing, though. Why are you so sure that I’m the traitor? What of Jianyu? He wasn’t with us on the bridge. He’s never returned to the Strega. I’m convinced he was working with Darrigan.”
“Why would he?” she asked.
“Why not?” James said. “He wasn’t ever really one of us, was he? I always told Dolph he was too soft for trusting one of them. But if you don’t believe me, perhaps you can ask Jianyu yourself. I’d put good odds on him being at the Order’s big gala. Word is that one of the artifacts might turn up there—a ring that has the power to amplify an affinity. Jianyu has already tried to get it for himself once. I imagine he’ll try again.”
And when the two of them faced off against each other, James would be the one left standing.