Wayfarer

“Who the devil is that?” he asked.

The woman smiled serenely. “I sell the finest of elixirs, sir. Perhaps I might interest you in a set for your pretty little wife at home?”

“That’s not what he asked, you stupid cow—”

Sophia’s words were cut short by the tremendous bang of the door behind her as it struck the wall, and the sudden appearance of a bundle of black-and-silver silk and netting. All of which didn’t appear, so much as roll toward them with the force and menace of a thundercloud.

A woman nearly as tall as Nicholas strode forward. The bottom half of her face was hidden beneath a veil of black lace, but her eyes were a gleaming, almost feline yellow. Somehow, either by piercing or some art, three small pearls trailed down from the corner of each eye like tears. Her décolletage was modestly covered by a sheer panel of white fabric, but what Nicholas initially took for lace was anything but. The markings were the climbing, swirling lines of what appeared to be a tattoo. When she spun toward Sophia, Nicholas saw that her snow-white hair had been braided, intricately looped and knotted together.

“Who—?” The woman leaned toward Sophia, sniffing the air around her.

Sophia let out a small cry of surprise, swatting at her, but the woman had already moved on. Nicholas leaped back instinctively as she swung her attention toward him, subjecting him to the same sniffing. Truly, she sounded like a pig searching out a truffle, her teeth clattering behind the veil. He was dosed with her scent—that earthy undertone he had detected when they’d first entered the shop.

“Ma’am,” he began, with as much composure as he could gather, “if you would be so good as to—”

She spun, carrying the same hint of damp soil and lavender away with her.

“Sir, please let me show you our latest arrivals,” the woman behind the counter said, her smile never once faltering. The other woman glanced back, first at her, then the boy.

“Put her out.” If the first woman sang her words, this one crushed them between her teeth.

The golden boy marked his place in his book and went over to the counter. He planted two hands on its dusty surface and jumped up, just high enough to blow out the bloodred candle Nicholas had noted before.

The Belladonna vanished, disappearing into the candle smoke that trailed up toward the groaning rafters.

That settled, the boy returned to his stool, picked up his book, and resumed his place in the story.

Sophia jumped forward, a wild expression on her face as she looked behind the counter for the woman—she met Nicholas’s gaze when she looked up again and shook her head.

Disappeared. Gone.

Impossible.

He might have to accept that they were edging toward the shadows of the unnatural. Nicholas knew he would need to be on guard, and despite his shaky faith in a higher power, found himself thinking those words he’d heard Captain Hall say throughout his childhood: God defend us.

“How…? Are…?” Nicholas was not quite sure what he meant to ask.

The woman in black stormed back toward Sophia, who lifted a leather-bound volume off the floor and sent it flying toward the older woman’s head, coming within inches of striking her.

The sniffing intensified, until finally the woman held out an arm, silvery black lace dripping from the end of the sleeve. “Come here to me, beastie.”

Sophia took a rather large step back.

Before Nicholas could leap forward, the woman snatched Sophia by the arm and whirled her around, as if to swat her bottom. In one smooth movement, the woman pulled up the back of Sophia’s shirt and pulled something out that had been tucked into the belt around the girl’s waist.

For a moment Nicholas thought it might have been another trick of his eyes, because when her hand emerged it was holding a long, thin blade, but the end of it had been snapped off, leaving it a jagged claw. The base was adorned with a large ring, thin bands of silver weaving in and out of each other.

“Good God!” The words burst out of him as the woman held the pointed end up to her nose with one last, satisfied sniff. “You’ve been carrying that around this whole time?” he asked Sophia. “Where did you come across such a thing?”

Even as the words left his mouth, he knew. The body of the Linden guardian in Nassau, the one with the peculiarly small wound through his ear. She had reached the body first, and had somehow taken up the blade in the darkness of night. Without him ever noticing.

And she had held on to it for…what purpose, exactly? His guts clenched, picturing her expression of joy as she drove it through him while he slept.

Sophia refused to look in his direction. “How did you know I had it?”

The question was directed to the other woman—the true Belladonna, Nicholas suspected.

“The blood smells like the rotting intestines of a goat,” the woman growled at her. “This will be payment enough for entry.”

Holding it up to the candlelight, she studied something on the ring that Nicholas couldn’t quite make out—it might have been the etching of a sun. Her breath made the veil over her mouth flutter.

“Payment?” Nicholas heard the disbelief in his voice.

“Yes, beastie. Payment. This is a place of business. Or did you expect me to offer you refreshments and the moon?”

“Is information part of the deal?” Sophia asked, eyeing her with her usual look of mistrust.

“It depends, of course, on what it is you wish to purchase,” the Belladonna said. “I have been known to barter. From time to time. Boy, lock up the shop.”