Wayfarer

Sophia took a step closer to the nearest case, where a heavy sword was displayed. The long, heavy blade was chipped and dull along its killing edge, but the gold hilt was pristine, embellished by two golden chimeras. While he marveled, Sophia’s first instinct, naturally, was to lift the glass and make as though to take it out.

“If you touch that sword, I will use it to slice off your fingers, roast them, and feed them to Selene,” the Belladonna informed her, not looking up from the glass she had dropped the blade into. Beside her on the floor, the wolf looked up from the bone it had been gnawing and gave a snort of confirmation. Nicholas looked away quickly, attempting to not identify it as a human femur.

“What sword is that?” Sophia asked, still eyeing it.

“Arthur’s Caliburn,” the Belladonna said.

“Excalibur?” Nicholas couldn’t stop his brows from rising. A legendary sword—one that didn’t exist. So far as he knew.

“How has someone not bought this off you?” Sophia asked. “Ironwood would probably love to use it to behead his most hated enemies. His murders could use a little poetry.”

The Belladonna’s veil rustled and crimped, as if she’d smiled at the word Ironwood.

She knows who we are, Nicholas thought with a growing sense of unease.

“One of my scavengers fished it out of a filthy lake for me,” the Belladonna said. “However, I’ve never been able to prove the provenance of the object to your Grand Master’s standards, and so it remains. Until it one day needs to be found. No, beastie, take that thought of stealing it from your mind—” Sophia’s hand immediately lowered. “I’d hate for you to join my cadre of thieves.”

Without lifting her eyes from Sophia, the Belladonna pointed to a large, drooping net hanging from the ceiling. It was filled with human skulls, all boiled and polished as smoothly as pearls from the sea. At the sight of it, Sophia scowled and moved on to examine the next case, which contained a line of eight bejeweled and gold-trimmed eggs of various sizes.

“Imperial Fabergé eggs, lately of Russia,” the Belladonna said, pulling a grape from a nearby plate of them and popping it into her mouth. “I’m willing to bargain, if they’re of interest. It’s become damned difficult to auction them with the instability of that period.”

Instability. Nicholas seized upon the word, storing the information away. Where there was instability, there were likely changes to the timeline.

“Maybe I should have let you go first,” Sophia muttered to Nicholas, greedily eyeing a bowl of pristine apples that seemed oddly out of place. “I could be eating a fresh pork dinner right now.”

“That does sound rather appealing, I must say,” the Belladonna said, tossing a grape to the wolf, who snapped it out of the air. The animal gave a curious sniff in Sophia’s direction, but lowered its head and resumed its watch over them. “There’s King John’s treasure in the corner over there, next to Cromwell’s head, and a panel of the Bayeux Tapestry, if you’ve yet to finish wasting my time.”

At her interested hum, Nicholas grabbed the scruff of Sophia’s shirt, cutting off her path. “We’ve business here, mind you.”

“Oliver Cromwell’s head, though,” Sophia said pitifully, as if this might convince him.

He stepped forward, winding through the rows of shelves that separated them from the desk. Sophia followed reluctantly, shaking off Nicholas’s grip. To his complete and utter lack of surprise, there were no chairs for them to sit in. They presented themselves to the Belladonna like a mustering militia.

“Now,” the woman said. “Tell me what it is Ironwood seeks, and I shall tell you my fee.”

Sophia made a noise of disgust. “We’re not here on the old man’s business.”

The woman settled back in her chair. “Are you not Sophia Elizabeth Ironwood, born in July of 1904, lovingly”—the word was impaled with sarcasm—“pulled from St. Mary’s Orphanage in 1910 after you were caught pickpocketing for the third time—”

Sophia put her hands on her hips and said, “Well, they didn’t catch me the other hundreds of times. Three is hardly a bad score.”

Nicholas couldn’t be sure why the other woman had said it, other than to awe them with her knowledge, or disarm Sophia.

Rescued, orphanage, pickpocketing.

Christ. Julian had vaguely mentioned to him in passing that Sophia had not had a lady’s upbringing until Ironwood brought her into the family. But this…it went beyond humble origins. And as he himself knew, when you were forced to learn survival as a child, the instinct became etched into your soul.

The Belladonna smirked and her attention fell over him so heavily that Nicholas felt as though he’d gained another shadow.

“Everyone present knows of my origins; it’s not necessary to reiterate them to prove some mysterious point. We’ve come because we wish for information,” Nicholas said finally.

“Is that so?”

“We’re looking for what the last common year is,” Sophia explained. “To find someone orphaned by the shift, which I’m sure you are well aware of.”

The Belladonna leaned forward, resting her arms against the desk. A quill fluttered in its cup, and two grapes escaped their plate to find freedom on the floor. She stroked the veil covering her mouth, the way a man would stroke a beard. “Indeed? That is certainly within my knowledge. Who is this person you seek?”