They weren’t falling off the side of a cliff. They hadn’t been shot dead on sight, run through by sword or bayonet. And they hadn’t emerged into a crocodile-filled swamp, or in the middle of a crowded market, or for that matter, in a burning building. So he supposed he should be grateful. But he was mostly exhausted.
He had no way of knowing what time it was, only that it was clearly night; hopefully, the same night as the one they had just left in Cambodia. Distant voices prickled in his ears, the words muffled by distance or cast in a lyrical language he couldn’t decipher. It was as if the air itself had been seasoned with the richest and rarest of spices, so thick he was certain he could taste it on his tongue. The breeze carried other scents that were familiar and strange all at once—there, beneath the warm sweat of beasts of burden and smoke, were notes of a heady, floral fragrance.
His eyes eventually adjusted to the darkness, well enough for him to make out the shapes around him. The room was large, and there appeared to be an elaborate wooden bed in the far corner, as well as some sort of desk or table, so laden with piles of objects that he couldn’t quite tell what it was.
Etta fumbled around the room, and with a flash of white, pulled a sheet off of the chair it covered. She did the same with another sheet, uncovering a low table stacked with newspapers and books.
“Some sort of home?” he ventured. The passage’s gate thrummed behind them. The sound wouldn’t fade entirely, but within an hour it would start to lessen.
“An apartment,” Etta agreed, stepping closer to the bed. “Here—here, matches.” She held up a small book of them. “Do you see any candles?”
Matches had yet to be invented in his time, but Julian had showed him how to use them during their travels—how to strike the small strips of wood against the rough strip on the jacket containing them. Clever little buggers. As Nicholas marveled again at this small luxury, singeing multiple fingertips as he located a few half-melted candles, Etta moved toward the shutters lining the far wall.
“Don’t—” he said, catching her arm. “Not yet.”
They didn’t need to open themselves up to being caught by someone passing on the street below.
Etta stepped back, holding her hands in the air. “All right, all right. Should we light a fire?”
Nicholas glanced toward the small fireplace, but shook his head. They could use the additional glow from the hearth to see, but the smoke might also draw undesirable attention. “Leave it for now. If you’re chilled, I’ll warm you.”
Etta laughed, pushing him away playfully. What surprised him, perhaps more than his disappointment, was the way her eyes lit at his words, sparking the way the matches had.
Stop this, he commanded himself, ripping away the nearest bed cloth to reveal a distinctly European leather chair. What did it matter that she was clearly as intrigued as he was, that she’d looked at him as though he was the last treasure to be had in the world? Why be so eager to allow her to capture his heart, when it would lead to precisely one thing: nothing?
And yet, he was gripped by the images glittering through his mind, flashing like the sunlight on open water: the memory of her melting beneath his hands, how she’d tasted of rain and earth and sweetness—
There were countless mirrors and portraits to be uncovered, all of which had been taken from their hooks and leaned against the wall, frames and all. English ladies from his time, powdered and pouting; French princesses whose silk gowns seemed to drip from their bodies; fierce Spanish ladies. So the owner clearly recognized beauty when he saw it—tried to collect it and hoard it. He—or she, he supposed—also seemed to love nothing so dearly as landscapes of green pastures. Nicholas made a disgusted face as he turned the next painting around to reveal…yet another scene of sheep idling in a flower-spotted field.
Leaving the paintings for a moment, he turned to a large bench-size object covered with another cloth; upon whipping off the cloth, he found himself staring into the snarling face and exceptionally long, talon-like teeth of a tiger.
He fell back onto the ornately woven red rug beneath them and lay on his back, stunned, as a shower of fine dust fell over him.
“You get that out of your system?” Etta asked, stepping around his prone form. His hand lashed out, closing around her ankle like an iron. The woman was mad if she thought he’d let her take another step forward—
“It’s dead,” she said, looking down at him with an amused smile. “As gross as it is, it’s been preserved and stuffed to be displayed. Look.”
He inhaled sharply through his nose as she reached out a hand to stroke its head. As promised, it did not move. It did not blink. The tiger was dead.
“What are the chances your mother killed and stuffed it herself?”
“Pretty good, I think.” Etta held up a framed photograph of an older man in the garb of an early twentieth-century explorer, who was holding a rifle. The tiger lay dead at the toes of his boots, and beside it was a grinning, tiny, blond girl—a younger version of the woman in the other photograph he’d seen. Rose.
And he’d wondered from whom Etta had inherited her casual disregard for danger.
She hesitated before reaching out to run a hand along its curved spine. The coat was orange, striped handsomely with black all the way down to its clawed paws. Having missed the tiger that Etta had seen in the jungle, Nicholas allowed himself to marvel. He’d read of Europe’s menageries, seen descriptions and etchings of the exotic beasts, but to see one for himself…
And yet, what right did a man have to take the life of such a powerful creature, to prop up his own esteem?
“I guess this explains Mom’s connection to Cambodia. And here I was, hoping Benjamin Linden was a Buddhist. I’m going to yell at her for this,” Etta vowed, giving the thing an affectionate pat on the head. “Tigers are endangered now, you know.”
Well…all right.
“The older gentleman in this photo is likely your great-grandfather, given what we know about how your mother was raised,” he said, passing it back to her waiting hand. She squinted at it, rubbing a thumb over its dusty face.
“I can see it,” she said quietly, studying Benjamin Linden’s face. “He has her eyes. Her mouth.”
Features she had inherited herself. Etta seemed both intrigued and rattled to finally have proof of him—proof that her family existed beyond her and her mother.
“Alice is right. They should have destroyed it,” Etta said.
He hesitated a moment before clarifying. “The astrolabe?”
She nodded, and the now-familiar poison of guilt and dread worked its way through his system; he would have preferred to avoid the topic altogether rather than think about his own deceit, how it would crush her to know he had to bring it to Ironwood.
“You won’t be able to use it if you do,” he was quick to point out.
And Ironwood will never let you or your mother escape.
“I know you’re right, but I can’t see a way out of this without huge consequences. I still have a few more days…not that many, but a few. I just need to figure out how to avoid giving it to Ironwood, but save Mom.” Etta said, sensing his thoughts. “And then, I guess we’ll…disappear.”
His heart clenched at the word.
“What about the violin? Performing?”
“What about a different future, one I never could have predicted?”