In the study, the enkai lay on the leather sofa. By the light of the desk lamp Jean could finally get a proper look at her. A catsuit of blue silk clung to a tattooed body built for acrobatics. White, fluffy ears jutted from a tangle of wild silver hair that fanned across the cushion. A sharp-cheeked face with enormous eyes the colour of molten gold held an expression of bold defiance even in unconsciousness. No jewellery except a small amulet bearing the symbol of a cat with spread wings.
Sophie sank into the armchair, her palm clamped over the gash. Jean brought a basin of water and clean cloth.
"Let me see." He perched on the armrest beside her.
Sophie carefully tugged the edge of her nightgown aside. Four parallel furrows ran from collarbone to shoulder blade, beads of blood rising on pale skin.
Jean dampened the cloth and pressed it to the wounds. Sophie flinched.
"Sorry." He gentled his touch. "Not deep, but it looks ugly."
"What about your hands?" Sophie glanced at his bloodied palms.
"Nothing," he went on cleaning her shoulder. "We got off easy. If she had wanted to..."
"Don't." Sophie caught his wrist. "I don't want to think about that."
She took a fresh cloth, dipped it in the water, and began wiping the blood from his hands. Jean tried to pull away.
"Sophie, that's not..."
"Sit still." She gripped his wrist tighter. "You help me, I help you."
They worked in silence. Jean was finishing the bandage on her shoulder as she rinsed the last cut on his hand.
By the window, Kali idly propped her cheek in her hand, watching the bandaging with the curiosity of a postman who had read too many private letters. The scene was practically begging for a holiday card.
"Finished?"
Sophie turned.
"Kali, you could..." She faltered.
"I could." Kali stepped closer. "But I was enjoying the show."
She waved a hand through the air. The skin on Sophie’s shoulder sealed smooth, every cut erased. Jean's palms cleared. Not even scars remained.
He looked at his hands, then at the basin with its bloodied water and the bandages.
"Thank you." He set the basin on the desk. "Though you could have done that sooner."
Kali smiled.
"And ruin such a tender moment?"
Sophie rubbed her wrist, examining the spot where the wound had just been. Then she looked at the still figure on the sofa.
"How did we even catch her?" She frowned. "An enkai..."
Jean approached the sofa. He studied the burglar's figure. Weightless silk, no pockets, bare arms. He eased up the edge of the amulet and peered beneath it. Nothing. His fingers ran along the belt. Empty. No pouches, no cases, no tools.
He straightened, shaking his head.
"Bare hands through every lock."
Sophie blinked.
"That's exactly what I mean. Enkai. How do you catch a ghost?"
Jean turned to Kali, one eyebrow raised.
"Good question."
Kali leaned back in her chair with a smirk.
"I smelled the little kitty from the street. Been throttling her luck from the very first step."
"Her luck?" Sophie didn’t follow. "What does luck have to do with it?"
"Everything. Their magic is luck." Kali stretched. "Bastet looks after her little kitties. Locks pop open on their own, guards look the wrong way, the owner sleeps like the dead..."
"Hold on." Sophie put up a hand. "So they're not... super-thieves? They just get lucky?"
"Not just lucky. Diabolically lucky." Kali let the next word stretch. "Always. In everything."
Sophie sat with that. Her gaze drifted back to the enkai on the sofa.
"She didn't even realise?"
"How would she?" Kali shrugged. "Luck has always been with her. She climbed in the way she always does. But this time I was waiting."
Kali snapped her fingers.
"And just like that." She spread her empty hands. "Poof goes all luck in the vicinity."
Sophie gave a dry huff and looked down at their ripped, bloodied clothing.
"You can say that again."
"Oh, relax," Kali waved it off. "I wouldn't have let her hurt you. Not too badly."
"So without you, we wouldn't even have woken up?" Jean asked.
"Without me, she wouldn't have been here at all." Kali yawned. "But yes. You're welcome."
"She was after Professor Jones's journal." Sophie's voice still trembled with residual shock. "And his maps. Just like the House of Silver Secrets."
Jean nodded, sorting papers on the desk, fitting them into the larger pattern that had been forming in his mind over the past days.
"Obviously. Simplest explanation. The viscount didn't get what he wanted in the camp, so he hired..."
The words died on his lips.
His fingers had stopped on a map of the cave system. In the lower right corner, where Professor Jones's bold signature should have been, an elegant monogram sat instead. S.L.
Cold crept down his spine.
Jean reached for the next document. Geological calculations. Her handwriting. Another. Analysis of ancient scripts. Her signature. Notes on the underground complex. The same monogram. Everywhere. On every sheet.
Years of research. Dozens of expeditions.
Jean looked up at Sophie. She was still puzzling over the House of Silver Secrets' plans. The girl he had known all her life but had never truly seen.
Memories flashed through him. Her questions about dead languages, always too acute for a child. Guesses about the purpose of ancient symbols that always hit the mark. Her questions about demons of the past and ancient rulers, which he had shrugged off as a teenager's curiosity.
Sergio Lofi. Sophie Lexin. S.L.
The pattern locked into place.
Jean folded the maps. Placed them in the drawer. Turned the key.
"You're right," he said, his voice level. "They were after the professor's journal."
Sophie turned to the night city through the terrace.
He needed time alone to think this through, but since the pact, solitude seemed to have stopped existing. Jean lifted the enkai from the sofa and slung her limp body over his shoulder.
"What are you doing?" Sophie asked, alarmed.
"She can't stay here. Not until we find out who sent her and what they're really after."
He carried her through a labyrinth of hidden corridors down into the mansion's cellars. These passages remembered his grandfather's time, when the ancestral seat of the Rosens had served as a fortress as much as a home. It had stood here long before the prestigious Colle Alto district sprang up around it. Jean had known these passages since childhood, before his exile. And now, locking the captured enkai inside, he felt just how right his decision to reclaim this house had been.
In one of the warded cells he laid the enkai on a narrow bed and locked the shackles. The heavy oak door with its magical seals needed no mechanical locks. And no mechanical lock would have held an enkai from the Guild anyway, which was exactly what their visitor was. Of that Jean no longer had any doubt.
When he returned to the study, Sophie was standing on the terrace, looking out at the distant harbour. Jean poured a cognac and took a sip.
This is becoming a habit, he thought.
"So who sent her?" Sophie leaned back against the balustrade. "And what do we do with her?"
Jean walked to the writing desk. His hand came to rest on the locked drawer. Then he looked at Sophie. It hit him suddenly that until this moment he had been playing chess blindfolded.
"We'll deal with her tomorrow," he said. "As for who sent her..."
The pause stretched.
"How very interesting," Kali murmured.
Kali watched them, smirking to herself. A chasm of misunderstanding had opened between her spouses, and that suited her perfectly. Let these two stumble even once, and the bars of her cage would part on their own. She could leave anytime she wanted. So why leave now? It was so warm, so soft. Kali curled up in the chair, tucking her legs beneath her.
Normally Jean could read a person down to the smallest detail. But in Sophie’s eyes he saw not guilt or deception. He saw the bottomless fatigue of someone who has carried a heavy burden for far too long.
"We need to rest. Everything else can wait until morning," he said, the decision made.
She gave a tired nod.
But even an hour later, Jean lay awake under the covers, his mind returning to the locked drawer. Who had he known all these years? Who was the real Sophie?