“Now then.” Jean pushed back from the table, piling dishes to carry to the kitchen. “Shall we see what secrets your grandmother left you?”
Butterflies swirled inside my stomach, jostling around as though they’d also had too much wine.
Garrett stood and carried the dishes for Jean.
Jean led us through a doorway off the kitchen into what must have been a sunroom once. Now it was crammed with books and equipment, including a large worktable under a window, magnifying lamps on adjustable arms, and trays of small tools. The sun had set, so he switched on several lamps that bathed the table in bright, even white light.
“Grace, sit here.” He rolled a stool toward the table for me and washed his hands thoroughly at a small sink in his workshop, drying them on a clean cloth. He patted the table, and Garrett placed the velvet pouch in front of him, then took up position behind us, hovering like the bodyguard he was.
Jean drew the egg from its pouch, cradling it like the precious thing it was. He turned it slowly under the light, examining the smooth surface.
“Extraordinary.” He set the egg on its bag and pulled one of the magnifying lamps closer, peering through its lens. “The enamel is exceptional. Whoever made this was a master. May I open it?”
I nodded.
He found the tiny catch and pressed. The egg split open to reveal the golden yolk inside. Another soft sound escaped him as he lifted the yolk free and set it beside the outer shell. “And this opens as well?”
“The hen’s inside.”
Jean repeated the process, and the jeweled hen emerged. The sapphire in its beak glinted under the bright lights, and the fire of the tiny diamonds practically erupted.
“Beautiful.” He turned the hen over, examining it from every angle under his magnifier. “Now, I should tell you—my expertise is gold and jewelry, but ancient time periods. Greek, Roman, Persian. This is outside my specialty.”
“You’re selling yourself short,” Garrett said. “You can probably give us a solid guess whether it’s authentic to the period, at least.”
Jean shrugged one shoulder, but a small smile tugged at his mouth. The humility was genuine, but so was the expertise underneath it. He held the hen directly under the magnifying lamp. His fingers moved slowly, probing. “There’s a seam here. And a mechanism... in the tail feathers, I think...”
I leaned forward on my stool, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut for a moment to clear my vision. Maybe I’d had a little bit too much wine, or maybe a shot of adrenaline mixed with the wine was too much for my system to handle.
There was a soft click, and the hen’s breast swung open on a tiny hinge, revealing a hollow space inside. And nestled in that space, folded into a tight square, was a piece of paper.
“Oh,” I breathed.
Jean raised an eyebrow at me. “Did you know this was here?”
“No.” I pressed a hand against my chest, feeling my lungs and heart working double time. It was open. And another secret had been hidden inside. “We were fairly sure it would open but didn’t know how.”
He used a pair of tweezers from his tool tray to extract the paper. It was yellowed with age, the edges soft, the folds worn nearly through in places. He set it on the table and, with painstaking slowness, unfolded it. The writing inside was in a script I didn’t recognize, and some of the letters were smudged beyond reading.
“Cyrillic,” Jean said. “Russian.”
Russian.A Russian egg. A Russian letter. And a Russian man who’d shown up at my café with a photograph of my grandmother.
“Can you read it?” I asked Garrett.
“I can onlyspeakthe language. I didn’t learn to read it.” To Jean, he asked, “Can you?”
“Not well enough to translate. But technology can help.” Jean pulled out his phone, opened an app, and photographed the letter. The three of us sat in silence while the phone processed.
“Are you all right?” Garrett laid a hand on my back, and my heart got really confused about whether it was supposed to calm down or get more excited. But as quickly as he’d touched me, his hand moved again. He was just getting my attention, not doing something special, right?
“The app’s really slow.” Did my grandmother know the paper was inside? Was it hers? “She never mentioned speaking Russian, let alone knowing anyone from Russia. I’m so lost.”
“Ah, here we are.” Jean studied the screen, frowning. “Some of it is illegible, but the rest...” He read silently for a moment. “It mentions Marseille. Something about courage or bravery. And something being kept safe? No, it must mean ‘safekeeping.’”
“What else?” I leaned closer.
Jean looked up at me. “Delphine.”
