Sebastian frowned. He spoke only the most basic French and German, but he was pretty sure the three headlines implied more or less the same thing.
Unexplainable murder.
He took a seat without taking the time to shed his coat, flat cap or scarf. He wasn’t particularly tall or broad, but the rickety chair still protested beneath him as he picked up the letter. He hadn’t seen Jade since May, when she had appeared in London with Rory and Arthur. They’d all gone off to Paris to recover the de Leon family’s stolen siphon clock—the thing Sebastian himself absolutely could not do. Last he’d heard from any of them, they’d been successful, and the siphon was on its way to New York City.
There had been an invitation to America, but Sebastian’s history with Jade and the others was—complicated. Complicated enough that Sebastian didn’t like revisiting those memories, but then, did he have any memories from the past three years he ever wanted to see again?
He glanced up at the painting of San Juan over his table. It brought the good memories; if only they came more often than the bad ones.
Pushing all memories aside, he read Jade’s letter.
Dear Sebastian,
I hope this letter finds you well since our eventful May—at the very least, that the recent months have been an improvement on those that came before. I’m sorry to pull you in again, but we believe the headlines we’ve sent you are connected, and that the killer is like us.
Can we speak with you? We will be at the pub by Liverpool Street Station at 6pm on Friday.
A killer like us.
In other words, a paranormal murderer.
Sebastian glanced at his watch and swore quietly. ItwasFriday, and he’d be five minutes late—if he’d arrived ten minutes ago.
He swept everything back into the envelope and took the stairs back down as quickly as he could.
Besides its main door, the shuttered art gallery also had a back door, into a dirty, claustrophobic alley overlooked by boarded-up windows. The pub was down at the corner, where the alley had a narrow opening to Bishopsgate. There were two half-grown cats in the alley with him, maybe six or seven months old, probably siblings with matched orange-and-white coloring. They were nosing in the trash cans outside the fish and chips shop, but saw Sebastian and froze.
Even though he was in a hurry, Sebastian automatically slowed his pace and tried to look nonthreatening. “Están bien, gatitos,” he said, softening his voice. “You’re okay.”
The rangy kittens watched him warily from behind their cans. The garbage had probably been picked over by bigger strays, but maybe he could still get something for them.
He bypassed the pub’s back kitchen door in the alley for the main door along Bishopsgate. The flyers Isabel had painted were still in the windows, and as he stepped through the door, Sebastian felt the telltale tingle of magic in his wrist, in the tattoo Isabel had given him. Like Sebastian—like all of the de Leon family—Isabel’s paranormal talents worked on other paranormals, and her flyers protected the pub the way her painting protected Lord Fine’s home in Kensington: they kept the pub hidden from magical detection, and would send most paranormals who laid eyes on the flyers immediately heading in the opposite direction with no memory of why they’d come.
Hopefully Jade and Zhang had remembered to avert their eyes, or he might find them wandering lost down Bishopsgate.
He pulled off his flat cap and held it in one hand as he entered. The pub was bustling and warm, every barstool full and most of the booths beside. Almost immediately he had to sidestep out of Calum the busboy’s path, and nearly bumped into a group of men watching darts.
“Molly’s Spanish prince!” Calum said, imitating Sebastian’s Spanish accent as he breezed past with a tub of dirty dishes. He added, in his regular Scottish brogue, “Come on in, lad, Moll’ll see to you. She always does,” he added, with a lewd wink.
Sebastian didn’t protest, because Molly had asked him to let people think they wereshagging, as she called it. Molly liked princesses, not princes, and furthermore, was happilyseeing toSebastian’s cousin every time Isabel was in town.
Sebastian was happy to be their cover. Maybe no one of any gender would be eager to cozy up to a man with a past like his, but at least he could help Isabel and Molly be together.
Molly herself was behind the bar, fighting with a stuck beer tap, green eyes narrowed in concentration and her bobbed black hair pinned out of her face. She’d pushed up the sleeves of her dress, some of Isabel’s tattoo artistry just visible on Molly’s right forearm. There were four impatient-looking men on barstools, but she spotted Sebastian as he came in, and gave him an eye roll that clearly said what she thought of work that day.
As Molly turned to deal with one of the customers, Sebastian caught a tiny movement—the beer tap unsticking itself, so subtly he almost could have been imagining it. Except, of course, he was meeting a telekinetic in this pub and he hadn’t imagined a thing, because there Jade was, across the pub in one of the wooden side booths, cozied up to her man, Mr. Zhang.
Their heads were bent close together, but when they looked up, Zhang’s glowing astral projection suddenly appeared floating to Sebastian’s right. The projection would have been invisible to anyone who wasn’t a paranormal, and was studying Sebastian so intently that he didn’t seem to notice as Rosie, one of the waitresses, walked obliviously right through him.
“Molly’ll get right with you, handsome,” Rosie said to Sebastian, balancing her full tray of drinks.
“She is busy, I can wait—” Sebastian started, but Rosie had already disappeared.
In the booth, Zhang’s physical body put an arm around Jade’s shoulders, while to Sebastian’s right, Zhang’s astral projection frowned and said, “It’s so annoying I can’t find you on the astral plane until I know where you are with my physical eyes.”
Sebastian’s lips quirked. It was genuinely nice to see the two of them again, and perversely the spark of pleasure made him aware of how deeply alone he was now. He pushed away the thought. They needed him, and he owed them. They weren’t here for his friendship, and considering his history with them, he was going to count himself lucky that they were here at all.
“The tattoo only hides me from magic,” Sebastian said to Zhang’s projection, as he approached the edge of the table. He inclined his head politely at Jade and at Zhang’s physical body. “Miss Robbins, that was very kind of you to help Molly.”
