Page 19 of Chaos and Crowns

“Well, I suppose when you live forever, there are a lot of birthdays and anniversaries,” Odelle joked, but the smile that Seraphina responded with held no humor.

“Not for him. He died in the Defeat, along with our child.”

Odelle made a mental note to visit the doctor for her horrible case of foot-in-mouth disease. Now that she thought about it, Nora had said something about Seraphina only being bitter because of so much loss.

“That’s honestly why I don’t wear most of this,” Seraphina explained, pawing through a tangle of bracelets.

“I’m…so sorry,” murmured Odelle.

Seraphina squared her shoulders as if shrugging off the nostalgic moment.

“Every member of the Eteria is living with losses from the Defeat. I don’t need to hold on to all this jewelry I can’t even bring myself to wear. Let it do some good.”

Odelle felt an odd sort of kinship with the woman as she turned her attention back to the tangle of gold on the table before her. Seraphina seemed to be making an effort to not let the tragedies of her past define her, something Odelle understood well. Odelle was all too familiar with the expression of well-meaning pity that crossed strangers’ faces when they saw her prosthetic legs or heard that she had once been a foster child. In response, Odelle donned her shining confidence like armor, showing the world in no uncertain terms that she was not a victim. How could she be when she couldn’t even remember the incident that took her legs, and she had been adopted by the most loving woman the world had ever known before she could know loneliness? Seraphina’s refusal to wallow in the tragedy of her past earned her Odelle’s respect.

“This will certainly get some ohs and ahs from Mrs. Whitehall,” Odelle remarked as she picked up a golden cuff that looked like it should fit around the upper arm.

“Well, as long as it keeps the collectors distracted enough for you to switch out the crown for the replica,” Seraphina agreed. “Besides putting the owners in danger, it would put the whole city in danger if the Shadow got a hold of it. If I remember correctly, it’s quite powerful.”

“What can it do?” Odelle asked, curious what kind of powers a Smith could give an object—especially now that she knew Antony had crafted this particular one.

“It accentuates the wearer’s best quality.”

Odelle scrunched up her face.

“What, so it would make my butt look even perkier?”

That earned her a chuckle from Seraphina.

“I can see why Thad likes you, but not quite. More your personal traits. It can make an intelligent person near genius, or a charismatic person positively magnetic. A person could use it to gain a lot of influence.”

“Seems pretty subtle to me,” Odelle observed with a shrug.

“And subtle influences can be hard to fight against,” Seraphina said, “Because most of the time, you don’t even notice them until it’s too late.”

“We’ve noticed this one.” Odelle’s voice was firm. “Now, we’re going to take it out of the equation before it can cause any more trouble.”

8

Antony wouldn’t stop fiddling with the earpiece and microphone set up that Odelle had borrowed from work. She had to snatch it away from him to clip it onto Thad’s jacket. Luckily, Thad’s silk pocket square offered perfect camouflage for the small black microphone, and she fed the cord through the buttonhole to the battery pack hidden in his inner pocket.

“This set up is pretty staticky,” Odelle explained apologetically. “I took this one because nobody at work likes to use it, and they were less likely to notice it was missing. Still, Antony and I should be able to hear you in the earpieces when you give the signal to move in. Test it out now.”

“Hello, Odelle, my dear,” Thad said.

She heard his voice from both directly in front of her, and in her ear as clear as a bell.

“Huh, maybe the network got it fixed,” she observed as she tapped the device.

“It just had a loose wire,” Antony interjected. “I fixed it.”

“How do you know how electronics work?” Odelle asked, incredulous.

“Light, electricity—it’s all energy…” Antony’s sentence trailed off into a massive yawn that he tried to muffle into his shoulder.

It drew attention to the circles, dark as bruises, under his eyes. Thad distracted her before she could ask Antony about them.

“Ok, let’s go over the plan.” Thad rubbed his hands together. “I’m going to go in and get them to show me their collection. Hopefully, I can get them to turn off any alarms on the cases so I can inspect the pieces more closely. Then, I’ll try to move them downstairs to look at the jewelry. When I give the signal, Antony enters through the bathroom window and switches out the crown. Odelle, you stay in the car to coordinate and be the getaway driver.”