Page 42 of The Devouring Time

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with,” Lovejoy replies with a smile. The smoke brushes over her hair, and for a moment it almost looks like skeletal fingers. “After, I got curious. I can’t read Italian, as I said, but I did look through the book closely, in hopes there might be some clue as to what you wanted so badly. Would you like to see what I found?”

“Please,” Adrian says. I’m too weighed down by my past actions to answer.

“Stay here.” She puts her cigarette in a nearby ash tray, careful not to extinguish it, then swishes out of the room. I watch the smoke rise and start to drift in our direction.

“I don’t want to think you’d be capable of killing Mr. Pearce,” Adrian says in a low voice, naming the man who had outbid me for the Key of Mithras. “I did at first, of course, but after getting to know you, I’d started to doubt.”

His use of the past tense doesn’t escape me. “Once we’re certain we know what’s going on, I’ll turn myself in to the police. Along with the rest of the matter.”

He sighs. “I don’t want that. I’m not sure…”

Lovejoy returns, holding the book in her hands. I recall the brown calf binding and blind stamped ornaments from when I cataloged it years ago. She seats herself again, flips through it, then turns it toward us so we can read the page she’s pointing at.

“What do you see?” she asks.

It jumps out at me immediately. Among line after line of Italian, there are two words so familiar they instantly draw my eye.

Sterling Caine.

29

All the blood drains from my face, my extremities. A wave of faintness sweeps over me, and I instinctively put out a hand to steady myself against Adrian. His sudden gasp signals he’s spotted my name amidst the paragraphs as well.

“What the hell?” he whispers.

Lovejoy shuts the book, places it in her lap, and folds her hands over it. “I don’t know, but I assume this is why you wanted it, Mr. Caine?”

I shake my head. “How can this be happening? My name…is it some bizarre coincidence? Some distant ancestor of mine?”

Lovejoy shrugs. “Are you a descendant of sorcerers?”

“No,” I say automatically, then catch myself. “I don’t think? How would I know?”

“Family records, I imagine.” She watches me curiously. “If there are none, you’d have to go looking, probably in Europe if you can trace your descent that far back.”

“I don’t have time for that!”

“Likely not,” she agrees.

Adrian rubs at his eyes, then leans forward. “We need to borrow the book, take it to someone who can translate it.”

“Do you, now?” Her voice takes on a cold edge.

“Yes,” Adrian says firmly. “We’ll take excellent care of it, but we have to find out why Sterling, and by extension the Timekeeper cult, wanted it so badly. Clearly Giuliani became interested in the concept of cyclical time, since you said she kept sketching Aion.”

“And she was showing the stars in the current configuration in regard to the zodiac.” My brain sputters back to life. “Some repeating cycle that happened in her time, and now is happening again?”

Adrian sits up straight. “Damn. I think you might be on to something.” He turns to Lovejoy. “So, can we borrow the book?”

“No.”

Both of us gape at her. The smoke from her cigarette coils lazily around her neck and one arm, like a pet. “But…we need it,” I flounder.

“If you can find a competent translator, by all means send them here and I’ll show them the book.” She gives me a sharp look. “You tried to get it from me before, then resorted to sending violent men to take it when I refused. I believe you when you say you can’t remember, but whatever you wanted this book for, I doubt it was to a good end. So, no, I’m not going to simply hand it over to you because you asked more nicely this time.”

Adrian smooths his expression and puts on a smile. “Miss Lovejoy⁠—”

“I said no.” Her voice is cool, implacable. She rises to her feet, and we hurriedly do the same. “Now, I’ve given you two enough of my time.”