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“Call them off, Nibsy.” She nudged the point of the blade against his delicate skin. “You know what this can do, and I find that I have very few reasons to keep you alive if you won’t help me. How do I fix this? I know you have the answer.”
Nibsy raised his hand to stay the Devil’s Own, but his gaze never left hers. “Dolph was hardly a fool,” he told her, his eyes glinting over the rims of his lenses. “He would never have given you a weapon that strong unless he had some assurance that he could protect himself should you ever turn on him. Dolph knew how to reverse the effects of the knife,” Nibsy said. “I’m sure he left instructions behind, along with the rest of his books and his things. You’ve seen for yourself how carefully he recorded the details of his work.…”
Viola ignored the amusement in Nibsy’s tone as she thought of the sheet of paper he’d given to her just a few weeks before. A trick wrapped up in the truth. Viola had read over those notes countless times since then, hoping that she could find some sign that Dolph Saunders had not betrayed the one person he loved more than any other for something as small and as petty as power.
“You will give them to me now.” Viola again increased the pressure of the knife against his throat. “Or I will take them myself.”
Nibsy only laughed. Then he lowered his voice, so only the two of them could hear. “You can’t fight them all, you know. Kill me if you must. Make me into a martyr.” Nibsy’s eyes shone with satisfaction. “You’ll never make it out of this room. They’re mine now, Viola. The Devil’s Own, the Strega, and everything Dolph built. So have a care.”
Her chest ached with the truth of his words. If she killed him, the people surrounding them in the barroom would not let her escape, and she could not kill them all—would not kill them all, even if she could. They were no more than pawns in Nibsy’s game, the same as herself. But games were not something Viola had time for. Not when Jianyu was still so close to death. She’d done what she could, but his wound would continue to bleed. Unless she solved the problem, his death would be on her soul as well.
“Besides,” Nibsy told her, “it’s not only the instructions you need, Viola. Even if you killed me, even if you managed to find Dolph’s notes and escape with your life, you’ll need something more to reverse the effects of your knife.” He took the blade of Libitina between his fingers delicately and moved it away from his own throat. “You need an object that contains false magic as powerful as that in your knife. A seal, perhaps, like the one we took from the Metropolitan, might do the trick. It’s a pity it was lost that night, or you might already have the answer you need.” He looked up at her over the rims of his spectacles. “It was lost?”
“Yes,” Viola lied, her instincts screaming. “Along with the rest.”
“Pity.” He paused, the hesitation making her temper start to crack. “There’s one place, of course, one organization rather, that might have another such piece.”
“You mean the Order.” She shook her head. “We took their treasures already. I watched the building burn myself.”
“True, Khafre Hall burned, but you can’t really imagine that the Order lost everything? After all, the Mysterium was far below ground level and well protected, physically and magically.”
Viola disagreed. After all, she’d seen the walls of Khafre Hall crumble. She’d barely escaped them herself. If there was anything left, certainly it had been lost in the collapse.
“The Order still continues to persist,” Nibsy pressed. “You were at their gala, so you know that they aren’t completely powerless, and the entire city knows that their plans for the Conclave continue. That doesn’t sound like an organization that has lost everything.” He paused, picking at some dirt beneath his nails, but Viola knew he was baiting her. “I hear they have plans for a new headquarters. They’ll be moving what was left of Khafre Hall there soon.”
She lowered her knife, her mind spinning with the implications. “Why are you telling me this?”
Nibsy held her gaze. “Because the Order is still a threat.”
“So am I,” she growled, knowing there was something more Nibsy wasn’t saying, some trick or trap he was setting for her.
“I’ve always appreciated that, Viola. Even if the rest of them didn’t.”
She huffed her disbelief.
“You don’t think I understand?” Nibsy asked, far too innocently. “I know how they looked at you, what they must have thought was between you and Dolph—”
“Nothing was between us but friendship,” she said.
“As you insist…” Nibsy merely shrugged. “You think I don’t know what it’s like to have the Devil’s Own suspect that you don’t truly belong.” He adjusted his grip on the cane—on Dolph’s cane. “I know all too well. I can only imagine what it must be like for you now, though, to be under the thumb of your brother, a man who could not see your promise if it bit him on the nose. It doesn’t have to be this way, Viola.”
She was shaking her head, denying everything he said even as his words wrapped around her mind. “You know nothing.”
“I know that your brother is planning on attacking the Order,” Nibsy said, and when Viola couldn’t stop her eyes from widening, his mouth twitched. “So Paul hasn’t told you.”
Of course he hadn’t told her. Paolo never told Viola anything but what he wanted for dinner or how much of an embarrassment she was to him and to their family.
“Why would he do something so stupid?” she asked, trying to dismiss this tale even as her instincts jangled that it smacked of the truth. Paul might have saved her from the gala, but Viola had suspected that her brother still didn’t trust her. Now she knew for sure.
“Jack Grew tried to kill him,” Nibsy said with a shrug. “That alone makes it personal. But your brother’s not a stupid man, Viola. Right now he enjoys the protection of Tammany, but he knows how inhospitable the city could become for him and his Five Pointers if the Order is able to rebuild their power. If the Order takes power away from Tammany, he would be at risk. He’s asked me to help him destroy them.”
“What should I care if he goes after the Order? Why should you?” Viola asked. She couldn’t be drawn into his games. Not when she couldn’t trust a word he said. “If Paolo wants to go after rich men, he’s un idiota. One who will deserve whatever he gets.”
“I have to admit, it wouldn’t break my heart if the Order took care of Paul Kelly,” Nibsy said. “But I’m afraid I can’t stand by and not get involved. Not when your brother believes that the Order retrieved the ring at the gala.”
“You don’t mean…” She frowned. “Paul, he doesn’t have it?” She’d assumed her brother or one of his men had taken it when the great stone beast had nearly killed her. Everything she’d done—every order she’d followed and meal she cooked for him—was because she’d been trying to figure out what Paul had done with the ring. But if Nibsy was to be believed, it had been for nothing.
“No,” Nibsy said. “I don’t believe he does.”
