The Stone of Shadows. R. A. Finley

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СКАЧАТЬ cried out as, in a crackling rush, the flames elongated. Growing strong and bright, they reached an impossible height above the small wicks. Golden light filled the room, illuminated the tense faces beneath their woolen cowls. Quentin had time to note that Beatrice’s mouth gaped, an unusual sight on a woman known for self-control, before the flames winked out.

      Not one flame, but all three.

      Several voices exclaimed in the sudden dark, then fell silent as the divination’s message sank in. Confirmation that Quentin’s vision had not been of a potential future but of a particular past. One event, unchangeable and—now—undeniable: Leticia McDaniel was dead.

      Murdered.

      He pulled his hands free, the first to break the circle. He heard the rest follow suit.

      “Lights!” barked Arthur, retaking control.

      With the snap of fingers, the room was bathed in the opulent light of its crystal chandelier, painting rainbow-edged shapes onto dark wood and robes of silver-shot white while thin tendrils of smoke drifted up from the dead wicks.

      Hoods were pulled back, and Quentin wondered if his expression showed any less shock than he read on the others’ faces. To imagine a Brigantium without Leticia was difficult enough, but to imagine that she would be murdered? Even having experienced flashes of it in his vision, it was hard to accept this pronouncement as fact.

      He looked to Arthur, sitting motionless, his head bowed. The older man was either paying his respects to their fallen associate or gathering his thoughts (or both), but because of the table’s mirror-like surface, he appeared to be frowning at himself.

      Quentin drummed his fingers, the action winning a glare from Beatrice. It lacked its usual force, however, diluted as it was by tears.

      With her ice-blue eyes deeply shadowed despite the skillful application of make-up, she looked tired. Old. She seemed not to care that her hood had frizzed her iron-gray hair, tugged it loose from the confines of her habitually and intricately woven plaits.

      Feeling a tingle of...something, Quentin stilled his hand, shifted his gaze to the woman staring at him from her seat to Arthur’s left. Cassandra Swinton. If he wasn’t mistaken, her brown eyes were bright with a very particular kind of interest. He acknowledged it with a slight nod. Her full lips quirked, not unattractively, before she broke contact, turning to listen to something her brother murmured to Eben, Head Archivist and their mentor.

      “Don’t even think it,” came Beatrice’s harsh whisper.

      Turning toward her, Quentin lifted a brow in inquiry. Damian, unlucky enough to be seated between them, made a point of staring straight ahead.

      “You know very well what I mean.” Beatrice’s eyes narrowed. “Just...don’t. She’s more than a pretty face.”

      “Very much more, indeed,” he quipped. It was almost knee-jerk with her, his arguing. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

      She made a quiet sound of exasperation, then wisely let the subject drop.

      He looked down at his hands, resting easily on the table when what they wanted to do was throttle someone. The rumors were true; the twins were being groomed for positions of high rank—perhaps even chancellorship should Arthur get around to taking his due retirement. Not so long ago, that had been him, Quentin thought with a surprising amount of jealousy. Some dreams, it seemed, were harder to kill than the rest.

      At the snap of opening locks, he looked up to see Arthur remove a stack of papers from his attaché case. Once they’d been arranged to satisfaction on the table, he cleared his throat and, in his formal, dispassionate voice, began.

      “When Lettie last reported, she claimed to be headed for Edinburgh to visit one of her dealers concerning some documents and”—he checked his notes—“maps. Through our search of her home, we have since learned that she believed she was on the trail of something connected to the Cailleach. A relic.”

      Damian raised a hand. “Of her followers or—”

      “Of the goddess herself.”

      And wasn’t that a particularly nasty bit of news. Looking around, Quentin gauged the others’ reactions. Grim faces all, but most exhibited no surprise. It seemed that everyone but Damian and himself had known already. He couldn’t quite decide about Leslie something-or-other, seated to his immediate right. She was clearly distraught, yes, but had been since the beginning. Devoted to the cataloging and painting of pillywiggins, she was not the sort who belonged in tonight’s events.

      So, why had she? Were they that desperate for powerful mediums? (The fact that the guileless woman was one was proof of life’s ironic bent.) Or was there another reason for this odd assembly? The Brigantium had an entire Bureau of Divination, after all. Yet not a single member of it was present tonight.

      “What I do not understand is what Leticia was doing with matters of the Cailleach in the first place,” Eben said, clearly working himself up to a good fit of outrage. “Why was I not made aware of her acquisition plans? As head of Archives, I should be notified of any such—”

      Beatrice cut him off with a weary gesture. “I’m sure she meant no slight to your position, Eben dear. Leticia has always been impetuous.” She shot Arthur a look. “And as one of our oldest members, she was often given certain liberties when it came to travel and procurements.”

      “Not that we didn’t try to rein her in,” Arthur said. “And we most certainly did not know she was involving herself in matters of the Cailleach. Project Monitoring believed she was on a routine buying trip for her shop in the States, coupled with a bit of continued research into localized Celtic-based deities. They gave her the usual budget for the latter and classified it as historical, minimal import. We were as taken aback as you, Eben, to discover that her official reports were less than forthcoming.”

      Quentin did his best to hide his astonishment. What sort of game had the old bird been running? The sort that had gotten her killed, obviously. But why? He’d known the woman all his life—first as a guest in his mother’s home, then through the Society itself. She’d been a frequent lecturer in his classes and a ubiquitous presence in libraries and archives throughout London, even after her semi-retirement.

      She had devoted her life to the Brigantium. And, after his vision, he’d thought she’d given her life to it as well. But if she’d gone out on her own…it might account for the first message the flames had presented. When they’d gone out, they’d affirmed Quentin’s vision of Leticia’s death. The spiraling that had preceded it, however, signified false friends.

      “So it was intentional, then,” Eben declared. “Leticia was using the system to her own advantage. Do we know to what end? Was she working for someone else?”

      “Brigantia’s spear, Eben,” Beatrice snapped in a rare show of temper. “This is Leticia we’re talking about. Leticia. One of our finest.”

      Spots of red mottled Eben’s cheeks. “If she were, she would have followed the rules. The monitoring system was established for good reason. To prevent confusion, improve efficiency and oversight, and cut down on danger to those in the field. She knew that well enough, and yet it appears she went against it—indeed, played it so no one knew what she was really doing, with something as important as a relic of the Cailleach at stake. And look what she got for it. Killed by СКАЧАТЬ