Quest for the Secret Keeper (17 page)

“Blimey!” Carl whispered, moving up to walk next to Ian. The destruction in this section of the city was particularly bad.

Behind them they heard Océanne gasp and give a small whimper. Ian looked over his shoulder and found her turning away from a body with a sheet thrown over it lying in the middle of the street. Ahead, there were several more.

Ian’s heart began to pound hard. He felt as if he were walking through his own personal nightmare, and the more they walked, the more he found himself on the verge of panic.

Carl saw it first. Ian had been staring at the half-standing buildings, most with large gaping holes in them, others with whole corners demolished, their rubble spilling into the street. He didn’t realize until Carl grabbed his arm and halted that the building with the most destruction was theirs.

“Oh, no!”
Carl whispered.

Ian stared at the pile of rubble, comprehension dawning slowly as he took in the head of the lion that had once stood proudly outside their set of flats. The statue had been blown to bits, save for the head, which had been tossed into the street where Ian’s party had all come to stand.

Ian moved the kerchief away from his mouth and stared with horror at the four-story building, which had been reduced
to one and a half stories. A hand, lifeless and blue, was sticking out of the rubble.

Ian turned away and his stomach heaved. He’d had nothing to eat since breakfast, so there was nothing much for him to give up, but still his stomach convulsed.

He sank to his knees then, feeling so stunned and lost and dreadful all at the same time that his mind felt ill equipped to process the whole of it.

Distantly, he became aware of Océanne crouching down next to him, speaking words he could barely hear. He felt paralyzed. Perhaps if he held perfectly still, Theo would be all right, and she would come to him and tell him that she hadn’t been in the building when it collapsed. That her crystal had warned her in time and she’d fled to safety.

And then Ian raised his eyes to look about him. Everywhere he looked, there was destruction. It seemed no building had been spared … save one.

Across the street, the bakery where they’d purchased their breakfast rolls that very morning was nothing but rubble, and the market where they’d purchased their staples had also been blown to smithereens, but the abandoned shop with the green door stood completely unharmed.

As if in a dream, Ian got to his feet, his eyes pinned to that door. He staggered forward, hearing Carl and Océanne call his name, but he ignored them. Intent on his target, never taking his eyes off it, he weaved his way through the crowd.

As he drew closer, his heart hammered so hard he felt it would burst through his chest. And then his hand rested
on the door handle and he turned it and was not at all surprised when it opened.

The interior was dark; only a bit of light from the street made its way inside. But someone was huddled there; of that he was certain, because as he’d opened the door, he’d heard a small gasp. “Ian!” shouted a shaky voice from inside. “Oh, Ian!”

A slight weight crashed into him and Theo was hugging him fiercely. “Thank heavens,” he whispered, holding on to her for dear life.

The others gathered around but it was a moment before Ian felt able to release her. He fought back his emotion, not wanting to cry in front of Océanne, of all people!

But Theo had no such reservations. She openly wept and hugged first Ian, then Carl, then Océanne and her mother, and even though they had not yet been introduced, she hugged Adria as well. “I’ve been
so
terribly worried about you!” she finally said to them all.

“We felt the same way about you,” Carl told her. “When we saw the flat, we thought the worst.”

Theo’s eyes pinched as she looked across the way. “It happened so quickly I barely had a chance to escape. One moment I was reading in the parlor, and the next I had the most urgent feeling that I should leave the flat and move downstairs. To be perfectly honest, I had no idea why, but I obeyed my instincts.”

“But how did you know to come here?” Ian asked her, marveling that she’d chosen the one building on the street that had sustained no damage.

“I don’t really know, Ian,” she admitted. “I simply got to the foyer and felt that I must quickly move outside. I wanted to resist the impulse, you know, because of the earl’s instructions, but when I looked out the window at the green door, it seemed to call out to me. I felt I couldn’t ignore it, so I came here to have a look and just as I arrived, I heard the planes! I don’t even think I thought through what to do next. My hand automatically reached for the door handle and it opened.”

“It was locked just the other day,” Carl remarked.

Theo nodded. “I assumed it would be too, but when I tried the handle, it was unlocked, as if it were inviting me to find shelter here. So I came in and hurried to the back. Just as I got down and covered my head, the first bombs exploded!”

Ian’s heart gave a pang when he thought about Theo trapped in this small shop alone, listening to a rain of destruction. She must have been terrified.

He was about to tell her how sorry he was for insisting that she stay behind when he noticed Adria staring at the green door intently. She then ran her hand along some letters carved into the wood, with an expression that Ian could only describe as wonder. Curiously, Ian squinted at the letters and found that they were written in some foreign tongue. “Can you read them?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she said.

Carl and Ian exchanged surprised looks. “What do they say?” Ian asked.

“They invoke a powerful magic,” she told him. “They mark the entrance to a portal.”

Ian gasped. “A portal? You mean a way back to England?”

Adria shrugged. “Possibly,” she said. “Or to other lands.”

Theo had all but recovered from her terrible fright. “The sorceresses said they were looking for the Keeper by the green door. They must have been talking about this door, Ian!” she said.

Adria appeared quite surprised by that. “Where did you learn this?” she asked.

Ian explained that he’d learned it when they’d had the near miss with the sorceresses at the hotel.

Adria stepped back from the door and moved inside the small shop, lined with empty shelves now covered in dust.

While she inspected the shop, Theo turned to Ian and asked, “Who
is
she?”

“Her name is Adria, Theo. She was Laodamia’s attendant and the craftsman of our treasure boxes.”

Theo’s eyes grew large with wonder, and Ian smiled. He then added, “And she’s now married to General Adrastus.”

“Pardon me,” said Madame Lafitte, and they all turned to her. “But might I ask where the earl is?”

Ian blinked. He’d nearly forgotten about the earl. Turning to Theo, he asked, “Have you seen him?”

Theo shook her head and bit her lip. “I haven’t.”

Madame turned to the rubble that had been their flat, and her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, my!” she whispered.

Theo quickly said, “I don’t believe the earl went back into the flat before the bombs struck, Madame. I didn’t pass
him on my way here and had only just arrived when I heard the first planes.”

“And he has not come back here to look for you?” Carl asked.

“No. I’ve been watching, though,” she said, pointing to the shop’s lone window, which, remarkably, still held its glass intact. “When it grew dark, of course, I could no longer see the individual faces passing by. However, it has only been fully dark for a short while.”

Ian stepped out of the shop and onto the street. He stared up and down the way, searching for the earl’s face among the few pedestrians, but there was no sign of him. “He’d try to come back here,” Carl said. “If he weren’t hurt himself, he’d attempt to make his way back to the flat.”

A knot of anxiety formed in Ian’s stomach. Where could the earl be? “We should look for him,” he said to Carl.

Madame Lafitte was now quite concerned. “But where was he at the time of the air raid?” she asked pointedly.

“Looking for you, ma’am,” Ian told her. “For the past several days, the earl has been looking for you and Océanne.”

“But I’ve not seen Hastings since last year,” she insisted. “He’s not come round to our flat even once.”

“He didn’t know where to look,” Ian assured her.

“Didn’t my husband tell him where we’d be?” she pressed.

Ian thought carefully about what to say to Madame Lafitte. He knew that it was not his place to tell her that
her husband had likely been murdered; that was a job for the earl. “I believe,” he said, “that the telegram your husband sent to the earl was incomplete, Madame. It left off the number and street where you were staying, and only listed Paris for your location. The earl has been making inquiries through friends and acquaintances here in Paris since we arrived.”

Océanne was staring hard at Ian, and he shifted his weight from foot to foot uncomfortably. “Where did you say my father was when he sent the telegram?”

Ian found himself at a loss—he couldn’t lie to Océanne. It was Carl who saved him from the uncomfortable moment when he said, “We only heard from the earl that Monsieur Lafitte was detained, Océanne. We have no idea where he is.”

Madame Lafitte’s hand fluttered nervously around the pearls at her throat, but she forced a smile when Océanne looked up at her. “I’m sure he’s quite well,” she said to her daughter. “But we must focus on finding the earl at the moment, so that he can tell us more about where your father is.”

Theo stepped out into the street. Ian went to stand by her and took her hand, still incredibly relieved to find her both alive and well. “I’m terribly worried about the earl, Ian,” she whispered so that the others wouldn’t hear.

Ian knew what that likely meant and the destruction all around him added to his own fears. “Can you sense him, Theo?”

Theo nodded and closed her eyes. “I can. I know that
he still lives, but there is also a desperate feeling to his energy. I believe he’s in a great deal of pain.”

The knot of anxiety in Ian’s stomach tightened. “He’s injured?”

Theo nodded. “Yes. I’m certain of it. He needs help immediately.”

“We’ve got to go to him,” Ian said, pulling the sundial from his pocket.

No sooner had he freed the small relic than a hand tightened about his wrist and a sharp voice said, “No!”

Startled to his toes, Ian looked up to see Adria gripping his arm and staring at him fiercely. “You will draw the sorceresses to you!” she hissed. “And they must
not
discover this place, Ian.” For emphasis, Adria’s eyes swiveled to the green door.

Ian wrenched his arm from her grasp and glared hard at her. At the moment, the door was the least of his worries. “The earl is injured and needs our help, ma’am. I will use whatever means necessary to locate him as quickly as possible.”

Adria eyed the sundial moodily. She seemed on the verge of doing something drastic, so Ian closed his hand around the object and held it tightly to his chest. If she planned on taking it, she’d have to fight him to do it. Ian knew it was their only hope of finding the earl in time to help or even save him.

“We can take it away from here before we ask it to find the earl,” Carl suggested, obviously overhearing their
conversation. “With any luck, we’ll be able to draw the sorceresses far away from this place.”

Adria glared at Carl, clearly not at all pleased with his suggestion. “And then Caphiera and Atroposa will hunt you two down.”

But Ian was resolute. He would never find the earl in all this wreckage if he didn’t use the sundial—of that he was certain—and Theo’s conviction that the earl was injured only fueled his determination to find the earl quickly. “We’ll be careful,” he assured Adria.

Adria turned away from him dismissively, her anger palpable, and she strode into the shop without a backward glance. Ian sighed, suddenly feeling very tired.

Placing his hands on Theo’s shoulders, he said, “Carl and I will work our way west before we use the dial. The sorceresses are on the east side of the city, so with any luck, we’ll be able to use the dial to find the earl’s location before they find us.”

Theo looked worried. “I should come along,” she said to him. “Perhaps I can use my own abilities to help you locate the earl without the sundial.”

But Ian shook his head. “The shop is guarded by a powerful magic, Theo. You’ll be safest here with Adria to help guard you, and we’ll need someone to look after Océanne and Madame Lafitte.”

Theo continued to look worriedly at Ian, but she didn’t argue. “Very well,” she said with a sigh. “But please, hurry back, would you?”

He smiled and ruffled her hair. “We’ll do our best,” he assured her.

Ian then motioned to Carl, who took up the lantern Adria had loaned them. “Leave that,” Ian told him. “We have your pocket torch.” Carl had brought out his torch as the hour grew late on their way back to Theo.

But Carl shook his head. “We can save the batteries if we bring this.”

Ian considered that to be a very smart suggestion. “All right,” he said, and they waved to Theo, Océanne, and Madame Lafitte before setting off.

Their journey was difficult, as both of them were exhausted and also very hungry. They’d had almost nothing to eat in the past twenty-four hours, and Ian found his grumbling stomach to be quite a distraction. But then they passed an overturned bread cart and he and Carl snatched up several rolls after quickly leaving a few francs for the absent vendor.

Finally, the young men arrived in a neighborhood where only two buildings had been struck and felt it far enough away from the green door to use the sundial. The streets by then were deserted, but here at least the lamplights were lit.

Ian moved underneath one and pulled out the sundial but hesitated. “What’re you waiting for?” Carl finally asked as Ian simply stared at the dial’s face.

“I’m worried about using it,” he admitted.

“We have no choice, mate,” Carl told him. “It’s got to be done.”

Ian inhaled and exhaled slowly. He then eyed the streets up and down and attempted to use his own powers of awareness to sense the sorceresses. He was surprised to discover that he felt them—but very distantly. He looked in the direction from which he thought their energy radiated. It was coming from the same area where the Lafittes’ flat was. With some hope, Ian crossed his fingers that they were still there waiting outside the flat, because that was a good distance away from where he and Carl were now standing. He could only hope that the earl was not to be found in the same direction. Ian then had another idea and closed his eyes again, wondering if he might use his own powers of location to find the earl, and thus not need to open the sundial’s magic. But when he attempted it, he could feel only a tiny thread of energy, with no distinct location. All his anxiety about the condition of the earl returned, and he made up his mind not to waste another moment on indecision. “Sundial,” he said, “please point the way to Hastings Arbuthnot, the Earl of Kent.”