Page 26 of The Dark Mirror

‘If necessary.’

‘Good.’ She locked the door behind us. ‘Let’s get back to business, Underqueen.’

Malá Strana shone under the afternoon sun. I tried to soak up every fine detail, so the memory of it would keep me warm in Scion. We made our way across a grand bridge, where statues and lanterns rose on either side of the crowd.

Now Maria mentioned it, it was unsettling to not have a revolver at my side. There might not be Vigiles out here, but there were other dangers, like the bounty on my head.

The Libuše Institute was an impressive building on the Smetana Embankment, boasting a turret with a pointed spire. Its bricks might once have been red, but had faded to a rich pink, interspersed with sandstone. The wordslibušin institut v prazewere carved above the iron door, which Maria approached. There was no indication of its purpose. Just another door that could lead anywhere.

‘Domino personnel call it the Boneyard,’ Maria said.

‘Why?’

‘It’s a name for a stack of domino tiles, but I suspect gallows humour, too. Many agents who pass through these halls never return.’ She tapped a code into the keypad. ‘If headquarters were ever to fall, this place would take over. There’s a third branch in Istanbul.’

‘And we thought we were alone in London.’

‘It will take many hands to uproot the anchor.’

She led me into a cool interior. The entrance hall had carved marble walls and a domed glass ceiling, all presided over by a statue of a woman on a throne.

‘Libuše, who foresaw the creation of Prague,’ Maria said. ‘Domino is mostly amaurotic, but it’s rather nice that they named this place after a voyant, even if they oppose Scion for reasons that go beyond our protection.’

‘I can’t get my head around this.’

‘That our existence is legal here?’

‘Yes.’ I gazed up at Libuše. ‘That there are places where we’re respected, commemorated.’

‘It has been a wholesome experience, after years of everyone wanting to kill us.’

On the other side of the vestibule, Verca was talking to a fellow voyant, a woman in her early thirties, with deep brown skin and dark braided hair. Both wore tailored suits. Seeing us, Verca touched her elbow and came over, her patent heels clicking across the floor.

‘I thought I would come down to see you off,’ she said. ‘Radomír will be here soon.’

‘He’s coming now,’ I said.

‘How do you know?’

‘I forgot to mention that Paige can tell exactly where you are at all times, provided you’re within a mile of her,’ Maria said. ‘And that’s the least of your privacy concerns.’

Verca smiled, folding her arms. ‘You do have some interesting friends, Maru.’

‘I’ve sensed auras like yours before, but neither of the voyants could explain their gift,’ I said to her. ‘Do you know what you are?’

‘I have no idea. I see visions, like Libuše, but they come to me in flashes, so they rarely make any sense. They also give me the most terrible migraines.’

Maria grimaced. ‘Three days of bed rest after the last one, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, that was awful.’ Verca looked curious. ‘Where did you meet others with my aura, Paige?’

‘One was in Paris, the other in London.’

‘That is intriguing.’

Renelde would be with Le Vieux Orphelin in Paris. As for Danica, she had relocated to Scion Greece. I doubted I would ever see her again.

Radomír emerged from a doorway, wearing a heavy coat. ‘Yousry finally called in,’ he told us. ‘He was in an accident on his way into Prague. A speeding car ran him off the road. That’s why he didn’t come to dinner.’

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