Page 38 of Hexbound
Chapter 9
THE NEXT DAY Bishopleft a disgruntled Verity at Lady Eberhardt's house for her dress fitting with Marie. She'd been particularly watchful of him all morning, and he had to concede that removing the bracelet from her gave him some measure of freedom, as well as her. If she'd still been linked to him, he'd have had to bring her with him, and he had no intentions of letting the bloody woman anywhere near the rest of the Sicarii.
For if his fellows considered her a threat to the Order, they'd kill her.
When the hackney pulled up at the British Museum's Natural History campus, Bishop alighted on Cromwell Road and paid the man before checking his pocket watch. A quarter to ten. Nearly time.
Taking the blank mask with its carved runes out of his coat pocket, Bishop slipped it over his face. "Finersh," he whispered, activating the runes on the Mirror Mask. Now none would know his true face. All they would see would be what they wanted to see: a handsome man, a young lad, an older gentleman... every person passing him would see something different.
Stepping into the pedestrian crowd, Bishop shoved his hands into his coat pockets and moved against the ebb and flow of foot traffic. Hackneys clopped past, jarring the tranquility, as well as the blare of a horn or two. Bishop darted across the road, fetching up at the grand doors to the British Museum.
Madrigal Brown waited for him by the arch to the Hintze Hall, wearing a white, frilled gown, with her silvery hair swept up into a neat chignon beneath the broad lilac-colored hat she wore. Bishop nodded to her, but didn't relax. A drape of arctic fox fur shielded her throat, and one of her gloved hands curled around the brass hilt of the cane she held. Though she had entered her sixth decade, she wasn't the type of woman one dismissed as weak or vulnerable.
Firstly, she was the only member of the Sicarii who had ever belonged to anything but the Dark discipline. The chip of pale marble in her prime ring betrayed her as a disciple of the Light, which made her targets never suspect her. When she'd first appeared at the Sicarii meeting, they'd all been shocked. To join the Sicarii, one had to kill your predecessor, and Baron Samedi had been the most dangerous man Bishop had ever met.
Secondly, she'd risen through the ranks within three years to become Magister of the Sicarii. To do so, she'd dueled the previous Magister, Woden, a sorcerous duel Bishop had born witness to. Every time Woden had flung a weave at her, Madrigal had the counter-weave ready, until Woden finally made one mistake too many. She might lack the killing edge the others owned, but a man underestimated her at his own risk. For Madrigal had the powers of Foresight, finely honed over decades of diligence. In a duel or a battle, she could Foresee the next move her opponent made, and possibly even further than that.
"Hades," she said, tilting her head in greeting, with an amused smile playing about her lips.
She was the only one of the Sicarii who did not disguise her identity. The rest he knew as Thanatos, Kali, and Osiris.
"Madrigal," he greeted, taking her hand and pressing a kiss to the back of her glove. Agatha always said he had a way with older ladies.
"Walk with me." She turned toward the stairs, her skirts sweeping over the terracotta tiles. "The others are already here."
"Something on your mind?"
"Someone, perhaps," she replied, capturing her skirts in one hand and swishing down the stairs as though it were a ball. She led him toward the East Wing, with its display of extinct creatures. Fitting perhaps, for those who were masters of death. "Osiris is planning to put through a motion that the Prime—the former Prime—be quietly dealt with, in order to ensure the succession." Green eyes slid toward him. "I don't think you want that."
Bishop clasped his hands behind his back, suppressing the urge to clench them. Madrigal must know who he was, and the connection between him and the Prime. "How do you think the others will vote?"
"Kali goes where Osiris wills, but Thanatos... I'm not certain." That mouth thinned a fraction. "He's obtained a crystal that wards him against my Foresight."
"And yourself?" he asked, for until she committed to one particular side, he wasn't fool enough to think her his ally.
Madrigal paused at the base of the stairs. "There are troubling times coming, and it's all connected to the ex-Prime. I only see flashes of it, but... there is darkness ahead, Hades."
"Then you cannot be certain whether Drake is the cause of it," he told her, "or if his death will set off a chain of events that might lead to these times."
"True." She arched a brow. "But I must make a decision, without all of the information I would prefer. What do you think?
Glancing around, Bishop caught her wrist and swept her into an alcove beside a bronze cast of a pterodactyl. None of this was information he'd shared with the Sicarii, but he needed Madrigal on his side. The others... perhaps he could take them one by one, but she had always made him doubt the outcome of any duel between them. "It's not well-known," he murmured, "but a month ago, the Blade of Altarrh was stolen from Drake's mansion and turned up in his ex-wife Morgana's hands."
Madrigal's eyes sharpened. "I've seen nothing of this."
"You wouldn't. Drake's wards would hide it from even your eyes."
"And the rest of the Relics Infernal?"
"The Blade was destroyed when Drake confronted Morgana, but there's no sign of the Wand. It vanished the week before the Blade was stolen, leaving only its caretaker's body behind."
"Dead?" Madrigal demanded.
"As a doornail."
"And the Chalice?"
He hesitated. Verity belonged to him. "Itwassafe, but a thief of extraordinary skill managed to get their hands on it and pass it along to someone else. I'm currently tracking it."
