against her head on their way by.
“Answer they do not,” Madame Demetka said as the wind died down.
Thia lifted her head. “Your guides?”
Madame Demetka nodded gravely. “We will both think on this, you and I, until they do.”
“Sure, of course.” Honestly, Thia didn’t know what the woman was talking about. She turned to go. “See you later.”
“You will be careful,” Madame Demetka called after her. “Trouble comes this day. Trouble in shadow and storm. No lie, this. Be wary! Be wary of the bird!”
Good grief. Frowning, Thia turned back, but the other woman was already darting up the street in the opposite direction, fabric snapping around her like colorful flames. No wonder her readings were in such demand. She had a true gift for the theatric.
But, really, what was all that about? Thia didn’t know whether to be amused or concerned. Oh, well. She supposed she could sort it out later—after Madame Demetka had consulted her “guides”…or whatever it was she really did. According to the invoices in Lettie’s office, her legal name was Sally Wilson, so there was no telling where the line between truth and fiction lay.
Three blocks later, after shoving and bobbling her way through the Post Office’s tight-hinged doors, Thia was still pondering that—and what she was supposed to make of the whole episode. None of it made any sense. She caught a look at the waiting area—gloriously empty—and headed straight for the counter. Things were looking up. She hefted the boxes onto the counter, then pushed them to the side so she could se. And be seen. “Hey, Dave,” she called as the postmaster stepped out of the back office, a bundle of envelopes in hand.
“Thia.” His heavy, white beard split in a grin, and he gave a nod to the boxes. “Web business doing good, huh?”
“It is, thanks,” she replied, matching his grin with her own. There was something infectious about his good humor. “And thanks for that advice on the delivery options. We’ve already seen a pick up in sales.”
“Glad to help—even if it makes my job harder,” he joked, the merry twinkle in his eyes giving no doubt as to why he was said to be a shoo-in for the role of Santa in the town’s Holiday Parade.
She watched him log into the computer. “How was your vacation?”
“Cold,” he answered with a chuckle. “We were in the north of Finland for most of it. Peg has family there. Now”—he reached for the topmost box—”what have we here?”
Business commenced. Packages were weighed; routine security questions, asked and answered; stamps, printed and affixed. An efficient five minutes later, he handed over the stack of tracking slips and transferred the boxes to a waiting pushcart.
“See you tomorrow,” she told him and, stuffing the slips into her pocket, turned to go.
He stopped her with a wave. “Not so fast—I got something for you. Came in this morning. I’ll just be a sec.” He took the cart with him when he went, disappearing into the silent back of the building.
Thia tried to think what the “something” could be or why it wouldn’t have gone to Eclectica along with the rest of the midmorning delivery. To make life easier, she and Lettie had all mail directed there, personal and otherwise.
Trouble comes this day.
“Here you go,” Dave said, returning. He held a small, square box wrapped in brown paper and coated with enough tape so as to be entirely waterproof. She didn’t need to see the British stamps and words “Royal Mail,” to know who the sender was. Only one person had a more paranoid hand with tape than she did.
“Funny she sent it here, isn’t it?” He handed over the box then, saying something about seeing her tomorrow, headed back to his office.
“Thanks, again.” She looked down at the box in her hands. Heavier than she’d expected for something so small. She gave it a little shake by her ear. Nothing rattled. She frowned. There, under several layers of glossy tape, was the curious direction, “hold for pickup,” written in Lettie’s elegant hand.
It was a silly thing to wonder about, especially when Thia could simply ask her about it later.
On the way back to Eclectica, she turned her imagination toward a more intriguing subject—namely, what the box might hold. She didn’t doubt it was a gift of some sort; Lettie typically gave her some sort of trinket from her buying trips. Which was odd really, considering the rest of the family got things like socks and…well, socks.
It must really be something if Lettie didn’t want to wait to deliver it herself. Thia ran a finger along the surface, looking for any potential way in while she waited for traffic to clear at the crossing. But without something sharp, there was no way past the tape.
She waved her thanks to a stopped car as she jogged across the street.
The last time Lettie had gone to England, she’d given Thia a small collection of Roman coins and glass beads. Fairly common, she’d said, and not fine enough to be of interest to historians, but Thia had found them fascinating.
She pulled open Eclectica’s door to find the place overrun by teenagers. A school group, in town for the Festival, was picking up and exclaiming over everything in sight. Abby, barely visible through the crowd at the main counter, spotted Thia and made a dramatic pantomime of relief. The noise level was incredible, with super-energized youths carrying on conversations regardless of distance. Thia stashed Lettie’s box beneath the counter, shut off the music, which couldn’t be heard anyway, and found herself offering to retrieve a porcelain dragon’s original container from the storage room.
Forty unchaperoned teens with time to kill. Trouble, indeed.
Near Russell Square, London
Seated on a bench in the neighborhood’s central garden, Cormac touched the screen of his phone, resumed the pretense of texting while he kept an eye on Leticia’s townhouse across the way. Men and women, their white jackets emblazoned with the logo of an interior design firm, had been streaming in and out all day, carrying packing crates and storage boxes to the lorry parked at the curb. A bit of renovation, they’d cheerfully informed inquisitive neighbors. Some work scheduled while the owner was away. Yes, it should look quite grand when it was done.
It was a clever ruse, and an elaborate one, but Cormac wasn’t fooled. No one outside the Brigantium could pass through Leticia’s protection wards unharmed without first destroying them; and as his Sight revealed, the air around the townhouse continued to shimmer with her distinctive magic, its semitransparent colors in constant motion like a dreamy, deadly soap bubble.
When he’d arrived in the morning, bleary from the turbulent British Midlands flight out of Manchester, he’d expected to find the house deserted, then spend the better part of the day getting through security measures both magical and practical. Instead, he’d been forced into the role of frustrated observer yet again.
Concerns amassed in his mind like clouds before a gathering storm. The Brigantium he knew was not capable of such speed, such efficiency—and they sure as ifrinn didn’t possess such numbers as this.
In its early days, the Society of Brigantium had been little more than a London-based aggravation. Mired in institutional traditions and academic musings, most of its people had proven no more bothersome to him than meandering cattle: a temporary obstruction requiring little effort to remove. A small push, a distraction, and they’d wander out of his way.
That would not be the case here, he thought darkly, his fingers in constant, random motion on his phone. Though it was nearly ten o’clock, there were still a few people in the private neighborhood park—some on mobile phones, like him; others out