“How—?”
Gemma turned to Astrid. “Assist me with something.”
Guardedly, the Englishwoman approached.
“Please, stand out in the passageway.”
“Why?”
The Englishwoman’s caution grated. Gemma said, teeth gritted, “Just … please. I promise I won’t seduce or kill anyone while you do.”
With one final, suspicious glance over her shoulder, Astrid opened the cabin door and stood in the passageway. Gemma shut the door in the woman’s face. A yelp of outrage penetrated the door.
Lesperance strode toward Gemma with a dark scowl, as ferocious as a wolf protecting its mate.
“I’m not going to harm her,” Gemma said, raising up her hands. Without question, Lesperance would utterly annihilate anyone foolish enough to try to hurt Astrid. “Just a brief demonstration.”
Barely appeased, Lesperance held himself back. A pulse in her throat proved to Gemma that she had narrowly avoided danger. “Now,” Gemma said, turning to Graves, “lock the door.”
A small frown knitted his brow, but he came closer to do so. His boots brushed past the hem of her skirt, and, even though the gesture could not have been less intimate, Gemma’s heart sped into a gallop. She’d spent months in the Canadian mountain wilderness, living close with trappers and miners and men of every stripe, the raw and the refined. Almost nothing any of them did or said affected her the way a simple brush of Catullus Graves’s boots against her skirt could. And he seemed equally flustered, despite the fact that he was well past boyhood and most definitely a grown man.
Gemma made herself focus on the lock. It wasn’t an ordinary lock on the door, but a small device that clearly was his own invention—an intricate network of metal fittings that looked as if it was assembled by tiny, industrious Swiss watchmakers. Graves’s long, agile fingers worked quickly over the lock, and she heard a click.
“There,” he said, straightening. He cleared his throat and stepped back, and Gemma realized that she had drifted closer to watch him at work.
“Now, Mrs. Bramfield,” Gemma said through the door, “try to come in.”
The doorknob rattled, but the door remained closed. “I can’t,” came the muffled reply.
“Use a little force.”
This time, the knob rattled harder, the door shaking a bit, but it still remained shut. “Still can’t,” Astrid said. “I could try to kick it in.”
“Not necessary.” She turned to Graves, watching avidly. “You agree that I didn’t kick the door open when I came in a short while ago.” When he nodded, Gemma said, “If you would, unlock the door and let Mrs. Bramfield in.”
He did so, and the Englishwoman strode back into the cabin, looking puzzled. “What did that prove?” she asked.
“That, when the door was shut and Mr. Graves’s lock was set, you could not open the door.” Gemma walked to it and opened the door again. “I’m going to stand in the passageway, and I want you to lock the door behind me. Just as you did with Mrs. Bramfield.”
Graves, still frowning, gave a short nod. So Gemma did exactly as she said she would, going out into the passageway and letting Graves close and lock the door.
“All set?” she asked through the thick wood.
“Yes—all set,” he answered.
Gemma placed her hand on the doorknob. And opened the door.
Instead of being met by a gun, three stunned faces greeted her entrance into the cabin.
She shut the door behind her again. “You asked how I might know of magic, Mr. Graves? There it is.”
“Could be a trick,” Lesperance noted.
“No,” said Graves. “Nothing can open that lock except the key that I made.” He gazed at her with a mixture of admiration and surprise. “Nothing, but magic.”
“It’s called the Key of Janus,” Gemma explained. She felt a strange little glow of satisfaction to amaze not just Astrid and Lesperance, but a clearly brilliant mind such as Catullus Graves. “Something that’s been in my mother’s Italian family for generations. Dates back to ancient Rome. With it, we can open any door. Doesn’t matter how strong the lock, how heavy the door. The Key opens them all.” Though lately, even that had changed. But there was no need to mention that now.
“How did your family keep from becoming thieves?” Graves asked.
She grinned. “Many didn’t.” Then sobered. “But even more remained honest, despite the temptations to do otherwise. So you see “—she opened her hands wide—” I know that magic exists, since it’s been in my family for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.”
Astrid muttered something that might have been, “Blimey.”
Graves thoughtfully rubbed his mouth. After staring at her for a few moments, he strode toward the porthole and, bracing his hands on either side of the small window, gazed out at the moon upon the water.
“You can’t scare me with tales of magic, Mr. Graves,” Gemma said to his broad back. “Because I know all about it.”
“Not everything,” he corrected, turning back to face her. “The magic that’s in your family, that is just one small, and relatively innocuous, part of the limitless magic that exists in the world. It can be found everywhere, from the most populous cities, to the farthest reaches of the wilderness.”
“Including the Northwest Territory?” Gemma asked. According to Gemma’s investigations at the trading post, Astrid Bramfield had been living alone in the Canadian mountains, until Catullus Graves and another man—now dead—had come to find her. Graves had returned from the wilderness with Astrid and Lesperance before setting off for England, with Gemma in pursuit.
“Exactly.” His hands clasped behind his back. He had, at that moment, a professorial air, much more comfortable discussing such subjects than being in touching distance of her.
“Is that what those other Englishmen at the trading post were looking for? Magic?”
“You remember them?” he asked, taken aback.
Gemma’s mouth curved, wry. “Hard to forget. A bigger bunch of pompous asses I never met—and, believe me, I’ve known quite a few.” Especially in the newsroom of the Tribune. “They came in the same day that Mr. Lesperance arrived, looking for guides, and managed to insult everyone in the trading post.”
Lesperance stood even straighter. “You,” he said, staring at her. “I saw you there that day, too. Out of the corner of my eye. You were lurking behind some buildings. I went to follow—and then the Heirs grabbed me.”
She did do rather a lot of lurking in her work, but couldn’t feel too embarrassed about it. Being polite and proper never made anyone into a good journalist. “Heirs,” she repeated. “You mentioned them before. Those Englishmen at the trading post were called Heirs?”
“The Heirs of Albion,” Graves said, grim. “As we said, they want everything for England’s empire, and that includes the world’s magic.”
Gemma blanched. “That’s … awful.” A sudden thought struck her. “Does that include my magic?”
His somber expression showed that he had already considered this possibility. “Very likely. Either it will be stripped from you or—” He broke off, frowning deeply.
“Or?” Gemma prompted.
“Or your magic, and you, will be enslaved. At any given moment, you could be summoned and forced to open any lock, any door. A vault holding a nation’s wealth.