“How could they, if Aline didn’t know the elves existed?” But then I looked at Gabriel. Aline did seem like the conspiracy type, and God knew she hated the Keene family. “Did she?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
There had to be some connection. This many attacks—large-scale attacks—in two days couldn’t be a coincidence. I looked at Ethan. “Have you talked to Luc?”
“Not yet,” he said. “Seeing you safe was first on my list.”
I nodded. “When you call him, you might see if Paige and the librarian are back from their rendezvous. The librarian has stores of microfiche and, you know, Internet access. If there’s a connection between Aline and Niera, they’d be the ones to find it.”
“A good idea.” Ethan pulled out his phone.
“I’m full of them,” I said, glancing at a clock on one of the Brecks’ sleek appliances. “We only have a few hours until dawn. I’ll check the box when it gets here, talk to Jeff or Damien about whatever I find. Maybe they can provide some context.” I glanced at Catcher and Mallory. “Can you follow up again with Baumgart- ner, see if this new glamoury magic rings any bells? And check again on Simon if you still haven’t reached him?”
“We’ll do both,” Catcher said, “but neither is likely to lead to much.”
“Better to check and come up empty than miss a lead,” I said.
Ethan looked at me with obvious amusement. “You’re becoming quite the investigator.”
I searched my memory for a good quip about cops, maybe something from a film noir about private detectives that would have made him laugh, but came up empty.
“Book ’em, Danno?” Catcher offered.
“Close enough.”
Jeff, Damien, and Nick walked into the kitchen together. Jeff and Damien looked significantly better than they had when I’d seen them before. They’d changed clothes and their superficial wounds were gone, probably because they’d shifted and let their magic do its work.
Nick walked to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of water.
Jeff carried Aline’s box, which he set on the counter, then smiled at me. “You all right?”
“Fine. You?”
“Feel like I lost another life or two, but I’m okay.” He nudged Damien collegially, but Damien just offered back a mild blink.
“Nothing?” Jeff said and, when Damien continued to stare, turned to me with a crooked smile. “Alrighty.”
“Boo’s okay?” I asked.
“Boo?” Ethan asked.
“Damien’s babysitting a kitten we found at Aline’s,” I explained.
Damien nodded. “Was sleeping in the car. Now sleeping in a box in the living room. Any developments here?”
“Ethan’s calling Paige and the librarian to check for any connections between Aline and Niera.”
“That seems unlikely,” Damien said.
“Agreed. But it’s also unlikely that harpies attack shifters, and hours later someone pulls mojo on the elves.”
“You’re thinking they come from the same source?”
“We don’t have any evidence either way, yet. But I’m thinking two major magical attacks in a five-mile radius in the span of twenty-four hours cannot be a coincidence.”
“Put that way,” Damien said, “I can hardly argue with the conclusion.”
I rose, picked up the box. “We had a to-do list,” I said, reminding Damien and Jeff. “This part was my assignment.”
Jeff nodded. “I’ll see what I can do with her hard drive.”
We looked expectantly at Damien. “I suppose I’m going to make some phone calls.”
I glanced back at Nick, who stood quietly beside the refrigerator, bottle in hand. “Can I borrow a room to look through this?”
Ethan looked worried. “Don’t you want to rest?”
I shook my head. “Too much adrenaline. And irritation. I need to work. I’ll be fine,” I added, when the line between his eyes didn’t disappear.
“Use the drawing room,” Nick said, as if it would be obvious to everyone which room that would be. It was to me, as it turned out, because I’d been there a thousand times.
If Papa Breck’s office was one of my favorite rooms in the Breck house, the drawing room was one of my least favorite. The office was a place of adventures and hidden secrets. The drawing room was a place of manners and sitting quietly. It was where Julia, Papa Breck’s wife and the Breck family matriarch, would spend a quiet afternoon with a book and a cup of tea, or where she’d make me and the boys endure a time-out if we’d been too noisy in the hallways. “Your father did not make his money by letting out the bought air,” she’d tell us, and demand we spend an interminable half hour sitting on hard, uncomfortable furniture until she was satisfied that we’d calmed down.
I was hardly “just a girl he knew in high school.”
I carried the box into the drawing room. It was prettily arranged—lighter and more delicate than Papa Breck’s study—with butter yellow walls and tailored furniture. A round pedestal table sat on one side of the room, with several hard wooden chairs (learned from experience) and a leather case that held two decks of cards. Both decks were missing their one-eyed kings, because we’d decided the cards held secret codes and deserved saving.
I put the box on the table, walked to the shelves that lined the other end of the room, tracing my fingers over the linen-covered hardbacks that were placed in groups amid bud vases and family pictures.
I found the copy of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale—because a book about James Bond with a casino in the title obviously had to relate to our one-eyed kings, and slid it from its home.
Tucked inside, back to back, were two aging kings of spades.
So many memories in this house. Each time I came back, I built new ones, even if they weren’t always pleasant. I tucked the cards back into the book, slid the book back onto the shelf, and moved back to the table. I shoved the leather box of cards aside and made space on the table while I opened the box.
Just as the house had demonstrated, Aline wasn’t one to throw things away. Anything. Receipts. Greeting cards. Lists. The paper wrappers that held silverware inside restaurant napkins. I assumed every scrap of paper and receipt in the box had meaning for her, some emotional weight that kept her from throwing them away, that bound them to her as the years went on.