Esther, though magnificently wealthy, was not of the breed of magnificently wealthy older women to preserve their youth by way of a doctor’s knife, or keep a joyless diet for the sake of bony elegance, or wear stiff designer clothes better suited to mannequins.
She was dressed in jeans with a tunic dress she’d picked up at a street market, while her white hair was secured in a slightly messy chignon. She was no ascetic, as was evidenced by the pastry in her hand and the comfortable curvature of h*ps and br**sts. Her youth—or, more accurately, her seeming age of seventy, when she was, in fact, well into her thirteenth decade—was preserved not by surgery or diet but by way of a wish.
A bruxis, that most powerful of wishes, dearly paid for, and only once in a lifetime. And what most of Brimstone’s traders spent their bruxes on was just this: long life. It was not known precisely how long was long. Karou knew one Malay hunter who had been going on a spry two hundred last she’d seen him. It seemed to come down to a matter of will. Most people grew tired of outliving everyone. For Esther’s part, she said she didn’t know how many more generations of dogs she could bear to bury.
The current iteration were still young and in the prime of health. They were called Traveller and Methuselah, for the horses, respectively, of generals Lee and Grant. All of Esther’s mastiffs were named after warhorses. This was her sixth pair, and she had finally deigned to honor the Americans.
Karou eyed the fruit tower. “But it probably took someone hours to build that thing.”
“And we’ve paid well for their labors. Eat.”
Karou took some grapes and was glad that the sculpture didn’t topple.
“You will have to learn to enjoy money now, my dear,” said Esther, as though Karou were an initiate into this life of luxury, and she her guide. In addition to other Karou-related favors Esther had performed for Brimstone over the years—enrolling her in schools, faking identity documents for her, etcetera—she’d been instrumental in setting up her many bank accounts, and surely knew Karou’s net worth better than Karou did herself. “Lesson one: We don’t worry about how our fruit sculptures are built. We just eat them.”
“I won’t have to learn, actually,” said Karou. “I’m not staying here.”
Esther glanced around the room. “You don’t like the St. Regis?”
Karou followed her glance. It was an assault on the senses, as though the designer had been charged to manifest the concept of “opulence” in four or five hundred square feet. High, coved ceiling trimmed in coffered gold. Red velvet drapes that belonged in a vampire’s boudoir, gilded everything, a grand piano with tiered silver dishes of biscotti set out on its gleaming lid. There was even an enormous tapestry of a coronation hanging on the wall, some king or other kneeling to receive his crown. “Well, no,” she admitted. “Not especially. But I mean Earth. I’m not staying.”
Esther favored her with a slow blink, perhaps taking that instant to imagine leaving behind such a fortune as was Karou’s. “Indeed. Well. Considering the piece of paradise in there”—she nodded her head toward the adjacent sitting room—“I can’t say I blame you.” Esther was… impressed… with Akiva. “Oh my,” she’d whispered when Karou had introduced them. She said now, “Not that I would know, but I suppose one would give up a great deal for love.”
Karou had said nothing about love, but she couldn’t say she was surprised to find out it was obvious. “I don’t feel like I’m giving anything up,” she said honestly. Her life in Prague was already as remote as a dream. She knew there would be days when she missed Earth, but for now, her mind and heart were wholly engaged in the affairs of Eretz, its shrouded present—Dear Nitid, or godstars, or anyone, please let our friends live—and its tenuous future. And yes, as Esther intimated, Akiva was a big part of it.
“Well. You can enjoy wealth for now, at least,” said Esther. “Tell me the bath wasn’t lovely.”
Karou conceded that it had been. The bathroom was larger than her entire Prague apartment, and every square inch of it marble. She’d just emerged; her hair was damp and fragrant on her shoulders.
She took up the map, flattening it out on the couch between them. “So,” she said, “where are the angels being housed?”
Karou’s plan was ultimately very simple, so there wasn’t much she needed to know beyond where to find Jael. Vatican City might be small as sovereign nations go, but it made for a hell of a scavenger hunt if you just showed up there and started going through rooms.
Esther stabbed a bitten nail at the Papal Palace. “Here,” she said. “The lap of luxury.” She knew which windows would give the closest access to the Sala Clementina, the grand audience hall Jael had been given for his personal use, and she knew where the guards were likely to be stationed, both the Swiss Guards and the angels’ own contingent. Her finger dragged over to the Vatican Museum, too, where the bulk of the host were quartered in a wing of ancient sculpture where once upon a normal life, Karou had whiled away an afternoon sketching.
“Thanks,” said Karou. “That’s a big help.”
“Of course,” said Esther, settling back into the prissy sofa. “Anything for my favorite fake granddaughter. Now tell me, how is Brimstone, and when is he reopening the portals? I really miss the old monster.”
Me, too, thought Karou, her heart instantly icing over. She’d been dreading this moment the whole journey here. On the phone, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell the truth. The manner of Esther’s greeting had been so unexpectedly effusive—“Oh thank god! Where have you been, child? I’ve been worried sick. Months, and no word from you at all. How could you not call me?”—that it had thrown Karou for a loop. She’d acted like a real grandmother, or at least how Karou imagined a real grandmother might act, spilling emotion willy-nilly, whereas before she’d always seemed to dole it out like allowance: on a schedule, and with some measure of reluctance.
Karou had decided to tell her the hard news in person, but now that the time had come, suitable words failed to line themselves up in her brain. He’s dead.
There was a massacre.
He’s… dead.
The knocking, just at that moment, felt like providence. Karou leapt up. “Mik and Zuze,” she said, and jogged toward the door. The suite was so sprawling, you really had to jog in order to answer the door in a timely fashion. She did, throwing it open. “What took you so long?” she demanded, sweeping her friends together into a slightly smelly hug. Their smell, not hers.