“The symbol the Mercy uses,” Jameson continued. “A triangle inside a circle inside a square—”
“Inside yet another triangle.” Rohan could feel Savannah’s eyes on him. It was not, all things considered, an unpleasant feeling. “Inside another circle inside another square,” he murmured, “and so on and so forth, etcetera, repeating. I take it this isn’t small talk?”
“Where did the symbol come from?” Jameson’s question straddled the line between demand and plea. “What does it mean?”
Rohan pushed off the tree and began winding his way farther from their starting point. Savannah moved in tandem with him, leaving so little space between them that Rohan could feel her body heat.
Trying to hear both sides of the conversation, love?Rohan kicked up his pace a notch, but he gave Savannah something to listen to onhisside of the conversation, at least. “I’ve always thought that symbol to signify a great truth, that if you play any game long enough, certain patterns will always repeat. Across years and decades, across centuries and dynasties and men, some things never stop repeating.”
“But whythoseshapes?” Desperation did not suit Jameson Hawthorne. Not at all.
“Isolate a subset of the repeating pattern, and it can be read as an alchemical symbol as well.” Rohan shot a look in Savannah’s direction that challenged her to come as close as she dared.
“The alchemical symbolfor what?” Jameson clearly had about as much patience as Rohan had shame, which was to saynone.
“Alchemy,” Rohan replied.
“Don’t play with me, Rohan.”
“I wouldn’t dare. A circle inside a square inside a triangle inside yetanother circle is indeed the alchemical symbol for alchemy. Add another triangle in the center and continue the pattern on and on, and voilà. Personally, I like to consider it all a reminder that those who seek power are always ultimately after two and only two things: immortality and gold.”
Clearly, Jameson had uncovered something.
“Did my grandfather ever visit the Devil’s Mercy?” he demanded.
Fascinating question.“To my knowledge?” Rohan replied. “No. What precisely have you found, Mr. Hawthorne?”
“If you can’t get me into the Mercy, who can?”
Rohan came to a stop again, and Savannah did the same, standing so close to him their shoulders brushed. “Rule breaker,” Rohan mouthed, and then he turned his attention back to Jameson, well aware that Savannahcouldhear both sides of the conversation now. “If you want to barter for entrance to the Mercy, you’d have to see the current Factotum.”
“Don’t tell me it’s—”
“Indeed.” While Rohan sought to make his fortune and win the throne, the duchess was acting as the Proprietor’s second-in-command.
“And where the hell are you?” Jameson demanded. “You’re supposed to be tracking Zella downforme.”
“I’m in Louisiana,” Rohan replied. “More specifically, I’ve paying a visit to St. Adelaide Parish, once home to Calla Thorp.”
“Don’t.” Jameson’s voice went guttural. “Whatever it is you think you’re doing there, Rohan—don’t.”
Rohan once again considered telling Jameson about Nora.I’ve made a new friend here,he would say.Fond of knives. Quite formidable. Northern European—Norwegian, perhaps, or possibly Icelandic. She’s working for or with someone, and that person sent her here, almost certainly because the Watcher has an interest of some sort in Gigi Grayson.
But Jameson clearly wasn’t going to be parting easily with the money Rohan needed, and tipping the Hawthorne off to a potential lead before that lead had born fruit was not in Rohan’s best interest.
So he simply hung up.
Jameson called back. Rohan ignored the ringing of the phone andgave into the urge to capitalize on Savannah’s proximity. He lifted his hand to her face in direct violation of Rule Two, brushing her roughly shorn platinum hair off her cheek.
Savannah pretended she couldn’t even feel it. “Immortality and gold,” she said.
Rohan trailed his hand down from her face to her neck to Calla’s necklace. “And what do you make,” he murmured, tracing the path of the chain down to the fleur-de-lis charm on the end, “of all of this?”
The necklace. The inscription. The calla lily Gigi had found. Their new and very dangerous friend.
“It doesn’t matter.” Savannah shut him down. “None of it matters to me. Not Calla. Not Nora. Not this place. Not any of it, except keeping Gigi safe and getting Brady on a plane to England so I can get what I need from the duchess.”
“Still focused on revenge, love?”