After introducing herself, Edwina confessed her confusion. “I am acquainted with both Mr. Cameron and your mission to find your missing son, but I can’t for the life of me understand why you were directed here. Or what this key is you mentioned. Who was it who sent you?”
“Why, Mr. Cameron himself.” Elvanfoot opened the telegram again. “I received this update from him three days ago and came as soon as I could.” He read the telegram aloud for her benefit: “Found George. If convenient, come to the city. Am at the Three Hares Inn. Curiosity shop run by Blackwood sisters holds key.”
“Three days ago?” she asked. He tipped the telegram so she might see the date, which confirmed what he said. The fluttering warning in her chest earlier had found its way to the spot behind her right eye, making itself an unwelcome guest with its dull, throbbing insistence that she see what stood before her. “I don’t understand. I only met Mr. Cameron for the first time two days ago. There was never any mention of a key, although . . .”
“What is it?”
Her skin flushed hot knowing what she must confess. “He did come to the shop, but the situation is complicated. Compounded by unusual circumstances.”
“Involving magic?”
Edwina nodded, and Sir Elvanfoot rested his hands on the glass display case while she explained about Ian’s missing memory and how it had come to pass. The gentleman witch listened with eyes gleaming, as if collecting every word she said and evaluating them against his own pool of knowledge and skill. Twice he interrupted to hear again the details of how Mary had extracted the memory, seemingly impressed by her rare gift. But when Edwina had finished the tale, Elvanfoot was no more enlightened than she as to what Ian Cameron might have meant about finding a key at the sisters’ shop.
“By your account, Cameron sent this telegram while still in full possession of his faculties,” he said. “He wouldn’t have wasted words in a telegram, my dear. There must be a reason he deliberately mentioned your little shop and this mysterious key.”
Edwina was stymied. She’d checked Ian’s pockets while he was under her sleeping spell. There had been a key, but it was for his hotel room. “We do have a large collection of keys, but I don’t think he could have meant one of them has anything to do with your son’s case.”
“Hmm, possibly.” The white-haired witch cast his eyes about the shop, unconvinced. “With your permission, might I have a look around to see if any of your offerings spark a connection for me?”
“Of course. Feel free to browse the items. Our keys are over here,” she said, leading him to a round table near the front window, where the display of skeleton keys remained as straight as when she’d last fidgeted with them.
Naturally inquisitive, Edwina shadowed the famous witch, offering to remove any of the other items out of their display cases should he care to make closer inspection. While he browsed the keys on the table, laying a finger aside a silvery one with elegant scrollwork she’d spotted behind a rain barrel on Broad Street a fortnight ago, she watched how he used his intuition to guide him. She could have told him where and when she’d found each and every piece of metal he explored, but it would not help him find what he was looking for.
It was only after she’d watched Elvanfoot make his way around the entire table that the question of what the alleged key might unlock finally occurred to her. She fumbled with the conundrum—a door, a chest, a padlock?—until he gave up on the mismatched assembly of discarded keys and set his interest on the table where the women’s hatpins were displayed. He touched an amber stone embedded at the end of one of the pins with the tip of his finger but found no joy. He shrugged and turned his attention to the knickknack shelf in the corner behind him instead. The look in his bright eyes suddenly changed, gone from blinking and uncertain to as alert as a fox after discovering a mouse under the snow.
“What is it? Have you found something?” she asked.
“There is a slight flux in the energy here.” He spun around with his hand outstretched, searching, feeling, sensing. A shimmer of luminosity glowed around him, enhancing his aura. He was calling his power to him, using every instinct to find the thing calling to him. Edwina checked the street to see if anyone spied through the glass to witness his magic, but blessedly the flow of people continued on as usual, as if she and her shop were nothing more than a muddy bank at high tide.
“Somewhere here,” he said, eyes searching the array of items on display. He nudged aside a pewter spoon and a green bottle and retrieved a long silver pin with a thistle head for a decoration. A small amethyst stone had been inlaid to serve as the bur’s purple flower. “Good heavens,” he said and held it up for her to see.