She didn’t often envy Alucard’s sight—in a world saturated with magic, it seemed to cause him headaches more than help—but she’d been glaring at the stone fa?ade for nearly an hour to no avail, and if it turned out the meeting had been happening all along, she really might just burn it down.
Alucard looked at the building, his eyes taking on a far-off focus as they scraped across its front. “There’s no veil,” he said. “Why?”
Lila dug the coin from her pocket and tossed it to him.
“A tip, for my fine company?” he asked, weighing the lin in his palm. “Believe it or not, Bard, I am not pressed for pocket change.”
She rolled her eyes. “That coin was found on one of the dead thieves, on Maris’s ship. Look at the edge.”
Alucard held it to the light. The metal was still faintly stained from the night before, soot gathered in the tiny grooves. “A message?” he ventured, squinting as he tried to make it out.
“I’ll save you the trouble,” she said. “It’s very small. And backwards.”
She pulled the kerchief from her pocket, the words printed in the right direction. He noticed the bandage wrapped around her wrist, and frowned. “Cut yourself?”
“The price of playing with knives,” she said dismissively. “Now look.” She tapped the writing. “It’s a meeting. And I’m willing to bet more than that coin it’s for the Hand.”
Alucard blew out a breath. “This must be how we haven’t caught on. You must admit,” he said, “it’s rather clever.”
“I’d appreciate it more if they’d bothered to give the day as well.”
“But they did.” He pointed to the little mark that separated the two halves of the message. On the kerchief, it registered as a small black circle.
“That,” said Lila, “is a dot.”
“Only for someone with no imagination. Or no education in Arnesian shorthand. In which case, that little dot, as you call it, is a moon.”
Lila’s stomach dropped.
“Or perhaps a moon-less,” he added. “It’s hard to know which school they’re using.”
Lila cursed herself. How had she missed it? On a surface that small, no space or symbol would be wasted. She searched her memory—the moon had been waning the last few nights, the sky growing darker. If it was a full moon, that could be weeks away, but if it meant moonless that could be as early as—
“In any case,” said Alucard, handing back both coin and kerchief, “it isn’t happening right now. Good thing, too,” he added, turning to go, and expecting her to follow. “There’s something else you need to see.”
* * *
Half an hour later, Lila had traded the broad avenues of the northern bank for the narrow corridors of the shal, and found herself no longer standing outside a house, but in the ruins of one.
It seemed to have been torn down—no, torn apart, from the inside out. As she trailed Alucard through the remains, Lila noted that the act lacked the air of accident, felt more like a demolition. Which didn’t explain why she was here.
“This way,” said Alucard, leading her through the wreckage. Lila kicked a broken bit of stone out of her path. Amid the debris, she noticed pieces of metal, too small to be structure, a crumpled tea tin, spilling wire and twine. The splintered remains of a sign, the words once broken, soon repaired still legible.
Dread coiled in Lila’s gut. “This place,” she said. “What was it called?”
She knew the answer before he said the name, but it still landed like a dull blow. “Haskin’s.”
Lila groaned. She had been so close.
“And what of the man himself?”
“Doesn’t exist.” Lila cocked a brow. That was a surprise. “Shop seems to have been run by an apprentice—or that’s what they called her. A girl, goes only by Tes. No sign of her, but—just wait—where is it? Ah, here.” Alucard stopped walking suddenly, and Lila drew up short to keep from running into him. He gestured at the space ahead, where the rubble had been cleared. Lila looked. There was nothing there.
“Is this something only you can see?” she ventured.
But Alucard shook his head. “I don’t think so. Just focus. Or, rather, unfocus.”
Lila didn’t understand. She stepped past him, raking her gaze down the air. Still, she didn’t see anything unusual. And then Alucard carefully rounded the space and turned to face her. He looked wrong, like he was standing behind a pane of warping glass.