Did your mother have two daughters?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Felix raise one dark eyebrow.
So Felix was going to make me pay for his help.
Since Felicia was known to be the daughter of Oleg Karkarov, the bastard son of Grigori Rasputin, and I was Felicia’s half sister…
“What do you think?” I said.
“I think you are one of the people who should be living in the dormitory of the palace, waiting to serve the tsar by giving him a transfusion.” Only Rasputin’s blood had kept Alexei from bleeding to death as a child. Even before Rasputin died, a search had begun to find any heirs of his. He had had legitimate children and many bastards, so for now the tsar was in luck. “Or maybe,” he said even more slowly, “you should be living in the dormitory with Felicia.”
“And yet I live in Texoma. And I have no plans to move here.”
“You could be provided for for life, like your sister.”
“I already have a job,” I told Felix. “If you try to tell the tsar’s caregivers that I’m available, I’ll kill you.”
Felix heaved a deep sigh. “I am not threatening you,” he said. “Though that would be really satisfying.”
He meant that.
“I know you’ve inherited some ability from your father. That’s why Eli had enough juice to start my heart again.”
“Eli’s pretty powerful,” I said. “All by his lonesome.”
“But he’s not a reanimator, like me,” Felix said flatly. “He could not have revived me without a boost from someone. It’s a mark of how strongly you two are bonded that you would let him use you to do that.”
“You got the knowledge of my father on me. I saved your life. Even.”
“I value my life highly,” Felix said, in a voice as dry as toast. “So I think you still have the advantage.”
I heard running footsteps behind me and wheeled, reaching for the gun I didn’t have. This damn city and its rules! But my knife slipped back into my hand.
The young man dashing up to me came to a halt and took a few deep gulps of air, staring at my knife.
“Peter,” I said.
“Lizbeth, it’s you.” Eli’s younger brother was red-faced from his sprint to catch up with us. “My mother told me you had been at the house.” Peter suddenly realized someone was with me. He was mighty put out about it. “Felix! What are you doing here?”
“I am talking to Lizbeth about how we can get Eli out of prison,” Felix said. He was not disturbed at all by Peter’s sourness.
“I didn’t know you knew Lizbeth,” Peter said, scowling.
This was a day of too many words, but I had to say something. “Peter,” I said. “I haven’t seen you since last year in Segundo Mexia.”
“What were you doing in Segundo Mexia?” It was Felix’s turn to be unhappy.
“We don’t need to talk about that,” I said. Peter had opened his mouth. We’d never get back on track if the two kept this up. “Peter, your mom said you’d been to see your brother in jail.”
“I have.” Peter looked proud.
“Describe his cell.”
That wasn’t what Peter had expected. I had no idea (and cared less) what he’d thought we’d talk about. All our precious moments together?
“For you,” Peter said, with a painful sincerity.
Eli and Felicia had both hinted that Peter had a crush on me, but I hadn’t taken it seriously. I bit back a sigh.
A car slowed down as it passed us, and the driver, an older man in a fancy jacket, gave us a good long look. We stood out in this neighborhood like warts on a movie star.
“Let’s go to my place,” Felix said, and we began walking.
I didn’t know how Peter had pictured our meeting, but I could tell this wasn’t whatever he’d had in mind. I didn’t know what to say to the boy. He hadn’t meant to get me shot, and I didn’t hold it against him… much. But I’d learned Peter was impulsive and didn’t notice what was going on around him. Maybe that was what young men were like here. At home, those traits would make you dead.
At least we didn’t talk much on the walk to Felix’s.
I was wondering how I was going to effect Eli’s release.
Felix looked so serious I was sure he was plotting.
Peter looked forlorn. Maybe he was wondering how to win my heart.
It was lucky for all three of us that we only had to walk thirty more minutes southwest.
Felix’s neighborhood consisted of small houses, every now and then a block of shops: a news agent’s, a grocery, a laundry, a hardware store. I felt more comfortable than I had at the Savarovs’ place on Hickory Street, for sure.
Felix’s little house was shoehorned between two others the same size. There were only a few people out and about in this neighborhood; Felix said they were all at work at jobs on the waterfront or at the big park or at the zoo… or in the military. I tried to imagine working at a zoo. I couldn’t.
I’d supposed the inside of the little house would be dark and messy, like Felix, but the living room was orderly. The sun poured through the windows. The old furniture looked comfortable.
Felix checked his mailbox and brought in his newspaper, started a teakettle, and generally bustled around doing little things. Peter threw himself onto the couch. I wandered around a little.
The tiny kitchen looked onto the backyard, where a car was parked. It took up almost all the space behind the house. It wasn’t that the car was that big, it was that the yard was so small.
Felix owned a car. That would make him a rich man in Segundo Mexia.
The teakettle whistled, and Felix said, “Want tea, Lizbeth? Peter?” Peter accepted, but I’d had enough of tea at the Savarov home. The rich man asked me if I wanted a Coca-Cola instead. Felix also owned a Penguin refrigerator, a Canadian import, and the drink would be cold, so I said yes.
Though the day was moderate, the cold sweet liquid felt good in my throat.
When we were all beveraged up, we sat in the living room, Peter and I on the couch and Felix in the armchair.
“So, Eli’s jail cell,” I said to Peter. I wanted to get the conversation moving so it would be over with sooner.
“The grigori cells are below the regular jail. The cells are spelled to keep magic suppressed. There are special jailers, people who have no magic at all and aren’t affected by it. They call them nulls. There are harsh punishments for prisoners observed trying to use magic.”
“How many cells?”
Peter counted mentally. “Just six, three on each side. One person to a cell.”
“Which one is Eli’s?”
“He’s in the third cell on the left when you enter the cellblock.”
“Can he see anyone who asks to see him?” Felix said. “Or is there a list of approved visitors?”
“They wouldn’t let Mother in, but I don’t know if she was on a list or not. She didn’t say. They didn’t explain. When I went, I didn’t see the jailer consult any list. I just said I was his brother. They searched me and handcuffed me and let me sit on a bench outside his cell so we could talk.”
“Handcuffed?” I said.
“So he couldn’t use his hands to cast spells,” Felix told me, in a way that said I’d missed something remarkable. “Peter was wearing his grigori vest, I’m sure.” Felix looked right into my eyes and tilted his head toward Peter.
I looked at the boy and saw what I should have commented on right away.
Peter had earned his vest. That was a big landmark in a grigori’s education, a coming-of-age marker. Peter was looking down at it, doing everything but patting it. The fabric still looked stiff and new.
I complimented Peter on his achievement, and I even managed an apology for not saying anything earlier. Peter had clearly been waiting for me to remark on it.
When I’d said as much as I could summon to satisfy his pride, I returned to the important thing: the facts about Eli’s jail.
“Was there a time limit for your visit?” I wanted to know everything I could before I tried to see Eli.
“Fifteen minutes,” Peter said.
“How many are in the cells now?” Felix leaned forward in his chair. It was a dark crimson velvety thing someone’s mom had tired of. Peter and I were on the couch, which was similarly dark and cushioned but blue.
“Let’s see.” Peter stared at his hands. “Okay, there were two women.”
“Aren’t women in a separate jail from men? Or a separate wing?” That had always been my experience in any town of more than five thousand.
Felix said, “Magic users are all together. There aren’t enough grigoris in jail to keep two separate cell areas.”
“Jane Parvin,” Peter said. “And Svetlana Ustinova.”
Felix looked worried, an expression I’d never seen on his face. These women must be grigoris of some reputation. “Jane’s in for killing one of the new grigoris in a test combat. Svetlana, I don’t know. Who else?” he asked.
“A man I didn’t know. At least twenty years older than me.” Peter was just barely eighteen, I thought.
“What did he look like?” Maybe Felix could identify the other prisoner from a description.
“Very tall, big head, reddish beard,” Peter said. “He’s next to Eli. The women are across the corridor.”
“That’s John Brightwood,” Felix said. “He’s a killer.”
“I haven’t met a grigori who wasn’t,” I said.
Peter looked from one of us to the other, his mouth open. He’d seen me kill his father and his father’s hired hands, but I was no grigori. Maybe Peter hadn’t ever seen what Eli could do, what Eli’s deceased partner Paulina had been capable of doing, by way of destroying another person.
From Peter’s look of dismay, for the first time I wondered if all grigoris weren’t death dealers. “Are there grigoris who don’t…?”
“Kill others? Yes, there are.” Felix grinned. “You didn’t know.”
“How could I? The only other grigoris I’ve ever seen were trying to kill me.”
Peter was still recovering. “Truly, Lizbeth?”
“Truly,” I said.
“How did you survive?”
“I killed ’em first.” How else?
“You… shot them?”
“I did.”
“Eli knows this?” he said.
“Eli was with me.”
“Does Eli…?”
I felt a little bad for Peter, who was shocked, like his world had been turned upside down. I reminded myself that Peter had been prepared to kill his own father. “Peter, Eli was given a job to do. Some other grigoris didn’t want him to be successful. They did their best to kill us. I don’t enjoy killing, but I’d always rather it be them instead of me.”
I didn’t know what world Peter had been living in, but it wasn’t the same one as mine.
Felix was smiling, but when I looked at him, the grin vanished. He said, gently for him, “Peter, we have to do whatever is necessary to get your brother out of jail. Otherwise, he’ll be dead before he sees the outside of that cell.”
“But why? What has he done?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t care. We’ll get him out. Felix, you’re in?”
“Yes,” Felix said.
“Why are you helping?” Peter asked. “Felix, you’ve always impressed me as, excuse me… selfish.”
I was curious to hear the answer, because I’d thought the same thing. Why was Felix willing to risk his life and career for the sake of Eli?
Both Peter and I were astonished when Felix answered, “I want to marry your sister, Peter.”
“Which one?” Peter was definitely out at sea now, and I was right along with him.
“Lada. Lucy.”
I was glad it was Lucy, since she was older. But that only meant she was seventeen. I was sure Felix was thirty. At least Lucy seemed braver and smarter than her sister or mom.
“Does Lucy return your feeling?” Peter was suddenly the head of the family, at least in Eli’s absence.
“She doesn’t hate me,” Felix said mildly.
But there was a lot Lucy didn’t know about Felix, I was willing to bet good money. I’d never pegged Felix as the marrying kind.
I did enjoy the moment, because it was the first time I’d ever heard Felix sound anything but confident.
“We need to finish talking about Eli. Peter, are you in?” I said.
“Eli is my brother,” Peter said with dignity. “Yes.”
So I had another crew. I didn’t wholly trust or like Felix, and Peter hadn’t been tested yet. But I didn’t have to crack Eli out of jail by myself.
We talked a little more, but it was late afternoon by that time, and I needed time to think by myself.
Peter returned to Hickory Street, which was where he’d been headed when he’d spotted me and Felix. He was staying at his home about half the time now, because the atmosphere in the school dormitory was hostile, he told us.
Felix, who had also been on his way to visit the Savarovs when he’d seen me, offered to drive me back to my hotel. I was glad to accept. The traffic was heavy, so I kept quiet as Felix drove. I was thinking it would have been a busy afternoon for the Savarov women if Peter and Felix had not followed me.
As I got out of the car in front of the Balboa Palace, Felix said, “Let’s meet tomorrow. I have to be on duty for six hours, but after that we can work on a plan.”
“When and where?”
“I’ll come by here at four o’clock.”
“See you then.” I went into the hotel, got my key from Paul McElvaney, and went to my room to ponder. In no particular order, I thought about these things: (1) Felix and Lucy as a couple felt funny and odd. (2) Peter was sure green for a man his age. (3) Maybe some of the grigoris in the cellblock with Eli would be released before we made our attempt to free him, or more would be under arrest. Random factors.
(4) I wondered if there was any way I could carry a concealed gun. I felt very uneasy without one. I could be attacked at any moment. I’d been keeping my eyes open as I walked today, and I’d seen a few clusters of men I deemed dangerous. And I had enemies here; now the older brothers, Dagmar and Bogdan, knew what I looked like. I was real sure they slipped that maid money to find out what happened in the Savarov household.
Maybe bloodshed could be avoided if I could make my way in to speak to the tsar. Though if a genuine aristocrat like Eli’s mom was convinced she couldn’t get in to see Alexei, I didn’t stand much of a chance… if I tried to get in the normal way.
When I’d reached that point in all my wondering, my room felt too small, so I went to get some dinner. Afterward, I could have gone to a movie (something I’d only done once before), but I wasn’t in the mood to have fun. So me and my big ball of worry went back to my room to play catch some more.