Oona closed the door to the Captain’s Cabin, her mind racing. She strode several steps to the center of the hallway and stopped to peer at the long line of doors. Behind one of them was her uncle’s attacker.
“How could Grimsbee be the attacker?” Deacon asked from her shoulder. “The laws governing the dagger state very clearly that the assassin must see the victim in order to throw the dagger with their mind.”
“Do you believe that Mr. Grimsbee is truly blind, Deacon? Have you ever seen a blind man act in such a way?”
Deacon considered this for a moment. “But why would Grimsbee want to attack your uncle?”
Oona racked her brain for any kind of motive, but she could not think of a single one. But then again, she still did not see a motive for any of the applicants to have attacked him. The frustration began to build in her like pressure in a steam engine. She kicked her foot against the wall, startling Deacon from her shoulder, and the shock from the kick sent phantom fingers tingling up her leg.
“Ouch!” she said.
“Do be careful,” Deacon replied, returning to her shoulder.
“Hello?” said a voice.
Oona turned in surprise, only to discover the New York boy, Lamont John-Michael Arlington Fitch III, poking his bulldoglike face outside his door. His cheeks flushed as pink as a summer rose beneath his thick, round eyeglasses. “Is everything all right?” he asked rather skittishly. “I heard someone bang on the wall. But oh, I must have been mistaken. So sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you. Good day.”
He moved to close the door again, but Oona stopped him, seizing the opportunity to talk to the boy.
“No, wait,” she said. “It’s my fault. I was the one banging. Or rather, kicking. This whole matter is so upsetting. I would love to have some company … Mr. Fitch, is it? May I come in?”
The boy’s face remained pink. “Ah … I don’t believe that’s … um … proper. A young lady in a gentleman’s room? What would people say?”
Oona smiled at him. “Well, if the gentleman truly is a gentleman, then there is nothing to worry about, is there?”
Lamont’s mouth fell open, as if he could find no logical response, and Oona pressed her hand to the doorknob. The movement startled the boy, and he abruptly stepped away. Oona entered the room and pushed the door closed behind her.
Lamont John-Michael Arlington Fitch III had been given the Pink Room, in which all the colors of the room varied only in slight shades of pink, as if a pink paint bomb had exploded in the center, covering the walls, the curtains, the bed, the plants … even Lamont John-Michael Arlington Fitch III’s well-fitted clothes…. And now Oona’s dress, too, was pink.
Though it was, by all means, the least dangerous room in the house, the Pink Room was by far Oona’s least favorite.
Lamont backed away from both Oona and the absurd-looking pink raven on her shoulder.
“I don’t believe we have been properly introduced,” Oona said, and she put her hand out. “I am Miss Oona Crate. The Wizard’s niece.”
Lamont’s pink eyes met with hers. He took her hand tentatively and shook it. Oona’s gaze flicked toward the pink table near the wall, where two equally pink chairs sat empty.
“Oh … um … forgive me, Miss Crate,” Lamont stammered. “Would you care to sit?”
Oona smiled. “Thank you. That would be most … appropriate.”
She crossed to the table and waited patiently as Lamont pulled the chair out for her. Here was a case where the boy was working so fiercely at being a gentleman that Oona felt her best course of action would be to aid him in his goal.
“You are very kind,” she said. “Won’t you sit as well?”
Lamont glanced nervously toward the door, as if someone might burst in at any moment and find the two of them together in his room … alone. Oona would have to put him at ease.
“The Pink Room,” she said conversationally, “was created by one of the original Magicians of Old, isn’t that right, Deacon?”
Of all the occupants in the room, it was Deacon who appeared the most uncomfortable. His normally foreboding coat of midnight black now radiated a most unbecoming shade of fuchsia.
“Alice Annabel Thicket was the magician’s name,” Deacon answered, though he sounded nothing but displeased with the situation. “Apparently she loved all things pink.”
“I see.” Lamont said thoughtfully. “And these Magicians of Old. They are different from the Wizard?”
Oona nodded. “Technically, a magician is what we call anyone who can work magic, while the Wizard is the title we use for the head of all magic, and the protector of the World of Man: the world that you come from, Mr. Fitch. The Magicians of Old is the name given to powerful men and women who lived in the times before and during the Great Faerie War.”
Lamont sat down heavily in the chair opposite Oona, the legs creaking beneath his bulk. Finally, he said: “Everything is so peculiar here. I admit, I was surprised to have been invited at all. You see, I read the advertisement in the New York Times about the Wizard seeking an apprentice, and immediately created a résumé. I hadn’t much experience in any kind of work, but the advertisement stated that none was necessary.”
Oona and Deacon shared a look. It was typical of her uncle to add such a stipulation to the advertisement. If he couldn’t have Oona, then Uncle Alexander apparently preferred someone with no preconceived notions of magic whatsoever.
Lamont continued: “I showed the résumé to my father, who was oh so proud that I had shown interest in something, but my mother refused to let me send the résumé at all. She threw it into the fire before I had a chance to send it off. So how the Wizard knew that I wished to apply, I don’t know. But six months later I received a letter stating that a carriage would be arriving at precisely eleven p.m. to pick me up with my luggage.”
Oona smiled at him. “Had you already addressed your résumé to Pendulum House when your mother tossed it into the flames?”
“I had indeed,” Lamont said.
“That explains it then,” she said. “Dark Street has no post office to speak of. We send our letters by fire.”
Lamont scratched his chubby cheek for a moment, and then replied: “I had a feeling it was something of that sort. Wizards and all. Well, against my mother’s wishes, my father agreed to let me make the trip on my own. Said it would be good for my character. And yet, you can only imagine my surprise when later that same evening I found myself waiting in a carriage in front of two buildings in a part of New York that I was unfamiliar with. At the stroke of midnight, the buildings no longer sat side by side, but instead an enormous iron gateway stood in between them, as if it had been there the entire time. Beyond the gateway, a broad avenue stretched out for miles and miles. The driver drove us through, and a minute later the gates swung shut behind us.”
Oona raised her eyebrows in polite amusement. She could only imagine his surprise at discovering an invisible street in New York City. For her, however, the extraordinary mystery of the Iron Gates proved to be something short of special.
Lamont continued: “The driver took me to a place called the Nightshade Hotel and Casino. Wonderful accommodations, I can assure you. It puts some of the finest hotels in New York to shame.”
Oona shot Deacon a furtive glance. The Nightshade Hotel was owned and operated by none other than Red Martin himself … and, Oona believed, was the headquarters for the Dark Street criminal underground. But of course, since it was the only hotel on Dark Street, it was no real surprise that Lamont had stayed there. Just then, it occurred to Oona that the Nightshade Hotel was situated at the north end of the street. When she had seen Lamont in his carriage earlier that day, however, he had been miles away, on the south end, directly in front of the Museum of Magical History.
She cleared her throat, preparing to ask him why he had been in that area of town, when the door to the room fell open. It was Samuligan, his cowboy hat and knee-length jacket silhouetted in the light from the hall.
“The inspector has arrived,” he said. “He has asked us all to convene in the parlor. It seems there has already been some further development in the case.”