Page 128 of Moonlight Hearts

Above our heads, a chandelier hung, shaped like a wagon wheel but made of iron.The floor was creamy marble, and a marble staircase just off the center led upstairs.Windows high in the wall above the door let in some natural light to brighten those stairs, though not much of that light made it to where we stood.

“And where do you think you’re going?”Ambrose asked.

Echo stopped, letting his head droop.“To Lord Hawthorne’s office.”

Elias cocked his head.“My office?Well, yes.That makes sense.I suppose it very much does.Ambrose, could you arrange for refreshments for our guests?”

“I’m not your maid.”Ambrose then pulled out his phone and shot off a text.“Done.”

Elias took my hand and leaned in.“He gets grumpy.You know the type.”

Echo raised his head and continued on.We all followed him through the gorgeous house.The high ceilings were the dominant feature, much like in Soyer’s place, but he’d had to merge two floors to get the effect.I couldn’t even say whether this house had been something else or whether it had been built to these exact specifications.

I also wasn’t exactly sure what I had expected when Elias had pestered me to come visit him.I knew that he, Valentin, and Elias were rich, not least because they ran the underground and much else from what I’d gleaned.Yet, knowing someone had accumulated vast wealth through vampiric longevity and seeing it were two very different things.It made me feel unprepared and…small.

It was when we walked through a plush living room with big couches and mythical-looking tapestries on the white walls that my manners kicked in.

“The garden is lovely, by the way.The house too.”

Elias received the compliment with a polite smile.“It’s really very big, but not as drafty as some manor houses I’ve been forced to spend the night at.Do you truly like it?Oh, we could have sleepovers!Ambrose, wouldn’t that be nice?”Elias fake-whispered to me, “Ambrose thinks I’m lava.”

“Why?”

Elias shrugged his shoulders, making the movement extra big.“I wouldn’t know that.He just says things sometimes and then other people are supposed to understand, even if it makes no sense at all.”

“It’s because it’s not wise to get too close to a pickpocket,” Ambrose grumbled.

“Which I am absolutely not.”Elias put a hand to his chest and did the puppy eyes.

Ahead of us, Echo abruptly stopped, froze, then rubbed his face.“I’m not sure where this is, but what we’re going to have to do is meet up with the other three at Caecilius’s hideout.When I say meet up, I mean we have to engineer it just right to have them get there when we need them there.Finesse and timing.”

Elias clicked his tongue.“No one knows where that hideout is, not even Mr.Bennet.How would we arrange for a secret meeting?The first rule of a successful rendezvous is that all parties know where to go to have one.”

Echo gestured in the general direction of the front door and what was beyond.“Well, he’s in the city.”

“I thought having a witch here was bad, but now Caecilius has a hideout here?This is a reason to fucking move,” Thaeros said.“I thought Newstaten would be safe.”

Ambrose frowned at Echo.“Bennet kills witches, and if he can do it, other people might have a shot as well.I can think of a lot of stuff no naga would survive.The only people who need to go are the witch and Caecilius.Assuming all this is real.”

Echo clicked his teeth together.“I actually like how suspicious you are of everything.”

Ambrose lowered his chin.“Not falling for that.”

“My point.”

Elias clapped his hands.“It’s not that I mind dicks, but the measuring of them can get so very old so very fast.”He reached for my hand again.“Amory, come along.I’ll show you my busy office.It’s not my studio, but it’s where I get busy doing things for Valentin and Simeon, for Hawthorne in general.You’ll like it.It smells of all work and no fun at all in there.”

With me in tow, he breezed past the others, taking the lead.

Elias’s office wasn’t what I’d thought it would be.It had the high ceilings and the white walls, plus a big modern meeting table and a very large desk with several screens set against one wall.Above it, clocks hung, a row of them, each telling the time in a different city.There was Newstaten, of course, then there was London, also Reykjavik.

Elias had told us to sit at the big table, and I’d angled my chair so I could see what he was doing.Echo was standing behind him, and Ambrose was at the end of the desk, arms crossed as he frowned at the both of them while they went over surveillance footage and maps, among other things.

Next to me, Thaeros was fidgeting, playing with the button on his shirt.

“How long have you been up?”I asked them.

“Oh.”They looked out the window.“It’s getting dark again.Huh.Maybe twenty hours or so.”