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Chapter 23

Nora

“So are you going to tell me how it is that you know Oskar Wallen?” Nora asked the back of August’s head. The stalls of Silverlight Fish Market were pressed so close together they had to move single file behind the man with the knife, Joachim. Ahead of her, Nora could see the tension written in August’s shoulders.

She’d been hoping that at some point in the journey down to the docks, he would have taken it upon himself to enlighten her. She was, after all, mostly here because she was curious. And because if August was murdered by the city’s most notorious gangster, she would have to find a new journalist.

“Why do they call him Ears anyway?” Nora asked loudly as they wove their way through the crowd.

“Because.” August finally stopped, turning to face her in between a stall selling mackerel and another one loaded with still-twitching shrimp. Both of the stalls were layered with charms to keep the fish from spoiling. “He hears everything that happens in this city. Do you think you could be talking any louder?”

“Probably.” Nora shrugged. August’s nerves didn’t touch her. It didn’t matter who this man was. She was a Holtzfall. He might be untouchable to the police, but she was untouchable to everyone. And she was wearing so many charms that she challenged anyone to get within six feet of her if she didn’t want them to. “Who are you afraid will hear anyway? It can’t be a secret that he does his work around here.”

“Oskar’s never in the same place twice,” August said. “How do you think the cops haven’t caught him?”

“I assumed rampant bribery.”

August made to turn away, but Nora caught the pocket of his jacket, turning him back to face her. “How do you know Oskar Wallen?” she repeated, lowering her voice, conscious that the man August had called Joachim was waiting expectantly for them a few feet ahead.

August hesitated, and Nora watched as he surrendered. “He came up on the streets with my father.” Nora knew the broad strokes of Oskar Wallen. Born fatherless to a laundress who was dead before he saw six years. Oskar Wallen started life picking pockets, then falling in as a runner for the gangster of the moment, Leon Junge. When Leon Junge was killed, Oskar Wallen started his ascension.

“So your father works for Oskar Wallen?”

“They worked for Leon Junge. When Junge died and Oskar climbed up, my father went straight. But Oskar paid for my father’s burial.” He skipped over his father’s death so swiftly that Nora knew he didn’t want questions or sympathy. “He isn’t a man who forgets an old friend. He’s also not a man you keep waiting.”

They reached a small metal door that led into a brick building overlooking the market. Joachim banged his fist against the metal, letting it reverberate. The door swung open almost instantly, held by a man whose hands looked like they could’ve cracked a normal person in half.

As they stepped over the threshold, Nora felt the familiar snap of magic in the air a second before her glamour slipped off her. Her hand flew to the locket, but it was no good. The second she sparked it back to life, it extinguished again.

August glanced at her over his shoulder. “No charms around Oskar Wallen.” He was seeing her real face for the first time all day. And Nora watched him take her in swiftly, the way he had last night at the ceremony.

“I wish I’d known.” The slight thrill of danger, of being without her charms, traveled up her spine. “I have so much uncharmed jewelry I never get the chance to wear.”

They traveled up a short flight of stairs and emerged into a large empty room. It had all the trappings of a disused customs house. A large window overlooked the river. The remnants of old shipping crates littered one corner. The only other thing in the room was a hulking oak desk flanked by two equally hulking men, and a very much non-hulking man sitting behind it.

He was backlit by the warehouse’s single immense window, so for a moment all Nora could see of the figure sitting at a desk was a silhouette with two translucent protruding ears.

“Oh,” she said, not bothering to lower her voice. “ That’s why they call him Ears.”

Next to her, August went tense, but from the desk there came an amused voice. “All the better to hear you with, my dear.”

Oskar Wallen took on a firmer shape as they moved toward him. A man in his early forties, wearing a well-tailored three-piece suit. The vest was a bright paisley print, with an impeccably paired pocket square and cravat. The knot was pierced by a pearl-encrusted tie pin in the shape of a bee. But even though his garish clothes and his ears stood out, nothing else about him did. He had the same haircut as every man in the city, and a bland sort of expression that would fit right in with a crowd of bankers and lawyers.

“Miss Holtzfall.” He inclined his head in greeting. If Oskar Wallen was surprised to see a Holtzfall in the company of a journalist, he didn’t show it. “Auggie, what’s this I hear about you saying all around town you’re working for me?” His tone was mild, but Nora couldn’t help feeling there was a definite right and wrong answer to this. “Don’t tell me you’ve finally come around after all these years?”

“Just following up a story.” The casual shrug August gave belied the nervous energy she could feel pouring off him.

“And what story might that be?”

“We’re looking for the cop who stole my mother’s ring to fence it.” Nora ignored the look August shot her. “But since you already knew we’d dropped your name, you also already knew what we were asking about. You just wanted to see whether we would lie to you.”

Oskar Wallen’s hands folded together, obscuring the smile on his face. “I would hope a Holtzfall in the midst of the Veritaz Trials would be too smart to lie.” He wasn’t wrong there. Although Nora didn’t think even the Huldrekall would turn Oskar Wallen into a trial.

He leaned back in his chair. “This ring you’re after, what was it? Ruby?”

“Emerald.”

“Of course. Green always flatters blondes.” Oskar’s own bejeweled fingers drummed across the table thoughtfully.

“You’ve heard something,” August said. It wasn’t a question.

“I hear a lot of things.” Oskar tapped his ear.

“You tweaked a shielding charm to turn inward instead of outward. That’s why charms don’t work in here.” All the while they had been talking, there had been another part of Nora’s mind working away at this minor mystery. And the final piece had just clicked together. “A disruptor charm would do the same, of course, but it wouldn’t account for such controlled range. And if the disruptor spilled out beyond the walls of this building, merchants might start to wonder why their fish is rotting and their ice is melting when they have charms on their stalls. The only other option would be to charm the whole building, but that amount of work would be impossible to duplicate daily if you really are moving offices that often. And there’s no real reason that a charm that is meant to shield from outside magic couldn’t be turned inside out. Very clever.”

Oskar’s grin spread far enough now that she could see it behind his clasped hands. “As are you.”

“I’m aware.”

Oskar considered the two of them before turning his attention to a newspaper on his desk, leafing through it languidly. “Your grandmother, the one who isn’t a Holtzfall, they say has an excellent mind for business. I’ve heard you take after her more than Mercy Holtzfall.”

“If you know who has my mother’s ring,” Nora said, skipping over whatever bait he was throwing her way, “why not just take it for yourself? It’s worth millions of zaub.”

“It could be worth billions, and it still wouldn’t be enough money to risk being caught with evidence from the murder of the century.”

Nora had a feeling she knew where this was going. “So what’s your price to tell us?”

“Information.” Oskar turned to the front page of the newspaper now. Ottoline’s face stared up at them. “Her father.” He tapped the picture. “Who is he?”

Nora could have been given a hundred guesses, and she still never would have thought the city’s greatest mobster would ask about Aunt Grace’s dirty laundry. “You’d rather have gossip than money?”

“Gossip. Leverage.” Oskar leaned back in his chair. “Your grandmother, I mean the Holtzfall one, went to a lot of trouble to hide her existence. I’m curious as to why.”

Blackmail, then.

“Aunt Grace and my grandmother have lied to me for sixteen years,” Nora hedged. It should have been easy to just agree to this price. Her grandmother and Aunt Grace hadn’t shown any loyalty to her yesterday. She didn’t owe them loyalty either. “Why would they tell me the truth now?”

“If the truth was something your aunt was willing to just tell you, it would probably be useless to me. You’re a clever girl. There are other ways to find out.” Oskar leaned back in his chair, his attention returning to the papers, Nora could feel August’s gaze boring into her, but she kept her eyes fixed on Oskar Wallen. She didn’t want to see whether he was urging her to agree or to walk away, either was likely to make her want to do the opposite.

“Here it is, Miss Holtzfall: If you bring me a little leverage, I’m sure we could track down who has your mother’s ring. If you don’t, then you and Auggie will have a grand time interrogating every pawnshop owner in town. I’ll even be gracious and let you continue to drop my name. It’s really no skin off my nose. But you’ll likely wear holes in your shoes before you get any answers.”