Page 38 of Pandora

Matthew lets out a caustic laugh. “You’re a liar. I see you limp. It will begin to rot, just like this.” He points first at his wrist, then at Hezekiah. “You have brought a disease onto us.”

“It is a vase! A bit of Greek pottery, nothing more.”

“Then how do you explain all this?”

“Coincidence.”

“There is a fine line between coincidence and fate,” he says, and Hezekiah scoffs. Matthew watches him. “Why is this thing so important to you?” he asks finally.

Hezekiah looks away.

“It’s none of your damn business.”

“I think we’ve just established it is.”

Hezekiah hesitates. “It... belonged to me. Many years ago. I am reclaiming it, that’s all.”

“How much is it worth?” Matthew shoots back.

Hezekiah hesitates again. “Enough.”

“Then why have you not sold it?”

“I told you,” he says stubbornly. “It won’t open.”

“There’s something inside?”

It is exhausting, all this back and forth. Hezekiah does not feel he should be questioned like this, like a criminal. But the faster he answers the faster he can leave, and as Hezekiah thinks on the question he realizes there is no way to lie.

“Yes,” he answers, short. “As soon as I have retrieved what I need then I will sell. The usual routes. I don’t understand why it does not open,” he finishes bitterly.

“Perhaps it does not want to open.”

“It. Is. A. Vase,” Hezekiah bites out.

“It. Is. Cursed,” Matthew returns.

“And I still say you speak nonsense! It has a lid, it opens. There must be a mechanism, a seal, something I am missing. It was opened before, so it can be opened again now. I know it can.”

There is a space of taut silence. Outside, the river laps at the wharf and the angry slop of water on the muddy banks is somehow, oddly, calming.

“I won’t wait, Hezekiah,” says Matthew. The lackey has never addressed him by first name before, and the sound of it on his tongue makes Hezekiah bristle. “I need treatment for my brothers. For me. I won’t earn enough in time from small jobs alone. Our welfare is in your hands.”

“I...” Hezekiah wipes a palm across his face. “I will send Lottie, for now. She knows some things. Healing hands, she has. And I’ll get you the money. I will.”

“I will go to the authorities if you fall back on your word.”

“I will get you the money.” Hezekiah cannot keep the whine from his voice and hates himself for it. “I just need more time.”

“Time,” Matthew Coombe answers, “is precisely what we don’t have.”

Chapter Seventeen

Cornelius, Edward notes—not without a little distress—is determined to think ill of Pandora Blake.

“I simply do not trust her,” he says, piercing a green bean on his plate with more ferocity than is entirely necessary. “You’re barely acquainted with the girl and yet here you are throwing yourself at her mercy. For all you know she could be a swindler as well as her uncle.”

Edward frowns. “I rather suspect she is throwing herself on mine. If you had seen her face when I suggested the possibility of black-market trading you’d know she is nothing of the sort. Honestly,” adds Edward as his friend lifts the bean-laden fork to his mouth, “you have such little faith.”

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