Page 137 of The Bone Season

‘I’ll pay you double for the assignments. And you won’t have to polish my antique mirror.’

We shook on it.

It was fascinating to watch Jaxon take control of a situation. On the whole, he would stay in the den – but when he deigned to emerge from his lair, he was a force of nature.

Within hours, he had discovered that conference guests were allowed to go shopping in Covent Garden for an hour a day without a chaperone. He sent a skilled courier to plant a note on Nadine, inviting the pair to a coffeehouse there, warning her not to let on to Scion.

On the day of the meeting, he dressed in his best, immaculate from his collar to his cufflinks.

‘By tonight, we will have two Americans in the Seven Seals, for better or worse.’ He pointed his cane at me. ‘Be ready to polish that mirror, Paige.’

‘In your wildest dreams,’ I called after him.

‘Voyants don’t dream, darling. We achieve.’

The door shut behind him. I shook my head and went back upstairs.

Eliza sketched a design for a dress while I leafed through our files on the local spirits, updating my notes about their haunts. Some of them needed regular attention to stop them causing mayhem. It had been a while since anyone had checked on a nearby poltergeist, William Terriss.

At noon, Jaxon sent us a message by courier:

They are siblings. They are also not American.

‘Let me guess.’ Eliza glanced up. ‘He’s already persuaded them.’

I shut the door. ‘You really think he will?’

‘Jax could sell the sun a candle.’ She swept her pencil down the page. ‘You’ll learn, Paige.’

I kept working. It was another hour before the golden words came in:

The mirror requires elbow grease.

That was the last time I bet against Jaxon Hall.

Jaxon still wasn’t sure exactly what Ezekiel Sáenz was, but he loved a mystery. Now he had convinced the siblings to stay, he was confident Ezekiel would bare his soul, and everything would click into place. If not, he still relished the thought of snatching two tourists and whisking them into the underworld. For him, outwitting Scion was a merry game.

We would be doing the legwork, of course. He would just watch it happen, and admire himself for assembling such loyal followers.

Nadine and Ezekiel were due to fly back to Boston on the thirtieth. Before then, we needed to help them disappear. If Scion realised two outsiders had gone rogue in London, it would hunt them down with every resource at its disposal.

At nightfall, the siblings would leave their hotel. That would be hard enough, since Vigiles guarded all the exits, but Jaxon was confident they could do it. It would certainly test their ingenuity.

Next, they would enter the bustling train station at Inquisitors Cross. Eliza had left clothes there – clothes she had made to their measurements, designed to help them fit into London. Both sets included a hat that would hide their faces from the security cameras. They would change in the toilets, then walk to meet me and Nick on Judd Street.

As soon as the pair were safely in the den, Eliza would set the next part of the plan in motion.

Eliza loved beauty, but was always willing to get both hands dirty. She would leave clues near the hotel – some blood and hair, their old clothes in a public bin, a knife slipped down a drain. Scion would relish it. Scarlett Burnish could use the incident to shed horrifying new light on unnatural crimes.

Most importantly, no one would ever come after the missing siblings. We would teach them to blend in, keep them away from the Vigiles.

‘I still can’t believe Jax convinced them to do this,’ I said to Nick. We were in the car he occasionally used for syndicate business, an old guzzler with fake plates. ‘Their families will think they’re dead.’

‘You know what he’s like. Jax could convince you to jump off a cliff if you listened to him long enough.’

‘Eliza said the same.’

‘Same words?’

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