Matthew settled himself back into a chair, as did Julian. The Owl walked over to warm his pale hands by the fireplace and Matthew suffered a start; if the Owl connected him with the memory of The Green Spot’s fireplace …

But for the moment it did not happen. Matthew kept his face averted, staring at the floor. He wondered about Lash being such an ‘honorable man’. How did an honorable man, even being so driven as he was to both seize the book of potions and get the airship plans, wind up in partnership with Cardinal Black? And this whole affair had the whiff of madness—or desperation—about it. Matthew wondered if the Owl was not the link that had connected Lash with Black, and Lash’s money and warped purpose had found a ready hand from the cardinal and Black’s gang of cutthroats—the same gang that had killed all the Broodies for their supply of the drug-laced gin called White Velvet. Again, the seizing of the book and this auction had to have been planned for nearly a year, and how Lash had gotten in contact with the various assassins’ guilds and so forth was a mystery; perhaps that too was the Owl’s doing. Matthew imagined that if Lash had not been successful in getting the book that night, these killers would’ve executed him on the spot for having come all the distances for nothing, so Lash had taken a dangerous risk indeed.

And also there was the second book that Black had been after but had failed to get: the copy of The Lesser Key of Solomon that had been in Fell’s library. Surely Black realized that if Mother Deare had not met him at the tower near Adderlane, as planned, she had either been captured by the professor or had lost her life. So … though Lash’s purpose for the raid had been carried out, the failure to get that second book must be a source of irritation—possibly anger—for the cardinal.

A servant with glasses of red wine on one of the ubiquitous silver trays appeared and roamed the room, but the wine was accepted only by Merda and Krakowski, who evidently had not had enough of a bad thing. After a few moments, a second servant came in to say, “Gentlemen and madam? If you’ll follow me, please.”

“Be ready for anything,” Julian whispered to Matthew as they followed at the end of the human caravan. The servant opened a door in another hallway and down they went along a set of lantern-illuminated stone steps. Further down and the walls themselves became formed of what looked to be ancient gray stone, and then the stairs led them through an arched passageway and by the light of several lamps Julian and Matthew saw a series of stone benches arranged above and around a circular dirt-floored pit.