It was the other half of the pair that interested him. The courier had reported an unusual aura, caught between orange and red. The aura of a fury.

Jax had been scouring the streets for a fury for years, but this was his first hopeful case. He couldn’t believe his luck. He had a vision, a project. Jaxon Hall didn’t just want a gang—oh, no. He wanted a box of jewels, the crème de la crème of voyant society. He wanted the Unnatural Assembly to envy him above all other mime-lords.

“I’ll convince them to stay,” he’d said, pointing his cane at me. “Just you wait, my mollisher.”

“They have lives in their country, Jax. Families.” I wasn’t convinced. “Don’t you think they’ll need time to consider it?”

“No time for that, my dear. Once they leave, I’ll never get them back again. They must stay.”

“In your dreams.”

“I don’t dream. But shall we have a wager?” He extended a hand. “If you lose, you do two assignments with no pay. And polish my antique mirror.”

“And if I win?”

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

I shook his hand.

Jaxon had the gift of the gab. I knew exactly what my father would have said about him: “Now there’s a man who’s kissed the Blarney Stone.” There was something about Jaxon that made you want to please him, to see that wild gleam leap to his eye. He knew he’d get the pair to stay. Having located their hotel and paid a busker to get their names, he sent them an invitation to a “special event” at a fashionable coffeehouse in Covent Garden. I delivered it to the concierge myself, in an envelope addressed to Miss Nadine L. Arnett and Mr. Ezekiel Sáenz.

They sent their details back to us. Half-siblings. Both residents of Boston, the gleaming capital of Massachusetts. On the day of the interview, Jaxon kept us updated by e-mail.

Fabulous. Oh, this is fabulous.

She is most definitely a hisser. Very eloquent. Fantastically rude, too.

The brother intrigues me. Can’t put a finger on his aura. Annoying.

Nick, Eliza, and I waited for another hour before the golden words came in.

They’re staying. Paige, the mirror requires elbow grease.

That was the last time I bet against Jaxon Hall.

Two days passed. While Eliza made room in the den for the newcomers, I walked with Nick to Gower Street to collect them. The idea was that they would just disappear off the radar, as if they’d been abducted and killed. We would leave clues: some bloodied clothes, a hair or two. Scion would love it. They could use it to advertise more unnatural crimes—but most important, they wouldn’t come after the missing siblings.