I sank the last dart into the dartboard and Levi patted my chair. When I sat down next to him once more, he squeezed my thigh before continuing to work on the lock while I leaned in toward him, like a flower gaining warmth from the sun.
“What else can you tell us about them?” Arkady said. “Other than they’re steeped in a Kabbalistic ideology and operate in the shadows.”
“The group is always ruled by ten people,” Rafael said. “Originally it was the ten men who represented each of the Lost Tribes of Israel, but in modern times, both women and non-Jews have been among the leaders. Though the last time one was unmasked was in the mid-twentieth century and we have no idea who is in command now. Think of them as a global consortium with money and manpower we simply cannot match. They are powerful people with their fingers in a lot of pies.”
Priya nodded somberly, discreetly texting under her desk.
Adler: He could stick his finger in my pie.
Me: Please get laid tonight and not by him.
Adler: Don’t be greedy. You’ve got one of your own.
Me: You’ve got the wrong idea.
She rolled her eyes.
“I should let the Queen know this about Chariot.” Levi tossed the unopened lock and tools on my desk with an exasperated sigh.
“I beg your pardon,” Rafael said. “The Queen?”
“Of Hedon,” Levi said. “I’ve formed an alliance with her to root out information about Chariot.”
Rafael slammed his hand down on Priya’s desk. “Are you out of your bloody mind?!”
Levi’s mask of pure haughtiness slid into place. “I’m doing what’s necessary to protect my House.”
“By giving classified information to a criminal?”
“Levi is only sharing what’s relevant to learning more about Chariot. The Queen is also investigating from her end,” I said. “She won’t break her word, once given, and she won’t sell us out.”
“You knew about this?” Rafael’s jaw got tight.
“I thought we were only exchanging salient facts.” I fiddled with the wooden ring on the chain. Rafael had been raised to treat all of this with the utmost secrecy and I’d pushed that need-to-know circle wider and wider. This was Rafael’s life and Levi and I hadn’t even done him the courtesy of including him in the conversation. “Yeah. I did.”
I bit into my second donut to help me get the fortitude to solve this problem.
“Slow down there, sugar rush,” Levi said.
I bit back a stupid grin because that’s what I’d called Levi when we were in our Lillian and Santino personas. I nodded at the lock. “Quitters don’t get to throw shade.”
He made a snarky face and picked up the tools again.
“We don’t know for sure that Adam actually had the scroll or if he was bluffing Gavriella,” Arkady said.
I nodded. “Legitimate databases may not have yielded results, but the dark web might. Pri?”
Priya rubbed her hands together. “I’m on it.”
“If you can find whomever ended up with that piece after the war,” Arkady said, “I’ll pay them a visit and try to establish a trail from that point to Adam. Verify whether or not he actually had it.”
“I’ll provide you both with a detailed description of the scrolls,” Rafael said.
“Why can’t we see them ourselves?” Levi said.
“That wouldn’t be wise,” he said.
Levi’s eyes narrowed. “Why not? You don’t trust me?”
Rafael hesitated a beat too long. “The only people who can use magic to appear in the library are Ashira and myself and I refuse to remove the scrolls from where they are safest.”
Levi pressed his lips into a thin line, but he didn’t argue the point.
I pushed away my donut, feeling slightly queasy. “Priya will search the dark web. Arkady will follow up with her findings. Rafael, help me build a timeline. We’ll start with the night Dad left and go through to when this meeting with Gavriella was supposed to occur. Since you Attendants document everything so thoroughly.”
“Is there anyone else you can reach out to about your father?” Rafael said. “Family perhaps, who might have seen him after he left you and your mother?”
“They’re in Montreal,” I said. “He was estranged from his parents and didn’t have any siblings.”
“It still might be worth following up,” Priya said. “Arkady, since you’re waiting on me, why not check out the Maison de Champlain database and follow up discreetly? If that’s okay with Ash.”
“I wouldn’t,” Arkady said, with a dismissive shake of his head.
“Why not?” she said.
Arkady spread his hands wide. “Ash said they were estranged. Adam wouldn’t have reached out to them and if they haven’t bothered to contact their own granddaughter in all this time, why open old wounds?”
“He’s right,” I said. “Dad wouldn’t have contacted them. I don’t know what happened, but there was no love lost there. His parents made their choice not to have me in their life. They’re not family and I don’t want to go down that road.”
“That’s wise,” Arkady said.
Why did he sound so definitive on the matter? The man was an enigma. Just when I thought he was trustworthy, some tiny detail aroused my suspicions anew. My gut told me he wasn’t Chariot—but he was hiding something.
There was a click and Levi’s eyes grew wide as the lock tumbled open, a boyish grin splitting his face. “I did it.”
“Told you,” I said.
“Miles is not going to be happy with you,” Arkady said in a discouraging tone.
“What else is new?” Levi said.
“I meant Ash,” Arkady said.
“So did I,” Levi said.
I elbowed him. “Show some gratitude for your new criminal skill set.”
“If you two are finished dragging Levi down the path of villainy,” Priya said, “could we maybe figure out if there’s anyone else to investigate in terms of getting a lead on your dad?”
I nodded. “There might be someone I could try.”
The one lead out of all of them that I’d never followed up with. It was time to go see the person my father had dubbed “the Midnight Madman.”
Chapter 13
“Rafael. Could I speak to you please?” I said.
Rafael was chatting
