Rafael stared down at the journal, his mind obviously far away. He didn’t share his thoughts, shaking himself out of his stupor a moment later. “I ascertained that the codename your father used for his boss—26L1—fit the same pattern as the only other recorded codename we have. A number followed by a letter and another number. Though no Attendant or Jezebel ever cracked it.”
“Do you mind if we share the codename with the Queen?” I said. “It falls under the parameters of the agreement with Levi.”
He frowned. “This will take some getting used to, but very well.”
A text came in. “It’s from Arkady,” I said. “He emailed me photos of the New York Avi Chomskys and wants my opinion if any of them are Adam.” I opened my laptop to see the photos on a larger screen, but couldn’t bring myself to log on. “Sorry.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I’m being horribly unprofessional. Just give me a minute.”
Rafael pulled out his phone, hit a few buttons and set it on the table between us. He’d literally set a one-minute timer.
I opened my mouth to lay into him and he nudged me playfully.
“Fucker,” I muttered.
“Rethinking your stance on personal connections, perchance?”
I scowled at him, his levity giving me the push to keep going. “If Dad’s been in hiding then it’s plausible that his hair color, eye color, and weight are going to be different than I remember.” I pulled up a photo on my phone of my father that I’d scanned a few years ago.
It was the summer before he left. Dad and I were sitting on the grass in our backyard, laughing about something I no longer remembered. It was a perfectly ordinary moment, one of thousands I’d taken for granted. At least, that was what I’d told myself when I’d snuck the photo out of the albums that Talia had in storage and made a copy. I’d had all these opportunities to make memories with my father and I’d wasted them because I didn’t realize how finite they were. Then I’d gotten angry at him for not giving me more chances. No one wanted to grow up without a parent—how could he do this to me?
But now I could appreciate that the big moments in my life—my high school and college graduations, me getting Moriarty and Talia finally trusting me behind the wheel again, my first job—all of these were things Dad had denied himself so that I could live a perfectly ordinary life free from harm. His leaving me wasn’t the biggest asshole move: it was the greatest gift of love.
Clarity. Dad still had a lot of explaining to do, but it was time to acknowledge that there was a lot more to him than just the parts that made me angry. Time to take him out of the box of the man who’d abandoned and betrayed me and remember all of him.
“So, this is a picture of Adam.” I blinked quickly, hoping Rafael wouldn’t see how damp my eyes were. “His basic face shape would be the same. I can start by comparing the bone structure and—”
Rafael took my phone away. “You’re a mess. Allow me.”
“How can I refuse such a compassionate offer?”
“You can’t.” He motioned at my laptop. “Come along, log in. I’m desperate to go out for some real tea after this.”
I pushed my unlocked computer over to him. “I’m literally crying over my dad here and all you can do is complain about the tea. You’re terrible.”
“Not terrible,” Rafael said, clicking over to my mail program, “only British.” He took forever to sort through the possible men, carefully comparing each one to the old picture of Adam, all while I bit my fingernails down to the quick.
Mrs. Hudson wore herself out and fell asleep.
“This is the only potential candidate.” He turned the screen around.
My breath caught. The man could have been Dad’s brother. But close only counted in horseshoes and hand grenades.
“It’s not him.” I fired a text to Arkady to continue on to Mexico.
Rafael moved over to the framed book covers on the wall, examining them. “I went with Miles when he drove Mayan home. She was quite distraught.”
I groaned. “Shit. I didn’t mean to dump that on you. I couldn’t deal with her and had to get out of there. Hey, is there anything in all your Attendant journals about necromancy? One of the journals did mention Repha’im.”
“Our knowledge of Repha’im is quite superficial and there’s unlikely to be anything on necromancy. That’s not why I brought up Mayan, however.” He stopped, cleared his threat, then looked at the ceiling. “You did well. Often Jezebels tend to only be able to promise revenge for those who have been wronged, not actually be able to prevent the wrongs before they are undoable. Your methods may be unorthodox, but you saved Mayan from being imprisoned and from blemishing her conscience. And you saved Alfie as well.”
I almost fell out of my spectacularly comfortable chair. Rafael, praising me? Admitting that even though he didn’t agree with how I got there, my solution was sound? Quick, someone check my pulse. But the glow soon wore off as I remembered the rest of what had happened last night. What I still had to deal with.
“Thanks, that means a lot.” I said. “But it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. I broke a tiara that Priya let me borrow. I’m sure that seems silly in the grand scheme of chasing Chariot and saving lives and everything, but well, without betraying any confidences, it was quite precious to her.”
How many more casualties
