The scion knew he must apply himself to the next riddle but balked at the prospect. Somehow, he had formed a mental association between Annabeth’s death and the relic hunt. She might still be alive if he hadn’t left to blindly follow his father’s orders. Who knew if his next absence might not result in a worse catastrophe than a dead wife? He realized the notion was irrational, but the two events had become fused in his psyche and, try as he might, he couldn’t separate them. The association had drained his enthusiasm for solving the next riddle.
He snapped to attention when he realized his father had finally finished speaking. People were standing up and filing out of the chapel. He woke Sarah and set her on her feet. Taking her by the hand, he led her through the gauntlet of congregation members who waited to offer them both condolences. She behaved patiently enough during the ordeal until the crowd dispersed. His other wives came up last of all with their daughters to claim Sarah.
He bent down and told her, “I’ll come by to see you later this afternoon. Alright?”
She nodded without a murmur, looking back over her shoulder at him as she was led away by the rest of his small family.
He stood and straightened his coat, preparing to go back to the study room. As he turned, he realized a man blocked his path. It was his brother Joshua.
***
“Oh, it’s you,” Daniel observed without enthusiasm.
The spymaster barely noticed his brother’s less than warm greeting. Joshua was too irritated by the inordinate fuss their father was making over Annabeth’s death to register offense at this minor slight. One dead wife was hardly worth considering when one had so many others. No doubt, Abraham had already selected a younger and prettier woman as Annabeth’s replacement—a reward which his brother scarcely deserved. Since Joshua was denied the pleasure of expressing any overt hostility toward the scion, he settled for rubbing salt in the wound of Daniel’s grief.
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” he began, his voice heavy with sympathy.
“Thank you.” Daniel nodded curtly and started walking down the corridor.
Joshua joined him. “It was quite sudden, wasn’t it?” he asked in hopes of churning up painful memories which his brother was probably doing his best to suppress.
“I couldn’t say. I was out of the country at the time.”
“But surely Father gave you some details,” Joshua persisted, seeking to find a weak spot.
Daniel sighed. “He said she took a turn for the worse while I was gone and suffered a nervous collapse.”
Joshua nodded gravely. “Yes, her behavior grew uncontrollable shortly after your departure. She needed to be sedated and confined to her room.”
Daniel wheeled on him fiercely. “How do you know this?”
At last, Joshua had struck a nerve. Suppressing a sense of triumph, the spymaster innocently raised his eyebrows. “It was hardly a secret. Everyone knew. Father tasked me with posting guards in front of her room. No one was allowed to see her but the doctors from the hospital. Several of them came and went for a week or so. She was rambling much of the time, out of her head. Soon after that, she was taken away.”
The spymaster watched Daniel’s face contort with regret at the pitiful picture of Annabeth in her last days. Joshua drove the knife home. “Poor lost creature. I’m sure your presence would have made all the difference to her. She might still be alive today.” He shook his head. “But you were thousands of miles away when she died all alone. How sad.”
Daniel turned his back though Joshua was sure he’d seen his brother’s eyes well up with tears.
The spymaster paused, choosing his next words carefully. “Did Father tell you anything more about the circumstances of her passing?”
Daniel’s shoulders slumped in an attitude of defeat. He turned back around to face his brother’s relentless cross-examination. “He said she contracted a highly contagious disease while she was at the hospital. It was so dangerous that her body had to be cremated afterward.”
Joshua’s sharp intake of breath sounded like a hiss. He felt genuinely startled. The spymaster had heard nothing of this, and it was his business to know everything that passed among the Nephilim. Quickly recovering his composure, he offered a bland smile of condolence. “What a tragedy.”
Daniel was studying him intently.
Apparently, Joshua had betrayed himself. His desire for information had become too apparent. “It must have been a deadly disease to require such drastic measures,” he observed, still hopeful that his brother might drop a few additional crumbs.
“Yes, well, everybody dies,” Daniel countered acidly, not offering any further details.
“That’s quite true,” Joshua agreed. “But not everybody dies in such a way. What a misfortune for you.”
Daniel barely heard him. They’d arrived at the reading room door, and the scion was on the point of entering. “I’ll leave you here,” he announced, obviously relieved to have arrived at his destination.
“Yes, goodbye.” Joshua nodded pensively. Baiting his brother no longer held any interest for him. The scrap of information Daniel had unwittingly provided made the spymaster long for solitude. He needed to be alone with his thoughts because they were beckoning him down quite an unexpected path.
Chapter 12—It’s Hip to Be Square
A mere two days after Cassie and Griffin had landed in Shenyang, they found themselves following Zhang Jun and Zhang Rou through another urban landscape a thousand miles to the west. This time they were trudging the streets of the equally modern city of Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province in northwestern China.
Cassie’s first impression, formed as their plane was descending, was that this
