She folds her hands primly. “I’m afraid my kisses are not for sale, Mr. Lee.”
“Then what do you propose?”
She pretends to consider. “I could refrain from telling your cousin that you propositioned a young lady in such an uncouth fashion, if I lost.”
The humor fades slightly from his face. Annie has come to work on several occasions with bruised knuckles; Agnes suspects there’s a short temper beneath her kerchief and apron. “A compelling counter-offer,” Mr. Lee murmurs. “I accept.”
He drains his beer and stands, setting the glass back on the table with a showman’s flourish. He winks. “Watch closely, now.”
He fishes in his breast-pocket, produces a single green-tipped match, and holds it over the empty glass. He chants a string of foreign-sounding words—Agnes thinks they might be Latin or Greek—and snaps the matchstick.
There’s a delicate ping as the glass cracks and splinters, fissures running through it like frost. It remains standing, held together more by habit than anything else.
A few men are watching from the bar now. They grunt approval. August presents his matchbox to Agnes as if it’s a bouquet.
She unwedges herself from the booth and stands. Her fingers brush his as she selects a match.
She clears her throat and says coolly, “The Sisters of Avalon meet at the South Sybil boarding house, Mr. Lee.” His eyes kindle with admiration. “Knock at Number 7 and say the word hyssop.” It’s the secret code she and her sisters used as girls: hyssop meant all’s well; hemlock meant run and hide.
Agnes holds the match above the fractured glass and stumbles her way through the words. A flicker of heat licks up her spine. She says the words a second time, pouring her will into them: her aching feet and her heavy belly, her hope and her hunger, her bone-deep weariness with handsome young men who barter for kisses like coins. Heat scorches beneath her skin, fever-hot. Her daughter kicks hard in her belly—Sorry, love—
She closes her eyes and snaps the matchstick.
A cracking, shattering sound fills the bar, followed by several unmanly yelps and a great deal of swearing.
Agnes keeps her eyes shut tight, swaying slightly, smelling a sudden green scent like fresh-cut tobacco.
When she opens her eyes she finds a gray wool vest several inches from her nose and two arms held high on either side of her face, shielding her. The heat fades and leaves her cold and dazed, terribly tempted to press her forehead into the heat of that gray wool vest.
Mr. Lee steps back with a slight crunch of glass beneath his boots. His eyes are very wide. A red line gleams across his cheekbone, and another two or three score his forearms. Shouts and grumbles rise around them as men wave the shattered handles of beer mugs at them in an unfriendly fashion.
Mr. Lee dusts splintered glass from his hair and meets her eyes. “Well now, Miss Agnes Amaranth. What was that address?” He smiles as he says it, wry and crooked and a little abashed. The smugness has been replaced by an intent gleam in his eyes.
“South Sybil Street. Come after dark and keep quiet in the hall—the landlady disapproves of gentleman callers.”
She turns to leave, picking her way through glittering shards and spilt liquor, and he calls after her, “May I bring flowers?”
Agnes does not look back as she leaves, so that he cannot see her smile. “I’m sure you may bring whatever you please, Mr. Lee, so long as you bring magic also.”
Juniper is sitting cross-legged on the bed, tossing a slightly wizened apple from palm to palm while Bella reads from one of her dustiest and most dull-looking books, when Agnes returns to South Sybil.
She’s sweaty and cross, with glittering specks caught in the dark swirl of her hair. “Any luck?” Juniper asks her.
Agnes gives a dark ha. “I found Mr. Lee, if that’s what you mean. But there’s nothing lucky about him—he’s arrogant, feckless, probably criminal—not nearly as handsome as he thinks he is—” Agnes is frowning at her own reflection in the cracked shard that serves as her mirror. She tugs and fusses at her hair, dissatisfied in some unfathomable fashion.
“To hell with him, then,” Juniper says mildly. “We’ll find some other boy to teach us men’s magic. Somebody’s bound to have an uncle or a brother—”
“No!” Agnes’s voice is several degrees sharper than is strictly warranted. “That is, Mr. Lee has already agreed to help. He’ll be here soon, maybe tomorrow evening.” She casts a disgruntled look around the room, eyes lingering on the tumbled piles of papers and books, the frayed lengths of black cloth, the herbs strung in drying bundles before the window, and the Mason jars rattling with seeds and bones. South Sybil bears an increasing resemblance to Mama Mags’s house.
“I’m going out,” Agnes announces.
“What for?”
Agnes gestures vaguely behind her as she sweeps out. “A vase.”
Juniper watches her go with her jaw slightly slack. She looks at Bella and finds her eyes crimped behind her spectacles. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. It’s just—our sister has always had low taste in men.” Juniper finds this so baffling and absurd that she can think of no response.
She changes the subject instead. “I saw Cleo here earlier. What did she bring us?”
Bella blushes. Juniper has noticed lately that she blushes often at the mention of Cleo Quinn. “Oh, I asked if she could find us anything about Miss Grace Wiggin. Since you continue to insist that she’s a wicked witch of nefarious powers.”
“She is a wicked—”
“Miss Quinn made some inquiries. Grace grew up in the Home for Lost Angels—the orphanage,” she clarifies, in response to Juniper’s blank stare, “before she was adopted at sixteen by an older gentleman who had no heirs and a generous inheritance from an uncle. A gentleman who is now a member of the City Council.”
“Who?”
“A Mr. Gideon Hill.”
Juniper puzzles over this for a while, wondering if it clarifies anything or merely obscures it further. “So. She’s just campaigning for her daddy?
