“Uh…” Caught off guard by the question, Ilsa looked at Eliot.
“Silver,” Eliot cut in. “Round. The chain probably attaches to a cap which stoppers the contents.”
Oren sighed. “Then I believe it is at the St Genevieve Orphanage on Kennington Road, in the London of the Otherworld.” His eyes calmly met those of Hester and the lieutenants, before coming to rest on Ilsa. “Since that is where I hid it, seventeen years ago.”
Ilsa’s head swam. Her own ribcage tried to smother her. It was the feeling that overwhelmed her in confined spaces, but it was happening right here in the Zoo.
“Oren,” said Cassia, aghast. “You—”
“You’re telling us this now?” said Hester. Her back was rod-straight, her chin was tilted fiercely, and in that moment, she looked bigger than all of them.
“I hoped not to tell you at all,” said Oren unapologetically, “but if Gedeon is truly headed to the orphanage, then we have run out of time.”
“Oren,” said Hester, her voice low. “If you have kept something from me, I suggest you explain yourself fast.”
“There is a lot you must understand,” he said. “You know, all of you, that I was among those Changelings whose debts Alpha Lyander bought when the newly drafted Principles permitted her to do so. She found me in an antiques shop in the Heart, helping the man who kept me to trade and keep shop, when an amulet fitting Eliot’s description came to him in a contents auction. It was in a trinket box with some other jewels. It was tarnished, and the clasp was stuck. When he got it open and found traces of blood, he of course knew at once that the amulet had magic. It was no great leap to work out how to test that magic. Out of caution, he tested it on me.”
Oren delicately laced his fingers together. His movements, his speech; he was always so controlled. Hearing what he had suffered, Ilsa wondered what he was controlling. “I won’t patronise you by labouring the point, but legends are not reliable. If the thing that came to Lazaro was the same amulet you describe, then I doubt the fairy tale tells the whole truth. I doubt that it tells of the way the amulet consumed blood; of its boundless greed. A single drop of my blood would make Lazaro a Sorcerer-Changeling for a day, and then he would take another. And every drop tore my magic from me with an agony I cannot describe. I was not just without my magic. It cost me my strength, my wits, at times my sanity. Working for a Sorcerer, I knew some of what their magic was capable of, but I had known nothing like that amulet, and I’ve known nothing like it since.”
Ilsa shuddered imagining what Gedeon would inadvertently become responsible for if he obtained the amulet. What if he had it already? What if he had tried to use it?
“Lazaro Tilley was not an ambitious man,” Oren continued, “nor a particularly clever one. He never understood the power of what he possessed, nor how much the right person would pay for it. It’s been nearly nineteen years and still I thank the stars every morning and night that he did not. That he only viewed the amulet as a tool for his… dare I say, his amusement.”
Amusement. Ilsa swallowed hard, but the lump in her throat remained.
“Still, I couldn’t risk such evil falling into the hands of anyone else. So once I was freed, as soon as I had recovered my strength, I called on Lazaro in the night, and I clasped his throat in my jaws until he suffocated.”
“And you took the amulet,” said Hester, seemingly unfazed by Oren’s murder confession.
“I didn’t hold much hope of destroying it, but I did try, many times. I had resigned myself to the burden of hiding it forever when Lyander confided her plan to me; to protect her unborn child should the Zoo face destruction.
“It sparked my resolve. If the strongest and bravest woman I knew would hide what was most precious to her in the Otherworld, then it was the best place for the amulet too.”
“Did it occur to you that by hiding the amulet with Ilsa, you put her at risk?” said Hester. Ilsa would have sworn, for just a moment, that the idea made Hester angry, but perhaps it was just that Oren had kept this from her.
“It wasn’t my intention,” said Oren. “I was young, and I was not as conscientious as I have been forced to grow in serving the Zoo. At the time, it was the only plan I had. It was never supposed to be a permanent fix. But when we returned to the Otherworld and were told Ilsa was dead, I thought, perhaps the amulet would never be discovered there. Perhaps, if it was, the Otherworlders would take it for a pretty bauble and nothing more. So I left it there.”
Very briefly, he caught Ilsa’s gaze with a meaningful glance. Was she supposed to know something about the amulet? Oren must have been mistaken; Ilsa had forced down her memories of her time at the orphanage, but she was sure she’d remember something like that.
“Hester,” said Cassia imploringly, “if we fetch it, Cogna’s Sight will lead Gedeon back here.”
It’s what Ilsa had been thinking, but every time she tried to imagine setting foot back in that place, her mind refused. It shuttered with a violence that sent a physical tremor down her spine. How had the place that haunted her past wrenched itself into her present?
“And then what?” said Hester. She was resting her chin on her steepled fingers, her eyes glazed over in thought. “Alitz is waiting for Gedeon to make a move. And if we interfere, he just might.”
“We’re connected to Gedeon, ain’t we?” said Ilsa, catching Hester’s meaning. “So’s the Zoo. So if we’re the ones who’ve got the amulet, and we
