I didn’t know what this artifact was—only that it was magical. And ancient. I had originally thought it was an amulet and that it contained a vast compulsion spell. But Madame Marineaux had told me I was wrong.
It is a far more powerful artifact than any amulet, she had said. And yet she’d offered no more explanation to what the carved ivory might be or what it might do. Then, just as the Hell Hounds were blasting her soul into oblivion, she had shown me where to find it. She had planted the image of the fist into my brain, and I had claimed the artifact for myself. There was something so appealing about it. As if whatever power that lived within was somehow pulsing out when I held it. When I watched it.
Footsteps sounded in the hall. I balked, and thrust the ivory fist back into my pocket. I would tell Oliver and the Spirit-Hunters about the fist eventually. But there was no need to tell them now—not when we would soon be in Marseille and dealing with Marcus. Whatever this strange artifact was, it could wait.
Someone cleared his throat, and I found Joseph standing in the doorway, fingers on his bandages.
I swung my legs off the bunk. “Yes?”
Joseph’s hand dropped. “I came to offer you my condolences.” His voice was gravelly with exhaustion. “The loss of a mother is something no one should have to endure.”
“Yet we all must at some point,” I said flatly.
“True.” He sank into a bow. “Nonetheless, I am sorry, Eleanor. I feel . . .” He lifted, his forehead drawn tight. “I feel as if this is my fault. I could not see what Marcus was becoming all those years ago. I did not stop him until it was too late.”
Marcus had been Joseph’s childhood friend. They’d both trained their magic with the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. Yet Marcus had turned to a darker power—to necromancy and sacrifice—and all the while, the Voodoo Queen and Joseph had remained oblivious.
“That was years ago,” I murmured.
“Yet guilt is the one wound time cannot heal.” Joseph’s fingers moved to a series of scars on his left cheek—gifts from Marcus. “Some days I catch myself missing his friendship. Such a mind—and a sense of humor too. We used to be inseparable. . . . But no one wants to believe their dearest friend is a murderer. Even when the facts are right before you.”
Then Joseph surprised me—shocked me, really—for he heaved a sigh, and his posture slouched. For the first time since I had met him three months past, the Creole looked lost. And young.
“I cannot believe he has Jie,” he said, shaking his head. “If you are right—if that hair clasp from Madame Marineaux was the amulet that compelled Jie to join Marcus—then it is one more thing I was too blind to see. One more person I foolishly trusted.”
My chest tightened with a twinge of anger. Of hurt. And even a twinge of shame.
“I trusted Madame Marineaux too,” I admitted. “None of us could have known what she really was, Joseph.”
“No.” His eyes thinned thoughtfully. Then he glanced into the hall and toward the airship’s aft. Toward where Oliver had walked only minutes ago.
He was thinking that I trusted Oliver. That I did not know what my demon really was . . . and he was right. I trusted Oliver with my life, yet I understood nothing of his desires or motivations. I knew none of my demon’s secrets.
But I would not speak of that with Joseph. Instead, I shuffled across the room and rested my hand on the doorknob. “Do you know how to stop the compulsion spell on Jie?”
He shrugged, another movement so out of character. “We must kill the necromancer who cast it. That is the only cure I have ever read.”
“So we kill Marcus, then?”
“Wi.”
“Good.” My lips slid up. “I am glad we agree.”
For a moment Joseph only watched me. Then a grin spread over his own lips. “I do not think we ever disagreed. Marcus died years ago, and it is time he returned to the realm in which he belongs.” Joseph rapped his knuckles against the door as if deciding this was a good note on which to end our talk . . . but then his eyebrows curved down. “Your friend Miss Wilcox,” he added, leveling me with a stare, “has been sitting in the galley since we departed Paris. I do not know what to do with her, but she must be dealt with before we reach Marseille in an hour.”
“Miss . . . Wilcox,” I repeated. Even though speaking to her was the last thing I wanted to do, Joseph was right. Allison needed to be out of our way.
Joseph shifted his weight. “I realize you are upset, Eleanor, but Miss Wilcox has traveled a great distance to see you. Bad tidings or no, do not dismiss such a gesture, non? We have few enough friends in this life, and even fewer true friends.”
I stayed silent as he drifted into the cabin next door. He was right—yet again—and I knew he was. Nonetheless, the thought of speaking to Allison . . . of discussing Philadelphia or why Allison had come . . .
It made my insides knot up.