Branford was taken into another room to be dealt with—the Proprietor’s words—by Rohan. Jameson’s secret, on the other hand, the Proprietor chose to handle himself.
“You’ll write it down here.” The Proprietor laid what looked like a scroll on the table, then flattened it out. He placed a quill next to the scroll. Inspecting the quill, Jameson realized it was made of metal, hair-thin but blade-sharp. That served as a reminder: What he was doing could be dangerous. It was a risk.
Jameson told himself that it was a calculated one.
On the other side of the scroll, the Proprietor set a small, shallow dish, like the ones that held the lilies in the atrium. As Jameson watched, the man poured dark purple ink into the bowl.
“By the time the ink has dried, I will have determined if your secret indeed merits entry into the Game. If so, you will be required to provide me with an assurance of some sort—proof.” The Proprietor paused. “Do you,” he said, his voice low and silky, “have proof?”
The muscles in his throat tightening, Jameson thought about his pocket watch, about the object he’d hidden inside. “I do, but not on me.”
“If your secret passes muster, all you will have to do is tell me where and what,” the Proprietor said, “and I’ll send someone to fetch your proof.”
Jameson recognized the signals his body was sending out: the dry mouth, the sweat he could feel beginning to make its way down his palms, the clattering of his heart in his chest.
He ignored them all. Just like he ignored the warning ringing in his
mind, a female voice issuing a very pointed threat.
There are ways, Jameson Hawthorne, to take care of problems.
There was a reason he’d kept what he’d learned in Prague a secret. Even from his brothers. Even from Avery. Some secrets were dangerous.
But this was his opening, his shot. He was only going to get one. Once you see that web of possibilities laid out in front of you, unencumbered by fear of pain or failure, by thoughts telling you what can and cannot, should and should not be done… What will you do with what you see?
“What happens to my secret if I write it down and you do find it suitably enticing?” Jameson asked, his voice coming out calm, irreverent by design. “Does it go in the ledger?”
“Oh no,” the Proprietor said with a shake of his head and a gleam in his eyes. “The ledger belongs to the Mercy. Your secret will belong to me. If you win, your scroll will be destroyed and your proof returned to you, no additional records created, my lips sealed.”
“And if I lose?”
“Then I may use your secret however I wish.” The Proprietor’s smile was a chilling thing. “Even once control of the Devil’s Mercy has passed to my heir.”
Something about the Proprietor’s words made Jameson think he wasn’t talking about a distant future. The man is dying, Jameson thought. And there is no risk if I win.
“This must be quite a secret indeed.” The Proprietor perched on the edge of his desk and reached his cane forward to tilt Jameson’s chin up. “So I suppose the question, Mr. Hawthorne, is this: How badly do you want to play my Game?”
How badly do I want Vantage? Jameson Hawthorne hadn’t been raised to fear risk. He reached for the quill. His hand tightening around it, Jameson took a moment to consider how best to phrase his secret: sensationally enough to gain admittance but holding back enough to minimize the chances of repercussions.
In the end, he chose four words. Passing the quill from his right hand to his left, he dipped it in the ink and began to write. Certain letters jumped out in his mind as he wrote them: a capital H, the word is, two lowercase letters at the very end: v and e.
Dropping the quill onto the desk, Jameson leaned back in his seat and
waited for the dark purple ink to dry. And when the Proprietor finally reached down and smeared his finger across the page, to no effect, Jameson knew that it was done.
The scroll was rolled back up. The Proprietor closed a fist around it. “Sufficient,” he declared. “And the proof?”
“There’s a pocket watch back at my flat. It has a hidden compartment.”
The watch was fetched. Jameson used his thumb to twirl the minute hand back and forth to the appropriate numbers. The face of the watch popped off, and underneath was a small bead, the size of a pearl.
Translucent. Filled with liquid.
Jameson expected the Proprietor to ask what it was and how it served as proof for the words he’d written, but no question came. Instead, Jameson was handed an envelope identical to the one the Proprietor had given Zella earlier.
An invitation.
“Open it,” the Proprietor told him.
Jameson did. A powdery substance exploded into his face the moment he broke the seal. Within seconds, his lungs began to seize. His muscles gave out. As his body slid from the chair to the floor and darkness closed in, he heard the Proprietor walk to stand over him.
“Welcome to the Game, Mr. Hawthorne.”
