Her dark eyes met his, and she nodded and stepped up into the carriage. He joined her there, sharing her bench. He reached down and grasped her hand in his as Pinheiro climbed inside and pulled the door shut. Pinheiro settled facing them. “Miss Paredes? Is that right?”
“Yes, Captain,” she said softly.
“I’ve not been informed on all aspects of this case yet,” he said, “but I was told that you’re to be protected at all costs, which is why the shades are down.” The carriage began to move uphill after a jolting start. “We don’t want to risk anyone seeing you.”
She was trying hard not to betray any nervousness but watched Pinheiro carefully. Duilio shifted to place his revolver in his lap where she could see it. “I promise we will get there safely. I know.”
Her eyes flicked down to the gun and back up. “What happened to the Carvalho girl?”
Pinheiro answered her. “I understand that on the way back from Mass, she fell back from her sisters to talk to the footman escorting them. A carriage stopped and two men jumped out, grabbed her, and hauled in the footman as well.”
“In broad daylight?”
“Yes,” Pinheiro said. “Someone has suddenly gotten very reckless.”
“I see,” Miss Paredes said cautiously.
Duilio gave her hand a squeeze. “Anjos told me he’s cleared several officers in the Special Police of involvement. Pinheiro is one of them.”
“Believe me, if I’d had a secret, I would have spilled it. The woman questioning me?” Pinheiro shuddered. “There’s something unnatural about her. My flesh began to crawl the moment she walked into the room.”
“Miss Vladimirova?” Duilio guessed.
“I did not ask her name,” Pinheiro said, “but she had a foreign accent.”
The carriage rattled over the tram rails, indicating that they were crossing to the Carvalhos’ side of the Street of Flowers. That reassured Duilio. His gift had told him that they would get there safely, but it was nice to have it backed up by tangible experience. The carriage began to slow and came to a stop after a distance that seemed right to his mind.
“Lift the shade a bit,” he asked Miss Paredes. She did so, and when he glanced up at the house revealed, he recognized the columns of the Carvalho home. “Yes, this is it.”
He eased past her and opened the door. When he stepped down, everything looked perfectly normal, so he gestured for her to join him. She set her hand in his and jumped down without the step. Without waiting for Pinheiro, Duilio led her quickly up the steps. A footman waiting at the door allowed them inside once they gave their names.
“Straight to the library,” Duilio said. Miss Paredes remembered the way, walking briskly ahead of him. The library door stood open, and they stepped inside the garish room, to be greeted by a crowd. The Lady sat on one of the couches, fully visible this time, wearing a smart-looking suit in green. Gaspar stood behind her, conferring quietly with Anjos. A pair of uniformed Special Police stood near the doors as if on sentry duty.
Carvalho, a barrel-chested man with graying hair, paced along his bookshelves. Sitting in one of the chairs was Genoveva Carvalho, her face grim and nearly as pale as her gown. Her fingers were splayed on the arms of the chair. She glanced up when Duilio entered, pistol still in his hand, and her brows drew together.
Duilio repressed a sigh. The young lady shouldn’t be here.
She rose gracefully, wringing her delicate hands together. “Mr. Ferreira? What are you doing here?”
Her father turned at the sound of her voice. “Ferreira? What are you doing here?”
Anjos cleared his throat. “Mr. Ferreira and Inspector Tavares have been the lead investigators on a certain case for a few weeks now. Our investigations crossed paths recently.”
Genoveva Carvalho sat down less gracefully, her expression nonplussed. She’d probably thought he was too idiotic to load a gun, much less use one.
“You work for the police?” Carvalho asked, stomping in his direction.
“Yes,” Duilio said, “although I’m only a consultant.”
Carvalho raised one beefy hand to indicate Miss Paredes. “And who is this?”
“My mother’s companion,” Duilio said. “Miss Paredes has knowledge of this case.”
On hearing her name, Duilio could tell Carvalho stopped listening. The man pointed at Miss Paredes. “This is the woman they want to trade for my daughter?”
Duilio felt fury fill him. Had he led Miss Paredes into a trap? He stepped in front of her and hefted the revolver in his hand, deciding whether he should train it on Carvalho or the two Special Police officers at his back. A glint of silver on the edge of his vision warned Duilio that Miss Paredes had drawn her knife. Carvalho backed away.
“There will be no trade,” the Lady said calmly. “Do you hear me, Carvalho?”
“She is my daughter!” Carvalho slammed his hands down on the back of the chair in which his older daughter sat. She went even paler than before.
The Lady didn’t flinch, though. “And we will do everything in our power to get her back. But making a trade is out of the question. You have no right to sacrifice one life for another. Or do you not believe in the equality that your Freemasons espouse?”
Carvalho scowled, his anger deflated by the Lady’s pointed question.
“It’s unlikely they would return your daughter anyway,” the Lady added. “They’re desperate enough to court exposure now by snatching victims off the street. That tells me they mean to rush through the last of their preparations and enact the spell as soon as possible. They’ll need two victims from your household, and Miss Paredes won’t do for that purpose.”
“Victims?” Miss Carvalho repeated softly.
Duilio flinched. She didn’t know. He was willing to bet that Carvalho didn’t yet know what had been happening in those houses either, what was planned for his daughter and the footman taken with her.
“Mr. Ferreira,” Anjos said patiently. “Put the gun away. We’re not going to permit Miss Paredes to be harmed. I give you my word.”
“I’m here too,” Joaquim’s voice said from behind them in the hallway. Pinheiro had entered with him, and seemed prepared to follow Joaquim’s lead.
Duilio mentally checked the numbers and slid the gun back into a pocket where he could get at it easily. Miss Paredes restored the knife to the sheath at her wrist, which, given Carvalho’s reaction, showed remarkable faith on her part.
“Joaquim and I won’t let anything happen to you,” he promised her, catching Joaquim’s eye as he did so. Joaquim gave him a nod, agreeing to his part in the pact.
“Everyone sit down,” Anjos said. “We need to discuss this like civilized people.”
“Miss Paredes found something last night,” Duilio told him. “It might help.”
She had apparently tucked the journal in the waistband of her skirt prior to drawing her knife. She tugged the journal loose and handed it to him wordlessly. He opened the journal to the diagram and handed it to the Lady, aware that Joaquim had taken his place at Miss Paredes’ side. “This was found in an apartment formerly rented by Espinoza. It’s the rest of that table. We think it might be what he saw that caused him to flee the city.”
She took the journal. “The apartment Mata set afire with you inside it?”
“Yes,” Duilio said. “I’m told the design in the center is a symbol for a battery.”
“A battery? Oh, I see.” The Lady took the journal and smoothed her fingers over the water-rippled page. One finger traced the inner circle, the one with the runes, her green eyes flicking back and forth. “I shouldn’t be surprised someone has managed to convert this particular science to magical use, but I am anyway. I would never have thought of this.”
“But what does it do?” Duilio asked.
“The runes in this middle circle aren’t a spell,” she said. “They’re more like an outline for a spell, each symbol linking a portion of spell work into a whole. There’s more than what we’re seeing here, not only more runes, but probably also a component of the spell that must be spoken with the recipient in place to receive the power of the deaths. Given the symbols I do see and the words surrounding the outside edge, this is meant to do a work of Great Magic. It will indeed make Prince Fabricio king over Portugal, with all the northern aristocracy supporting him.”