Chapter 46: Backdoor_NYC Questing Guild

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> “The treaty has been signed. I could tell the British and they may give up their campaign and sail home. I could tell Jackson and he may throw himself at their mercy. Or I could tell no one.”

“Watch where you’re going,” Eva said, a scowl on her face.

“S-sorry,” I said again.

Eva considered me for a few seconds as I held my breath, wondering if she could see through the glamour somehow. But then she just shook her head and led the man further into the car. I retreated to the other end but peered through the crowd, trying to get a glimpse of the man in the blue blazer, but the train was packed with rush-hour commuters. Finally, after three more stops, the mass of people had diminished and my jaw dropped at what I saw.

The old man on Eva’s arm was none other than her dad, Steve. It had only been a year since I met him that night in the church basement, but he looked as if he had aged 20. His hair was grayed at the roots, his eyes were sunken, and he sat with a pronounced hunch.

I turned away quickly and located the man with the blue blazer on the opposite bench. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the three of them were here on the same train, in the same subway car, sitting a few feet away from each other. And I had a sinking feeling that this clandestine meet-up had something to do with me.

At 14th Street, the car emptied further before a new glut of people spilled inward, and I was jostled away from my spying post. When I recalibrated myself, I saw that the man was now sitting next to Eva, his eyes staring down at the floor. I brought my phone out for more reconnaissance only to see a text from Beatrice.

“its him,” it read and I felt my pulse quicken.

“Hes sitting next to polly on subway. With her dad. Im in pursuit,” I wrote back, but the message bounced.

I looked back at the man I now knew was Gilbert and I felt a chill ripple through me. It was as Beatrice had described him. Were it not for the trendy blue blazer he wore, there wouldn’t be anything remarkable about him. But I had heard what he was capable of, how he had stalked, tracked, and tried to murder Beatrice for reasons that were still unclear to me. Not to mention attacking us a few weeks ago. If Polly was in league with him now, then we were truly screwed.

The train reached the next station and I quickly sent my message again and put my phone away before I could see if it went through. The same chaos of exit and entry repeated itself, and when things settled down again, I saw Gilbert’s hand extending down under the subway bench. He still didn’t meet Eva’s gaze and neither did she look at him, but then she mouthed something softly and he nodded.

It took me a minute to realize what she had said, and when I did, it felt as if my stomach had fallen into a gaping hole.

I steeled my nerves and waited for the next stop. When the doors finally opened, I pushed through the incoming crowds, my phone in hand, and frantically texted Beatrice.

“Weve been betrayed.”

“We’re fucked,” said Beatrice when I met her half an hour later on a park bench in Washington Square Park. The morning rush was at its tail end, but it was still early for the NYU students, who had just emerged from their dorms and were crisscrossing the park on their way to class.

“You said that last week,” I replied.

“Was it only last week? God, it seems like it was months ago. But it doesn’t make it any less true. And just when I thought we had the upper hand on them.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “You mean…”

“Yes,” said Beatrice, half-smiling. “I found it. The gold token that Rita hid in that bank deposit box all those years ago.”

“You mean we found it,” I corrected. “If it weren’t for my brai-”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“I wasn’t trying to take credit, Jen. Calm down.”

“Sorry,” I said. “It was a long night.”

“Same here.”

“So now what? Please tell me you took the door knob to the island out of the office.”

Beatrice shook her head no.

“Maybe we can head them off,” I said. “Gilbert didn’t get off the train when I did. It might take him a while to go back uptown. We could sti-”

“Walk right into the Guild’s trap? No. But we can get the drop on them if we hurry.”

“How?”

“Follow me,” she said.

We walked across the park with a quick gait and we were soon in front of the Washington Square Arch. I started to continue through the center but Beatrice veered to the left and I followed. She stopped in front of the western pier of the Arch and I saw it: a small door set in the middle, like something out of Alice in Wonderland.

Beatrice reached into her pocketbook, pulled out a key ring, and approached the door. It had two locks and a deadbolt, which she first removed from the door as easily as if it were attached with plastic tape. Next, she inserted a key into the top lock and turned it, before removing it and placing the key ring back in her bag. Finally, she reached under her sweater and pulled out something that hung around her neck.

It was another key. But unlike the first one, its color was a familiar dark brown with white streaks.

“What … what is that?” I asked as Beatrice grinned.

“This,” she said, inserting the key into the lower lock and turning, “is our back door.”

Beatrice removed the key and nudged the door open. A familiar black expanse peeked through the crack.

“Let’s go,” she said. “Before someone sees us.”

“I don’t … how?”

“No time, just trust me.”

Beatrice slid into the space between and was gone. I glanced back and forth to see if anyone had noticed our trespass, but the city’s anonymity had fallen over us like the morning fog, and I knew I could delay no longer. The darkness beckoned me from the doorway and I greeted it as if it were an old friend.

The journey was over in an instant but something felt different as I emerged into the dimly lit room with the wooden floor.

It wasn’t just that the glamour had activated again during transit and that Jade’s freckled hands had replaced my own.

No, it was the sharp pounding in my head and the fact that Beatrice was not already in the island headquarters to greet me.

And that I had apparently forgotten to turn off our lone lamp before I had left Frankie two days ago.

And that Frankie’s stone figure was propped up against the wall, free of the tarp.

And that there was a familiar man standing near the open front door, a wooden box at his feet that hadn’t been in the house before.

Towers of unpacked supplies and books were still stacked throughout the house, allowing me to observe the intruder.

It was Gilbert.

But he wasn’t wearing the blue blazer or slacks he had been sporting an hour ago on the subway. Instead, he was dressed in a gray t-shirt and worn blue jeans. And his hair, it was no longer perfectly coiffed and slick, but dirty and unkempt. Finally, his face was sunken and wrinkled, as if he had somehow aged 10 years.

My next step on the creaking floor betrayed my presence and I reluctantly walked out from behind the boxes to see a startled Gilbert nearly fall backward into the door.

“What … what are you doing here?” I asked.

“Waiting for someone else,” said Gilbert, collecting himself. “And you are?”

“Jade,” I said, my stomach tying itself into a myriad series of knots.

“Jade, Jade, why does that name ring a bell?” he said, stroking his chin. “Oh, yes. JadePhoenix42. But you look nothing like you did that night. Why is that, I wonder?”

Gilbert suddenly reached back to grab the vervorium knob on the front door. My eyes followed his and I saw it: a little chunk missing. No doubt the knob on the other side had a similar piece removed.

“I wonder what would happen if I took this off while she was mid-transit? Would she just get stuck in there forever? Let’s find out, shall we?”

He pushed the door shut and jerked the knob free from the rim and I faked a gasp.

“Clever of her, to repurpose the vervorium knobs to put her stash out of reach,” Gilbert said. “I read about them in the Guild archives. Do you know where they hid the other door to the lighthouse? At the top of Belvedere Castle in Central Park. How much more cliched can you get?”

“So it was you who trapped us there. Dalia said-”

“Dalia doesn’t know anything,” he snapped. “Well, that’s not quite true. She knows a great deal. But not about me. He made certain of that.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, I’m sure you don’t. You’re still a baby in all of this. But you hitched your cart to the wrong horse. You all should have died that night in the cave, but somehow you escaped. Which was actually quite beneficial.”

“Wh-what are you talking about?”

If Gilbert heard the slight creak of the floor behind me, it didn’t register on his face, and I wondered how long Beatrice would remain in hiding.

“I thought Frankie only carried the location of this box,” he said, tapping it with his foot. “It never occurred to me that she would hold the key to it as well. So I was relieved when I found out that you all had escaped, so I could extract the key and claim the Relic inside for myself.”

Gilbert picked up the box from the floor and I recognized it immediately: the box from the cave, the one we had been accused of stealing.

“But you had unexpectedly turned poor Frankie to stone. And so the key was lost to me yet again. Until now. Come out, I know you’re there.”

I turned around to see Beatrice appear from behind the boxes, the Medoblad drawn at her side.

“You,” said Beatrice, her voice dripping with venom and disgust. “What happened to our truce? I knew I should have gone after you when I had the chance. That you weren’t going to leave me alone. That-”

“I never had a truce with you,” said Gilbert, who was suddenly clutching a small stone on a chain around his neck. “Trinity.”

Next: Showdown.

Chapter 46: Backdoor

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