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a great deal more slowly than he would have liked otherwise, stopping
at inns, at taverns, even farmhouses, whenever the weather grew too dismal. He
became used to the round-eyed looks of the country ostlers, their noses red
with the wind, as the sleek new coach rolled into whichever godforsaken village
arched next into view along the roads. He became used to the smell of hay mixed
with sludge, and the shiny wet gloss of melted snow tracing lines along the
black spokes of the wheels.
    The entire rig had cost a great
deal to rent. Few companies wished to hire out as far as he was going, and
fewer still drivers. But hard gold always managed it; the Paris company had
found a fellow with cousins in Munich. He would get that far before starting
over again.
    Strapped to the back of the
carriage was a single trunk holding his garments and shoes and a very decent
bottle of sherry. Inside the carriage were the more valuable things: his picks,
his spare pistol, and bullets and powder horn. Three daggers, a dirk, and a
single sheath of rice paper, tucked thin and small into the lining of his
valise.
    In Rue’s neat, slanted writing,
the paper read:
     
    Pest
    Oradea
    Satu Mare
    Carpathian range? No farther.
    No more than twelve carats, no
less than one-half; a cast of blue; uncut. Heavy in the hand.
    Draughmurh?
Drawmur? Drahmer?
     
    It was
precious little to go on. It was precious little to tie up his life and his
establishment for an entire season, no matter how competent his associates or
how satisfying his reputation. There had been nights he lay awake in the
lice-ridden pallets that passed for beds in most hotels when he’d wondered
when, precisely, he had lost his reason. There could be no other answer to this
journey. Rue’s imploring eyes and careful lies be damned: he had no true idea
of where he was going. He had nearly nothing to go on, guesses and dream-work from
a clan of creatures who could answer only, It sings and It calls and You must bring it back to us when he asked for clearer directions.
    Merde.
    Too often he’d just settle back
against the squabs and watch his boots drip. He’d been traveling over a month
now, well versed in his guise as an English gentleman on the Grand Tour. He’d
patronized so many tea parlors and coffeehouses and card rooms that the mere
thought of downing another cup of tepid liquid amid the chatter of foreign
tongues made his skin crawl.
    He spoke French well, German
tolerably. After that, he was no better off than the role he played, a bored
English sophisticate with a taste for legends and gemstones.
    The land passed by his window in
depressing sameness. France, Germany, Austria: all gray and dun and somber
skies.
    Sixty thousand pounds.
    He’d buy a castle in Tuscany.
There’d be no bloody ice there.

    Despite fresh horses and his new
coachman’s best efforts, they could not cross the Danube to reach the city of
Pest before the sun sank into a thick red and purple horizon, ending the final
day of October. Zane settled for Óbuda instead, across the river, smaller, and,
from what he could tell, slightly more stylish. The Hungarians here sported
wigs and buckled heels he had last seen in the heart of Paris. The women were
hooded and painted and walked the cobblestone streets in dainty, mincing steps,
never far from their escorts. He’d garnered more than a few glances just
checking in to the hotel—scruffy, unshaven, his trunk and greatcoat spattered
with mud. The King’s View was a veritable palace of plasterwork and imposing
marble angels, but after three straight days without a good night’s sleep, Zane
reckoned the Marquess of Langford could afford it.
    From his balcony he watched the
skyline begin to illuminate, yellow flames that gradually connected into
pictures through the dusk, outlining buildings and steeples and streets, the
indigo emptiness of parks checkerboarding the glow. Pest glimmered and the
river glimmered with it, its banks edged silvery white with the last