The First Stone

If you had just listened to your instincts, Deirdre—if you hadtrusted Anders as your heart wanted to—he wouldn’t have been shot, and Marius would still be alive. This is all your fault.

No. That was her Shadow Self speaking now, and she wouldn’t listen to its bitter voice. It would not help her do what she had to. Besides, Anders and Beltan had made their own decisions. She had not asked them to follow her from London.

Although she should have known—perhaps, deep down, didknow—that they would. Only she hadn’t believed they would be working in tandem. She had thought Anders a traitor, and had assumed he would follow her to stop her. Instead it had been just the opposite. He had been trying to protect her. Just like he had been doing for the last three years.

Again she thought about what would have happened if Anders and Beltan hadn’t shown up at the manor. Marius would still be dead, and so would she. No one would know what the Philosophers really were, or what they really desired. And what they were going to do tomorrow. Only she wasalive, and she did know, and she had Anders to thank for that.

Why didn’t he tell me the truth about who he was?

But she knew the answer. If Nakamura had told her he was assigning her a full-time security guard, she would have rebelled. So Nakamura had tricked her, assigning Anders as her new partner. As it was, early on, Deirdre had suspected the truth, but eventually convinced herself to believe Anders. Once again, her instincts had been right, and she hadn’t listened to them. But maybe it wasn’t her brain that had gotten in the way. Maybe it had been her heart. She had wanted to believe Anders, and so she had. Only all this time he had been lying to her, and even though he had been doing it to protect her, that didn’t change the fact that he had been dishonest.

What about you, Deirdre? You haven’t exactly kept up your vow to tell him everything.

And that was why she couldn’t be angry with him. Nakamura, however, was another matter. Sasha had been a traitor, but she had been right about one thing: the Seekers did keep secrets. All this time, Nakamura had been deceiving her. But why? Why was it so important to protect her that he was willing to lie to her to do it?

Maybe she knew the answer to that. Hadrian Farr was gone. She was the only Seeker left who had direct co

Or was it more than that? Why was protecting you so important, Deirdre? What does Nakamura really know?

Somehow she didn’t believe he had been in direct contact with Marius. Then again, Nakamura had given Deirdre the assignments that Marius had wanted her to have, so maybe there was some co

When the ambulance arrived at the manor, she had expected police cars to come with it. They hadn’t. The ambulance had been from a private company. They did their work efficiently, stabilizing Anders and loading him into the ambulance, but made no move to call the police, even when they discovered the three dead bodies: Marius, Sasha, and Eustace. Nor did they ask Deirdre any questions.

It was the same at the hospital. Normally a gunshot wound should involve the police, but no officers were called in, and no one asked Deirdre anything except if Deirdre knew whether Anders was taking any medications or had any existing medical conditions. She and Beltan had been shown to the waiting area. A short while later, a telegram had come for her. It was from Nakamura.

Do not leave the hospital. Do not speak to the police. More instructions to follow.

So the Seekers were taking care of everything. They had co

So far, at least. But though Sasha and Eustace were dead, Deirdre didn’t dare let herself believe the Philosophers would not soon learn what had transpired at the manor. And while she was glad for Nakamura’s help, his orders meant nothing to her now. She was not going to stay here and wait for the Philosophers to come get her.

Deirdre sat back down and shut the lid of her notebook computer, which rested on a chair. An hour ago, to help pass the time, she had logged onto the Seekers’ systems. She had reviewed the results of Paul Jacoby’s linguistic analysis of the writing on the arch. And she had called up the toxicology report for the syringe Anders had used on the sorcerer. According to the lab results, the syringe had contained the expected drug; Anders had not caused the death of the sorcerer in Beltan and Travis’s flat.

I sure wish you had known that earlier today, she told herself with a grimace as she shoved the computer into her briefcase.

She glanced at the clock, forgetting to will herself not to, and saw that it was after eleven. It was too late to catch either a train or a flight back to London tonight; they would have to wait until morning. Would that give them enough time? The seven crates were scheduled to arrive from Crete tomorrow, but she didn’t know at what time. She could only hope that she would beat them to London.

Go to them for me, Marius had told her just before he died. Go to . . . the Sleeping Ones.

Deirdre would go. How could she not? A Philosopher himself had asked her with his dying breath. Only it was more than that. It was the discovery of the Sleeping Ones that had caused the Seekers to come into being. To see the Seven was to see the begi

And what will you do once you get to London, Deirdre? Stroll past the Philosophers and whisk away the Sleeping Ones so they can do whatever they’re supposed to do? What do you think you can possibly accomplish if you go to London?

She didn’t know. However, Marius had believed the Seven had been waiting all these mille

When the twins draw near, all shall come to nothing unless hope changes everything. . . .

But what hope did they have? Deirdre had no idea what sort of transformation the Seven sought, or what catalyst would allow it to occur. Again and again, as she paced in the waiting area, she had hummed the song under her breath: Fire and Wonder. She felt so close to knowing what the song was about, but the meaning was like a butterfly fluttering around her: lovely, beckoning, and always out of reach.

All the same, she was certain the song held a clue to the nature of the catalyst. Marius had suspected that was the case, and her own intuition—which she was listening to for a change— told her the same. If she thought about it enough, it would come to her. She started to sing the song again in a low voice. . . .

“Excuse me, miss.”

Deirdre gripped her bear claw necklace and stood up as a nurse approached. The nurse was middle-aged, her dark hair caught in a neat bun, a clipboard in her hand. Deirdre felt her throat go dry.

“Your friend is out of recovery,” the nurse said. “They’ve moved him to critical care. You’re allowed to go in and see him if you’d like, but only for a few minutes. He’s very tired, and still groggy from the anesthesia.”