The Final Cut

He fell back against the velvet chair, exhausted. His eyes closed, and Saleem wanted desperately to run from the room.

Yet he wanted to touch the gleaming stone again, hear the shouts and the screams, feel the power and the excitement.

The stone had spoken to him. He had heard its voice.

Saleem’s hand crept toward the box, and his grandfather’s eyes shot open. His voice was strong and clear.

“This is your destiny, Saleem. Your life will be consumed by this quest, as it consumed me and now consumes your father. Know this: all before you have failed. But if you do succeed, Saleem, you must see the stone home.”

“Home?”

“Back to India, to the Kollur mine. You must unite the stones and throw the diamond back into the earth, in its proper place. If you do so, our land will rise again and prosper, using its strength to make the soil strong. You will be recognized as a hero, as the one who restored us to our appropriate place of strength in the world.”

He hugged the boy to his chest.

“May luck be with you always, Saleem.”

• • •

The following day, Saleem’s father took him aside in the gardens.

“You were given your duty?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Do you understand what it means, Saleem?”

He shook his head. “No, Papa.”

Robert Lanighan sat on a stone bench, beckoned his only son to sit beside him.

“When I was your age, your grandfather told me the story of the lost stones. I too did not understand the significance of this task. You are very young, Saleem, but it is time for you to be strong, like me.”

He’d roared then, like a lion, making young Saleem giggle.

“You try.”

Saleem roared and roared, stomping around the gardens until his father was bent over in laughter. This happiness felt better. Saleem liked to see his father laugh.

He drew him close, into a hug. “Your grandfather died last night, an hour after he passed along the legacy to you. You must always keep him close, Saleem, in your heart. His love, and mine, will keep you pure. You are now a man of the Lanighan family. We will carry on where your grandfather left off. Somehow, we must find the missing stone and take back the Koh-i-Noor from the British. We must unite the three stones.

“One last thing, Saleem. There can be no personal gain from this quest. Always remember your role, your duty. No man himself may hold the power of the united stones. It will cause madness and despair. Only the land is capable of sheltering the diamond. If I do not succeed, and you do, you must swear to me you will see the diamond home.”

“I swear it, Father.”

And he meant every word, when he was eight years old.

Years later, when his father had fallen ill, he became frantic to obtain the two missing pieces. He commissioned thieves to steal the Koh-i-Noor from the Tower of London, but they failed again and again, until the British began to suspect who was behind it. Nor could he ever find the part of the diamond that reassembled itself after Queen Victoria’s final cut. He sent Saleem across the globe following dead leads, but the third stone always remained hidden.

At the end, when it was clear he wasn’t going to survive, he bade Saleem come to the hospital. Fragile from his illness, his skin paper white, he took Saleem’s hand in his.

“My son. I have failed. My failure means my death. I have no more time. You must dedicate yourself to the search. You know the power of the stones, and you will need it. I tell you now, bring them together and heal yourself.”

“I am fine, Father. I haven’t been sick since I was a boy.”

His father shook his head, pain flooding his eyes.

“You are not sick now, but you will be, for I have seen it. Find the third stone, Saleem, liberate the Koh-i-Noor from the British, and unite them. Only then will you save your own life.”

63

Geneva, Switzerland

Rue de Lausa

Friday afternoon

Kitsune walked northwest through the city until she spied an anonymous street that backed to an elementary school. She followed the Rue de Navigation, through the turnstiles that accessed the walkway, stopping cars from interrupting the children at play in their schoolyard, then up a quiet one-way street.

She took a room at the Hotel Kipling, stashed her bag in the room’s safe, showered and dressed, then went next door to the Lord Jim Pub on Rue de Lausa

The food arrived. She forked warm mashed potatoes into her mouth, savoring the salty onion gravy, as authentically British as any she’d had near the River Thames.

She ate slowly, enjoying the meal.

Part of her preparation to steal the Koh-i-Noor diamond was to become an expert, to learn every single aspect of its storied history, even the lore. Especially the lore. She’d found deeper legends, ones she’d only half believed, rarely spoken of, long forgotten in the stone’s tragic path through documented history.

During her studies, she’d come across an old parchment that posed the idea of the three stones. When she’d read it, she’d shaken her head and dismissed the idea as absurd, possibly the result of an opium dream. Now she worked to recall the story, picking over the words to find the truth behind them.

According to the parchments, Sultan Aurangzeb was a visionary. He knew others would kill him for the diamond. To be safe, he had Borgio split the stone in two, and while publicly parading the smaller stone known as the Koh-i-Noor, he’d secreted the much larger stone in a place no one knew.

Over the centuries, this secret was passed down from father to son. While the Koh-i-Noor was fought over, bled over, stolen, and retrieved at the cost of hundreds of lives, the larger piece was kept hidden, safe, its whereabouts passed down from generation to generation.

The parchment claimed a long-ago prince’s son was born blind, and when the father pressed the stone to the child’s forehead, his sight was restored. If the stone could heal—but that was ridiculous.

Could Saleem actually believe this?

Three hundred and fifteen years later, according to the parchment, when Prince Albert had Coster cut the diamond down further, the dust was collected, placed in a velvet bag, and stowed in a safe to be used to edge a skaif to cut more diamonds. This was the normal course of things; any time a diamond was cut, the dust was collected and recycled.

The next day, when the bag was retrieved to be put into service, the young lapidary who picked it up felt something bulky within. The parchment claimed that the diamond dust had reformed into a small stone. Shaken, the fellow shared the story with his wife and fled to Germany to put the stone in his family’s safe. He was found dead on the train to Berlin, his body stripped of its treasure.

And so the third and final piece of the diamond was lost to history forever.

Three stones. A legend only the most dedicated fans of the Koh-i-Noor even knew existed. To hold the three stones in your hand was to have the power of ten thousand men. Its measure was greater than gold, and the man who owned such power would control his destiny, and the destinies of many others.

The curse, though—she had to believe it was real. Every man who’d believed himself lord and steward over the Koh-i-Noor met with a bad end. Only God or a woman could wield the power properly, that part of the warning was quite clear.