The Final Cut

She brought her monocle to her eye and checked it once. All was quiet. In their quarters, their tiny apartments, men were waking, begi

She saw him then. Her pulse quickened, her breath became shallow, and something moved deep inside her.

She set the monocle down and poured the last of the tea from the thermos into her cup. She drank, letting it warm her, then checked the monocle again. The watch was changing, the guards in camouflage bristling with weapons.

The gates would open to the public at 9:00 a.m. The most dynamic and wondrously grim landmark in London would see throngs of people streaming through the gates, despite the weather. Though late March now, the air was still a bone-deep cold and seeped through puffy down jackets.

Today, Kitsune would be among them, bundled in her jacket, as she had every day for the past week.

Today, she would approach him. Ask to speak. Ask for forgiveness.

She was prepared, overprepared, but it was the only way she had the courage to try. Today everything would change. He’d either turn her away or take her back. There would be no in between. He wasn’t the type to stay friends.

Ignoring the lingering pain in her forearm, she packed her things and crawled down the slick roof. The wound was healing, but she’d have the long, thin scar forever.

The window on the tenth floor was still cracked, and she slipped inside, taking a moment to make sure nothing had been disturbed. It wasn’t just a stroke of luck construction had started on the building closest to the Tower of London. She’d bought the building and commissioned the renovation. Through a shell company, of course. She wasn’t about to let anything else get in her way. And she saw a profit down the road as well. She’d been able to observe unmolested for days.

She said a small prayer as she changed clothes, stashed her black camo that blended so perfectly with the nighttime rooftops, and became the young researcher from the University of Edinburgh again, jeans, trainers, jumper, and mac, hair in a ponytail, the false brown irises restored to their natural, startling blue, the odd genetic anomaly that should have led her to a career in modeling instead of the life she’d led. She wouldn’t change her old life for the world, but she’d bid it farewell back in Gagny.

She pulled the satellite phone from her bag, scrambled the signal, and placed a call to a mobile number she knew by heart.

His voice was deep, clogged with sleep. She’d woken him. She couldn’t blame him for sleeping late. He deserved rest after all they’d been through. And his life was undergoing a sea change as well.

“Drummond here.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, then ended the call before he had a chance to react.

Time to go.

With a smile, she gathered her bag, walked to the elevator, and disappeared.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Koh-i-Noor—say it aloud, pause for a moment. Do you feel the fleeting warmth of light bathing your face? Or perhaps the pull of something you don’t understand, but you know it’s in the deepest part of you, the part that recognizes magic?

Imagine, this incredible stone was once 793 carats—the size of a man’s fist, the prized possession of the god Krishna. Now imagine betrayal and a curse passed down through the ages that promises death, chaos, and destruction to any man who tries to keep the Koh-i-Noor close.

The stuff of legends, you say, but in truth the Koh-i-Noor did indeed pass from bloody hand to bloody hand, and always devastation followed in its wake. A long ago Sultan had the Koh-i-Noor cut from 793 carats to a mere 186. It came to Queen Victoria in 1850 and it was she who wanted to shine it up. The once massive Koh-i-Noor of 793 carats ended up 105, and that is its size today.

The Final Cut is based on fact. What I have created is the personal Lanighan family legend passed down from father to son for generations:

When Krishna’s stone is unbroken again,

the hand which holds it becomes whole.

Wash the Mountain of Light in woman’s blood,

so we will know rebirth and rejoice.

I hope you enjoyed The Final Cut, written with love and great excitement and a touch of magic.

Say “Koh-i-Noor,” and just imagine.

—Catherine Coulter

and J. T. Ellison

HISTORY OF THE

KOH-I-NOOR DIAMOND

Legends claim the Koh-i-Noor diamond belonged to the great god Krishna until a treacherous servant stole it from him while he slept, and thus the curse was born.

He who owns this diamond will own the world, but will also know all its misfortunes. Only God or a woman can wear it with impunity.

Other stories have the Koh-i-Noor discovered in a riverbed in 3000 B.C. alongside its pink sister, the Darya-i-Noor, residing today in Iran.

The first time the Koh-i-Noor enters into written history is in 1305 as a stone weighing an extraordinary 793 carats. It passed from hand to hand as regimes rose and fell, always coveted, but never bought or sold, only gained through conquest.

THE FIRST CUT

In the seventeenth century, Emperor Aurangzeb, the last of the great Moghul leaders, wanted to impress a French gemstone expert who was searching the East for rare and special stones. Aurangzeb gave the Italian lapidary Borgio the task of polishing the diamond for the visit. Borgio bungled the job, taking the 793-carat diamond down to a measly 186 carats.

It mattered not, the value of the stone was still overwhelming. It changed hands many more times, through blood and trickery, even going to Pakistan and Persia before returning to India. Thus, all three countries lay claim to it, and regularly petition the British government for its repatriation.

HOW THE KOH-I-NOOR DIAMOND CAME TO QUEEN VICTORIA

In 1850, Maharaja Duleep Singh, the last Maharaja of Lahore and the youngest son of the famous Lion of Punjab, was dethroned by the British, his country (Punjab) a

THE FINAL CUT

In 1851, Queen Victoria displayed the Koh-i-Noor to the British public. However, the 186-carat diamond hadn’t been changed since the Borgio bungling two hundred years before, and it looked ugly and dull, not the brilliant cut the people expected.

After great debate, Prince Albert hired a lapidary named Coster from Amsterdam to cut the stone again. When Coster was finished, the Koh-i-Noor was radiant with dazzling light. However, the diamond was now a mere 105 carats.

The British have been very careful not to test the curse, and only the women of the Royal Family wear the diamond. The Koh-i-Noor was originally made into a brooch for Queen Victoria, then found its way into crowns for Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary before it came to rest in its current home, the centerpiece of the queen mother’s crown. It can be seen in the Tower of London.