Prologue
Charlotte clutched her younger sister to her chest, stifling the little girl's frightened whimper. Everything depended on their absolute silence at this moment. Everything.
Above them, footsteps thudded on the floor of what she knew to be their father's library, shaking dust down into the dark passageway. It had come with the house, a small, secret tunnel that led from the library down and out to the back wall of the garden. Until tonight, they never had cause to use it. Now, however, the situation had become very dire.
Charlotte held the flickering candle aloft, illuminating a short distance in front of them. She dared not move unless it was necessary. Hesitantly, she stroked her sister's blonde curls. She wanted to offer words of comfort to the child, but if they were discovered, even she couldn't imagine the extent of the consequences.
She concentrated on the activity in the library above them. Muffled voices floated through the floorboards, just loud enough for her to make out the words.
“I told you during business hours, I have never encountered a book matching your description,” her father said firmly. “There was no need to break into my house. My daughters are asleep upstairs. You might have frightened them.”
“My apologies, of course,” murmured the stranger. “But of course, a book of this value, I could not take the chance that you had been lying to me. If you would be so kind as to let me examine your safe...”
“You're wasting your time,” snapped her father. “You cannot imagine that I would open my safe for a housebreaker.”
“Of course,” the stranger replied. “But you must open the safe. I have already searched the rest of the house from top to bottom, you see, and the safe is the only remaining place that the book could be.”
Alarm could be heard in her father's voice. “You mean you have broken in before? Good God, man. You seemed to be a gentleman. I would have expected a bit more civility from you.”
“Alas, civility has never been my strong suit,” the intruder replied. His voice was smooth, emotionless. Charlotte heard a small click and choked back a gasp. She was certain the man had produced a pistol. “The safe, if you will.”
There was no response from her father.
“Perhaps your daughters would be more willing to assist me,” the stranger said thoughtfully. “I shall have to -"
“My family is not to be dragged into this,” her father said forcefully. His footsteps moved toward the side of the library where the family safe was nestled behind a painting on the wall. The intruder followed.
The candlelight was just enough for Charlotte to see Annette's wide, tear-filled eyes gazing up at her in fear and uncertainty. Charlotte held a finger to her lips and shook her head. The younger girl was only nine years old, but she seemed to comprehend the gravity of the situation. She buried her face in the satchel that she held with both arms.
Charlotte had a similar satchel slung over her shoulder. It was heavy, being filled with rare books, the small bit of jewelry that her family owned, and all of the bank notes from her father's bookshop. She was not sure precisely what the situation was, but she did know that her father had had a particularly persistent customer lately, and he had seemed enough of a threat for him to insist that the girls take the satchels and hide in the passageway. Whatever book the customer had been searching for, her father had not wanted him to have it.
“I doubt anything will happen,” her father had told her warmly earlier that night, “but I do need to deal with this business myself. If anything does happen, you should have enough money to retire to the country with your sister. You can sell the books for quite a high price to the right collectors. It should be enough to sustain you for quite a while.”
Charlotte had nodded grimly. She was only seventeen, but she had been forced to grow up quickly when her mother had died giving birth to Annette. She was used to caring for her sister and helping her father in his bookshop. She did not, however, have much experience with dangerous people, and she was sure that the intruder was very dangerous indeed. Something about his soft voice, the lack of emotion, told her that he would stop at nothing to achieve his ends.
She was brought out of her thoughts by a few faint ticking noises. Her father was opening the safe. There was a loud creak as the iron door swung open.
“As you can see, I am not in possession of the book you are looking for,” her father said firmly. “I insist that you leave the premises or I will be forced to summon the police.”
There was a moment of what Charlotte assumed was the intruder rifling through the contents of the safe. She knew that many of the books that had been in there were now in the satchels that she and her sister carried, but there would still be plenty for the villain to see. Her father prided himself on his collection of valuable old books, many of which he could not bear to sell.
“Indeed,” purred the stranger after a while. “It would seem I have been pursuing the wrong bookseller. And I was so sure that I had it this time... A pity. Don't worry, Farrell, you won't be hearing from me again. You've been most helpful.”
A shot rang out. Charlotte nearly screamed, but she was too paralyzed with horror to even open her mouth. Mercifully, Annette was silent as well, although the little girl pressed herself against Charlotte so forcefully that the older girl nearly fell over.
The intruder did not leave the library. Charlotte could hear books falling to the floor. With a growing sense of dread, she realized that he was making a pile.
“Shame about your daughters, Farrell,” the intruder said mockingly. “If only you had not been so careless as to leave a candle lit so close to your precious bookshelves.”
Anger and indignation overcame the fear for a moment and tears burned in her eyes. Her father would never leave a lighted candle in his library. The books were his livelihood, their source of income. They were precious. Charlotte wanted nothing more than to race up the passage stairs and burst into the library to confront the villain, and to see if maybe, by some stretch, her father was still alive. But she already knew the answer. A cold-blooded murderer would not take the risk of his victim living to tell the tale.
Wordlessly, she took hold of her sister's arm and half-led, half dragged her down the narrow tunnel. They silently made their way away from the house, hunched over in the small space, finally coming to another set of stairs at the end. Charlotte went up first, pushing hard on the ceiling. It opened, and she clambered out of the hole, squinting at first in the bright moonlight. The grass-covered door was conveniently placed behind a lilac bush, and she crouched down, peering at the house. She saw no one around, but the flicker of flames was visible through the house's rear window.
It took everything she had not to burst into a hysterical fit right there in the garden. Their father had been murdered, their hone was being destroyed right in front of her, and nearly all of their possessions were about to become ash.
Nearly all of them. Her eyes fell on the open satchel at her side. Atop the pile of rare books was an old, leather-bound journal, its pages filled with a language she did not recognize. She shivered at the sight of it. For some reason, the book filled her with fear. She knew instinctively that it was the book that the intruder had been searching for. She also knew that while she was alive, she would never let him have it.
Charlotte pulled her sister out of the tunnel. She did not allow Annette to turn toward their burning house.
“We must go,” she said urgently. The younger girl nodded. The sisters let themselves out of the garden's rear gate and disappeared into the London night.
