evergreen tree adorned with colored lights. The van turned into traffic and disappeared. Evangeline
was gone.
The Gibborim dispersed, climbing the stairs and disappearing into the crowds of confused people,
sliding away as if nothing had happened at all. When the ice was clear, Verlaine ran down the stairs
and walked onto the rink where Evangeline had been. He slipped forward and back on the soles of
his sneakers, balancing himself as we went. The spotlights trained over the ice left a swirling polish
upon its surface, gold and blue and orange, like an opal. Something at the center of the rink caught his
eye. He squatted on his haunches. Running his finger over the cold surface, he lifted a glimmering
golden chain. A lyre pendant had been pressed into the ice.
East Forty-eighth Street and Park Avenue, New York City
Percival Grigori ordered the driver to turn onto Park Avenue and head north to his apartment, where
Sneja and his father would be waiting for him. The wide avenue was clogged with traffic; they moved
forward in incremental lurches. The black branches of winter trees had been strung with thousands of
colored lights that rose and fell along the median, reminding him that human sects were still
celebrating their holiday gatherings. Holding the case, its aged, scuffed leather rough under his
fingers, Percival knew that for once Sneja would be pleased. He could almost imagine the pleasure
she would show when he placed the lyre and Gabriella Levi-Franche Valko at her feet. With Otterley
gone, he was Sneja’s last hope. Surely this would redeem him.
Gabriella sat across from him, glaring with pure contempt. It had been more than fifty years since
their last meeting, and yet his feelings for her were as strong—and as conflicted—as they’d been the
day he’d ordered her capture. Gabriella hated him now, that much was clear, but he had always
admired the strength of her feelings: Whether it be passion or hatred or fear, she felt each emotion
with the entirety of her being. He’d believed that her power over him had ended, and yet he could feel
himself grow weak in her presence. She had lost her youth and beauty, but she was still dangerously
magnetic. Although he had the power to take her life in an instant, she appeared utterly unafraid. This
would change once they reached his mother. Sneja had never been intimidated by Gabriella.
As the van slowed and stopped at a traffic light, Percival studied the young woman at Gabriella’s
side. It seemed absurd, but her resemblance to the Gabriella he’d known fifty years before—her
creamy white skin, the shape of her green eyes—was uncanny. It was as if the Gabriella of his
fantasies had materialized before him. The young woman also wore a golden lyre pendant about her
neck, the identical pendant Gabriella had worn in Paris, a necklace he knew she would never part
with.
Suddenly, before Percival had the chance to react, Gabriella flung open the door of the van,
grabbed the case from Percival’s lap, and leaped out into the street, the young woman following close
behind.
Percival screamed for the driver to follow them. Cutting through the red light, the van turned right
onto Fifty-first, driving the wrong way on a one-way street—but even as the van was upon them, the
women evaded it, running across Lexington Avenue and disappearing into a staircase down to the
subway. Percival grabbed his cane and jumped through the door Gabriella had left open, pushing
himself forward with all his strength. He ran as best he could through the crowds, his body aching
with each halting step.
He had never been inside a subway station in New York City, and the MetroCard machines and the
maps and the turnstiles were strange and unreadable. He was at a loss for how it all worked. Many
years ago he’d been to the subway in Paris. The opening of the Métro at the turn of the last century
had drawn him underground out of curiosity, and he’d taken the trains more than once when it was the
fashion, but the appeal had worn off quickly. In New York such transport was out of the question. The
thought of standing next to so many human beings, all of them crushed together, made him nauseous.
At the turnstiles he paused to catch his breath, and then he pushed at the metal bar. It was locked in
place. He pushed a second time, and once again the bar caught. Smashing his cane on the turnstile, he
cursed in frustration, noticing as he did how people in the crowd paused to examine him, as if he
were insane. Once he would simply have scaled the metal barriers with ease. Fifty years ago it would
have been only a matter of seconds before he would have caught Gabriella—who also could not
move as quickly as she once had—and her associate. But now he was left helpless. There was