The director removed a small card from the inside pocket of his suit jacket, then swiped it through an electronic reader. The Henley has state-of-the-art security, the gesture said. The Henley’s art is the safest art in the world, no matter what you might have read in the paper.
But, of course, he didn’t know about Hale and his duct tape.
As the man returned the card to his jacket, Kat turned to Nick.
“You got it?” she asked. He nodded.
“Inside left pocket.” Nick slouched forward and grinned a sloppy grin. “Lucky I’m left-handed.”
“Luck, my friend, has absolutely nothing to do with it.” Gabrielle’s voice was even as she passed. There was no flirt, no ditz. She was all business as she teetered to the end of the corridor and called, “If you’ll follow me, please.” Instantly the small speaker in Kat’s ear was alive with noise. It sounded like a flock of birds was nesting in her head—cawing and screeching—as one hundred and fifty chattering school children gathered behind Gabrielle and followed her back down the small corridor.
The noise was deafening. Kat and Nick pushed themselves against the wall, out of the way of the kids in their neatly pressed slacks and navy blazers.
“We’re sorry for the inconvenience,” Gabrielle was yelling to the teachers at the front of the mob. “Today we’re starting all tours in the sculpture garden.”
Through her earpiece, over the roar of the children, Kat heard Hale chattering to the director about London. About rain. About his unyielding search for the perfect fish and chips. The guards at the end of the hall were pressing themselves to the wall, their duties forgotten in the chaos that flowed in Gabrielle’s wake.
“Angus, Simon, you’re clear,” Kat whispered.
The guards didn’t see the unmarked door push easily open. The kids in the pack didn’t notice when the two boys no one had ever seen before suddenly disappeared from their midst.
“We’re in,” Angus said into Kat’s ear a second later. The kids kept walking, moving through the Henley’s halls like a tide, but when Kat turned to leave, she walked in the opposite direction. She wasn’t an ordinary kid, after all.
Katarina Bishop followed no one.
“The way I hear it, there was a Visily Romani once.”
“Just watch the door, Hamish,” Kat warned.
“I’m on it, Kitty, don’t you worry. But as I was saying, this Romani bloke was the best thief in the land, he was. Until he fell off a guard tower—”
“I heard he drowned.” Angus’s voice filled Kat’s ear, cutting off his brother.
“I’m telling this story.”
“Simon?” Kat asked as she looked around the bustling halls. “How much longer?”
“Fifteen minutes,” was Simon’s answer.
“But Romani didn’t really die, see?” Hamish went on, undaunted. “Well, strictly speaking, he did die, but—”
“Hamish, are you watching the door or aren’t you?” Gabrielle snapped, joining the conversation as she followed Hale and the Henley’s esteemed director from a respectable distance.
“I am, love. It’s clear as a bell. So anyway, as I was saying, he died, but he got reincarnated, see? Every generation there’s a new Romani.”
“That’s not how it goes, Hamish,” Kat tried to clarify.
“Yeah,” Angus said, ever the older brother. “The original Romani drowned. And it’s every other generation.”
“Guys,” Kat warned. Then something stopped her. She couldn’t scold the Bagshaws—could barely speak at all—when she realized how close Nick was standing, looking at her like she had never been looked at before.
“So, Nick, have you lived in Paris long?” She stepped away from the statue they’d been pretending to admire, glad of somewhere to go.
The boy shrugged as he fell into step beside her. “Off and on.” Kat felt a pang of something—annoyance, maybe? But maybe something else.
“Your accent isn’t one hundred percent British, though. Is it?” Kat asked.
“My father was American. But my mom is English.”