to search every chophouse in San Francisco. Here. I want you to keep this while I’m gone.” He pulled the Jefferson Chair ring from his finger and dropped it into her outstretched hand. “If we find ourselves separated, it will be useful.”
“What would I do, pawn it?”
“You wouldn’t get much. It’s index metal—gold alloyed with iron. The iron comes from a special mine and contains a rare mineral called diabolite. The chemical makeup of each ring is unique. Anyone wearing a ring of index metal can be found by a simple magical search for the ring’s particular alloy. If you keep it with you, I can always find you.”
Emily looked at the ring, suddenly wary.
“What about Caul? Can he find us by searching for the ring?”
“Professor Mirabilis is the only man who knows the chemical signatures of all the Jefferson Chair rings,” Stanton said. “If the Maelstroms are able to find us using that ring, then all hope really is lost.”
“So this will help you find me if I go missing.” Emily slid the ring onto her thumb. “But it hardly helps me if Caul spots you riding around San Francisco.”
“If I’m not back in three hours, you’ll have to find a way to get to New York on your own,” Stanton said. “Get to the Institute and tell Professor Mirabilis everything.”
“Get to New York? On my own?”
“You’d find some way,” Stanton said. “You’re very resourceful, and you’ve shown that you can be entirely ruthless if required.”
When he was gone, Emily toyed nervously with the gold ring. Sliding it off her thumb, she examined it. A phrase in Latin was inscribed on the inside of the band. Ex fide fortis. From faith, strength. She looked down at the cookie crumbs on the saucer. Stanton had to keep fed, at least until they got to New Bethel and got some money in their pockets. She reached up and felt the hair sticks, the smooth cold weight of them.
Ruthless. Yes, she thought, she could be ruthless.
She went to the man behind the counter.
“How far is Mason Street from here?” she asked.
Stanton returned to the chophouse two and a half hours later. An expression of alarm crossed his face when he didn’t see her waiting for him, even though she was sitting in exactly the same spot. He looked around for a moment, rubbing his chin. She stepped forward and thrust her hand out to shake his.
“Good evening to you, sir,” she said, in a lowish voice.
He blinked at her. She watched the wariness in his eyes transmute into horror, and knew that her disguise was completely successful.
“Miss Edwards?” he fairly choked on the words. “My God, what have you done to yourself?”
After Stanton had gone, Emily had ascertained that Mason Street was not a far walk, and she’d hurried down there, keeping to the shadows along the way. Mason Street was garishly lit and bustling, even at three in the morning, and Emily had no difficulty finding a buyer for her extraordinary hair. She had squeezed her eyes shut as the large scissors flashed over her ears, snicking cleanly through her thick braids. Afterward, the man offered her another sawbuck for her silver hair sticks and the amethyst earrings, but she declined. The hair she could grow back. The inheritances from her mother could not be replaced.
Her next stop was a small, untidy secondhand shop. After prolonged fingering of the material and exceedingly close scrutiny of Mrs. Lyman’s handiwork, the pockmarked old rag merchant said he’d take her poplin dress in trade for a suit of men’s clothing. Unfortunately, the only suit small enough to fit her was made of a screamingly loud plaid that mingled the colors of cherry red, peacock blue, and apple green in a way they had no business being mingled.
The rag merchant told her she could change in the back room, pointing to it with his thumb in a bored way as if women changed into men’s suits in his back room every hour of the day. Perhaps they did; on her way back he handed her a folded length of wide white linen.
“You’ll need this,” he said.
She could not imagine why he thought she’d need the fabric until she discovered exactly how narrow the jacket was through the chest. Using the white linen to subdue her remaining female endowments wasn’t easy or pleasant, but eventually she succeeded in molding her torso to fit the garment. When she came out of the back room, the rag merchant