“Fifteen minutes,” Peter said.
“How many are in the cells now?” Felix leaned forward in his chair. It was a dark crimson velvety thing someone’s mom had tired of. Peter and I were on the couch, which was similarly dark and cushioned but blue.
“Let’s see.” Peter stared at his hands. “Okay, there were two women.”
“Aren’t women in a separate jail from men? Or a separate wing?” That had always been my experience in any town of more than five thousand.
Felix said, “Magic users are all together. There aren’t enough grigoris in jail to keep two separate cell areas.”
“Jane Parvin,” Peter said. “And Svetlana Ustinova.”
Felix looked worried, an expression I’d never seen on his face. These women must be grigoris of some reputation. “Jane’s in for killing one of the new grigoris in a test combat. Svetlana, I don’t know. Who else?” he asked.
“A man I didn’t know. At least twenty years older than me.” Peter was just barely eighteen, I thought.
“What did he look like?” Maybe Felix could identify the other prisoner from a description.
“Very tall, big head, reddish beard,” Peter said. “He’s next to Eli. The women are across the corridor.”
“That’s John Brightwood,” Felix said. “He’s a killer.”
“I haven’t met a grigori who wasn’t,” I said.
Peter looked from one of us to the other, his mouth open. He’d seen me kill his father and his father’s hired hands, but I was no grigori. Maybe Peter hadn’t ever seen what Eli could do, what Eli’s deceased partner Paulina had been capable of doing, by way of destroying another person.
From Peter’s look of dismay, for the first time I wondered if all grigoris weren’t death dealers. “Are there grigoris who don’t … ?”
“Kill others? Yes, there are.” Felix grinned. “You didn’t know.”
“How could I? The only other grigoris I’ve ever seen were trying to kill me.”
Peter was still recovering. “Truly, Lizbeth?”
“Truly,” I said. “How did you survive?”
“I killed ’em first.” How else?
“You … shot them?”
“I did.”
“Eli knows this?” he said.
“Eli was with me.”
“Does Eli … ?”
I felt a little bad for Peter, who was shocked, like his world had been turned upside down. I reminded myself that Peter had been prepared to kill his own father. “Peter, Eli was given a job to do. Some other grigoris didn’t want him to be successful. They did their best to kill us. I don’t enjoy killing, but I’d always rather it be them instead of me.”
I didn’t know what world Peter had been living in, but it wasn’t the same one as mine.
Felix was smiling, but when I looked at him, the grin vanished. He said, gently for him, “Peter, we have to do whatever is necessary to get your brother out of jail. Otherwise, he’ll be dead before he sees the outside of that cell.”
“But why? What has he done?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t care. We’ll get him out. Felix, you’re in?”
“Yes,” Felix said.
“Why are you helping?” Peter asked. “Felix, you’ve always impressed me as, excuse me … selfish.”
I was curious to hear the answer, because I’d thought the same thing. Why was Felix willing to risk his life and career for the sake of Eli?
Both Peter and I were astonished when Felix answered, “I want to marry your sister, Peter.”
“Which one?” Peter was definitely out at sea now, and I was right along with him.
“Lada. Lucy.”
I was glad it was Lucy, since she was older. But that only meant she was seventeen. I was sure Felix was thirty. At least Lucy seemed braver and smarter than her sister or mom.
“Does Lucy return your feeling?” Peter was suddenly the head of the family, at least in Eli’s absence.
“She doesn’t hate me,” Felix said mildly.
But there was a lot Lucy didn’t know about Felix, I was willing to bet good money. I’d never pegged Felix as the marrying kind.
I did enjoy the moment, because it was the first time I’d ever heard Felix sound anything but confident.
“We need to finish talking about Eli. Peter, are you in?” I said.
“Eli is my brother,” Peter said with dignity. “Yes.”
So I had another crew. I didn’t wholly trust or like Felix, and Peter hadn’t been tested yet. But I didn’t have to crack Eli out of jail by myself.
We talked a little more, but it was late afternoon by that time, and I needed time to think by myself.
Peter returned to Hickory Street, which was where he’d been headed when he’d spotted me and Felix. He was staying at his home about half the time now, because the atmosphere in the school dormitory was hostile, he told us.
Felix, who had also been on his way to visit the Savarovs when he’d seen me, offered to drive me back to my hotel. I was glad to accept. The traffic was heavy, so I kept quiet as Felix drove. I was thinking it would have been a busy afternoon for the Savarov women if Peter and Felix had not followed me.
As I got out of the car in front of the Balboa Palace, Felix said, “Let’s meet tomorrow. I have to be on duty for six hours, but after that we can work on a plan.”
“When and where?”
“I’ll come by here at four o’clock.”
“See you then.” I went into the hotel, got my key from Paul McElvaney, and went to my room to ponder. In no particular order, I thought about these things: (1) Felix and Lucy as a couple felt funny and odd. (2) Peter was sure green for a man his age. (3) Maybe some of the grigoris in the cellblock with Eli would be released before we made our attempt to free him, or more would be under arrest. Random factors.
(4) I wondered if there was any way I could carry a concealed gun. I felt very uneasy without one. I could be attacked at any moment. I’d been keeping my eyes open as I walked today, and I’d seen a few clusters of men I deemed dangerous. And I had enemies here; now the older brothers, Dagmar and Bogdan, knew what I looked like. I was real sure they slipped that maid money to find out what happened in the Savarov household.
Maybe bloodshed could be avoided if I could make my way in to speak to the tsar. Though if a genuine aristocrat like Eli’s mom was convinced she couldn’t get in to see Alexei, I didn’t stand much of a chance … if I tried to get in the normal way.
When I’d reached that point in all my wondering, my room felt too small, so I went to get some dinner. Afterward, I could have gone to a movie (something I’d only done once before), but I wasn’t in the mood to have fun. So me and my big ball of worry went back to my room to play catch some more.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I found the jail on Folsom Street early the next morning. It was designed in Spanish style and looked almost like a hotel … at least from the outside. There was a sort of plaza, and then you walked through an archway. I stood across the street from that plaza and archway for a long time.