One With the Shadows Read Online Free PDF

dislocation settled on her.
    The lightening room was replaced by a view of the square below her rooms in a single, shuddering motion. It was dark. People were running every which way. The night was lit by flames snapping against the night sky, and there was the arrogant Gian Urbano, vibrating with energy. Horror lit his eyes. Someone had just said something that shook him to his soul. The words almost trembled in the air, but she couldn’t quite discern them. He turned slowly and looked at a building behind him fully engulfed in flame. His emotion hung in the air. He was appalled at some realization and that turned into determination even as she watched his back straighten. He struck off for the building. He charged inside and was obscured by a curtain of flame. He was running to his death.
    And then the room around her reappeared. She felt herself thunk back into place. Kate put her hand to her mouth. What was that ? She shook her head as though to clear it. But it was perfectly clear. She looked around, wary. Would the room change again? But it didn’t. The morning light, channeled through a wide crack in the draperies, made the room look shabby.
    She shook her head again. She wasn’t getting enough sleep. And the excitement of finding the stone was making her imagine things. Was she so struck by this Gian Urbano she couldn’t help imagining him in circumstances that seemed so real they felt like visions? And how had she seen an emerald in her vision earlier tonight which had only come into her life for the first time hours later?
    Never mind. The stone changed everything. She might escape this life and all the marquesas and Gian Urbanos. No wonder she was overexcited. She had escaped Matthew, through his death. But she had not escaped his legacy. He had given her a livelihood, and left her scarred. Was it right to hate him? He was the nearest thing she had to a father, though the relationship had turned out not to be biological. She hated the life he had left her. That was the next closest thing to hating him. So be it. If one couldn’t hate one’s father, who could?
    And now she hated all of them, all the marks she had duped, and the ones who thought she was worth no more than an evening’s entertainment. She hated the Gian Urbanos of the world who despised her for what she did. She would escape them too.

Three
    Kate glanced around her to be sure the clerk with the limp had closed the door behind him. The room was dark except for the blinding circle of light cast by one of the new gas lamps on the scratched worktable. It crackled and fizzed as its shade glowed incandescent. The light revealed two hands set calmly on the table, fine hands with delicate, long fingers and carefully pared nails. Those hands did not fit with their surroundings. Equipment loomed in the darkness, though she could make out few details through her veil. The place smelled of oil and dust. An array of tools, tiny chisels, wooden mallets, polishing cloths, lay on the table just outside the circle of light. Sitting behind the table was a tall, wizened presence possessing a prominent nose with spectacles that occasionally caught the light, making them opaque.
    “Jacob said you had something worthy of my talents.” The voice was flat and nasal. He pronounced the name of the jeweler who had given her his name “Ya-cobe.” Dutch. That was good. Amsterdam was the diamond capital of the world. All the best cutters were Dutch.
    “Yes,” she said. She didn’t bother with her lie. This man would know this was no simple heirloom the moment he saw the stone. “And I must know that you have the skill to cut it.”
    The opaque spectacles revealed nothing.
    Kate willed her exterior to calmness, though her insides boiled with anticipation. And dread. She sensed dread. But it wasn’t her dread. She glanced to her reticule. The dread seemed to be coming from … the stone? How could that be? Jewels didn’t dread things.
    “Did not Jacob tell you I