The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers (the little red hen ebook TXT) 📕

“No.” Audrey shook her head. “You were nearly killed onstage in front of five thousand people. Even Jason was spooked—that’s why he’s never invited you on tour with him again.”

“What about my summer in France and Italy?”

“I can work wonders with hair and sunglasses. Even then, you were nearly struck by a moped in Rome.”

Lara leaned heavy on the counter. “That was—”

“—another accident?” Audrey cut in. “We’re safe here. Mother claimed it was a daemon of some sort trying to kill us—a woman.”

“Do you know who?”

Audrey shook her head. “But you are constantly reminding me that you’re thirty and you can take care of yourself, so it’s time I teach you what we really do.”

They walked into Lara’s living room and Audrey took a seat on the floor, settling herself in front of the fireplace on the area rug. “I just need one candle, but you have to make sure that you have one with you always. Each night, you must do this.”

Lara found a candle and handed it to her mother.

“Perfect,” said Audrey. “You don’t have to be picky. The fire binds the spell.”

Watching her mother run her hand over the flame again and again, Lara worried that the hand would burn, but it appeared to take on a sheen. “Yours will do this, too,” said Audrey.

Bracatus losieus tegretatto.

Eh na drataut bei ragonne beate.

The door blew open and a gust of wind hit them. Her mother smiled.

“Done,” said Audrey. “Now sit. I have some chants to teach you.”

While they waited at the gate for the flight to Paris, Gaston kept a tight grip on Lara’s carry-on suitcase, which now contained the wrapped painting Sylvie on the Steed. He had chosen not to use an art handling service, preferring to keep the painting with them during the flight. Freed from its heavy frame, the painting was now small enough to fit into an international carry-on bag. Gaston had used acid-free packing paper to fill the hard-sided suitcase along with a healthy mixture of tissue and then bubble wrap.

Lara hadn’t been to Paris since the summer after her sophomore year in college. Now she knew that she hadn’t been alone—her mother had traveled along with her that summer. She’d written down the incantation to keep her safe and purchased two small candles, which were now stored in her bag. While she hated to admit it, she was nervous—and a little frightened—knowing she might be in danger. In the end, Audrey had toyed with joining them, and Lara had hoped her mother could make the trip, but she had an expectant mare and decided to stay behind. The trip would be short—only forty-eight hours. They’d see Edward Binghampton Barrow soon after landing and give the scholar a day to decide whether it was a real Giroux or not.

As they boarded, Lara took the suitcase from Gaston’s hand, pushing her carry-on toward him to take instead. It was her painting, her family’s potentially valuable painting. Gaston made a move to take the handle from her and she shot him a look. “I’ve got it.”

They landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport the following morning. Knowing their hotel rooms wouldn’t be available, they took a taxi directly to the Sorbonne’s Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art on Rue Vivienne on the Right Bank, Second Arrondissement.

It was strange traveling with Gaston, a man she barely knew. He drank a steady stream of espressos and was prone to pacing while on his phone, securing art with the intensity of a stock trader.

As she rode through Paris, Kerrigan Falls felt so far away, and her thoughts turned to Althacazur. He had told her that she wouldn’t need to contact him—he’d find her. So far in her life, he’d been able to do just that. Lara realized how much she’d needed this diversion. Althacazur had compared Todd to his lost love, Juno, and described them as mere illusions. While he indicated that he held the answers she was looking for, in her heart Lara felt the answer had been inside her for nine months now. She’d just needed to be somewhere else for a little context to be able to admit that Todd wasn’t coming back, because he couldn’t.

She was deep in thought when the taxi slowed in front of a tall cement building and Gaston reached into his wallet and paid the driver.

In the French Arts Section, they found room 313 belonging to Edward Binghampton Barrow IV. The man who answered the door was not gangly, out of shape, and dressed in tweed, as Lara expected, but rather a man with brown skin and close-cropped hair that was graying at the temples. He was slight and thin and dressed in black pants with a crisp white shirt, horn-rimmed glasses, and Gucci loafers. That’s where the fine detailing stopped. Much like fossils, all of his plants were dead and seemed to have been trying to flee out the window in search of sun or rain before they petrified in their terra-cotta pots. His office held hundreds of books organized in haphazard, thigh-high stacks, several with deep curves that threatened to topple, like dominoes. Any visitor wanting to avoid disaster walked sideways to the lone chair.

“Teddy,” said Gaston, referring to Barrow’s mother’s embarrassing moniker of Teddy Bear-row.

“Boucher! You haven’t changed a bit.” Barrow pulled Gaston into a tight, almost violent embrace that seemed to rattle the slight Frenchman.

“Nor you, my friend.” Gaston turned to Lara. “This is Mademoiselle Lara Barnes. Lara without a u.”

“My mother was a fan of Doctor Zhivago,” said Lara, feeling the need to explain the odd spelling.

“Lara,” said Barrow, emphasizing the a in her name in a clipped upper-crust English accent. Barrow’s smile was quick, and his hands were warm and large. “It is wonderful to meet you. Let me guess, I am not what you expected?” He turned his head expectantly, waiting for her response.

Lara