FORTY

The Key of the Twins

Schuyler came back with a second pot of tea to find Jack contemplative and Catherine continuing to eat her biscuits.

She poured them each another cup, trying to think of what to say to Catherine that wouldn’t be rude or offensive. How was it that she had been sent to warn the gatekeepers—when perhaps she should have been warned about them. Aside from Lawrence, the Order of the Seven was a motley crew: Kingsley, the Silver Blood; Catherine, the baby killer…. Schuyler’s mind whirred. There was more. “There’s a healer here… a Venator from Amman. He says he is your brother.”

Catherine frowned. “My brother?”

“Yes.”

“What else did this Venator say?”

“He said the Coven in Amman is destroyed, and that a Silver Blood was behind its destruction, as well as the destruction of all the Covens. And he told us he knew what you guarded. Forgive me—that’s why I thought he was your brother, because he knew your secret.”

“I would not trust this Venator. He is no brother of mine.

my brother died in the War of Heaven.”

Schuyler thought hard. She had accepted that Mahrus was telling the truth, and even went so far as to think that he might be Onbasius, the healer from Rome, who had been part of the Order of the Seven and a gatekeeper himself. But of course that wasn’t right, because of what Allegra had told her from the beginning: one gate per family. No. Mahrus was not Onbasius and no keeper; and according to Catherine of Siena, he was a liar.

Schuyler told Catherine of what the Venators had learned—that Mimi Force had been attacked by the blood spell in the glom, and that the Nephilim had targeted Deming as well. The Venators told her they had never discovered why the Regent had been attacked, but she thought it might have something to do with information they’d found in Paul Rayburn’s files—notes concerning a star key that unlocked one of the Gates of Hell. She asked Catherine about it. “The files said that the star key unlocks the Gate of Promise. Have you heard of this key? Do you have it?”

“They have the translation wrong. It is called the Key of the Twins, not the Key of the Star,” Catherine said. “Easy enough to get it confused. Nephilim aren’t known for their deep intelligence.”

“So that’s why they attacked Mimi…. They thought she was the key somehow. And Deming, because she was a star-born twin. They were searching for meaning, trying to make things fit,” Schuyler said. “But why would they need a key if they’re already using humans to bring women through the gate?”

The gatekeeper hesitated for a moment before replying. “I suppose if you are Allegra’s daughter and worthy of the secret of the seven, you will find out soon enough anyway.”

“There’s more that my mother didn’t tell me?”

Catherine put her teacup down so it rattled the saucer.

“The Gate of Promise is a bifurcated path. It leads to two different locations. This one, in Giza, guards the underworld. The other is hidden from me. I do not know where it is or where it leads. But I do know one thing: whoever holds the Key of the Twins is the true keeper of the Gate of Promise.”