I take his hand numbly, realizing that my brother never offered me his, and yet here is a stranger who, with one small gesture of courtesy, has already been far, far kinder to me than my own flesh and blood still glowering at me from across the room. “I’m Adrian.” I don’t dare give my last name for fear that Henry will set me on fire.
Though my omission doesn’t seem to matter. Mr. Newton’s grip shifts in mine, like his bones turn to pudding. “You’re . . .” He looks to Monty, then back to me, and I realize he knows me too.
His whole face lights with delighted astonishment. “Good Lord. Adrian Montague.”
Suddenly I feel like I’m about to cry. “I should go,” I mumble.
“No, don’t,” Mr. Newton says, at the same time Henry says, “That’s probably best.”
Mr. Newton shoots Henry a stern look, then says to me. “Don’t go, please. I mean, my God, you’re Adrian!” He looks to Henry and holds up a hand in presentation, as though there was a chance I hadn’t yet been noticed. “Monty, it’s Adrian.”
“Well spotted,” Henry says flatly.
“Did you . . . ? Have you just . . . ? Oh my God!” Mr. Newton lets out a breathy laugh. He’s more flushed than Monty, and I feel, for a moment, a bit less like a rotted fish carcass some feral cat deposited on their doorstep. To Percy Newton, I suspect I am at least a fresh fish. “What are you doing here? I mean obviously you’re here to see Monty. This is so . . . my God, I knew you when you were a baby. Though I don’t suppose that really counts, as one can’t truly know a baby; notoriously poor conversationalists, babies. Back then we all called you . . .” He stops, seems to swallow whatever he was about to say, then finishes instead, “Adrian. We called you Adrian because that’s your name—what else would we call you?” He must mistake my general discomfort for confusion, for he says, by way of explanation, “I grew up with your family—with Monty.”
“Oh.” I try to infuse my voice with even a drop of enthusiasm and fail entirely. I sound petrified.
“Are you acquainted with the Powells?”
“Mathias Powell?” I ask. He has a son my age, one of the many lads currently touring the Continent, and three young daughters all with honey-gold hair. None of them bears even a passing resemblance to Mr. Newton except for the freckles, but his face breaks into a wide smile at the name. I wish Percy Newton were my brother instead of the brooding twat still glowering at me.
“He’s my cousin. His father raised me. My God, this is . . .” He trails off, seeming to notice Henry’s set face for the first time. I hope he might tell him to stop being so sour, but instead his own smile fades, concern clouding over.
And now they both hate me. I stare down at my feet and swallow hard.
Mr. Newton pivots back to me, his smile in place once more and only slightly more fixed looking. “Is there a reason you’ve come to see us, Adrian?”
You could leave, I remind myself. You could walk out of this office right now without a word and never think of this again. But instead I mumble, “We got this . . . this address from . . . the British Museum . . .”
“We?” Mr. Newton asks, and I cringe at the error. I now sound even more insane, like I have an imagined equipage accompanying me.
“My fiancée and I.”
“Good Lord, you’re engaged?” He presses a hand to his forehead with a laugh. “I feel so old.” He smiles again, and it is so sincerely kind that it has the adverse effect entirely and I feel my eyes well up. I look to the side quickly, like there’s anything subtle in a sudden head whip.
If he notices, Mr. Newton is too kind to comment. “Why did the British Museum give you our address?”
Before I can respond, Monty reaches suddenly forward, yanks open his desk drawer and roots around for a moment before he retrieves a letter and holds it up. I recognize my mother’s handwriting on the front, not much steadier than it had been in the final pages of her diary.
Mr. Newton looks from the letter, to me, then back. “Monty, what is that?”
“A letter from my mother,” Henry says. He’s still looking at me. The collar of my shirt itches against my skin.
Mr. Newton blinks, and I realize that, if he grew up with my brother, he must have known her too. “You were . . . communicating with your mother?”
You were communicating with my mother? I want to ask it too. And she never said anything? You’ve been here all this time, and she knew it and never said a goddamn thing to me?
“No,” Henry replies firmly. “She had a question about some trinket she owned and I had Rowan Buddle look into it for me. The gent who bought the narwhal from us.”
“You didn’t tell me,” Mr. Newton says, and I wonder what exactly is the nature of their relationship that this is the sort of thing that would merit disappointment at omission.
Henry shrugs. “Nothing to tell. After she died, I didn’t pursue it further.”
He holds my gaze a little too intently, and I realize he’s lying. The spyglass isn’t a subject he dipped into years ago on a whim. He has been at the museum recently enough that Mr. Buddle still has the page with the reproduction of the vanitas flagged. He sent Mr. Buddle diving into his archives searching for answers. My brother has been looking for the spyglass too, even after she died.
“Am I right?” he prompts.
I withdraw the broken spyglass from my pocket and hold it up for him to see. He purses his lips, and I can’t tell if he’s disappointed or relieved.
“How did you know she died?” I ask.
“There was a notice printed in the paper,” he says, and he might as well be recounting the past week’s weather for all the emotion in his voice. He unfolds the letter, then says, “So I’ll give you a quick summary and then you can go.”
“Could I . . . ?” I start to reach for the letter, desperate to read it, then realize what he said and stop. “I can’t go.”
Monty nods toward the door leading to the front office. “Straight back the way you came. You won’t get lost.”
“Monty,” Mr. Newton says, his voice edged. Monty gives him a wide-eyed What? look, to which Mr. Newton replies, “Stop being a prick.”
Monty looks away, his neck going red.
I can feel myself blushing too. I’m struggling to comprehend the way my entire world has recalibrated since I walked into this office, and I still fear I may be sick or cry or faint at any moment simply because I’m so overwhelmed, but I know what I need to do. My mother kept this spyglass all these years for a reason. It was important to her, and the last thing she did on this earth was choose to leave it behind. And now here I am, my spade barely sunk in past the surface and already I have turned up a lost sibling.
I have a brother.
“I want to talk to you,” I say.
Henry crosses his arms. “Why?”
I didn’t anticipate that would require explanation. “You’re my brother.”
“And that makes us what, exactly?”
“Well. Related.”
“Does that matter?”
“It does to me,” I say, looking to Mr. Newton for support, but he’s fixated on Henry. “I didn’t know you existed until now, and I can’t . . . I can’t just leave like we never met. We can . . . can I . . . can I buy you a meal? Or a drink or—give me as long as that takes. One meal. Or just an hour. Or less, if you’re . . . busy.” I need to stop negotiating myself down or I’ll end up agreeing to three words and a firm handshake before I’ve given him a chance to agree. “Please, one conversation. I didn’t know you existed until today and I’m trying to . . .” I flap a hand at my face, like that might indicate my attempts to get my head on straight. “Don’t you want that too?”