Across the Ice

Book 3 of 3 in Lenore’s storyline

Chapter 1 ~ Morning Meetings

The cheerful brightness of morning light filtering through the windows belied the crisp air beyond. It painted the walls in shades of butter and sunflower. Lenore gravitated toward it as she ran her fingertips along the book spines in Eamon’s and her library. She raised her face to the sunshine, bathing in the little warmth it offered. If only she could soak it up and store it away for more difficult times.

Hearing footsteps on the stairs, she spun and headed for the doorway.

“Good morning.” Lenore did her best to sound cheerful. She even managed a half-smile.

Eamon looked at her for a moment. “Morning.” He didn’t return the smile.

“Would you like to walk to work together?” She took a step forward. “I thought I might get an early start.”

“No, thank you.” He adjusted his cravat. “I hope you have a good day.”

He continued out of the house without looking back. Once he was gone, Lenore’s face crumpled; it’d been this way for the last several weeks. She sank into a stiff leather armchair and allowed herself to weep. 

“You must accept your feelings,” Mina had counseled her. “Allow yourself to process them.”

Lenore hadn’t told Mina, Neal, or the rest of her adoptive family what had transpired between Eamon and herself the night of the Halls of Justice attack. She could tell they had an inkling, however. Eamon’s anger at discovering Kieran’s existence followed by Lenore’s increased presence in their home must have told them enough.

“What did he say?” Neal had asked not long after that dark night.

“He’s upset with all of us,” was all Lenore would betray.

She hadn’t wanted to risk angering Eamon further by “airing their dirty laundry,” as Eamon’s mother often phrased it. Later, however, she’d told him about Neal’s question. Eamon had barely hidden his contempt.

With Bitsy curled up in her lap and Majesty at her feet, Lenore allowed her mind to wander. A distant lone zeppelin glided by the window, possibly on its way to Bone Port. She wondered if the passengers could see the sweep of white-clothed protesters spilling across the Parliament building lawns below. Their ranks had swelled after the Enforcers had been given temporary extra funding in response to the attack. The thought weighed Lenore down even more. She tried to follow Mina’s instructions, though Lenore’s old thief-self warred against it.

Stuff it down, the voice inside her said. Don’t let yourself break like this.

She let loose another sob and pushed the instinct away. Lenore remembered her mother, the hope just before that small office wall had exploded. It hurt, but she let the pain pool inside her heart. Her loss was worthy of her tears, so she honored it.

The sharp emptiness of the house cut into her heart. Thank the stars for Bitsy and Majesty—they were the only support she had left here. After Lenore had cried her tears into their coats, she opened her pocket watch. Neal and Mina’s precious gift, with its exposed gears and smoked glass face, gave her bittersweet news. Given that she’d risen early to catch Eamon, she’d be right on time.

)(

Camilla shifted her doctor’s bag to one hand and knocked on the grey-blue door. She chanted the prayer that had become a ritual with these visits: Please let him wake up today.

Every day that Falcon remained unconscious eroded hope for his recovery. Camilla cursed the explosive that had blown him off that window at the Halls of Justice. The event had killed hers and Lenore’s mothers, Adelle and Twila, and left Falcon comatose, though only Camilla and a few others knew the full truth of it. 

She focused on the door to re-center her thoughts. Its knob was black, the trim white. Falcon’s mother had painted it to resemble a blue jay’s plumage. The door opened, revealing Falcon’s father, Scholar Jacob Smoke.

Without preamble, he informed her, “No change since the other day.”

Camilla’s heart sank, but she molded her expression to one of comforting encouragement. Following a gesture from Scholar Smoke to enter, she headed straight down a corridor into Falcon’s makeshift sickroom.

When they had transported him home, Mina had recommended he be moved as little as possible. Since his usual room was up a grand flight of stairs, the Smoke family had fashioned a space for him in a small conservatory at the back of the house.

“He’s always loved the view from this room,” Rhea, Falcon’s mother, had said. “Perhaps the sunlight will be good for him.”

At the moment, Camilla was concerned about the chill seeping in through the windows. Embossed birds on striped wallpaper swooped along panels of sunshine, and the family had placed cheerful flower arrangements around the room. Camilla laid another blanket over Falcon’s unconscious form. She checked his vitals and performed other necessary hygiene tasks. As Jacob Smoke had said, no change—unconscious but stable. 

After her ministrations were complete, Camilla pulled up a chair next to Falcon. “It’s been difficult without you,” she whispered. The Smokes often popped in during her visits, so she kept her words between Falcon and herself. “Emily Lee’s parents have sent her away to a boarding school in the north. I understand it’s an excellent institution, and it gets her out of the city. I suppose Mrs. Lee is protecting Emily in a way, even if Emily hates everything about it. Mina tried speaking to Mrs. Lee about Emily’s position again, but Mrs. Lee still refuses to hear any argument for it. I think she’s fairly well written Mina off, but I wrote to Emily this morning. She made me promise to keep her updated on things here. Eamon wasn’t much help. He’s still upset with Lenore about the Halls.”

As well as Kieran, Camilla mentally added.

She stroked Falcon’s hand. He’d worked so hard to keep them safe that night. He could have turned them in or at least abandoned them, but he had put himself in harm’s way instead. He’d even gone so far as to try to help Adelle and Twila escape—prisoners he was meant to keep incarcerated. And this was his reward. He had hurtled back, fallen, as everything flew apart in that fiery blaze. 

“I want to thank the stars you haven’t had to answer for anything that night, but it’s not worth… this. The Enforcers have questioned Mina and me as to your state. They’re questioning everyone about the attack. I thought attending Fourth Hawkins’ funeral would bring me some closure. Then I thought perhaps it was just slow in coming.” Camilla’s voice cracked. She took a deep breath to collect herself. “You know how I hated him, and yet… Blast it all.” A few tears rolled down her cheeks. “I thought at first this was about my mother and you, but… Why, Falcon? Why am I mourning him? He was the worst kind of monster.”

She dabbed her face with a lace-edged, clumsily embroidered handkerchief. In echinacea pink floss, the letters HCA blared against the white silk—the C for Camilla being larger than the other two letters. Mina had counseled Camilla and Lenore together on processing their feelings, but it wouldn’t do to fall apart when the Smoke family was in their own pain, not to mention the possibility of appearing unfit to treat Falcon.

“I miss you,” she whispered. “Please, get better. There’s nothing more I can do on this end.”

Camilla’s throat tightened, and she paused to collect herself. Taking deep breaths, she reclaimed distance from her patient, hating the need to do so with every inhalation.

)(

As soon as Lenore entered the Arc-Tech department, she headed for Neal’s desk. She often left work late nowadays, so everything looked exactly as it had when she left the evening before. Tidy stacks of papers and correspondence stored in their respective envelopes hunkered behind rulers and pen cups—barriers Lenore had erected in the battle to keep the center of Neal’s workspace usable. She knew what her mentor had on his agenda, having looked over his diary last night, but she gave it another check anyway.

“G’morning, Nori,” came a gruff yet soft voice beside her.

A familiar, exquisite scent tickled Lenore’s nostrils and dragged her attention to the stout figure standing a few paces off. Copper held out a paper cup and wrapped parcel. She said nothing and kept her eyes glued to the cup. 

Their relationship had become rather complicated these last few weeks, ever since Lenore had learned Copper had enabled the Reaper’s Collective to blow up pieces of the Halls of Justice. He’d cut ties before the attack, when the Collective tried to kill him. They’d used what he had taught them, however, to take out innocents, including members of the museum staff and Lenore and Camilla’s mothers. Having learned Copper’s reasoning, Lenore couldn’t entirely blame him, but he still had blood on his hands. Then again, he’d been a dear friend and supportive mentor, so she didn’t always know how to interact with him.

“Neal told me where to find that place that does up coffee,” Copper continued. “Thought you might like some.”

Lenore finally raised her eyes to Copper’s face. “Thank you,” she said, and took the proffered gifts.

Copper shifted from foot to foot. “Neal told me how you liked it. I hope I did it right.”

“Thank you.” She tried to hold Copper’s gaze, to think of something more to say. With each passing moment, more heat flooded her cheeks. “I’m sure it’s lovely,” she mumbled before turning away again.

“You going to Neal’s do tonight?” he asked.

Neal and Katerina Holmes were co-hosting a soirée to drum up support for their Enforcer reform initiative. They’d recruited as many of their family and friends as possible to help give the attendees a positive experience and inform them of the reform’s goals.

Lenore nodded, not wanting to discuss the event with Copper. It was too close to the disaster he had helped engineer. She grasped for a different topic and swept her eyes over Neal’s desk again. Her eyes landed on his open diary. “We’ve got new graduate student interviews today.”

“Aye. Let’s hope this lot is better than Dempsey.”

Lenore gave a strangled laugh and glanced back at Copper. His mouth ticked up into something that almost resembled a smile.

“Would you believe he was the best of the last lot?” he said.

“No,” Lenore replied, perhaps a bit too emphatically. “I really don’t.”

Copper didn’t know Dempsey, their former colleague, had hired a shadowy coterie of assassins to kill Lenore. The contract had finally been dissolved, but Dempsey had escaped and disappeared without a trace.

“It was his grades,” Copper explained. “Top marks from university. We knew he was a prat from the get-go, but on paper he was the best candidate. And his daddy was a generous donor.”

Lenore made a disgruntled noise of acknowledgement and lifted a folder from Neal’s desk. She’d scrawled Grad Student CVs across the tab.

Offering the folder to Copper, “Want to see what we’re working with this time?”

Copper’s brushy beard perked up as he took it from her, and he motioned to the research corner on the far side of the room. She grabbed her coffee and unwrapped the accompanying parcel—pound cake. Companionable ease joined them at last as they sat, occasionally commenting on the applicants’ qualifications. 

Lately, Lenore found her job trying. On top of the awkwardness with Copper, assisting Neal with the Archeology department’s sunken temple project had its own problems. The congenial facade Eamon donned at work cut her like splinters of ice, which melted beneath the heat of their colleagues’ knowing glances.

While she and Copper worked, Lenore had to push back tears. Only once, though, thankfully. Anything could set her off nowadays. In this case, it was gratitude that she and Copper had managed to connect. 

)(

Winter was good to Kieran, with its longer nights and fewer people outside. The cold air felt like a mild breeze on his skin. It was odd to think summer used to be his favorite, back when he’d been mortal. He crouched against a tree trunk, balancing effortlessly on a sturdy bough. Below sat a tiny but tidy back garden. Kieran gathered shadows around himself for camouflage. He dearly wished he could go inside, but ever since her purging, Annabelle made every room as bright as daylight. She only turned the lights down before bed, and humans were deadly boring to watch sleep, no matter what some of those over-romanticized novels said. 

He chuckled. As children, she turned up the petrolsene lights in his room at night when he’d annoyed her, knowing he didn’t sleep well except in total dark. At least that hadn’t changed.

Annabelle was making dinner for herself and her daughter, who was elsewhere in the house, probably painting or updating business expenses for Annabelle. When they were in the same room, Kieran sometimes hid beneath the closest window and listened. He sighed. It was pathetic, yet it was the only way he knew to retain a connection with his older sister, tenuous though it was. Neal and Mina had suggested on many occasions that, perhaps, he should reveal himself, but if a time for such things had ever existed, it had long passed.

Annabelle had turned herself in for purging for her daughter’s sake. That hideous practice—“cleansing” a criminal through torture and confession—had cost Annabelle’s hand. Kieran hadn’t been there for her then. Now that she’d pulled herself up by her bootstraps, it wasn’t his place to upend her life. She’d thought him dead for over a decade, seemed to have made her peace with it, so he remained a silent observer. He saw her happy, and that was enough.

)(

Three black-clad figures walked into Rook’s office as silent as shadows. Rook was already standing, Dmitri just behind him. Garrick stood behind the desk, ready to pull switches rigged to hidden crossbows around the room. Rook hoped it wouldn’t come to that. 

He’d been forewarned of the dark trio’s arrival, and he mentally ticked each of the goons stationed at various posts outside his office. One, a behemoth called Grunt, covered the door. That was standard. But the rest, the plants pretending to peruse the market’s wares or even selling items, were not.

Rook smiled and spread his hands in welcome. “Good to see you, Reaper. I trust the outside world wasn’t too terrible to traverse.”

He extended his hand, but the Reaper made no move to take it. They didn’t even tilt their bird-masked face to look at it. 

No one knew the strange figure’s real identity. They didn’t even claim a gender. With their robes pooling beneath them like squid ink, Rook wondered if the creature had some kind of horrible, slimy, cephalopod face. That certainly would explain the ridiculous getup. 

Rook retracted his unshaken hand, shrugged, and turned, one eye always on his guests.

He made sure to use Dmitri’s code name. “Ermine, drinks, if you please. Absinthe, yes?” Rook winked at the visitors. “If the rumors are anything to go by anyway.”

The Collective members gave no indication of having heard him, much less of being impressed. Their round, soulless, glass eyes, which bulged from brass and leather masks, stared forward. Metal grates served for their mouths. Dmitri, almost as stone-faced, headed over to the drinks table. He remained behind the invisible line Rook drew with his body.

“May I invite you and your associates to sit?” Rook asked, and glanced at the two Crypt-Keepers behind the Reaper.

“No,” one replied.

“You prefer to stand and drink?”

The other Crypt-Keeper pointed at Dmitri. “We came only for him.”

“Really? I’m disappointed.” Rook did not at all look disappointed. “Your note made it sound like you wanted to establish new business dealings. ‘You have something of mine,’ I believe it said?”

“No one leaves the Collective,” the first Crypt-Keeper replied.

“I understand the pain of losing one of your flock. Believe me, I’ve been through it. But you know what they say. If you love something, let it go.”

Dmitri returned with two small glasses and handed one to Rook. Rook clinked his against the one Dmitri still held. He then leveled his eyes at his guests as he took a sip. Dmitri continued to hold the other glass in silent challenge.

“This worm belongs to us,” the first Crypt-Keeper said.

Rook’s eyes narrowed. “I’m done talking to you grunts.” A sound from the goon at the door. “Oh, not you, mate. You stay out there. Thank you.” Rook looked back at the Reaper, who rose almost as tall as him. “I want to hear from the big dog.”

A long pause passed. Dmitri took a sip of his absinthe.

A deathly wheeze rattled from the Reaper. “Do not test me.”

“I assure you, there is no test in play.” Rook’s tone was deadly calm. “This is business. Ermine works for me now.”

“His interference has taken one of my children from me. His life is mine.”

“Your ill-conceived attack on the Halls of Justice cost this city much more. The Enforcer ranks have swelled. How many of us will lose people thanks to you? You’re not the most popular person at the moment.”

“Will you kill me then? Call your planted soldiers in here and strike me down?”

A smile curled up Rook’s face. “No, but I can’t speak for anyone else. I want a truce between us instead.”

Another pause.

“Indeed.”

Rook waited, but the Reaper didn’t elaborate. “That’s not an agreement.”

“It is not a refusal either.”

The Reaper turned and left without another word, black robes whispering over the floor as the Crypt-Keepers followed. Rook waited until the door was closed again and the sound of feet on the stairs outside had subsided.

He placed his glass on the desk. “Glech! How does anyone drink that swill? Garrick, post additional lookouts. I want to know the moment one of those morbid morons enters the Char district.”

Garrick grumbled and shot Dmitri a venomous look as he left.

“Thank you. I still love you, even if I do have a second second-in-command now,” Rook called to Garrick’s retreating back. He sounded uncannily like a parent of small children. “Let’s try to remember to play nice with one another. I need you all at your best.” He pointed at Dmitri. “You watch yourself. I think that freak would sooner flay themself than give you up. Although, who knows? It might enjoy that.”

“Yes, sir,” Dmitri replied flatly.

Rook stole one final glance at the broad window that looked down over the market. Should he have just killed the Reaper and been done with it? No. Even if he’d succeeded—far from a sure thing—it would have started a war. One he wasn’t sure he could win.

Out of the Shadows

Into the Fire

Raven’s Cry

Falcon’s Favor