One last man was lowered down from the first ship, with the assistance of two other men. He was hunched at the shoulders, adorned with leather armor and gray fur, and she knew him—not because her mind put the impossible pieces together, but because Julian did. He recoiled, going bone-white in the face.
Cyrus Ironwood looked like a different beast without the finery he’d wrapped himself in to give the impression of civility.
Oh God, she thought, pressing a fist against her mouth to keep from making another sound. He’s got Nicholas.
She’d been so focused on finding the astrolabe, so sure in her belief that Nicholas was in Damascus still, that she had somehow never considered the possibility that Ironwood would have snared him again. But then—the men were going where Nicholas was pointing, hauling the sacks toward the hoard inside the cave at the end of the beach.
When Ironwood came up to him, when Ironwood put a hand on his shoulder, Nicholas did not run. He did not flinch. He nodded, pointing to the cave.
He…smiled.
“What in the name of God?” Julian began. He shook off the surprise first, pulling her back down to a crouch beside him. “He’s—that’s Nick, isn’t it? But then, that’s Grandfather, and they’re…they’re together.”
Walking side by side to collect the reserve of Ironwood treasure.
For one terrible moment, Etta could not feel anything below her neck. The cold air seemed to ice over the inside of her lungs, making it painful to breathe.
“He must be—the old man must be forcing him,” she managed to say. The Nicholas she knew could barely stand to be in the same breathing space as the man, let alone tolerate his touch.
The Nicholas you knew for a month?
No. No. No. Etta shoved the thought away. He’d handed her his heart in complete trust, and she knew the shape of it, how heavily it was weighted with hatred and shattering sadness toward this family. This wasn’t a betrayal—the only betrayal would be hers, if she believed he was doing anything other than finding a way to survive.
She blew out a harsh breath, gathering up her small bag of supplies. The landscape of Iceland had a cool, reserved kind of beauty, but its terrain was unpredictable, roughly hewn, as if shaped by the travels of giants. They’d come down a worn path that would eventually lead to the beach below, and, if she continued down it just a bit more, she might be able to get close enough to somehow catch Nicholas’s attention without any of the Ironwoods noticing.
“He’s treating him like…” Julian began, still sitting on the ground where she had left him.
“Let’s go,” she said. “Come on.”
He turned, and for once she couldn’t read his expression. “He’s treating him like the way he used to handle my father.”
“Nicholas is?”
He shook his head. “Grandfather. That’s not a prisoner on that beach. That’s an heir.”
The words flew at her like an arrow. Etta took off, continuing up the path, to avoid it landing. She wrapped the heavy, drab wool coat around her tightly, and looked up to find that the rain had turned to snow, and was catching on her shoulders and hair.
Etta took the bend in the trail at a run, scrambling on hands and feet to avoid slipping on the ice and moss. The waves broke below her, snapping against the earth, sounding more and more like the blood rushing through her ears. She kept her eyes on Nicholas below, trying to keep up with him and the others before they disappeared into the cave.
Two hands caught her by the shoulders and swung her back around, hard enough that her feet slipped out from beneath her. Etta slammed onto the uneven ground, the air exploding out of her in a cloud of white. She wheezed painfully, trying to fill her lungs, to rise back up, but she was pinned in place by the kiss of a blade against her exposed throat.
It pulled back suddenly, and the weight that had crashed down on her chest lifted with a gasp. By the time the burst of light cleared from Etta’s eyes and she could lift a hand to clear the snow from her lashes, a familiar face was gazing down at her in horror, partially disguised by an impressive-looking leather eye patch.
Her mind understood what she was seeing—who she was seeing—but couldn’t make sense of it: the short hair, the shirt and trousers, the boots. Etta scrambled back as best she could, trying to put distance between her and Sophia, until her hand closed around a shard of stone. She thrust it between them to ward the girl off.
“Soph…ia?” came the weak voice above them.
Julian stood on the path, a short distance from them. When Sophia turned toward him, rising to her feet, his face seemed to crumble. He didn’t just look remorseful—he looked as if he wanted nothing more than for a bolt of lightning to blow him off the face of the hill.
“I guess the obvious question is, how the hell are you alive?” Sophia’s voice sounded as if it had been rubbed raw.
Julian dared to take another step toward her, holding out a hand, as if he expected her to take it. Sophia stared at it the way a wolf would assess whether or not it was worth chasing a hare.
“Oh, that—well, old girl—Soph, light of my life—” Julian seemed unable to tear his eyes away from the eye patch. There was an unhealthy sheen to his face, almost feverish, when the attention of the group finally shifted to him.
“You,” she interjected, “I know about. I’m speaking to you, Linden.”
“Me?” Etta repeated. “I’ll admit I had a couple close calls, but—wait, what?”
“You were dead. D-E-A-D. As in, finished, gone to meet your maker, et cetera,” Sophia said. “Your father issued a challenge to Ironwood. He demanded satisfaction for your murder at his men’s hands.”
“My murder?” Etta repeated, hauling herself back up to her feet, only to have Sophia tug her and Julian back down to their knees.
“Oh,” Julian said, turning to her. “Didn’t you tell me that your father said he had a way of keeping Ironwood off your tail? How better to do that than to confuse Ironwood into thinking you were already dead?”
“That’s a leap,” Etta said, even as something squirmed in her stomach.
“He kept it secret from you?” Sophia asked, looking unimpressed. “It’s true, though. The only reason Ironwood would ever leave you alone is if he thought you were already dead, and he’d missed out on the fun of killing you himself.”
Etta’s eyes narrowed. “Ironwood, huh? Not Grandfather?”
The other girl drew back, her visible eye narrowing. In Etta’s experience, Sophia had defended herself by deflection, by attacking. This time, Etta was prepared for it.
“Aaaand I’m just going to stand over here,” Julian said, inching away. Etta cast him an irritated look. He cocked a brow in reply. “You court the dragon, you get burned, kiddo.”
“What are you doing here?” Etta asked. “Why are you in disguise?”
Sophia laughed then. An ugly, exhausted sound. She flicked her leather eye patch up, revealing a scarred, empty socket. Julian either coughed into his fist or tried to muffle his retch. In either case, it wasn’t well received.
“Cute,” Sophia said in a cold voice. “I would guess you’d want me even less now, except you already went so far as to fake your death to get away from me.”
Julian startled. “What? No—Soph, believe me, it had nothing to do with you—”
“I don’t want your excuses,” she said. “I want to know why you’re here now, and what you’re doing with her.”
“I went to the Thorns,” he said quickly, “which was a rotten idea all around. They despised me and I slept every night with one eye open—oh God—I heard the words leave my mouth and I couldn’t stop them, Soph—”
Something dark bobbed at the edge of her sight, just past Sophia’s shoulder. Everything was in harsh relief here, from the icy sky and feathery clouds to the browning moss that covered the black mountains and cliffs like flaking skin.
But there was another person there with them. In her dark cloak, with her dark hair, the land seemed to claim her as
its own. Etta might not have noticed her at all if she hadn’t moved.
Recognition linked with memory.
“You.”
She was dressed differently from the last time Etta had seen her, in San Francisco. Her soft silk suit had been replaced by a linen tunic and baggy trousers, both held in place by a tightly knotted leather belt weighed down with scabbards and pouches.
There were a number of things about her great-aunt Winifred that Etta had willed herself to forget. Her penchant for vile turns of phrase wasn’t one of them.
That creature you insist on working with is here to make her report.
Sophia turned, looking between her and Li Min. “What are you doing? Get over here before they spot you from the beach.”
The girl did not move.
“You were wrong after all,” Sophia said. “This is Etta Linden; not so dead, it seems.”
Li Min was watching Etta, her head already bowed in resignation. Guilt was its own beast, Etta had learned. It took up residence beneath your skin and moved you to things you never thought possible, all to try to appease the discomfort it caused. Etta saw how they had all converged on this place. Fury leaped through her like a bow skidding off the strings of a violin.
Etta understood now.
“Funny that you told her I was dead, considering I saw you less than a week ago in San Francisco,” Etta said coldly. “Did you finish your job for my father, or have you been working for Sophia this whole time to undermine him?” Another thought, almost more terrible, arose. “Did he tell you to keep us all apart?”
“Working for me? You’re not making sense, as usual, Linden,” Sophia said. But Li Min remained impossibly still. She couldn’t tell if the other girl was breathing.
“Oh, cripes!” Julian figured it out a moment later, his brows shooting up to his hairline. “Li Min, you are one naughty little dame. I was wondering how the two of you ever would have met.”
“What is going on?” Sophia demanded, an edge to her voice.
“What job is this, exactly?” Etta continued. “Have you been reporting back to her on the Thorns? Or did my father send you to watch her, on the off chance she found the astrolabe first?”
To her credit, the girl didn’t retreat into silence to protect herself, as a coward would.
“I was hired by Hemlock,” Li Min said, “to take the astrolabe, if either she or Nicholas Carter reached it first. Report back any useful information.” She turned, meeting Etta’s gaze. “He did not give me explicit orders to keep you apart, only to use my judgment in what would keep you safest. In the end, that was keeping your paths separate.”
“What?” The word was so faint as it escaped Sophia, Etta wasn’t sure it could be considered a whisper.
“You have to understand,” Li Min said to her, a small, pleading note in her voice. “The Hemlocks found me again, after I escaped the Shadows, after I finished my training with Ching Shih. Her father is the head of my own family’s line, yes, but, more than that, he believed in me. He arranged for jobs that helped to build my reputation. He provided whatever resources I needed to live my life on my terms, and he has never once asked for anything in return. I could never be one of them, not the way he hoped for—I could not tell him the things I told you. I was…afraid. Set in my ways. But I owed him a debt that demanded to be repaid. I offered to do this job for him and would not have committed to it for anything less than that; you must believe me.”
“You—” Sophia stood, her feet carrying her toward the girl. She reached for the long knife at her side, yanking it from the hilt strapped to her leg. “Believe you? After everything else you’ve said and done was a lie?”
Etta understood that Li Min had perpetuated her father’s lie and inserted herself into Sophia’s life under false pretenses, but…Sophia wasn’t just furious. Etta had seen fury in her before. She was shaking.
“Not everything,” Li Min swore. “Not everything was a lie.”
“The Thorns—the ones who beat me and left me for dead in the middle of the desert?” Sophia continued, stopping just short of the other girl. “You must have had a laugh, telling me all of that mystical nonsense about revenge. All the while, you were going to stop me.”
“Not stop you, join you,” Li Min said, her serene expression finally breaking. “I only—it—it all got rather complicated, you see—”
“It’s not complicated at all,” Sophia said, drawing the freezing air to her, turning her words to ice. “You showed me exactly who you were from the moment we met: a thief and a con artist. You were right. You are not my friend. You are nothing. Get out of my sight. Leave! Otherwise this time I really will kill you.”
There was a long moment where no one spoke at all, not even Julian, who looked like he had a few thoughts on the matter. Li Min turned, shifting the bag on her shoulder as she passed the three of them. Whatever she whispered to Sophia seemed to enrage her further. The breath was steaming in and out of her, her pale face blooming a vicious red. Her one visible eye was screwed shut.
“Well, this has been a day of, ah, fascinating revelations,” Julian said, daring to approach his former fiancée. He put a gentle hand on her shoulder, which she immediately knocked away.
“She was watching both you and Nicholas separately?” Etta asked. The question seemed so ridiculous that she almost couldn’t get it out. “Or were you…are you working together?”
Sophia crossed her arms over her chest, turning her gaze out over the water. Her face mirrored the rough, jagged lines of the mountain, rendering her unrecognizable to Etta.
“Should we be preparing to catch her?” Julian murmured out of the side of his mouth. “Grab for the shirt, I’ll try for an arm—”
Etta thumped him across the chest. Hard.
In Etta’s mind, Sophia was always burning, always straining toward something. Now she stood with her face toward the bitter wind and welcomed it. She tilted her chin up, the way only Ironwoods seemed able to, and a smirk slid into place.
“You’re hilarious, Linden,” she said. “Work with him? I wouldn’t let Carter polish my shoes.”
“Soph!” Julian said, his voice sharp.
“Do you really want to take issue with that, considering all those things you called him in the past?” Sophia said. “Whoreson, gold-digger, ratfink—”
“Enough.” Julian took a step forward, his face pale, his hair ringed by snow. “Enough! I know what I said in the past, and I was wrong for it. It doesn’t excuse you to say any of it now.”
“Aw,” she said, cooing at him in a repulsive way. “Have I upset you? Or are you struggling with the reality that your bastard brother is now enjoying all of your old spoils of being heir?”
This was a trick Etta was familiar with—Sophia’s uncanny ability to zero in on a chink in a person’s armor and slip a blade through it. If Etta had had anything remotely sharp on her, it would have been wedged in the girl’s windpipe in return.
“Liar,” Etta said simply.
“Am I? I’ve been following him for weeks, that’s all. I’ve watched him drift back into the old man’s arms happily. Willingly. He’s overseeing all of Ironwood’s business ventures, repairing the changes caused by the timeline shifts, advising him. It’s absolutely precious how well they work together. The old man actually looks happy. He’s leaving Carter in charge of things, while he goes off to the auction.”
Julian swallowed hard, glancing over at Etta, as if to gauge how possible this might be. She shook her head.
“He certainly didn’t come looking for you, did he?” Sophia said.
A thin, hot thread began to weave itself in and out of Etta’s chest.
“He thought her dead,” Julian cut in. “As you did.”
“And yet he’s working for the man who was supposedly responsible for her death. It shows you exactly who he is, doesn’t it? You had it in your head he was so good, such a hero, but he’s no better than the rest of us. Your whole ‘relationship,’ your love—your infatua
tion—was based on deals and transactions. Payment to bring you to Ironwood. Payment to stop you from taking the astrolabe. Shall I go on?”
Etta’s stomach turned so sharply that she tasted bile. Not true. Not true. Sophia didn’t understand. She wasn’t there to see his regret. She didn’t know Nicholas at all.
“Do you want to know why I’m here? The same reason you are: I want that gold they’re carrying out, in order to attend a little auction for something stolen from me.”
Of course she was. It was all about her, always. And just like that, Etta reached the end of the frayed patience that she had been clinging to. She lunged forward, ripping the knife out of Sophia’s hand, and slammed the girl back against the rock behind her. Etta braced one arm over Sophia’s chest, and brought the blade up just beneath her chin.
“Good lord!” Julian said, half in appreciation, half in horror. “The two of you bring out the worst in each other.”
They ignored him.
“Too high,” Sophia said, the words curling around Etta like smoke. “Lower. Did you already forget what I taught you?”
Etta’s grip didn’t ease. “You still don’t see it, do you? The astrolabe has to be destroyed.”
Sophia laughed—actually laughed. “Would you still be saying that if you knew what would happen, I wonder?”
“I’ve accepted that my future can’t exist,” Etta said. “You’re the only one who still thinks she can get everything she wants in life.”
“If you destroy that astrolabe, you’ll have nothing you want in life,” Sophia said. “Of course you don’t know. You’re nothing but a sweet little sheep being led by the nose, bleating on about right and wrong—wake up, Linden! There is no right and wrong, only choices. And you’ve made a decision without even having all the facts.”
“What are you on about?” Julian asked, ineffectually trying to separate the two. “Sophia, come on. We’ll go together—between the two of us, we know enough about the Ironwood holdings to scrape together the entry fee. There is a wrong choice in this, and that’s letting Grandfather get his hands on it. You haven’t seen what we’ve seen of the future, what’s at stake. I don’t know what Nick is on about, but it can’t be helping him. He’s too obnoxiously good.”