A Breath of Frost

  “Gone? What do you mean, gone?”

  “She turned herself into a deer and ran off into the woods.”

  He blinked at her. “She did what?” He shook his head. “Never mind. We’ll find her.”

  “She doesn’t want to be found. At least not by us. I think she’s finally happy.” She smiled sadly, stepping out of the circle of his arms. “There’s more.”

  He frowned, glancing over his shoulder. “You can tell me in the carriage.”

  “It can’t wait.”

  “It has to,” he said grimly. “The Order is searching for you. It won’t be long before Keepers descend on the manor house, just in case you’ve taken up with your mother.” He took her hand, tugging her firmly until she followed him. “I have a hired hack waiting in the lane. The coachman owes me a favor.”

  Emma stumbled after him. “Cormac—”

  He broke into a run and she was too busy keeping up to say anything else. They were panting when he yanked open the carriage door and she clambered inside. He hadn’t even sat down yet before the horses were breaking into a brisk trot, bouncing them down to the road.

  “I didn’t kill Strawberry.”

  He shot her an insulted glance. “I know that.”

  “It’s important,” she insisted.

  “And it goes without saying.”

  Her eyes glistened dangerously. “Thank you,” she said, her voice wobbling. She exhaled slowly, as if preparing herself for something unpleasant. “There was another memory in my mother’s witch bottle. Ewan Greenwood isn’t just my father. He’s also a Greymalkin.”

  He sat back, stunned. “I beg your pardon?”

  She wrapped her arms around herself. “My father called himself Ewan Greenwood but he was a Greymalkin, stolen away from his Greymalkin mother by his woodcutter father for his protection. His father didn’t even know the woman he’d married was a Greymalkin, not until it was too late. So he took his son away and they lived in the forest, hiding away until the day Ewan met my mother. The Order didn’t just kill Ewan, they banished him to the Underworld with a spelled arrow.”

  “How is it possible no one knew about this?” The Order wouldn’t just bind her for this, they’d do so much worse. Fear made his veins icy.

  “My mother’s spell,” she explained miserably. “And the fact that Ewan’s father raised him secretly and he wasn’t from one of the aristocratic families.”

  “That’s why your blood activated the gate when we tried to close it,” he realized. “And why the Greymalkin warlock and the Sisters seek you out.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “So you see? The Order will never believe I’m innocent.”

  “They can’t ever find out,” he said roughly.

  “You may not want to help me now,” she said softly.

  He crouched in front of her, his hands closing over her shoulders. “Do you think me so cowardly?” His hands tightened. “If you were a man I’d call you out for that.”

  Her smile was fleeting. “Now you sound like Gretchen.” She leaned forward slightly. “Why would you help me, Cormac?”

  “Because you matter,” he replied quietly. Her eyes were green as leaves, the shadow of her antlers like the shadow of bare branches on her face. “I let the Order come between us once. Never again. You matter more than the Order, more than anything. And I won’t let them take you.” He rose out of his crouch in one fluid motion, settling back onto the bench and dragging her with him. His mouth closed on hers. She kissed him back, fingers digging into his arms.

  “I can’t let you risk yourself for me,” she murmured.

  He narrowed his eyes. “And if I said those words to you?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I’d kick you,” she admitted.

  “And as I can’t kick you,” he returned, brushing his mouth along the side of her neck until she shivered, “I’ll have to get my vengeance another way.”

  The kiss deepened, went wild and dark. Her wet dress clung to her waist and he followed the curves with his palm. Her tongue touched his and the kiss turned desperate. He was half-surprised steam didn’t lift off them, and it might have if there’d been enough room between their bodies. When Emma pulled away slightly, gasping for breath, her lips were swollen and pink. He felt drunk on her. He could almost forget they had no idea how to prove her innocence. He could forget everything but the feel of her in his arms, the smell of rain on her skin.

  He brushed his thumb over her cheek. “We’ll find our way through this,” he murmured.

  She wished she felt as confident as he sounded. She sat back and tried to marshal her whirling thoughts. “Where can I possibly hide that the Order won’t find me?” she asked.

  “Moira’s the one who told me you ran off, even before that coachman found a Keeper to tell about Strawberry. And I don’t know anyone better suited to keep you hidden from the Order than a Madcap.”

  “Do you think she’ll help me?”

  His grin was crooked. “Will Moira help you thumb your nose at the Order? In fact, I think she’ll insist.”

  “There is that.” Her moment of smug triumph wilted. “What about Gretchen and Penelope? Are they in danger? Will the Order come for them as well?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “They may ask them questions, but they won’t go before the magisters or the inquisitors. Not yet anyway.”

  “Can we send them a message? With your tabula perhaps, the way Olwen did when Moira needed you?”

  “It’s too risky.” He shook his head. “Why do you think we’re in a carriage instead of using the doorknob spell I gave your cousins that day in the goblin markets? Magic leaves a trace.”

  “How am I ever going to manage this without magic?”

  “The same way I do,” Cormac replied, with more than a hint of self-deprecation. His expression was mocking, that sardonic charm he used as a shield against the Order. “Creatively.”

  “I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant.” She took his hand. “You’re stronger than they give you credit for,” she said, feeling badly that he might have taken her comment in the wrong way. He was helping her at considerable cost to himself and she’d just added insult to injury. “They underestimate you. And they’ll underestimate me.” She lifted her chin, her smile decidedly savage. “And that’s going to be our greatest weapon against them.”

  Chapter 49

  It was nearly dark when they found Moira in the goblin markets. She was inside a striped tent cluttered with cameos and charms. A man in a worn hat puffed on a pipe whose bowl looked like it was stuffed with raspberries. The pink smoke took the shape of deer. The blue eye embroidered on his eye patch watched her.

  “Emma?” Moira’s eyebrows rose. “You’re keeping bad company,” she said, smirking at Cormac.

  “We’ve come for your help.”

  She snorted. “Like I’d help a Greybeard.”

  “You’d help me if it meant crossing the Order, wouldn’t you?” He was using that soft tone that made the back of Emma’s knees weak.

  Moira didn’t seem impervious either. She cleared her throat. “Come again?”

  “I need a place to hide,” Emma explained, keeping to the shadows, even inside the tent. “Will you lend me one of your rooftops?”

  “The Order’s after you, my pretty?” One-Eyed Joe shifted in his chair, the cameos on his hat tinkling together. “Bad luck to have you in my tent, inn’t?” He plucked a cameo off the collar of his patched greatcoat. It was the soft blue of a lake at dawn but utterly blank. “Cover yourself up before they find ye.”

  “It’s a glamour,” Moira explained. “Joe’s a dream-bringer. He works illusions,” she elaborated when Emma just blinked. “That there will keep you hidden. For a while, anyway.”

  When Emma reached for it, Cormac stopped her. His fingers were firm around her wrist. “What’s the cost?” he asked bluntly.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I have money.” Unless her father found out the truth and disowned her and then she’d be
tossed out without a penny, without even a rooftop to her name like Moira.

  “He doesn’t want money,” Cormac said darkly. “Do you, old man?”

  One-Eyed Joe didn’t lose his pleasant smile, but the smoke from his pipe turned to a creature with ridges and talons. “A lock of your hair,” he said finally.

  “Is that all?” she asked.

  “Emma, don’t,” Cormac advised. He still hadn’t let go of her wrist. “You don’t know what he’ll use it for.”

  She smiled wanly. “What else can happen to me today?” She disengaged herself gently from his hold and took the small brass scissors Moira gave her. She snipped off a lock of hair and handed it to One-Eyed Joe. He tossed her the cameo and she pinned it to her neckline.

  “There now, such a fuss.” He wrapped her hair lovingly in a square of white silk, slipping it into one of the hidden pockets inside his coat. Cormac’s jaw clenched. “I can make you a proper cameo,” he added, staring at her so intently she was half-sure he could see right into her secrets. “To hide the antlers, but I’ll have to carve it in your likeness. Take some time, that will.”

  “Thank you,” she said with a polite curtsy.

  “Oh, I like her,” he said to Moira. “What are they after you for?”

  Emma swallowed. “Murder.”

  “She’s the one they blamed for Strawberry,” Moira explained quietly. “But Emma was on the ground. She didn’t do it.”

  “I know that,” he scoffed. “What do you take me for? An old man?” Though he had dark wrinkled skin and few teeth left, Moira wisely refrained from commenting. “Help her out, Moira. We don’t often get fine ladies this side of the bridge.”

  “I need to tell my cousins I’m safe,” Emma said. “Before Gretchen does something rash.”

  “I’ll send word to Cedric,” Moira promised. She cast a suspicious glance down the bridge. “Now come on, before the Greybeards infest this place like rats.” She tilted her head at Cormac. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” he replied wryly.

  She led them out the door to the ordinary London streets and into the first alley on the right. After that it was a confusing warren of shadows, unfortunate smells, and the glint of eyes in the gathering dark. Cormac held her hand tightly and it helped her stay calm. Moira finally stopped behind a grocer. “Percy leaves the ladder out for the Madcaps,” she explained, scaling it lightly. “And in return we keep his gargoyles happy.” She disappeared over the top.

  “I have to check in with the Order,” Cormac murmured, adjusting Emma’s hood so that her antlers were properly hidden. “If they suspect me, I won’t be able to help you.”

  “I know.” She smiled wearily. He leaned in to kiss her, slow and deep and soft. When he pulled away she felt warmer. As he left, she stayed hidden behind the ladder and the pile of turnip baskets, watching him tip his hat to the ladies on the street who giggled at him.

  “Oi, are you coming or what?” Moira called, peering over the edge of the roof.

  Emma climbed up the ladder, knotting her skirts to one side to make it easier. She understood perfectly why Moira only wore breeches. The roof was dusty and uncomfortable but it showed the stars as they glimmered through the darkening sky. A gargoyle perched on each corner but Moira had already left bowls of whiskey and honey for them and they stayed still and watchful.

  With nowhere left to run and nothing to do but follow the patterns of the stars, Emma’s thoughts feasted on her, like insects overtaking a ripe melon. They crawled and stung and bit.

  So she’d focus on what she knew, start with the crumbs before eating the whole cake.

  “We’re going to find out who the Sisters are using to commit those murders. We’re going to find out who killed Strawberry,” she promised quietly. “Somehow.”

  Emma and Moira lay side by side for a long quiet moment as night dropped its last veil. The stars were bright as beads. “I always wondered what the shapes mean,” Moira said. “Strawberry used to make up stories for them.”

  “Do you see that one over there? The one like a big spoon?”

  “Aye.”

  “They call it the Plough.”

  “Strawberry always said it was a butter churn knocked over by pixies.” There was a smile in her voice. “Show me another.”

  “That star there is the head of the Hydra.” Emma pointed, dragging her finger carefully down. “And that line there is her body and tail. They say if you cut off the Hydra’s head, two more grow back.” She shifted, pointing again. “And that’s Leo. From the story of Hercules.” Moira just shrugged. “It’s ancient Greek. He had twelve labors, one of which was killing the Nemean lion, after which it was put into the sky.”

  “You’re lucky, you know,” Moira said.

  Emma turned her head to shoot her an incredulous glance. She smiled briefly. “I meant before all of this. I’m not allowed at the academy. And I always wanted to learn the way you can,” she confessed. “And now I can’t even get near the school without my feet prickling like the devil. They hurt to warn me away from danger.”

  Emma frowned thoughtfully. “So Rowanstone is dangerous now?”

  “Aye,” Moira said. “More so than Ironstone. Though to be fair, most of London isn’t any better these days.”

  “You said you saw a white hem.”

  “I did.”

  “What kind of hem?”

  She blinked. “A hem is a hem.”

  “Was it beaded?” Emma pressed for details, a hazy pattern forming in her head, unconnected stars suddenly forming a constellation. “Lace? Net overlay? Or was it homespun? Ragged?”

  “Fine,” she answered, thinking back. “It was very fine. And I did find some tiny silver beads afterward.”

  “So it’s not just any girl,” Emma concluded breathlessly. “It’s a debutante.”

  “I knew the fancy were more trouble than they’re worth,” Moira said. “A bleedin’ deb? Are you sure?”

  Emma thought back to the Pickford ball, and the girl in the tree in Hyde Park. Daphne had been at each of those events, in her fine white gown with her gaggle of friends. And she was constantly throwing suspicion in Emma’s direction.

  “It’s Daphne,” she said, sitting straight up. “It has to be. She was there at each of the murders. You saw the hem of a white dress, and she always wears white.”

  “All debutantes wear white,” Moira pointed out.

  “Exactly!” Emma exclaimed. “That’s why it’s been girls getting drained. Not because girls are more vulnerable like the Order thinks.” Moira made a face at that. “But because that’s who Daphne would have access to. It’s not about the murdered, it’s about the murderer. She was at all those balls and soirees and in the park.”

  “You think she climbed a roof?” Moira asked doubtfully, also sitting up. “No offense, but I’ve seen how you and your cousins climb.”

  She worked through the scenario in her mind. “Daphne could have been there last night,” she said slowly. “There was a masquerade on the same street. I saw the carriages waiting and Penelope was there. She can confirm it.” Something close to excitement simmered in her belly. “I know I’m right about this.”

  Moira lay back down on the shingles. “Now all you have to do is prove it.”

  Chapter 50

  “Daphne? Daphne Kent? Cormac stared at her. “As in the daughter of the First Legate?”

  “Yes,” Emma grumbled. She’d been hoping for a different reaction. Gretchen and Penelope stared at her as well.

  “Actually, it makes a certain kind of sense,” Gretchen finally allowed, nodding slowly. “I never did like her.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good enough reason to accuse someone of murder,” Cormac pointed out.

  “But I really don’t like her.”

  They were in a cramped bedroom of an inn that smelled like smoke and boiled potatoes. There was a narrow table, two chairs, and a sooty grate piled with the crumbling coals of a dead fire. The bed was lumpy and when P
enelope went to sit on it, something scurried in the sheets. She leaped off again and spent the rest of the time pressed to the wall.

  It was the best temporary hiding place they could find as it had a window looking out to a maze of steps and landings that could be reached from the roof. Cormac paid for the room and Gretchen and Penelope had followed half an hour later. Moira and Emma came in through the window. Emma and her cousins had hugged so fiercely and for such a long time, Moira dropped into a chair, sighing impatiently.

  “You have to admit it all sounds suspicious,” Emma maintained.

  Cormac inclined his head. “It does. But then you were at all those places as well and we know you didn’t kill anyone.”

  She rubbed her face, frustrated. “Cormac, you’re only seeing the side of her she wants you to see.”

  “Quite,” Penelope agreed. “She’s vicious with boiled beets.”

  “Even so,” he insisted. “You can’t accuse the daughter of the First Legate without serious, irrefutable proof. Especially you, Emma.”

  “I know,” she sighed, sinking into the other chair. “I mean to get it.”

  “How?”

  “I haven’t exactly worked that out yet.”

  “We’ll watch her while we’re at the academy,” Gretchen promised.

  “They still let you go to lessons?” Moira asked.

  “Yes,” Penelope replied. “They probably think we’ll let something slip, and lead them to Emma.”

  “What have they told my … father?” She stumbled over the word. She’d managed to give Gretchen and Penelope a very hurried account of her mother’s secrets. Penelope said it was romantic. Gretchen said turning into a deer sounded itchy. They’d both made her smile.

  “Nothing at all,” Gretchen told her. “But they’re watching your house.”

  “And ours as well,” Penelope added. “I caught a Keeper staring at me from the bushes last night.” She smiled smugly. “I set the dogs on him.”

  “The rumors are ridiculous.” Gretchen rolled her eyes. “Apparently you’ve also gone on a criminal spree and have stolen several heirloom diamonds.”