A Breath of Frost (44 page)

Fog hung between the houses
, obscuring the gaslights so they flickered like fireflies. It drifted over the chimney pots, mingling with the scent of smoke. Moira listened to carriage wheels clattering on the cobblestones below. The soles of her feet practically caught fire the closer she got to Greymalkin House.

She leaped from roof to roof in her patched trousers. The fog was so thick, if Cormac hadn’t told them exactly where the Keepers were lurking, they’d never have found any of them. As it was, she was seriously put out that one of them dared claim a rooftop. She crept closer, barely able to distinguish the outline of his beaver hat in the gloom. She crouched by a gargoyle so small it would have fit in the palm of her hand. It was attached to the very tip of an iron fence running around the entire roof. She bathed it in whiskey and murmured a few words in its stone ear. It flew into the air like a drunken bumblebee. Following orders, it flew around the Keeper’s head.

“What the—” He covered his face as the tiny, vicious gargoyle attacked him. Miniature stone teeth tore through his shirt and his skin as it tried to get a bite of the Keeper’s iron-wheel pendant. It darted in and out, coming away with hanks of hair, blood, and linen. The Keeper swung out again, toppling the gargoyle from its flight. It tumbled to the ground below, smashing into pieces.

Moira hit him on the back of the head with her hands clasped together. He stumbled against the fence, sliding into an unconscious heap.

Below, Gretchen sent her wolfhound-familiar tearing through the neighboring gardens. She kept him well away from the Keeper she knew was hiding behind the stable on the left, so he wouldn’t become too suspicious. Her wolfhound leaped over fences, chased a carriage, and finally trotted happily away into the shadows. He was a very faint glow of light through the fog.

After a few moments, he whined.

Gretchen waited patiently behind a tree, reminding herself that the piteous noise was false. It still had her throat clogging with tears. The wolfhound whined again and again. The mournful sound splintered the fog.

The Keeper emerged from his position, frowning. He crept closer and closer to the whining dog, until he stood at the edge of a small root cellar. The wolfhound poked his glowing head out of the opening.

Gretchen slipped behind the Keeper and shoved him hard. He fell into the cellar, landing with a resounding crash. She shut
the doors over him, pulling the lock tight. Her wolfhound bounded away, tongue lolling happily.

Across the street, Penelope ran straight to the Keeper pretending to admire one of the new gas lamps. She’d watched him walk the same round twice already. She let the tears flow, pretending she was Juliet weeping over the loss of Romeo.

“Oh thank Heaven, you’re here!” she exclaimed. “I’ve seen the most horrid—” Her eyes rolled back in her head and she wilted slowly. The Keeper had no choice but to dart forward and catch her before she hit the pavement. She felt his arms go around her as he struggled to support her boneless weight. She waited until he’d carried her into the quiet lane adjacent to the road, intending perhaps to lay her down on a patch of grass to recover.

“Thank you,” she said, right before she punched him directly in the throat. He gagged in pain and shock, dropping her. Her feet hit the ground and she straightened, elbowing him hard in the groin. He groaned, collapsing.

Carriages rumbled by, obscured by mists. She heard voices of passing pedestrians.

She hit him again. His lip split, and blood dripped onto his cravat. “Are you crazy?” he croaked.

Rendering a man unconscious was harder than it looked.

He was in too much pain to immediately retaliate but she knew he’d recover before long. She didn’t know what to do. Spiders crawled over the grass. They scurried down trees and out from under beds of tulips and daffodils. She caught a glimpse of a particularly large one, nearly as big as a mouse.
She suppressed a shudder as she nudged him toward the Keeper, who was on his knees now. He’d be back on his feet in moments and summoning the Order. If they arrived too early, they’d ruin everything. The Keeper reached for a pouch of summoning powder.

The spider crawled up his knee. She knew the exact moment it reached his hand.

“He’s poisonous, you know,” Penelope said lightly, even though she was fairly certain there were no poisonous spiders in England. Still, it was big and hairy. “I had him brought over from India,” she added. “But if you stay very still and quiet, I won’t let him bite you.”

He froze.

The spider meandered up his shirt.

“I really am sorry,” Penelope said, before tying his hands tightly with the rope Cormac had given her. She used the fichu in the neckline of her gown to gag him. “You’ll thank me later. Tonight is not a night for the faint of heart.”

The Greymalkin House loomed
as desolate and sinister as it had the first time Emma had seen it.

She knew dark magic pulsed in its center and the wards and shields of the Order kept it invisible to ordinary eyes. People’s gazes slid away from it, or saw only a patch of wild grass across from a deserted corner of the park. Unfortunately, she saw it all too clearly. The gates stood as strong and tall as they ever were and she had to crane her neck back to see where they met at the top. The black paint over the iron was peeling, the magpie sigil of the Greymalkin family silhouetted in the curlicues. There was no padlock, thick chains, or poisoned darts, but still the gates could not be breached.

Emma’s heart thundered in her chest so hard her ribs nearly rattled. Adrenaline pumped through her, making her feel oddly disconnected to her own body. She took the knife out of the satchel strapped crosswise over her chest.

A little bit of her blood and this would all be over.

She jabbed the tip of the blade into her witch knot, dragging it across her palm until blood welled to the surface.

She took a deep breath and—“Emma?”—jumped a foot in the air, yelping.

She spun on her heel, dagger in hand. Sophie froze, palms out to show she was unarmed. Her white gloves glowed faintly in the moonlight. Emma lowered her weapon slowly. “Sophie?” she hissed, the back of her neck prickling painfully. “I could have killed you!”

A trio of gentlemen walked past them, barely glancing their way. Only one of them shuddered. “This corner gives me the shivers,” he muttered. The fog swallowed him whole, rain dripping off the brim of his hat.

Emma just stared at her. ‘This isn’t a good time for a chat, Sophie.”

“I know.” She shivered delicately. “Those poor girls. And Lilybeth.”

“Go back to the academy. Now,” Emma said, impatient to get it over and done with, before her courage faltered.

Sophie followed her gaze. “You can’t seriously be thinking of going inside!”

Emma ignored her. She had to get the gates open before the Order arrived to stop her, but with just enough time for them to get in and stop the Sisters. She couldn’t afford to waste another second.

Gritting her teeth, she slapped the bleeding cut onto the magpie sigil, right in the center where the gate split the bird in two.

She waited, breath held. Sophie gasped beside her. The rain sliced through the mist.

The gates didn’t open.

Emma blinked, sure that she was seeing wrong. The gates had to open. How else were they to get in and trap the Sisters? Her blood had unlocked all the other spells. It had to work. It had to.

“Emma,” Cormac said from the wet shadows. “Keepers are on their way.”

The mist hung veils between them. Her blood burned. She let her hand drop, disappointed.

“Let me heal your cut,” Sophie said quietly, taking her by the hand.

The blood on the gate began to sizzle.

It smoked and burned but still the gates did not open.

They didn’t have to.

Emma was sucked into darkness, dragging Sophie behind her.

The inside of the Greymalkin House
smelled like lemon balm, fennel seeds, and decades of accumulated dust. Light filtered through the cracks in the wooden shutters and the stained glass window in the turret above the front door. The chunk of jet Cormac had given her exploded before she was even fully aware of her surroundings.

The gates had opened after all.

She’d been sent through a portal linking them to the inside of the house. Emma grabbed the wall for support, blinking back flashes of violet light and waves of dizziness. She searched for Sophie, expecting to see her cowering somewhere, confused. She’d only meant to heal a little cut, after all, not travel through a portal into the darkest house in all of London, and possibly Britain.

Sophie didn’t look the least bit concerned, actually.

She stood in the very center of the entrance hall, turning around slowly with a strange thrilled smile on her face. Emma’s stomach dropped, recognizing danger before her brain fully caught on. Lightning flashed outside, searing glimpses of the room into stark relief. Rain dripped through the cracks in the ornate ceiling moldings.

“Finally,” Sophie whispered. “I’m
home
. Do you hear that, Sisters?”

Emma backed up a step. That hadn’t sounded like a taunt of revenge on Lilybeth’s behalf.

It sounded like an invitation.

The front door, of course, was locked. Emma kept her back pressed to it, not taking her eyes off Sophie. “I don’t understand,” she said. “It was
you
?”

She nodded gently. “Of course, dear cousin.”

Emma went cold. “
Cousin
?”

“Several times removed, but yes, essentially. Regrettably my own Greymalkin blood is too diluted. It’s only enough to feed the Sisters, but not to open the garden gate myself to get inside.”

“You killed Lilybeth. You killed all those girls!”

Sophie nodded sadly. “I had to. The Sisters needed me.”

“Lilybeth was your friend,” Emma said, mind whirling and belly nauseous. “And poor Strawberry.”

“Who?” Sophie asked.

“The girl on the roof.”

“Oh, the Madcap. Yes, I couldn’t seem to get anyone alone at that ball next door. And then I saw her running along the
roof. It was perfect. I told her I wanted to give her coins for her supper.”

Emma’s hands fisted of their own accord. Thunder was a long, deep growl, the sky turning beastly. “And Margaret York, the seamstress in the park.”

“You’re missing the point,” Sophie said.

“I don’t think I am, actually.”

“How else are we to claim our birthright? And once the Sisters knew who you were, you went and got yourself accused and run to ground.”

“I’m not all that keen to reclaim a birthright of murder,” Emma pointed out. “Even my mad mother isn’t that crazy.”

“I’m not mad,” Sophie snapped. “I’m inspired.”

“You’re cracked. Why in the world would you do this?”

“To have a family again,” she replied savagely. “You don’t know what it’s like to be alone.”

“Actually,” Emma said, thinking of the big empty house and the man she’d thought was her father all these years. “I do. And it’s no excuse.”

“You had your cousins,” she said, jealousy scraping through her voice. “I had
no one
.”

“You had all the Rowanstone girls!”

“It’s not the same.”

“Family is more than blood,” Emma said, trying the door handle again. She had more than enough information. None of which would do her any good if she couldn’t get
out
of here. “The Order is on its way.”

“They won’t get here before the Sisters,” Sophie said. Emma’s
blood was still smeared on her hand. She wiped it over her heart and then traced a symbol at her feet. The chandelier rattled. Virulent violet sparks gathered in the air. “Sisters!”

“What are you doing?”

“Opening a gate, of course.”

“But the gate’s already
here
,” Emma stammered. “It must be. Everyone says so.”

“Everyone
assumes
,” Sophie corrected her primly. “But don’t you think if the Sisters could reclaim our ancestral house, they’d be here already? I had to leave that trail of marked birds for you to follow,” she confessed, as though it were all a cheerful game. “I knew if I could get you there you’d do the rest yourself.”