A Breath of Frost (16 page)

Gretchen and Penelope were gone.

And she was stuck here.

With Cormac.

And the Order.

One-Eyed Joe’s tent
was at the end of the bridge with one side catering to the regular folk of London wanting to purchase cameos, and the other side serving the goblin markets. Moira honestly wasn’t sure which clientele was odder.

The tent was cramped and smelled of apples and smoke and frankincense. There was a table facing each opening displaying a dizzying array of cameos. Ladies sat with unicorns, danced with gentlemen, picked posies and poisons. Birds brought messages, babies rocked in cradles, lovers entwined. There were miniature vignettes, and those who knew how to look, knew that they came true if you had the courage to slip one under your pillow. And the coin to purchase it, of course.

An apothecary cabinet stuffed with shells, onyx, agate, and the other tools of his trade hulked behind One-Eyed Joe’s stool. If anyone but he touched it, they came away with burning blisters on their fingers. Moira was no exception, as she’d discovered
when she was eleven. She still had a scar under her thumbnail to remind her.

Tarnished silver butter knives and scissors hung on threads, spinning from the ceiling. It was the first magic One-Eyed Joe had taught her to make for herself. It was only good for keeping away the Wee Folk who liked to pilfer shiny objects, but she’d been so proud of it. The real wards were sewn into the inner tent walls, which were made from scraps of Persian rugs and tapestries. The heavy woven material was hung with silver amulets and cameos of griffins with sharp teeth and dragons. There were nearly as many cameos secured to his top hat. No creature, magical or otherwise, crossed One-Eyed Joe’s wards easily. The same cameos that brought pretty dreams could bring nightmares. Most people were more keen on risking their limbs than a month’s worth of bad dreams.

Most, but not all.

The wind-chime knives spun and spun, threads tangling. The ceramic figurine of a white bird, perched on a branch that served as a tent beam, chirped warningly. The bird over the goblin market entrance was red. It didn’t move, staying as still as china figures ought to stay.

Moira turned sharply and caught the collar of a young boy as he dashed past behind her. When she swung him off the ground, he swung back with his fists. She dodged them easily, but her cap tumbled off, releasing her long hair. “Easy,” she said sharply. “Before I call the Watch.”

He stilled, eyeing her balefully through a mop of dirty hair. “Bless me.” He blinked. “Yer a girl!”

“And you’re a lousy pickpocket,” she returned, shaking a
small cameo of a water nymph from his closed-up fist. “No one steals from One-Eyed Joe.”

He gaped at her. “How’d you even know? I’m the fastest from ’ere to St. Giles.”

She leaned in close. “You’re not faster than me.”

He gulped. “Sorry, miss.”

When his lower lip trembled, Moira dropped him back to his feet. He ran away as if his backside were on fire. Moira glanced at One-Eyed Joe knowingly. He sat on his stool wearing his usual gray coat and purple cravat. He maintained the buttons were carved from the bones of a basilisk.

The smoke from his pipe drifted in shapes of griffins, pegasi, and very naked mermaids. The bowl looked as if it was stuffed with butterfly wings today. Marmalade prowled inside Moira’s chest, hunting instincts awakened by the glitter of the wings and the swirl of magic, but when she leaped out, it was only to curl up at One-Eyed Joe’s feet. She’d never forgotten the kitten-dreams he’d sent Moira to comfort her when she was little. Moira had never seen One-Eyed Joe’s familiar and still had no idea as to what animal shape it took. Her latest guess was a ferret.

“What did you do this time?” she asked, knowing the boy hadn’t gone white as boiled potatoes because of her. She hadn’t even begun to threaten him.

“Made your hair turn to snakes,” One-Eyed Joe chortled. He dealt in illusions, which was why his tent floated so easily between worlds. London never knew that the old man who sold cameos of roses and the Greek goddesses who were so
fashionable, was anything but what he appeared to be. That he smelled like gin and old lettuce stopped them from getting close enough to get too curious. “Thought he was going to wet himself.”

She ducked into the tent, feeling comfortable for the first time since her run-in with the gargoyles. She’d slept under the table facing the goblin markets for three years before she took to the roofs. She still slept there occasionally when the winter cold was too bitter to brave.

“There’s my best girl.” He coughed through the smoke, sounding as if his lungs had grown thorns and were scouring him from the inside out. The silver thread on his eye patch was embroidered in the shape of an eye. “What have you brought me, lovely?”

She handed him a slightly wrinkled lemon. It went straight into the pocket of his greatcoat. He loved lemons the way children loved sweets. She still wasn’t sure if he actually ate them. You never could tell with witches. He sniffed. “What else have you been doing? You stink of the dead.”

“That’s a fine thank-you,” she said wryly.

“Out with it, Moira.”

She pulled the silk-wrapped eyeball from her waistcoat. She presented it to him with a bow and a flourish best suited to the dandies of the Mad King decades earlier. One-Eyed Joe unwrapped it carefully.

Mrs. Lawton’s glass eye stared up at him, covered in the salt grains Moira had rolled it in after the gargoyles left. Salt was the most basic protection magic there was and she’d pickled herself
like cured beef. It was still falling out of her pockets and the collar of her coat.

“Ah, lassie.” The smoke from One-Eyed Joe’s pipe turned into floating eyes, all blinking at her. She poked her finger through one and it fell apart. “You didn’t.”

“You need it.” She shrugged. “Don’t pretend you don’t. And there’s not enough blunt in London to buy it, even on the other side of the bridge.”

“Stealing from dead witches is dangerous business.”

She grinned. “I was taught by the best.”

“Toad-eater.” He grinned back, his teeth very white in his dark face. “Are you dealing in flattery now? And what will they call me, lassie? Two-Eyed Joe doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.”

“You’ll still be the dream-bringer, old man.”

“Who you calling old?”

She heard the bells as soon as she stepped behind the table and closed the curtain to London behind her. “It’s the Order.” She frowned at him when he just sat there, rolling the glass eyeball between his scarred fingers. “Aren’t you going to hide?”

He just grumbled and refused to move from his stool. Moira reached for the fastenings of the brocade curtain that would close off the stall to the goblin markets. She’d stolen the material for him from the back of a cart with a broken wheel just last year. “Leave it,” he barked.

She stared at him. “Are you mad? Do you want them tramping through here like the gits they are?”

“I’m not scared of no Greybeard.”

“You taught
me
to be, just like you taught me the rest.” She kicked the leg of his chair. “Come on.”

“I’m comfortable. Let them come,” he snorted. “They’re not here for me and they won’t risk the nightmares. Not again and not so soon.”

“It’s bad out there, Joe,” Moira argued. “I was in Mayfair and all the gargoyles have fled.”

He patted the small gargoyle statue on the table beside him. “Not this one.”

“That’s because you feed him a lot of milk and whiskey.”

“And the fancy can afford to do the same.” He shrugged. “What do I care if they’re too stupid to do it?”

“No,” Moira said quietly. “You don’t understand.
All
the gargoyles fled.”

“Bad luck.”

“Bad luck? That’s all you have to say?” Marmalade stretched and then leaped back onto Moira’s chest as she flapped her hands in agitation. She could feel the Greybeards out there on the bridge. Doors and shutters were slammed shut. Witches scattered, even the ones with nothing to hide. “I can’t stay, Joe. I won’t be press-ganged into the Order.”

“I bloody well think not,” he harrumphed. “As if my girl couldn’t outrun a bunch of fat Greybeards.”

“So what are you saying?” She rubbed her forehead. When One-Eyed Joe got into one of his moods, it was difficult to keep up. “I should run?”

“Of course you should run, are you bacon-brained all of a sudden?”

If she’d been a cat like Marmalade, she might have hissed.

“Get yourself to the park. I hear the Serpentine is lovely this time of year.”

“I’ve had my fill of the fancy,” she muttered. He just scowled at her stubbornly until she sighed. “Why am I off to Hyde Park exactly?”

“You’ll know when you get there.”

For some reason
, Cormac kept turning her into an idiot.

And at some point, preferably before it killed her, she would have to remember that he was only kind to her for his own secret, and clearly nefarious, purposes. Her only comfort was that Gretchen and Penelope were safely away.

There she went again, trusting in his kindness. The door he was so eager to send them through could have dropped them anywhere. She swallowed, rage and fear making her feel as if she’d eaten lightning.

Keepers blocked the bruise-tinted light at the mouth of the alley. One carried a sword and they all had iron-spoke pendants dangling from their hands. “Is this her?” one of them barked.

Emma took a hasty step backward, then another. Her heart hammered in her chest, echoing in the sky. As they continued to
advance, she backed up farther and farther until there was nowhere left to go. She half expected to topple over the side of the bridge. Instead, she collided with Cormac’s chest.

Falling into the cold, garbage-choked Thames would have been preferable.

His hands closed around her upper arms before she could dart away, as if he was steadying her. But she knew it was actually to restrain her. He bent his head, his lips brushing her ear. She jerked away, her hands clenching into fists. “Don’t fight,” he whispered, his breath warm on her neck.

She suppressed a shiver. The snarl was impossible to repress. “Where are my cousins?”

“Safe,” he replied softly. “As you will be, if you don’t fight.”

“That’s the worst advice I’ve ever heard.” She stood as stiff as a fireplace poker in his arms, too aware of the strength in him and of the warmth of his body blocking the cold wet wind. She was a thousand times a fool.

“Trust me.”

She laughed, although there was nothing humorous about her situation. “I was wrong.
That’s
the worst advice I’ve ever heard.”

His fingers tightened. “Then hear this, at the very least, Emma. Don’t lie. The Order will know and it will go badly for you.”

“Lie about what?” She struggled but he stood firm and unyielding behind her. She twisted, trying to see if she could break his foot or some other more vulnerable portion of his anatomy.

“Don’t even try it,” he advised quietly.

“I haven’t done anything wrong!” she insisted, raising her voice so the others would hear her. “I don’t even know what the bloody hell the bloody Order is bloody about!”

“The mouth on her.” One of the Keepers blinked. “Are you sure she’s a bleedin’ lady?”

“Yes,” Cormac answered coldly. “And you’ll treat her as such.”

“Why? Because you’re the only one who can insult and manhandle me?” she retorted hotly. “My father’s an earl! My mother is granddaughter to a duke!”

“Oh, we know who your mother is, lovey,” came the reply. “So don’t make us bind you to the wheel.”

“What does that even mean?”

“The pendant,” Cormac explained dispassionately. She couldn’t see his eyes, couldn’t tell if he was truly as cold as he sounded. There was nothing cold about the way he kissed. “The wheel with the black stone will bind your powers like the cage, and it’s far less comfortable.”

“Comfortable” and “cage” weren’t words she would have used together in the same sentence.

Her mouth went dry. “You’re not putting me in that thing.”

“Come on.” A Keeper yanked her out of Cormac’s arms. She dug in her heels but it made no difference. “We haven’t got all day to coddle a murderer.”