Iron Kin: A Novel of the Half-Light City (10 page)

“If you’re all grown up, as you insist, then you’re old enough to recognize heat between a man and a woman. And it’s there between us. I’m not a saint, Saskia. I’m not one of your respectful human boys. If you ask me, I’m not going to be a gentleman.”

“Sainted bloody earth.” She’d finally found her tongue. Her cheeks still blushed pink, but her eyes were furious. “How is that no woman has killed you before now?”

“Women like me,” I said. I let a grin spread across my face and watched her expression grow even more furious. Apparently Saskia wasn’t most women. Which, in a perverse fashion, made her only more interesting. More fun to tease, definitely. “More than like me, actually.”

“Maybe. Until you open your mouth,” she shot back. “I assure you, Fen, I am perfectly capable of protecting myself. And pardon me for being blunt, but somehow I don’t think resisting your . . . charms . . . will be all that difficult.”

“You think that, do you?”

“Yes.” Her hands were on her hips.

For a moment I was tempted to kiss her and prove her wrong, but that would be true insanity. Heat runs both ways after all and I had enough problems without availing myself of a temptation that I couldn’t afford.

The silence stretched. Neither of us looked away. I frowned. I wasn’t going to be the one to give in.

Saskia looked triumphant. “See. This should be easy. You find me annoying and the feeling may well be mutual. Now, do you want to come up with some more excuses or should we deal with this like adults?”

I muttered something not fit for her ears under my breath and stalked over to the window. But staring down at the mossy tiles of the Swallow’s roof didn’t offer any inspiration. There was, as Saskia knew, no choice for me to make other than to join with Simon and Guy.

Unless I was willing to leave the City. Which I couldn’t think about.

The only question that remained was whether I was callous enough to drag Saskia into the mess with me. It didn’t matter that she seemed to desire just that—she didn’t know what she was asking for. She didn’t know what I had seen.

The iron at my wrist burned for a moment as the memory of last night’s vision returned. Should I continue to walk the narrow line I’d laid out for myself, skirting the edges, staying free, and risking even more pain?

Or should I actually make a choice and put myself—and Saskia, most likely—in harm’s way?

Loathing soured the back of my mouth. It was a devil’s bar
gain, no matter which way I cut it. Damned to the seven hells no matter which way I chose.

Shal e’tan, mei.

I wasn’t ready to choose. Not yet.

Saskia stood there, watching me with the light of expectation in her eyes. The sour taste in my mouth grew sharper.

“I . . .” I paused, not sure how to tell her no. Then a knock sounded at my door. Perfect. An interruption was just what I needed.

Or so I thought until I opened the door and saw Holly, worry written large in her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I demanded.

“It’s Reggie,” she said. “She wanted to go back to the store this morning. She was meeting Viola there for a fitting.”

“Viola?” I struggled for a moment to place the name.

“She works at St. Giles. She’s Fae.” Holly made that impatient gesture. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is I was just at the salon and when I got there the door was open—half smashed—and neither of them was there.”

Fear twisted itself into my stomach, pulling into a tight knot that clawed at me. “Maybe they’d already left.” Holly’s modiste salon was in Gillygate, safest of the border boroughs, but it was still a border borough. Burglaries and vandalism weren’t unknown.

“Reggie’s bag was in the office. She doesn’t go anywhere without that bag.”

True—the bag contained the notebook she used for working out her design ideas. She was always scribbling in that damned notebook.

“I think something’s happened,” Holly said. “Someone’s taken them.”

“But why?” It was Saskia’s voice from behind me. Holly’s eyes widened and she shot me an accusing glance. I ignored the look but opened the door wider so Holly could see into the room.

“Who would attack a modiste?” Saskia continued, coming up beside me.

“Someone who wanted to get to Holly,” I said bluntly. “Or at Guy through her. Or—Veil’s eyes—who knows, it might have been Viola they were after. Or it was just a robbery and they were in the wrong place.”

“We don’t really have much worth stealing,” Holly pointed out. “If someone wanted to clean out the stock, they’d do it at night. And the stock is all still there.”

I didn’t like the picture she was painting. My gut was increasingly certain that she was right. Someone had taken Reggie and Viola. But who? And why? Reggie had been kidnapped by Holly’s father when he was trying to control Holly in the past. But he was dead.

Lady’s eyes
. It couldn’t be happening again. Lightning didn’t strike twice. Or did it?

One way to find out. I knew that much. “We need to go back to the salon.”

“We should go to Simon and Guy,” Saskia protested.

“We will,” I said shortly, knowing that my choices were narrowing rapidly. The more I let myself get entangled with the DuCaines, the harder it would be to turn down their request. And in truth, the sense of honor I usually kept as tightly chained as my wrist was breaking free. This wasn’t right. If someone as sweet and gentle as Reggie had been caught in the crossfire for the second time, the City needed to change. Even if somebody was going to have to force the issue.

Holly had a hackney waiting outside and it didn’t take long for us to clatter our way through the streets back to Gillygate. Saskia rode with us. I’d tried to send her home, but she’d given one flat shake of her dark curls and set her jaw. Holly hadn’t tried to argue the point, which told me she was even more worried than she was letting on, to put a DuCaine female in the path of potential harm.

The scene at the salon was much as Holly had described. The door was half smashed, though she’d hauled it back into position and bribed one of the street rats to watch the gap while she fetched me. What she thought a street rat might be able to do if whoever had done this returned escaped me. I tossed the kid a half crown and told him to bugger off. Holly reached for the door handle and I grabbed her wrist.

“No, let me.” It wasn’t politeness, it was necessity. To have any chance of seeing whoever might have done this, I needed something they’d touched. My power worked far better looking forward than back, but sometimes I could catch an echo of something that had gone before, particularly if what had happened involved strong emotions. Like fear.

I clamped down on the thought of Reggie struggling against an attacker.
Concentrate, Fen
. Time enough to get angry later. To see, I needed to be in control.

No spark of memory rose as I wrapped my fingers around the brass handle.
Buggering Veil’s eyes
. I waited, took a breath, pressed my free hand against the wood.

Still nothing.

“Anything?” Holly said, an edge of pleading in her voice.

I shook my head, hating the flash of fear that rose in her eyes. I pushed the door inward, expecting more resistance from the shattered wood than I got and half stumbling forward. I stopped again when the three of us were inside, testing the air, trying for a clue. I couldn’t smell Beasts, which was promising, but then again, if Martin was behind this, he’d probably be smart enough not to use his own men to snatch two women. A group of Beast
guerriers
would stand out in Gillygate, which was mostly human in population, and there were plenty of humans in the border boroughs or the Night World who would do a job like this for the right amount of cash. Particularly in the current environment, when steadier work was becoming increasingly scarce and dangerous.

I looked around, scanning for other signs of damage. The outer room of Holly’s salon was a purely female place, decorated in pale greens and understated blues with lots of crystal and touches of silver. Long racks of dresses stood against two of the walls and there was a cluster of low chairs and couches at the far end. Those were where the clients sat while dresses were shown or while they were inspecting a fitted dress being paraded by their friends. The furniture was arrayed around a massive triple mirror. Off the sides of that space were curtained alcoves where the actual fittings and changing took place.

Beyond the alcoves a door led to the workroom, where Reggie made the dresses they sold.

All of it seemed untouched. Nothing looked out of place to me, but I didn’t really spend that much time here and Holly and Reggie often rearranged things.

“Nothing is missing, you said?” I wished it were otherwise. A robbery involved touching things. This was starting to shape up more like a specific snatch and grab. The targets being Reggie and Viola. Or one of them with the other merely having had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Holly shook her head. “No.” She looked as frustrated as I felt.

“What about the workroom? Is that where you found her bag?” If I couldn’t get a read on the attackers from something they’d touched, I’d try another tack. Maybe I could see Reggie from her bag. She didn’t like having her fortune told, but I’d snuck the odd peek on her behalf occasionally or caught glimpses without meaning to. It was hard not to. If there were two people in the world my powers should be attuned to, it was Regina Foss and Holly Evendale, given all the time we spent together. Of course, that hadn’t helped me when Reggie had been taken by Holly’s father, but for all I knew, Cormen—being the true prick he had been—may have done something to block me.

No time like the present to find out.

“The bag?” I prompted and Holly led the way back to the workroom. Saskia followed us, her expression curious as she looked around. The workroom was very different from the salon. Granted, the walls were painted in the same colors, but there was none of the froufrou femaleness, apart from an overabundance of gaslights wrought in the same delicately twisted shapes as those in the salon.

No, this was a working room, with several massive tables and shelves lined with row upon row of fabric bolts and bins that held more neat rolls of lace and ribbon and whatever else the hell you could sew onto a woman’s dress than I cared to count.

Reggie’s domain. Here, she bossed everyone else around and worked her magic in silks and satins.

Holly went to the desk, which was tucked into one of the corners, opened one of the two small cupboards that supported it, and pulled out Reggie’s battered carpetbag.

“Here.” She shoved it toward me. “Find her.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” I said softly, but her expression was anguished enough to make me stop repeating things she already knew.

I closed my hands over the bag and closed my eyes, concentrating on the last memory I had of Reggie. At the ball, looking quietly happy as she danced with some nameless man, blue dress swaying like a bell as she turned in time with the music.

Reggie.

Nothing.

With a snarl I opened my eyes and yanked the chain free from my wrist with a few quick movements. Ignoring the sudden sharp throb of pain in my head, I closed my eyes again and dug my fingers hard into the worn fabric.

At first there was still nothing, but then suddenly, like a mist burned away by a lightning strike, I got something. Not an image but a sensation. Fear. Terror, in fact. My lungs contracted with my stomach as though it was my own emotion, and I fought to gain some distance.

Fear. Pounding through me. Hands gripping me. Then darkness.

I pushed harder again, trying to see more, and the pain in my head redoubled with a vicious stab. I staggered, nearly dropping the bag.

“Fen!” It was Holly’s voice, but the hands that reached for me weren’t hers. No. Instead Saskia’s fingers grabbed for mine. The sensations suddenly vanished. Along with any sense of Reggie.

My eyes flew open. “What the fuck did you do that for?”

Saskia flinched but she didn’t move her hand. “You’re no use to anyone if you collapse,” she said sharply.

“What did you see?” Holly interrupted. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” I said. Holly’s face turned gray-white. “I think she’s alive,” I added quickly. “But I couldn’t see her.”

Holly’s eyes squeezed shut briefly and then she shook her head. “All right. We’re leaving. We need Guy and Simon.”

Chapter Six

S
ASKIA

Fen
sat silently beside me in the hackney as we drove across town. I knew Simon was home and that Guy was with him—I’ve always been able to tell where my family are since my powers first appeared—so we hadn’t had to waste any time deciding where to look for them.

Across from us, Holly stared out the window, one hand toying with the chain of her pendant, her face pale and set. I’d never seen her look scared before. It made my own stomach twist queasily. I understood her fear, shared it, although I had only met Reggie a handful of times, through Holly, and then because my mother loved her dresses and bought me a whole new wardrobe. But the thought of anyone being taken . . . especially now . . . stirred up old memories I didn’t want to contemplate.

I stole a glance at Fen. His right hand was braced against the carriage door, absorbing the jolts of the rough road. In the daylight, the livid bruising on his wrist beneath the tightly wrapped chain glowed a sullen purple, making me wish I had Simon’s powers and could erase the damage. I didn’t, of course. My brother was a sunmage, not a metalmage, and our magic took different paths. I didn’t like my chances of getting Fen to let Simon look at his wrist when we got to Simon’s house, but I would try.

Fen’s eyes were half shut, his head turned toward the window, and I let myself watch him for another moment. Despite everything else going on, he still caught my attention. Damn the man.

Women like me
, he’d said with a smile that made it hard to refute his point.

He’d been trying to scare me off with his flirting, I knew that. But if he thought I was going to be put off so easily, he needed to reconsider. Still, I couldn’t quite escape the images he’d put in my head. Of him and me.

And a bed.

Which was pathetic and wrongheaded. I’d only just met the man. And clearly he was not the type of man you should risk your heart with.

But he’d be fun
, a part of me insisted stubbornly.

I pushed that part back into the deep dark recesses of my brain where it belonged. I didn’t have time for fun. Besides, what that silly part of my brain was failing to recognize was that Fen’s kind of charm was the sort it was hard to untangle yourself from. Too complicated. My mother would faint at the very idea of me spending time with somebody like Fen, but then, she probably still believed I was a virgin. Which I hadn’t been for several years.

Mages thought differently about such things. In their view one should allow passion to burn and shine as the gods intended; otherwise it would interfere with the work and the power. I’d had a few partners during my time at the Guild and I’d enjoyed them, but I hadn’t been brokenhearted at any of them moving on. I was at the Academy to learn. To master my powers. Metal consumed enough of my attention and time without trying to juggle a lover as well.

I wondered if Simon’s years with the sunmages had been the same and what he told himself about what I might be doing at the Academy. He’d never raised the subject with me. Nor had my mother. I didn’t know if that was due to rigid denial or rigid belief that I was her daughter and therefore would adhere to her standards regardless of circumstance.

I was happy to let her maintain her illusions.

I was trying desperately to maintain mine. I would not be distracted from my goals.

The fact that I was aware of the precise distance between Fen and me, not just because I could feel the iron circling his wrist but because I could feel the man himself, could feel his warmth like a banked fire inviting me closer, was irrelevant.

I knew better than to stick my hand into the fire.

At least I hoped I did.

The hackney turned onto the broad avenue that led past St. Giles, jolting and swaying. Like Fen, I braced myself with one hand, determined not to slide toward him on the smooth leather seat.

Keep my distance as far as possible.

If I got my way, if he joined the Templar delegation and if Simon and Guy let me join too, I was going to have to spend a portion of each day touching Fen skin to skin. I didn’t want to increase the temptation any more than I had to.

I had to focus on the important things.

Find Reggie.

Help to secure peace in the City for the next five years. Stop whatever it was that was brewing in the Night World that might ruin everything.

The thing that I feared my brothers were at the very heart of. I had lost one sibling when I was too young to do anything about it, but I wasn’t going to lose any more. Not if I could do something to prevent it. I knew that Simon and Guy felt the same way, but the difference was that I was still willing to let them take the risks they needed to take to bring about the goal we shared, whereas they thought that keeping me locked away would keep me safe.

The truth was none of us was safe as long as the City was at risk.

Reggie and Viola’s disappearance proved that all too well.

F
EN

* * *

“You didn’t see anything?” Simon asked, his voice tight. His eyes studied me as though he doubted the truth of my words.

I tried to keep my own voice steady, tried not to let the remembered sensation of Reggie’s desperate fear wrap around me again. “I think she’s alive. I couldn’t see where she was.”

“Which only leaves all of the City and the Veiled Court to search,” Guy said. The big Templar stood by the unlit fire, fists clenching every so often. He wore mail and the red cross on his tunic seemed very bright. The color of fresh blood. Images of him bloodstained and muddy, rage twisting his face, floated around him as though the anger riding him was making one of his futures more possible.

I blinked and pressed the iron into my wrist, not wanting the distraction of visions right now.

Beside Guy, Holly shook her head. “I don’t think it’s the Veiled Court.”

She sounded certain. I wished I shared that certainty. Holly’s late unlamented father had been part of a plot against the Veiled Queen. His guilt had been revealed but he’d died without betraying his co-conspirators. There had to be Fae who had Holly high on their shit lists. The Fae, as a whole, didn’t take well to anyone getting in their way. It was conceivable that one of them would come after Holly via her friend.

“It could be,” I said.

“They’d go after me, not Reggie,” Holly said.

“You’re better protected,” Guy said.

“Perhaps.” Holly frowned. “But what good does taking Reggie or Viola do? They know the Veiled Queen would take action if she thought Reggie was being held somewhere in Summerdale again.”

“It might not even be Regina they were after.” It was Lily who spoke. She’d been silent thus far, staying perched on the edge of one of Simon’s sofas, dressed in dark trousers and a simple green shirt, watching us all argue. Her low, cool voice cut through the room like a sword strike.

“Why take a Fae?” Holly countered. “If there was one thing guaranteed to stir up the queen against the Night World, that would be it.”

“Truth is,” I said, “we can keep arguing about this for hours, trying to work out the whys, or we can work out what we’re going to do about it.”

Across the room, Guy’s pale eyebrows lifted a little, but he nodded approval. “Fen’s right. The longer we wait—” He stopped himself before completing that sentence, with a sideways look at Holly.

It was Lily who broke the silence that spilled across the room as we all tried not to think about what could be happening to Reggie and Viola while we wasted time talking. “So we need options,” she said. “And a plan.”

I nodded. “I think we can safely assume that somebody from the Night World is behind this.”

“Someone named Ignatius Grey,” Holly muttered.

“Maybe. But there’s another candidate,” I said.

“Who?” Guy asked.

“Martin Krueger,” I said.

“Martin? What the hell would he want with Reggie?” Guy demanded.

“It wouldn’t be Reggie he wanted,” I said carefully. I wasn’t looking forward to this part of the conversation. “It would be me.”

“What do you mean?” Saskia asked while her brothers both sputtered. She had stayed silent before this, sitting in a chair and following the threads of the conversation with stormy eyes.

“I mean that your brothers aren’t the only ones who want to write their names on my dance card,” I said with a shrug that was far more casual than I felt.

“Martin wants you for his delegation?” Guy demanded.

“Martin wants a seer,” I said. “He thinks he can convince me I’m the one for the job.”

“Why?” Guy asked.

I didn’t know exactly how much Holly had told Guy of my history. It was easiest just to tell the whole story. “Because my
grand-mère
was a Krueger and he thinks, therefore, that he has a claim on me.”

“And does he?”

The Templar’s voice had turned cool. Too cool.

“I’ve obliged him from time to time,” I said. “Before all”—I gestured around the room—“this began.”

“And lately?”

“He sent for me the night of the ball.”

I saw Saskia’s and Holly’s eyes narrow in unison.

“That’s why you left?” Saskia said.

“You helped Martin Krueger?” Simon said. “For sun’s sake, why?”

“He didn’t exactly give me a choice. He sent one of his
guerriers
to fetch me. They don’t take no for an answer.” I said. “I’m part Beast, but I can hardly take down one of them on my own. And I’m kind of attached to walking around breathing, thank you very much.”

“You went there after we’d just asked you to be on our delegation?” Simon’s voice was as cold as Guy’s. Lily rose to her feet beside him. I wasn’t sure if she was on his side or ready to restrain him.

“To be clear,” I said, “Martin issued his . . . request . . . for my attendance before I spoke to you.”

“Did you give him a different answer from the one you gave us?” Simon asked.

“I gave him the same answer that I gave you. That I was staying out of things.”

“Why should we believe you?” Guy said.

“Guy!” Holly protested.

“It’s all right,” I said to her. “It’s a fair question.”

Holly glared at me and then turned to Guy. “I believe him.”

“I know you do, darlin’,” Guy said, his voice warming for a moment. “But it might not be that simple.” He turned his gaze on me. “Time’s up, Fen. Sliding around the edges of things might have worked for you before, but now you need to make a choice.”

“Or?”

“Or I’ll have to ask you to leave,” Guy said.

“You need me to find Reggie.”

“I think maybe you need us more than we need you,” Guy said, stony-faced. “We’ll find her without your help.”

“Guy—,” Holly protested, her hand going to his arm.

“Is right,” Lily said before Holly could say anything more. “We need to know if we can trust Fen.”

“What’s it to be, pretty boy?” Guy said. Saskia had a hand over her mouth, eyes round as she stared at me.

Guy looked casually confident, as though he knew which side I’d choose. Maybe he did. But he didn’t know all of it. A certain petty surge of satisfaction slid through me. Maybe they were right—maybe I did need to finally make a choice. I knew they would try to find Reggie without me, but it would be faster if we worked together. Reggie was worth the pain that throwing in my lot with the DuCaines might bring. But if Guy was going to force my hand, then I’d repay the favor. Or make him back down.

“You want me to join your delegation?” I asked. “Very well. But there’s one other condition.”

I turned to Saskia, who had gone very still. Truth was, if I was going to partake in this particular insanity and be their seer, then I was going to need her help. I couldn’t survive weeks of constant pain. Not and stay sane. I needed the relief she could bring. I told myself firmly that was all I needed from her. Besides, there was a chance that if I made this demand, Guy and Simon might change their minds about wanting me in the first place. “If you want me, you have to let Saskia be on the delegation too.”

That caused another uproar.

Saskia cut through the noise with a piercing whistle. “Stop yelling,” she said, directing her admonition to Guy and Simon with an exasperated look.