Page 115 of Flames and Blood

I’ve never wanted money less than I want this. I put it in the inside pocket of my coat without looking at it. If I refused it, everybody standing here would want to know why.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Thank you.” She’s already looking back the way she came. “You’ve been decent with her. She said so, which she doesn’t say often.” She puts a hand out, and I take it. Hers is warm the way all of them are. “I’d have had you at the wedding. But I don’t imagine our hours would suit you.”

She means the daylight. She’s right about the daylight. She’s gone before I’ve thought of anything to say.

“No,” I say, to an empty passage. “They wouldn’t.”

Being at the wedding wouldn’t suit me either.

She’s the first one who’s openly spoken to me about it.

Aldis is at the outer gate.

“Weather’s holding,” he says. “Cloud’s down to the fourth turning. You’ll be in the dark before you’re out of it.”

“That’s the idea.”

“Mm.” He works his jaw. Then he puts his hand out, which surprises me. “You did a good thing for us.”

“I was paid for it.”

“I know what you were paid.” He nods. “Go carefully on the wet steps. There’s no rail.”

“I remember.”

I’m at the top of the stairs when I hear her.

She’s on a gallery above and behind me with three or four people around her. She says something short, and somebody answers her, and she laughs at it. It’s the real laugh that I got to know in a truck on the road here.

I stand there until it stops.

Then I go down.

The steps are wet, as Aldis warned. I go into the cloud at the fourth turning, exactly where he said, and after that it’s just the steps, and a wall on one side. Two hours down. Three. My coat is soaked through again, and I put the collar up. The scent of dragon thins behind me at every turn until there’s only wet rock and cold air and my own wet coat.

The yard is empty, and the truck has a foot of snow on the roof. It takes me twenty minutes to clear it and get her started. She doesn’t want to. Then she does.

I lean back against the seat and stare out the windshield while the engine warms.

There’s a fae in a town called Marchand who sells information. He deals with anybody and doesn’t care who’s asking. He’ll want money, and then he’ll want a favor on top of the money, and I’ve got a full envelope and nothing else to give him.

Before that, there’s a call to make to Odile. And Aurora will want a report. I’ll tell them she’s back safe, and they’ll be happy with that. My work is done.

Just a job.

But it wasn’t. It was never just a job.

And it’s not finished yet.

I put the lights on and take the truck out of the yard. The road drops away west.

Behind me, the cloud closes over the mountain and stays closed.

Chapter 27

Kalli