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The old woman studied Kara’s reaction carefully. She remembered shaking her head.
“But I can’t—”
“Your specific ability is retrocognition,” Xiomara had said. “The ability to see the past exactly as it happened. Sort of like watching an old movie — you can watch and listen, but you can’t change what happened.” Her face crossed with a dark expression, but only for a moment. “In that regard, you may have the strongest retrocognitive connection we’ve ever seen. Perhaps in all the history of the Order.”
Kara could remember shaking all over, unable — or rather unwilling — to accept the truth. Part of her screamed that such a thing shouldn’t be possible. But a bigger part of her told her what she already knew; that everything the woman was describing, she’d somehow been experiencing for years.
Xiomara wouldn’t talk about the Hallowed Order, at least not yet. Her foul-mouthed mentor lent her a sympathetic ear, gave her comfort, and dispensed advice. She told Kara not to speak of her abilities, or of herself, to anyone else. Then, after less than a week, she left.
“You’re still a child,” Xiomara had smiled during their last meeting. “But come see me when you’re grown.”
She’d folded something into her hand then, a small token carved from bone or ivory. On one side was an elaborate symbol. On the other, an address — somewhere in upstate New York — scratched into the surface.
It was an address Kara would visit shortly after her eighteen birthday.
Four
It was past two o’clock in the morning when the car finally pulled up to the hotel. Kara opened the d
oor before the driver even rolled to a stop; that’s how eager she was to get away from Logan.
“Shit, that’s a lot of snow.”
Her unwanted companion had a tendency to talk a lot. In fact, he hardly shut up. Kara had tried sleeping on the way up, but being near Logan it was difficult. The only real rest she’d gotten was when he was busy reading the file.
“Any idea when this storm’s supposed to let up?” Logan was asking the driver. The man shrugged as he unloaded their things. Kara grabbed her bag the second it emerged, then forged on through the blowing snow.
For a second she stopped to look up. The hotel Averoigne was an impressive sight, even after well more than a century. Graceful arches and gables jutted forth, flanked by winged balconies and a rounded double entrance. Perched on a cacophony of steeply peaked rooftops, dozens of chimneys poked upward, defying the snow.
This place is old, she thought. Something out of a movie. Hell, it even looked like it was haunted.
“Don’t worry,” Logan remarked snidely. He was standing beside her, struggling with two bags in one hand and a bunch of equipment in the other. “I got it.”
“Great,” Kara smirked wickedly. “At least you’ll be good for something.”
She stomped through the front doors and into the lobby. Instantly she was impressed. Tall columns stretched to a beautifully-arched ceiling, three stories high. The upper floors were cut out with wrap-around landings, railed off by ornately-carved balusters and polished corner pieces. The lighting up there was poor, though. The second, and especially the third floor, seemed lost in shadows.
The front desk wasn’t far to the left. Kara crossed the polished oak floor, past plush seating areas made up of furniture long past its prime. At least the place was warm. A tremendous stone fireplace spanned the middle of the opposite wall. Even now, at this crazy hour, it roared with flames.
“Excuse me,” she said.
The woman at the desk was startled out of what might’ve been sleep. Her silver hair didn’t just have a bluish tinge to it — Kara saw actual blue. She looked unfortunately like she could’ve been built with the hotel.
“Can I help—”
“Kara LoPresti,” she told the woman. “I’m expected by the owner.”
The woman, ‘Fran’ according to her name-tag, turned open a comically giant ledger. Kara almost expected her to blow a layer of dust off of it before perusing it with one venerable finger.
“Ah, yes. I have you here, with…” she looked around. “With—”
“Logan Rhodes,” she said begrudgingly.
“Yes, that’s it.”
Almost on cue, Logan appeared behind her. Kara shifted over to give him a wide berth.
‘Fran’ pressed a button at one end of the desk. Nothing happened. “The owner’s on his way,” she announced mechanically.
