“Murder?” I guessed.
“Succession. The former Queen kept Clodagh as a protégée for three full turns, and then stepped gracefully aside. It was the most peaceful transition the local liminals have had in twenty years. I understand they’re still looking for the catch.”
“I would be,” I said. “Snow Whites are rare for a reason. Too much chance of betrayal.”
“Well, they seem to have pulled it off, or come so close as to make no difference.” Jack shrugged. “Why do you ask? You’re not planning to try staging a coup, are you, Rory? You never struck me as the frigid type.”
Becoming Queen of the Winter requires some pretty specific credentials, including a connection to the season that’s strong enough to let you freeze from the inside out, and the willingness to cut out your own heart. I’ve never been sure exactly how metaphorical that is, and since I’m not part of the Courts, I’ve never been willing to find out. “No, thanks,” I said. “I’m not a winter girl. I am, however, working.”
Jack frowned, putting two and two together. “I thought you didn’t work for the liminals.”
“Sometimes paying the bills means straddling the worlds.” I put another five on the bar. “I need information about a fence.”
Jack looked at the bill like it was a personal insult. “I don’t know anything about that kind of illegal stuff, Rory, you know that. I’m a reputable businessman, and I’m insulted that you would think otherwise.”
Should’ve known lowballing Jack was a bad idea, but you can’t blame a girl for trying. I made the five disappear back into my pocket, replacing it with a twenty. “I’m sorry, I misspoke,” I said. “I mean I need to talk to you about a reputable reseller of antiquities, artifacts, and precious gems.”
The twenty was whisked out of my fingers. Jack held it up to the light, checking its validity, before tucking it into his own pocket. “I might know a few people who fit that description,” he allowed. “I can put you in touch with one of them.”
I set another twenty on the bar. “This would be someone who was offering some very specific sparklies recently. See, my poor maiden aunt lost her jewelry box, and we all know how easy it is for perfectly legitimate businessmen to wind up hocking an innocent old lady’s diamonds.”
“It’s an occupational hazard,” Jack agreed, as the second bill followed the first. “What are you looking for?”
“Nothing big. Some earrings. A bracelet. The Star of Borealis.”
There was a jangling crash from behind me as Cindy’s accompanist brought her hands down on the piano one last time. Cindy carried on with her song for a few more bars, but she was clearly shaken, and by the time the echo of the piano had faded, she had stopped as well. I twisted to be sure the pair was all right. They were staring at me, Cindy with wide, startled eyes, the pianist with terror. I turned back to Jack, and froze as the motion brought my nose to within an inch of the barrel of the sawed-off shotgun that had appeared in his hands.
“I’ve always liked you, Rory; you’ve been good to me and mine, even when you didn’t approve of us. That’s why I’m not shooting you right now and dumping you on the curb as an apology to the Summer Court. You get out of my bar. You’ll be welcome when this case is over, and no sooner. Hell, I’d buy you a drink to celebrate you making it out alive. But you’re not going to. You’re going to freeze to death, and there’s nothing I, or anyone else, can do to save you.” Jack sounded genuinely apologetic, like this wasn’t the death he would have chosen for me. It was just the death I’d somehow accidentally managed to earn.
I slid off my stool and stood, keeping my hands in the air where he could see them. The piano hadn’t resumed. That wasn’t making me very comfortable. “So what you’re saying is that you can’t introduce me to your fence.”
“What I’m saying is that if the Star of Borealis is missing, it’s not here. It’s not in my bar.” There was a degree of desperation in Jack’s eyes that couldn’t have been faked. “Tell your friends in the Court that, all right? Tell them it wasn’t here. Now get out.”
“I’m getting. I’m getting.” I took another step backward before turning my back on Jack and starting for the door. Every eye in the place was on me—except for the pianist’s. She was gone, leaving her stool unoccupied for the first time since I’d been coming to the bar. That was interesting.
The walk to the door was one of the most tense I had ever experienced. I could feel the fear coming off of Jack, Cindy, and the rest of them as they watched me go. There was no Snow Queen to drop the temperature in this room, but the air felt colder all the same. Something was seriously wrong.
The blizzard was still howling outside. I shuffled through the sludge on the sidewalk until I reached the dry, semi-protected haven of the parking lot, where the golden grain was hard at work keeping the snow at bay. Somehow, it wasn’t a surprise when I spotted the diminutive woman huddled in the windbreak of my car, her thin sweater drawn tight around the slope of her shoulders. Her sand colored hair looked almost bleached in the watery light of from the streetlamps, like coral, or bone. She looked up as I approached, her eyes full of undertows.
“Hi,” I said, once I was close enough to be sure the wind wouldn’t snatch my voice away, as it had long since taken hers. The way I heard it, she’d tangled with a liminal over something—maybe a murder, maybe a man—and her voice had been the price of passage. Some people even said she’d been a mermaid before she became a pianist, but that was crazy talk. Everyone knows there’s no such things as mermaids. “Didn’t think I’d be running into you out here. It’s a cold night. You should stay inside.”
She nodded fiercely, indicating that she knew full well how foolish she was for leaving the safe, warm confines of the bar, where she could have been protected by the people who knew her, not standing out here in the half-enchanted parking lot with a woman who was at best a passing acquaintance, and at worst a potentially dangerous stranger in the employ of the Courts.
“So what can I do for you, if you’re not going to go back inside?”
She took a step toward me, dipping one hand into the pocket of her jeans before grabbing my left hand with both of hers and squeezing, hard. She had surprisingly strong fingers for such a dainty woman—it must have been all the piano playing making her tougher than she looked. Her eyes locked on mine for a count of three, each second ticking by so slowly that it felt like time had broken. Then she let go, turned, and fled for the sidewalk.
I watched her go only for a moment. Then I looked down at my hand, uncurling my fingers to reveal the matchbox she had thrust at me. It was small, sturdy, and expensive looking, made of the sort of fancy cardboard that only gets used in the best establishments.
“Hmm,” I said thoughtfully. “I guess I’m going out for a steak.”
* * *
There are several excellent steakhouses in Vancouver. Lucy’s On Granville is the oldest and best-regarded of the lot. Established in 1904 by the wife of a sea captain who needed something to fill her time, Lucy’s specialized in seafood, traditional English soups, and of course, steak. If you ever needed to eat an entire cow, that was the place to go. I usually went there for dinner twice a year, once on my birthday and once on the anniversary of my accident. Each visit was enough to set me back a month’s rent, but oh, it was worth it.
Speaking of worth it…my bill had explicitly included expenses. I’d call stopping for dinner on a tip a valid expense. It wasn’t as much of a goose chase as it might sound. Rumor had it that Lucy’s was connected to the Courts, plural. Somehow, the warring Kings and Queens of the liminals had decided that the best neutral ground in the city belonged to a place that served thirty dollar cognacs and flaming desserts. There were worse places to assemble.
Lucy’s didn’t have anything as gauche as a parking lot: instead, impeccably dressed valets waited outside like big cats primed to pounce. I stepped out of my vehicle and tossed my keys to the nearest black coated man. “Mind her transmission,” I said. “S
he’s a grumpy one.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said solemnly.
I walked away confident that my car wouldn’t wind up in a ditch somewhere. Another man in a black coat opened the door for me, and I stepped into the warm, subtly scented lobby of Lucy’s.
If Jack’s was an exercise in modern disrepair, Lucy’s was a celebration of understated elegance, from the red drapes on the walls to the plush carpet covering the lobby floor. The man behind the counter looked up, his eyes narrowing incrementally as he took in my hooded coat, button-down shirt, and practical black slacks. Technically, I wasn’t violating the dress code, but I was still clearly a lot less well-off than most of the people who came through that door.
“Good evening,” he said, script taking precedence over personal opinion. “Welcome to Lucy’s On Granville. Do you have a reservation?”
No. “Yes,” I lied, and smiled, showing him all my teeth. “Rory Silva, party of one.”
The man made a show of checking his computer, only to stop and blink, looking faintly discomfited. When he raised his head, the air of judgmental “you do not belong here” was gone, replaced by something akin to fear. “Miss Silva, we’re delighted to have you with us again,” he said. “The other member of your party has already been seated. If you would please follow me…?” He stepped out from behind the podium, leaving their computer unmanned. He wasn’t even going to trust me to a hostess.
Whoever I was about to dine with must have been quite important, and pretty close to terrifying. I should have charged Clodagh more for my services.
The maître d’ led me through the twisting maze of booths and tables, all of them positioned so that no space was wasted, while still allowing their occupants to feel as though they were enjoying an intimate, isolated dining experience. The smell of rare meat and delicate sauces assailed my nostrils. I swallowed several times. Showing up at an unplanned meeting already drooling is the sort of thing that can damage a girl’s reputation, and it’s hard enough to keep body and soul together in this town.
The careful illusion of privacy in the main dining room was revealed as just that—an illusion—when we walked through a small archway to a tiny, semi-private lounge. There were four tables. Three of them were open. The fourth and furthest from the door was occupied by a man with dark gold hair and a cold expression on his face, like he had already looked at everything this world had to offer, and decided that none of it was worth giving a second glance.
The maître d’ stopped next to the table, announced, “Miss Silva has arrived,” and pulled a chair out for me before turning to flee. I grabbed his arm. He shot me a startled, terrified look, trembling under my fingers. I smiled, showing too many teeth, and said, “I’ll take your largest porterhouse, blue, with a baked potato and an order of your bacon-wrapped scallops.”
“Your waiter—”
“Includes the word ‘wait.’ I don’t want to. I know what I’m having for dinner.” Putting the order in now might mean it was ready when I needed to shove it into a to-go box and flee for the door. Probably not, but I’m still allowed to dream.
The maître d’ swallowed heavily. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and pulled his arm away as he fled. Definite danie. Poor man.
I sank gracefully into the seat he had pulled out for me, finally turning to fully face my dinner companion. “Let me guess,” I said, before he could so much as open his mouth. “You’re Phillip, aren’t you? The missing fiancé of our current reigning frosted lady.”
He raised one eyebrow. “Such disrespect toward the Winter Queen is unwise, detective. You might find that the walls have ears.”
“You might find that I have long since come to an arrangement with the local Courts,” I said. “They don’t mess with me more than they already have, I don’t start dragging their less than flattering interactions with the danies into the light. Can’t have a mythology without people to believe in it, now can you?” And the great mythology of the liminals was that they didn’t hurt the danies unless they had to, unless they were provoked; that they were harmless gods to share a world with. I knew better. So did most of the people I associated with. There are always wolves in the wood.
“Still,” he said. “You seem very calm, given your precarious position.”
“You seem very cocky, given that you’re dodging the only question I’ve asked you so far,” I replied. “Are you the Winter Queen’s runaway boy toy? Because I think she’ll be very interested in your whereabouts. You’re what she hired me to find, after all.”
He looked at me for a moment before admitting, reluctantly, “I am Phillip, yes.”
“No last name—let me guess. That was the price of staying with her when she went to the Courts. Must have stung, giving up your connection to your family. That’s a mystical severing, you know. They’re never going to remember you. They’re never going to welcome their prodigal son home. Was it worth it at first, when she still felt like flesh? When she was still willing to touch you, and pretend that she was never really going to take up the mantle of the Winter? They all take it eventually. Snow Whites can’t resist the cold, any more than Rose Reds can resist the heat. You should never have followed her. Anyone with half a brain could have told you how that story ended.”
“You weren’t there.” There was a note of challenge in his tone. “It could have been different for us.”
“It’s never different for anyone.” I leaned back in my chair. “Where’s the Star, Phillip? I mean, you may have broken Clodagh’s heart, but I bet there are people who’d thank you for that. A bitter queen is always colder. The Star of Borealis, though…they’re not going to forgive you. They’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth, and maybe a little bit beyond them. You’ll spend the rest of your life running, and when they catch you, they’ll remind you why it’s bad for danies to mess with liminals. If you give the Star to me now, maybe you can get out of town while they’re feeling forgiving.”
“I have friends who can take care of me,” he said. “I didn’t arrange this meeting because I wanted to hear a bunch of empty threats. I want to double whatever Clodagh is paying you. I want you to switch sides.”
“I don’t even know what the other side is.”
“Oh, I think you do.”
There was only one natural “other side” when you were talking about the Courts. “I don’t think you understand what you’re messing with,” I said. “There’s not a danie in the world that can protect you from a Holly. She’s married to the Summer King. I’m sure it hurt your pride when she did that, but think about your skin. They come after you together, and it’s all over.”
“Not if we have the Star of Borealis. Not if we can make it work for us.” He leaned forward, suddenly smiling. “Don’t you think there’s a reason Clodagh went to you? You’re a second-rate investigator in a bad part of town. You don’t listen, you don’t follow orders, and everybody knows about your little problem. You are the worst person to handle anything of any importance. But you won’t go against the Courts. They caused your little problem, and they could make it worse if they wanted to. They let you think you’re off the leash, because that way when they need something from you, you’re always ready to be a good dog and follow orders. Aren’t you tired of being a good dog, Detective Silva? Don’t you want the chance to be free?”
“I’ve never been a good dog in my life,” I said, matching his smile with one of my own. “The Courts caused my family’s issues, yes. You have that much right. But it’s not new to my generation. This has gone father to son, mother to daughter, for two hundred years. We’ve outlived Winter Queens and Summer Kings, and we always, always come out on top. Now it’s true that we don’t go against the Courts when we can help it. But it’s not fear. It’s pragmatism. Why waste time fighting when we could be living our lives, free and clear and unmolested?”
“Yet here you are, doing the Courts’ dirty work like a good dog.”
“Here I am, keeping the Star of Borealis from getting loose in t
he danie world. Mundane humans aren’t meant to have that much truck with magic, Phillip. How do you think my family got our little problem in the first place?” The Star of Borealis, talisman of the father of the winds. Oh, he had a nasty sense of humor, that old bastard did, and when you caught his attention…most people were less fortunate than my many-times great-grandfather had been. They wound up wind and memory, not living people who sometimes had to be careful before opening their mouths. “Give it to me. I’ll tell her you ran.”
“Really.” He leaned back in his seat. “And what will I be doing?”
I looked at him flatly. “Running. I’m offering you the opportunity to get away from the Courts. You should take it.”
“If anyone at this table is taking an offer, it should be you. Join us. We can overthrow the Winter Court. We can make half the calendar safe for humanity again, like it should have been from the beginning. This was never meant to be a liminal world. Join us.”
“Bite me.”
Phillip sighed, somehow managing to look arrogant and put-upon at the same time. It was a neat trick. I didn’t have time to appreciate it, since he followed it by dipping a hand into his pocket and producing a blue-white diamond the size of my closed fist. The temperature around us dropped an easy five degrees. “Last chance, Silva. Stop serving the Courts. Serve the human race, like you should have all along.”
“Pretty words for a man who let himself be kept like a puppy until his lover married someone else.” I leaned back in my seat. “No go. I don’t know who paid you to steal the Star, and I don’t care, because they didn’t pay you enough.” I took a deep, languid breath.
“Should’ve listened to me,” he said, and thrust the hand that held the diamond toward me. It gleamed like new-fallen snow, and a gust of wind burst out of it, barreling toward my head with all the speed and accuracy of a silver bullet.
I breathed out.
Streets of Shadows Page 32