The Witch Who Came in From the Cold - Season One Volume Two

by Lindsay Smith

  The Witch Who Came in From the Cold Season One: Volume Two Copyright © 2016 text by Serial Box Publishing, LLC.

  All Rights Reserved, including the right of reproduction, in whole or in part, in any audio, electronic, mechanical, physical, or recording format. Originally published in the United States of America: 2015.

  For additional information and permission requests, write to the publisher at 175 Varick St. 4th Fl. New York, NY 10014

  Serial Box™, Serial Box Publishing™, and Join the Plot™ are trademarks of Serial Box Publishing, LLC.

  ISBN: 978-1-68210-067-7

  This literary work is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, incidents, and events are the product of imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Written by: Max Gladstone, Lindsay Smith, Michael Swanwick, Cassandra Rose Clarke, Ian Tregillis

  Cover Illustration by: Mark Weaver

  Art Director: Charles Orr

  Lead Writer: Lindsay Smith

  Editor: Juliet Ulman

  Producer: Julian Yap

  The Witch Who Came in From the Cold original concept by Max Gladstone and Lindsay Smith

  Episode 8: Cover the Silence

  by Cassandra Rose Clarke

  Prague

  February 19, 1970

  1.

  Zerena Pulnoc strolled across the Malostranské Square, her heels clicking against the stones. A basket with the first of the day’s purchases was tucked into the crook of her arm. Most of the preparation for tonight’s party she had delegated to her battalion of servants, but there were certain items that required a more refined taste, and these she bought herself. Already in her basket were two bottles of imported wine to be saved for the Indian ambassador; a new necklace—purchased discreetly on the black market—that would look stunning with her gown for the evening; and an assortment of French cheeses. She was on her way now to pick out the flowers. She hoped to find something that suggested spring. That would be a lovely touch, wouldn’t it, even as the Prague winter dragged on? The right flowers, the right combination of colors for the linens, and her guests would almost feel a hint of warmth in the brisk air.

  She’d always thought the neighborhood flower shop had the best selection, and the owner, Aleksander Hruška, was an elegant man with an impeccable sense of taste for someone with his background and breeding. But the shop was also conveniently located a few blocks away, and when people saw her coming and going, they would never question it, because why wouldn’t Zerena Pulnoc, wife of the Soviet ambassador and hostess of all the best parties in Prague, frequently visit a flower shop?

  She clicked along the sidewalk until she came to the little park, which wasn’t really a park at all, but a courtyard, tucked in between two of the heavy stone buildings. In the summer it was lovely, a verdant patchwork of green doused in the sweet scent of roses, but now it was just a plot of cold mud punctuated by thorny shrubs.

  Zerena followed the stepping-stones to the bench in the corner, where she sat delicately, setting the basket at her side. She reached into her purse and pulled out her cigarettes and lit one, the smoke twining up to the steely sky. Pedestrians passed by on the sidewalk, but they paid no attention to her, this woman taking a break from her shopping. As she smoked, she slid one hand along the back fold of the bench. There had been an advertisement for Russian dolls tucked into her newspaper this morning. A bit of a joke, really—who would buy such a thing these days, in this place? But that was the sign, the secret code. I have a message for you.

  Her fingers hit the bit of paper stuck into the bench’s wirework; she enclosed it in her fist and brought her hand into her lap. She kept her hand there as she smoked. When she finished, she dropped the cigarette into the mud, gathered up her basket, and continued on her way.

  She did not look at the message until she had nearly reached the flower shop. The shop’s bright, hand-painted sign swung back and forth in the wind. There were ferns in the windows, feathery and prehistoric. Zerena unrolled the paper with her thumb and glanced at the text, taking it in quickly before crumpling it into a ball and tossing it into a patch of lingering snow, where she stepped on it, puncturing and ripping it with the heel of her shoe, before breezing in through the doors of the shop.

  We must meet, the message had read. 11 a.m., Rousseau’s Bakery.

  It seemed Mr. Komyetski had taken her party preparations into consideration. It was a small consolation.

  2.

  Jordan ran a rag over the inside of a beer glass, giving it one last polish before setting it back in the cabinet. The bar wasn’t going to open for another couple of hours, but she liked getting the easy chores finished early, before she started in on some of the orders for charms and potions and other bits of magic that were still outstanding.

  She tossed the rag over her shoulder and gazed out at the room, checking over her domain. Everything looked good: The floors were swept and mopped, the chairs straightened, the mirror behind the bar polished to gleaming. Cleaning was mindless work, but that was what she liked about it—magic forced her to dive too deeply into her own thoughts sometimes, like she was pulling herself inside out.

  The air tightened, squeezed, and exhaled. A prickle of energy rushed over Jordan’s skin. She cursed under her breath.

  Something had tripped the protection charms.

  Such charms were strewn all over Bar Vodnář, a hodgepodge of magic that Jordan had assembled over the years. Some were twisted into the walls of the building itself, family heirlooms that had been here since the beginning. Others, less permanent, were made to look like decorations: bunches of dried herbs in a chipped vase, polished stones scattered around the tables. She used a blend of some staid Ice magic and a few select Flame spells, as well as some of the homey folk magic she’d picked up in her travels. It was an effective arrangement, and it didn’t miss much.

  It was still thrumming. More strongly, now, more insistent.

  Jordan sighed and slapped the rag down. She sidled up to the window and peered out, catching a glimpse of a pair of men strolling down the sidewalk. She frowned. Then she reached into the cabinet below the bar. She pulled out a strand of wooden beads, each one carved with a different alchemical symbol, and draped it around her neck. Then she grabbed the little velvet bag of offensive charms and tucked it into her pocket. It wasn’t much, but she wasn’t going out there completely unarmed.

  The air buzzed and sparked against her skin: an eerie sensation, but not exactly unpleasant. This wasn’t Gabe’s damned golem, at least. Something smaller. Something she could probably handle.

  She did a quick reconnaissance of the inside of the bar, checking the upstairs seating area and then the labyrinthine back rooms. Nothing. She assumed whoever it was hadn’t gotten inside yet—the charms would have been screaming if that were the case—but Jordan was a cautious woman, and sorcerers, whether Ice or Flame, were slippery sorts. They found their way through the cracks.

  Jordan approached the alley exit tucked away in the corner of the bar. She put one hand on the doorknob and gathered the wooden beads in the other, tugging the necklace against the back of her neck. She closed her eyes and murmured ancient words very softly. Magic bolted through her. If anyone tried to attack her unawares, they wouldn’t get her on the first shot. Maybe not the second, either. No guarantees on the third.

  She pushed the door open.
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  Cold February wind swept inside, blustery and still holding on to winter. Jordan let go of the beads and stepped out into the street.

  “Who are you?” she shouted. “I know you’re here. I can feel you.”

  Voices. A whiff of cigarette smoke. Jordan followed the building up the alley to the main street. A pair of men leaned against the lamppost in front of the bar. They glanced up at the sound of her footsteps but didn’t say anything. The smoker lifted his cigarette away from his lips and blew out a cloud of smoke.

  The protective charm pulsed. Jordan stomped forward. “Bar doesn’t open till noon.”

  The two men glanced at each other. Jordan had never seen either of them before, but they had a toughness to their features that you didn’t usually find in the Ice. The Flame selected by talent and skill and loyalty to the cause; the Ice selected by pedigree.

  “We heard good things about this place.” The smoker gestured toward the front entrance with his cigarette. “Wanted to see it for ourselves.”

  “I told you,” Jordan said. “I’m not open.” She didn’t reach for her charms. Not yet. If they were just scouts, she didn’t want to start anything she didn’t have to. She’d try to chase them off the mundane way first.

  “Great location.” The second man peeled himself away from the light pole and ambled toward her. Jordan tensed. “An excellent intersection, don’t you think?”

  The bar’s location was shit, actually, tucked in between ornate buildings housing government bureaucracies. Most of the people around here weren’t the sort to frequent a place like Bar Vodnář. But there was another reason you might say this place had a great location, and it was burning in invisible rivers beneath their feet, a nexus of power that converged directly under the room where the lonely and downtrodden and desperate of Prague sat down to have a drink every night.

  These two gazma were Flame, then.

  “I told you, we’re not open yet.” Jordan took a step forward.

  The smoker flicked his cigarette out into the street.

  “And I’m not letting you in until noon,” she continued. “You want to drink, you come back then. You want something else from me—” She fixed them both with a stone-cold stare. “Don’t bother. I don’t have what you’re looking for.”

  The smoker grinned. “I don’t know about that, Miss Rhemes.”

  “Well, I’m not offering it. That better?” Jordan jerked her head down the street. “Leave. If you stick around out here, you’re gonna freeze to death before we open.”

  The two men exchanged glances, and then they shifted, their movements slow, casual, vaguely menacing. Jordan stared at them, chin lifted. These two were low on the chain; she could take them if she had to.

  They shifted their weight, kicked at the old ice in the snow.

  “We don’t freeze,” the smoker said as he walked past. “You’d do best to remember that.”

  Jordan watched them go. They meandered down the sidewalk. The smoker kept throwing glances her way, but they eventually rounded the corner and disappeared. Off to report to their Flame bosses, no doubt.

  Jordan went back inside through the alley entrance. The protection charms had quieted and stilled. For a moment she stood beside the door, breathing in the scent of sage from her charms and the lemony glow of her cleaning solutions. It was difficult to do serious magic without support from the two factions, but Jordan had managed all this time because of the ley lines converging under her bar. She could feel them now, like lines of electricity.

  The Flame were up to something. First those two university professors had stopped by, and now there were men skulking around like a pair of hungry dogs. This was about the ley lines, about the kind of magic you couldn’t do alone.

  She did not like it.

  Jordan double-checked the lock and then stepped into the first of the back rooms, past the storage shelves and into her office. The familiar scent of dried herbs washed over her, and for a moment she stood and considered her options. The Flame had approached her before about access to Bar Vodnář, but this encounter made her nervous in a way the previous one hadn’t. Before, they’d at least pretended to be genteel. This aggression had the stink of desperation about it.

  With quick, practiced movements, Jordan began pulling supplies from the shelves. Bits of stone, boxes of matches, twists of twine—she selected each item from memory, then laid them out on her desk. Studied them. Then she unlocked the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out her grimoire, a book she had sewn together herself many years ago, chanting softly as the thread wound through the paper. Now, she thumbed through the pages until she came to the section she needed.

  For Fighting, it read in Arabic, written out in the looping handwriting of her youth. She hardly recognized it all these years later, hardly connected that writing to the person she’d become.

  She selected a charm from the table of contents, and then she set to work.

  3.

  Sasha was waiting near the entrance to Rousseau’s Bakery. He leaned against the wall, eating from a bag of roasted nuts that he must have purchased from the street vendor two blocks away. As Zerena walked over to the entrance, he pulled himself upright, then walked with her into the bakery. It was empty save the girl behind the counter, dull-faced and covered in flour. She was laying out pastries on a display sheet, her brow furrowed in concentration.

  “Would you like one?” Sasha asked, holding out the greasy bag.

  Zerena shook her head and gently pushed the bag away, wrinkling her nose with disgust. “Not right now, Sashenka.”

  Sasha chuckled and tucked the bag into his coat pocket. Zerena walked up to the counter, where the girl looked up from her work, blinking.

  “I put in an order,” Zerena said. “For Zerena Pulnoc. I’m here to confirm.”

  At first the girl gave no indication that she understood anything Zerena had said, but then, as if she had only needed the time to mull things over, she turned and vanished into the back. As the door swung shut, Zerena heard her call out the owner’s name. Zerena crossed her arms over her chest.

  “What do you want?” she said, looking ahead at the rows of delicately iced pastries.

  “Information,” Sasha said.

  “You’ll have to be more specific than that.”

  The door flew open and out stepped the owner, Rémy, holding up his hands in greeting. “Madame Pulnoc!” he cried, rushing to Zerena so he could kiss her on the cheek. Rémy had been born in Paris; he’d moved to Prague to be with a girl he loved. A sweet story, yes, but not of any real interest to Zerena. Although his pastries were magnificent.

  “You will adore what I’ve done for you,” Rémy said in French. “A perfect selection for your party tonight.”

  “I have no doubt of that, Monsieur Rousseau.” Zerena beamed at him, but really she was thinking about Sasha and his unhelpful little request. Information. What else would he come to her for?

  “You said you wanted something classic,” Rémy said, “and I took that to heart. Have a seat”—he gestured toward the bakery’s single tiny table—“and I’ll bring out the samples for your approval.”

  “That sounds lovely. Thank you.” Zerena gave him one last bright smile before moving over to the table. Sasha trailed behind her. He’d known about this, her little pre-party ritual at Rousseau’s, but only because she’d let him know. Information was her true currency, and she managed it as she did her husband’s wealth, doling it out whenever it was advantageous for her to do so.

  “I imagine you’re regretting those awful nuts now,” Zerena said in Russian, tucking her napkin into her lap.

  “French pastries?” Sasha waved his hand dismissively. “Bourgeois decadence. Give me a Kiev cake any day.”

  “Your patriotism is admirable. Now, what is this information you need?”

  Sasha glanced back at the counter, where Rémy shouted at the girl to hurry, hurry, the madame was waiting.

  “You do that every time we meet here,” Z
erena said, leaning back in her chair. “Think the girl is listening in. Speak Russian. You know there are no ears here.”

  Sasha grinned easily at her. “I remember. But it’s an old bureaucrat’s paranoia. Forgive me.”

  Zerena shifted in her seat, irritated. Sasha always did this, flitting around the conversation like a butterfly. This was not the day to sit at the table in Rousseau’s and circle around each other.

  “I don’t have much time,” Zerena said, “as you well know. Tell me what you need.”

  The girl was approaching, balancing two plates of pastry samples on outstretched hands. Sasha fell silent, watching her, and Zerena rankled at the interruption, uncomfortable because she still did not know what Sasha wanted.

  “Monsieur has prepared three pastries for you: a mille-feuille, a St. Honoré cake, and a petite madeleine,” the girl murmured, not making eye contact. She sat the plates down on the table and shuffled away, her hair hanging in strings over her eyes. Zerena sniffed, turned to the pastries. They looked like tiny eighteenth-century sculptures, delicate and shimmering.

  “Perhaps I can be bourgeois for the afternoon,” Sasha said, picking up a cake. Zerena peered up at him.

  “What,” she said, “do you need?”

  He bit into the tiny cake and chewed, closing his eyes and letting out a delighted “Mmm.” Zerena didn’t need to try the pastries to know they would be perfect. She trusted Rémy. Sasha, she did not trust.

  “I told you,” Sasha said, “information.” He looked at her. “In exchange, I will give you information. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  They were alone; Rémy and the girl had ducked into the back room. Zerena tilted her head—interested, perhaps, but not terribly so. “I always have need for information.”

  “It’s about one of my officers.” Sasha licked at the cream on his fingers. “Tatiana Mikhailovna.”

  Zerena considered this. She knew Tatiana, who always dutifully attended the cultural events required of her cover. No real sense of fashion, the poor thing, but she came from an important family, highly ranked in the Party.