Iron Kin: A Novel of the Half-Light City

by M. J. Scott

  Impressive. Not that I was going to tell her that. “I don’t think any Blood or Beast is going to stand still while you stick a flaming pin in them.” I did my best to sound bored.

  She shot me a look that made me wonder why my head didn’t ignite as the pin had. The flame on the pin died abruptly and she flicked it toward the empty grate, where it made a little sizzling noise as it hit the hearthstone. One quick glance around the room and she stalked over to my mantel and picked up a pewter candlestick. “Can I borrow this?”

  It was obviously a rhetorical question. I sensibly stayed quiet, limiting myself to a nod. She shot me another flat glare, then moved her hands, one to each end of the candlestick.

  I wondered if she was working up to braining me with it, but then she suddenly pulled her hands apart and the metal . . . stretched. That was the only word for it. As if it were rubber or clay or toffee. I stared as her right hand moved over one end of the candlestick, working it to a wicked point, more dagger than candlestick.

  She made a satisfied sound, then moved her grip so that she held only the blunt end. Definitely more daggerlike. Perhaps I had underestimated her after all.

  She aimed the sharp end toward me and snapped her fingers. The point lit up like a flare, burning with a clean white light. She smiled nastily at me and before I could say anything she threw the flaming dagger toward me with deadly force. It whistled past my head, close enough for me to feel the hot rush of air as it traveled past me and buried itself in the far wall with a solid thunk. At once the wallpaper began to smoke and char, the burning smell hot and acrid.

  “That’s going to cost me extra rent,” I said. I didn’t bother trying to put the fire out. Nothing I could do would extinguish a flame set by a mage.

  Saskia made no move to douse the fire, just folded her arms, gaze locked on mine. The paper around the dagger caught with a soft whoosh of flame.

  “You’ve made your point. Do you think you could put that out now?”

  “Of course.” She snapped her fingers and the flames died. I picked up the pitcher of water and crossed the room to toss it over the candle dagger and the wall. I was sure she could put the flame in the metal out, but I wasn’t so sure about the wood. I didn’t want to wake up in the small hours with my room on fire. Saskia said nothing.

  I wrapped my hand around the end of the dagger, half expecting it to be hot. It was warm but not unpleasantly so. I pulled it free of the wall, carried it back to her.

  “This is yours, I believe.”

  “Actually, it’s yours.” She laid it on the table. “Consider it a gift. Still think I’m helpless?”

  “It was a good throw,” I admitted. “But you’re still not going to have time to fashion a weapon every time you need one.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “Do you think I’m an idiot? I carry weapons. And I can do that to any piece of metal around me.”

  My eyes traveled around the room, noting all the bits and pieces of metal. My chain around my wrist suddenly weighed a ton. But there was still no way I wanted to put myself in the position of having to explain to Simon and Guy exactly why I was going to demand that they put their sister in danger.

  “How does that work, exactly?” I said, stalling while I tried to think of another way to dissuade her. “The fire?” I’d known that metalmages could manipulate metal, but the fire part was new.

  She shrugged. “All metal was molten once. It remembers the heat.”

  “I’m not sure that makes any sense.”

  “It’s magic. It’s hard to explain. You try to explain how your visions work to me and, if you can, I’ll try again.”

  “Touché.”

  “So?” Saskia lifted her chin.

  “So what?” Playing dumb was my last bastion of defense.

  “Do we have a deal? Throwing a dagger isn’t the only thing I know how to do. I’m a pretty damn good shot and I can use a sword too.”

  “You can?”

  “I grew up with two older brothers who wanted to be Templars. They got lessons, I paid attention. And as soon as I joined the Guild, I started up again. After all, if you’re going to make weapons, it helps to know how to use them.”

  “What kind of weapons do you make?”

  “Guns, daggers, swords. Lots of things. We have to learn all sorts of metalworking as part of our studies. I like the weapons.”

  The girl continued to surprise me. I shook my head. I should have guessed as much, given her brothers. “Was there a particularly bloodthirsty ancestor in your family?”

  Her smile this time was almost scary. “We’ve had our moments, but really the DuCaines are just a normal human family.”

  “You and Simon are both mages.”

  “Guy and Hannah aren’t, though.”

  “Two out of four is a high percentage, isn’t it? For your sort of family.”

  “Two out of five,” she corrected.

  “Sorry?”

  “There were five of us. I had another sister.”

  Had? Damn. There was a subject I wasn’t about to delve into. Her face had turned shadowed.

  “Five,” I corrected. “It’s still high.”

  “These things happen. My parents don’t like it, but there’s not much they can do about it.”

  Her parents would be worried about who would take over the family concerns once they were gone. Guy was a Templar, and unlikely to give that up, from what I could tell. Simon was busy with his patients and St. Giles.

  The senior DuCaines had to be hoping either Saskia or Hannah would marry the right sort of man and bring him into the family fold. I looked at Saskia, standing there ready to charge into battle to get what she wanted. She could run a family’s estates. I didn’t think she wanted to, though. I had trouble imagining her sitting sedately behind a desk, going through piles of ledgers and bills.

  The faint images ghosting her didn’t show such a fate. But right now they didn’t show much of anything beyond the same sense of heat and flame I’d gotten the night before. Which was a good thing, and how I wanted it to remain. “You should listen to your parents. And your brothers. They’d all tell you not to do this.”

  “As I said, I’m very tired of being told what to do. Do we have a deal?”

  “The situation is complicated . . .” If I couldn’t convince her with logic, maybe I could intimidate her with something else. She was a good human girl, after all. Perhaps I’d taken the wrong tack.

  “I can handle complications. I understand the politics of the negotiations—quite well.” She looked me up and down. “Possibly better than you do.”

  “I wasn’t talking about politics, sweetheart.” I let my voice go softer, deeper. Holly called it my female catnip voice. She ribbed me relentlessly about it when she caught me using it, but even she couldn’t deny it worked. I could talk most women into anything when I used that voice on them.

  Saskia’s cheeks deepened in color but she made no move. “What exactly did you mean?”

  “You’re volunteering to spend a lot of time in my company. And I know you feel something for me.”

  “Why, you—” She sputtered for a moment.

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. Or if you truly don’t know, then you really have no business trying to make this deal.”

  She continued to stare at me, seemingly struggling to come up with a suitable retort.

  “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 bargain, 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, bu
t 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.