A Breath of Frost
Authors: Alyxandra Harvey
For my mother.
Je t’aime
.
Prologue
1814
Breaking into a dead woman’s house
was easy work since she rarely complained.
Breaking into a dead witch’s house was a different matter altogether.
You were as likely to come across some bit of wandering magic as a weeping relative pacing the floor. When a witch died, many of her spells unraveled and the results were unpredictable at best. Moira might get lucky and the house wards would break first. On the other hand, Mrs. Lawton’s ghost might push her down the stairs.
She’d have to risk it. One-Eyed Joe wanted what was inside, even if he didn’t know it yet. And the old lady’s body would be hauled off to the cemetery tomorrow. Moira had no intention of becoming a grave robber.
Moira stayed crouched on the roof next door for over an
hour, watching carefully as a household lamp was carried from room to room. The gargoyle on the corner of the Lawton house was draped in black bombazine, like the mirrors inside would be. Mourning extended to all parts of the house, and the ghost was expected to protect its family while the gargoyle slept.
Finally, the lamplight floated upstairs. She waited an hour after it was extinguished, just to be safe. She wished she had Strawberry with her, but her friend was off on another job. And if she took one of the boys they’d want the bigger cut just for being there. Even though Moira had been stealing things to sell at the market since she was nine years old, and some of those boys barely had a year under their belts.
She hopped over the gap between the roofs and slid down a drainpipe to the parlor window on the north side of the building. It was customary to leave it open for the spirit to pass through. Moira didn’t mind sharing with a ghost; she was used to sharing the rooftops with vampire pigeons, rats the size of hedgehogs, and Nigel the snorer. She left a muffin on the sill as an offering. Mrs. Lawton might have preferred wine or sweets as many spirits did, but Moira only had one lemon-drop candy left and she wasn’t about to give it up for a dead woman with no taste buds.
She wiggled inside, grateful poor girls didn’t have to wear corsets, and Madcaps didn’t even have to wear dresses. Her trousers were frayed in one knee and two sizes too big, but they were comfortable and allowed her to move in ways that would have snapped the spines of soft aristocratic girls.
The house smelled like whiskey, cheap lamp oil, and a dead body. There was no odor of lemon balm, which was a relief.
Warlocks smelled like lemon balm, so she knew for sure that she was stealing from a regular witch. Warlocks just weren’t worth the risk. They were ruthless in life and worse in death.
Moira paused, waiting for her vision to adjust to the gloom and assessing her surroundings. The protective eyes painted on the thresholds and over the lintels were draped in black material, just like the gargoyle had been. There was the usual assortment of chairs and trinkets. She didn’t know how people lived in such close quarters with so much clutter. She hated the feeling of being inside a building, without a view of the sky or seven different escape routes at all times. Moira’s feet burned, the way they always did when she was courting trouble. She tried to ignore it, reminding herself the walls were soft enough to kick through, if worse came to worst.
She knew the upstairs had two rooms and the attic was full of mice. She’d sent her familiar inside earlier in the day, just to be sure. Having a cat as a fetch was infinitely more practical than the wolves and eagles the fancy witches coveted. They might be more romantic than an alley cat, but you couldn’t exactly send your wolf-familiar into the body of a real wolf in London to any reasonable purpose, could you? Cats, on the other hand, were everywhere and rarely noticed.
A scrawny russet tabby with a bent ear leaped out of Moira’s rib cage. The fiery pinpricks in her heels subsided to a low warning itch. The first time she’d felt Marmalade leave her body, Moira had thrown up. And then spent the night crying because she thought she was going crazy. One-Eyed Joe found her and fed her mint tea and told her stories about witches and magic.
He’d taught her to avoid the Order and never sell to a warlock without a disguise and that her familiar was her closest ally, literally created out of her own magic.
Marmalade swiped at her leg with a ghostly claw. Blood welled on the scratch.
“You know, Strawberry’s familiar is a little white mouse. She brings her flowers.” Marmalade knew full well that Strawberry’s familiar was a mouse; keeping the two apart was a constant struggle.
Magic clung to the cupboard on the wall and billowed like pink steam out of a teapot. Old lady Lawton was a tea-leaf reader and she’d protected the tools of her trade and the magical artifacts in her home from tampering and theft. Luckily, Moira wasn’t interested in those.
She crept forward to the dining table. It was covered in a white sheet on which Mrs. Lawton lay in her best dress. Her gray hair was curled and a silver brooch was pinned to her collar. Moira left the pin even though it would have fetched a decent price. It wasn’t what she was after and it felt rather rude, considering.
She gently pried Mrs. Lawton’s eyelids open. They felt like stiff paper. Her right eye was cloudy and vacant, her left perfectly clear and blue as cornflower petals.
The glass eye of a blind witch three days dead.
She popped it loose, trying very hard not to hear the vile popping sound it made when it came free. She tucked it into the pocket of her striped green waistcoat, refusing to gag.
She placed a coin over the eye socket, as payment. It wasn’t
stealing if you paid for it. And, if you believed in the old stories, you had to have a coin to pay your way to the other side. She hoped it would appease the ghost long enough for Moira to slip out the window.
It wasn’t enough.
Mrs. Lawton’s spirit sat straight up out of her body and screeched.
“Thief! Thief in the house!”
“Bollocks!” Moira jumped a good foot into the air and then stumbled back against the wall, gasping. Bloody ghosts. Marmalade hissed, fur rising like a boot brush. When no one came running to investigate, Moira released her breath.
Mrs. Lawton didn’t drift forward like pollen or moonlight or any of the things poets claimed. Ice skittered over the floor-boards as she slammed into Moira, mouth opening wide to show rotted teeth. Her breath was toads and mushrooms and mildew.
Moira clamped between her teeth an iron nail she’d dug out of a rafter. The iron helped, but it didn’t banish Mrs. Lawton completely. The ghost’s hand closed around Moira’s throat. Her touch burned even as frost filled the space between them.
Mrs. Lawton shouldn’t have been able to do that, even as a recent ghost. There were wards over London. Locks on mystical gates and portals. Binding spells. The Order.
Mrs. Lawton didn’t seem to care for any of those fail-safes.
And for a dead old lady, she packed quite a punch.
Moira’s feet felt branded, as if she didn’t already know she needed to get out of here.
Now
. She was weak as boiled turnips. Her vision started to go gray and blotchy.
Marmalade knocked the teapot over. The handle cracked ominously.
Mrs. Lawton turned her phosphorescent head so quickly her neck snapped.
Marmalade batted the teapot as if it were Strawberry’s mouse, rolling it closer and closer to the edge of the sideboard. Mrs. Lawton’s grip loosened. She ground her teeth so savagely, one fell out and corporealized when it hit the ground.
Marmalade flicked the teapot once more and as it tumbled, Mrs. Lawton lunged for it, momentarily forgetting Moira. Moira scooped up the dead woman’s tooth and tucked it next to her glass eyeball before diving out of the window. She scampered up the first drainpipe she found, flattening herself onto the roof to catch her breath. Her black hair tangled around her, catching in the shingles. A neighbor thundered out of his door in his nightshirt.
When Marmalade jumped up beside her, Moira rolled over onto her feet, brandishing a dagger. The cat calmly licked her paw. Moira let out a shaky laugh. “That did not go as planned, Marmalade,” she said. “Let’s go home.”