The courtyard beyond Forgetful Haven was a snow-covered horror. Sideways snow lashed the bare square, and muffled even the cry of the girl. Eave lanterns of tea houses guttered, flames struggling to overcome the blast.
Lysander was off at once, dashing toward the sound. Boots sank into increasing drifts with wet crunching noises, coat streaming behind him like a pennant. Seraphine trailed behind him unwillingly, braid bouncing against her shoulder.
There, shivering by a battered wall, was the girl—a girl of no more than twelve years old, arms wrapped around her, her small body shivering with cold and fear. Her sleeve bore stains of blood, colouring snow close to her filthy pink.
"Mira," she breathed, and her eyes sparkled with recognition
Lysander dropped to a knee, examining the girl briefly for mortal wounds. Miraculously, there were none that seemed immediately life-threatening, though her lips were blue, her eyes glassy with shock.
"She's cold," Lysander stated, his face set in a grim line. He removed his jacket and wrapped it around her thin figure. "We have to move her. Now,"
As he hugged Mira tightly, something hard and sharp jabbed him in his side. He looked down and caught a glimpse of it quickly, though it was hard to see at all in dim light.
Seraphine's eyes flickered to the shard as well, but it was too windy and snow battered their faces. She didn't have time to catch little details at this moment.
If they have good enough eyesight, they can see clutched in her bloody hand is a fragment of jade—a shattered fragment, to be sure, but one that still shows the outline of a crest: a crescent moon supported by twin wings.
"An old clan crest of some kind," Lysander growled, shoving it into Mira's cloak. "We can figure that out later."
Seraphine acknowledged curtly. "We have to leave. We can't wait -- we're losing her."
At the same time, there grew instantly in Lysander's mind an intuition: Whoever burglarized Mira's house wasn't looking for funds. They'd been looking for this.
Another cry of wind drove a gust of snow in their faces.
"Go, quickly!" commanded Seraphine. "There's access to the old cellars at the rear door!"
Lysander didn't protest. Mira groaned softly as he carried her across the courtyard, skirting drifts and splintered crates. The rear door yawned before them, slightly ajar, creaking with every gust of wind that slammed against it.
They flung it open. The storeroom behind was no different—shelving toppled, rice bags strewn about on the floor like fallen troops. Frost had moved in at the edges, scoring walls with dainty fingers of white.
Seraphine brushed aside a woven mat and dropped to her knees. An uncovered square of stone lay at her feet, inscribed with glyphs so old that mortar around them had fissured.
"Hurry," Lysander snarled, looking back over his shoulder. Impossible to hear pursuit in this shrieking gale—and still, he knew that they were behind him.
Seraphine touched her hand to the middle glyph. Uttered a single word Lysander did not catch.
The slab shuddered, then scraped to one side with a sound almost deafening within the tempest.
A spiral stairway descended into darkness.
Lysander didn't stop. He repositioned Mira's weight against his arms and went down, boots thudding against wet stone steps cold to the touch with condensation.
Seraphine pursued him, and behind them the stone door thumped shut with a deafening crash, shutting out all noise of the blizzard above.
The cellar was old. Older than the tea house above. Possibly older than Solace City itself.
There were squat, fat pillars reaching to the heights of the walls, covered with runes of forgotten significance. In the centre of the room, there was a cold, abandoned-looking brazier and there was a circle of dark-coloured stones built into the floor.
Lysander carefully set Mira down onto a stack of tattered blankets. The girl shifted, although she didn't awaken.
Seraphine moved rapidly, firing at the brazier. Sparks burst forth and flared into fire, casting a dim, dancing light around the room.
Lysander spun slowly around, his gaze drinking in warding runes inscribed onto the walls, the heavy vault doors inset deep in the stone far in front of him.
"This place," he growled.
"A refuge," Seraphine declared sternly. "Established by those who envisioned an era when truth would be sought."
She crouched down beside Mira, checking her pulse and her breathing. After a moment, she nodded. "She will live, if we can keep her warm."
Lysander knelt down beside her and held up the broken jade pendant to the light.
Why would they have this, her family?
Seraphine's lips hardened. "Because of the lines' dispersion. Some did not remain openly loyal to the old clans. Others hid, wed humans. Others, tried to forget."
She extended a hand, fingertips grazing the broken edges of the pendant.
"But Blood Remembers"
There was an oppressive quiet between them. Mira shifted, muttering in her sleep.
The Black Mask Society," said Lysander, speaking slowly, "do they pursue you alone?"
Seraphine shook her head, her eyes dark. "They're targeting anyone who has any relation to the royal bloodlines. Anyone who might threaten the existing power structure."
And then there's what's underneath this tea house?
She paused. Then, with a sigh that seemed to hold centuries of weight, she answered.
Evidence
He raised an eyebrow.
"Records," she said. "Treaties. Crimes. Accords breached by the Celestial Court. Arms manufactured prior to the sealing of the Accord. Proof which demonstrates demonfolk betrayed, and were not betrayers."
Lysander listened to this in silence.
Above them, creaked the tea house. The stone quivered to its low hum.
Clicking heels. Intention
They're here, he growled.
Seraphine grasped a curved, long dagger off of its wall mount. The blade softly emitted light with runes that were too small to decipher.
"We have to keep her protected," she declared. "Even at any cost."
Lysander drew out the small sword hidden under his cloak. The metal was unadorned, plain, yet well-suited to his hold, an instrument of his purpose.
They positioned themselves between Mira and the stairs.
The top of the spiral staircase creaked with a rattle of this trapdoor.
Once
Twice
It was opening deliberately and slowly.
A man emerged.
He was dressed head to foot in black, his face obscured by a mask of porcelain—one painted with a single red eye.
The Eye of Jurisprudence
Lysander's blood awakened something that was old. A recollection that was not his own. The sound of steel meeting steel. The acrid scent of burned feathers. A throne room wet with blood.
He shrugged it off.
The murderer paused at the bottom of the stairs and regarded them with cold, detached curiosity.
He then addressed her, voice muffled behind his mask.
Hand over the girl. Bring the key.
Lysander's teeth appeared in a humourless smile.
"Come and take them."