Page 343 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

With the tunnel collapsed, Blaire leads them up through the building via a winding iron staircase. The Front are evacuating, carrying weapons, possessions and sealed crates from the basement while others strip servers and sweep the rooms for anything they can’t leave behind. The wounded go first. The dead are lifted beneath dark canvas.

Kade sees it all in passing as they rise from underground, floor by floor. He smells rain again by the time they reach the top floor, but he also smells yeast and hot sugar. Blaire pushes through a fire door, and they emerge behind the ovens of a small, currently closed bakery. Through the slats of the shuttered storefront, rain shines through the gaps.

‘This is the street-level entry?’ Lachlan asks, looking around.

‘Vasily owns it.’

‘Wait, is this Merrycrumbs?’ Kade asks.

‘You know it?’

‘Seth would bring stuff from here back to the Tower sometimes,’ Kade explains, looking around. ‘They make the best cinnamon rolls.’

‘I liked their cookies,’ Riley says quietly.

‘Vasily makes those himself sometimes,’ Blaire explains, leading them through the back door into pouring rain. Several cars wait in the alley, an armoured vehicle positioned closest to the bakery.

Despite everything, Blaire and Lachlan share an undeniably soft look.

Lachlan says, ‘He loved baking.’

Blaire smiles. ‘He still does.’

Kade and Riley follow, Kade hovering close to make sure Riley doesn’t slip. After the beating downstairs, he doesn’t even know how Riley is walking, let alone conscious.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘I’m OK.’

‘Really?’

‘I just need a bath.’

‘Yeah.’ Kade stares at the armoured car. ‘Is that for him?’

‘I guess so.’

Lachlan goes to find the car they drove here in and bring it back. The Moroz Front will then follow them to the Tower of Iron Star. Blaire shivers in the rain, breath unfurling white in the cold.

‘Is Mimi really his daughter?’ Kade asks her.

‘Yes.’

‘You never told him.’

‘Of course I didn’t tell him. The balance was delicate to begin with. An impossible tightrope of minute decisions, with failure waiting on all sides.’

‘Did Penhalyx know?’

‘He knew from the start.’

‘Why would he hire him if he knew?’

‘Alistair Penhalyx is a man prone to certain beliefs that sustain his ego.’

Riley asks, ‘Such as?’

‘The idea that he is a man to whom all things come in time. He believed it was fate, granting him the means to control Jessamine and calm her. I suppose when one has lived as long as he has, carrying nine hundred years’ worth of memories, one starts to see patterns. Red strings everywhere. The more involved Lachlan became with the family, the better it would have been for Penhalyx when he possessed you,’ she says to Kade. ‘All else was window dressing.’