A Fistful of Frost

by Rebecca Chastain

  Brad swept a hand across his bald crown. “Eventually, yes. You might even get a chance to become bored. Or fully trained.” He sighed. “I wish I had more time to prepare you. You’re too green to be going up against a creature as strong as a tyv.”

  “What else is new?”

  Jamie finished shaking the crumbs from the bottom of the chip bag into his mouth and joined us. “What’s this?” he asked, poking the soul breaker.

  “The only weapon proven to be effective against tyver,” Brad said.

  Jamie gave the bamboo knocker a skeptical eyebrow waggle.

  Reminded of the reason I’d blinked to Primordium in the first place, I lifted the soul breaker from my chest to examine it. Nope. It hadn’t transformed into something pretty. I pushed a tendril of lux lucis through my fingers into the bamboo. The light ran up the gray curves and under the connecting leather bar, leaving a faint white glow. The clinging energy didn’t surprise me: Previously living objects like bamboo held and conducted lux lucis; I’d expected nothing less from an enforcer weapon. I pushed more energy into the soul breaker, and lux lucis rushed up the bamboo, across the engraved leather, and overflowed to coat the cord around my neck.

  Upside down like this, the necklace resembled an Egyptian ankh. If crosses could ward off vampires, maybe this ugly amulet could ward off sjel tyver. Of course, vampires weren’t real, but the legend had to have started somewhere.

  “Is it a talisman?” I asked, twisting the soul breaker back and forth.

  Brad scoffed. Wrapping his fist around the bamboo U, he gave it a sharp tug. The bamboo separated from the leather with a soft snick. He held the soul breaker in front of my face, giving me a good look at the exposed tips. Each ended in a razor-sharp hook that glistened white with my residual lux lucis.

  “You’re an enforcer, not a priest,” Brad said.

  He handed the soul breaker to me, and I took it daintily, feeling like an idiot. A tentative test confirmed the hooks were as sharp as they looked, the sides gritty to the touch. When I curled my hand around the apex of the U, the bamboo arms wrapped around the sides of my fist and the hooks extended a few inches past my knuckles. According to Val’s sketch of a tyv, I’d have to be standing inside the circle of the evil insect’s legs to have a chance of killing it with this.

  “Are you sure my pet wood wouldn’t be better?” At least it’d give me three feet of reach.

  “Even if it were sharp enough, it’s not coated with the necessary ground seal bone to incapacitate a tyv.”

  I scrunched up my face. That explained the gritty feel of the soul breaker’s tips. “If tyver are so dangerous, why is the best weapon we’ve got to fight them a horseshoe tipped with fishing hooks? Why not something longer?”

  “Because precision matters. The soul breaker’s name is literal: it breaks a tyv’s hold on your soul, and it’s the only thing that will work. If you’re snared by a tyv, the time it takes for your lux lucis to reach the hooks could mean the difference between your survival and your future as a vegetable. You want the hooks to be as short as possible.”

  What lovely, nightmare-inducing logic.

  “How does it work?” I asked.

  “Fill it with lux lucis and stab. Aim for the thorax—the part of the body behind the head. Don’t overthink it.”

  I punched the air with the soul breaker.

  “Yep. That’s it. Now put it away,” Brad said.

  I examined the necklace, or rather the sheath, to determine how the soul breaker reattached. The engraved square of leather parted along the bottom seam to form an upside-down pocket. When I slid the soul breaker tips back into the sheath, magnets glued on the inside of the leather clicked closed, safely encasing the wicked hooks. I jiggled the cord, and the soul breaker swayed, but it didn’t show any signs of falling out.

  I clutched the soul breaker and drew it, satisfied when it sprang free in my grip. The thick bamboo fit comfortably in my fist. It might be ugly, but it felt solid. I’d take a well-designed weapon over an attractive, useless one any day.

  “What about for the drones?” I asked.

  “You won’t need it for the drones. For them, you have the palmquell.”

  “The pom-what?”

  “Never mind that. We need to teach you how to net— Gummy worms! She’s early.” A cordial smile completely at odds with his words and tone transformed Brad’s face into a beatific mask. I recoiled but he had aimed the expression beyond me. A compact car pulled into the space on the other side of Brad’s Fiat, and I caught a glimpse of two people inside, both with white souls, before they were blocked from view.

  “Okay, listen up.” Brad turned his back on the newcomers, dropping his voice to a hiss. All traces of his serene smile vanished. “The inspector holds the fate of both our careers in her hands. She’s the arbitrator of Isabel’s unclaimed region, and she can pass it to whoever she sees fit. By every right, it should go to us.” The feral gleam in his eyes made me want to back up. “Opportunities like this don’t come often, and she’s going to make us prove we’re worthy. I need you on your best behavior, Madison. You and Jamie both. Until I say otherwise, do exactly what Pamela says. Impress her. Knock her socks off. Failing that, don’t embarrass me.”

  “I’ve got this,” I promised. I crossed my fingers behind my back and prayed I wasn’t lying.

  3

  Speak Truth to Power

  I expected the inspector to look like an Army Ranger, tall, muscular, and radiating an “I could kill you if I wanted to” vibe. The woman who stepped from the car shattered my assumptions. Midfifties, petite, and pale, with a slash of bright auburn in her chin-length white-blond hair, Inspector Pamela Hennessey didn’t look authoritative until her assessing gaze landed on me. Then I fought not to squirm.

  “Madison Fox and the pooka Jamie,” she said, not quite a greeting and not a question. It would have sounded rude if not delivered in her posh British accent. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “All good, I hope,” I quipped.

  She eyed me up and down, giving me a noncommittal, “Mmm.”

  My smile froze at the corners.

  Rose climbed from the driver’s seat and shut the car door with more force than necessary. The Latina empath gave me a curt nod, as if we were strangers and not coworkers and friends. What the hell? I stopped pretending to smile. Jamie shifted closer, brushing his gloved hand against mine, worry crinkling his eyebrows as he read the tension of the group. I gave him a shoulder bump to reassure him, pretending to be relaxed. Pamela’s gaze snapped from our touching hands to our shoulders to our faces, and I fought the urge to leap away from Jamie as if I were doing something wrong.

  “Give me a net and let’s get your purity test out of the way, Madison,” the inspector said.

  “Pardon me?” Wasn’t a purity test a medieval way to judge a woman’s virginity? Not only had that ship long since sailed, but I also didn’t see how it would be relevant—or anyone’s business. I checked Brad’s neutral expression. Did details about my sex life fall under the impress her or don’t embarrass me category?

  The inspector rounded on Brad, wispy-fine hair flaring on either side of her pink headband earmuffs. “She doesn’t know what a purity test is? You haven’t tested her once in the last five days?”

  “Madison’s purity has never been in question.”

  A warning frizzled down my spine at Brad’s bland tone. She’d put him on the defense. I glanced to Rose for a clue, but she only grimaced and looked away.

  “Don’t let your recent victories make you arrogant, Brad,” Pamela said. “Of course her purity is in question. She’s bonded to a pooka.”

  Aha! This wasn’t about virginity; this was about Jamie’s dual nature and the metaphysical bond he’d placed on me. I’d been warned—repeatedly—to be careful of Jamie’s darker half; more than one bonded enforcer had been corrupted by a pooka’s morally ambiguous influence. No one had mentioned purity tests.

  “This is to see if Ja
mie has . . . changed me?” I asked, choosing my words carefully in deference to Jamie. Nothing in his expression said he took offense to the insinuation that our link might have tainted me. He saw nothing wrong with wielding atrum as readily as lux lucis, and if I failed a purity test, it’d probably make him happy.

  “Changed you?” Pamela echoed. “No. I need to know if the pooka’s bond has sullied you.”

  So much for being tactful. I peeked sideways at Jamie, but he hadn’t reacted, his gaze focused beyond Pamela on the people walking by.

  “Is there a problem?” the inspector asked.

  “No. Of course not, but, Inspector Hennessey—” I shot Brad a desperate look.

  “Call me Pamela. Never Pam.”

  “Got it. Um, Pamela—”

  “She doesn’t know how to make a net,” Brad said for me.

  “Why not?” Pamela demanded, spinning to confront my boss again, the hem of her wool coat flaring to reveal the calves of her pale leather boots.

  “I haven’t had the luxury of instituting a methodical training regimen with Madison.”

  “Mmm,” Pamela said.

  I was starting to hate that noise.

  “And if she encountered a frost moth?” she asked.

  “She has a lighter.”

  One I’d purchased this afternoon at Brad’s insistence. Shaped like a small blowtorch, with a trigger to ignite the flame, it was the fanciest lighter I’d ever owned. It also had the distinction of being the only lighter I’d ever purchased with the intention of using as a weapon—or at least I thought that was the plan. I pressed my lips together. Now wouldn’t be a good time to confess that after reading Val’s entry on sjel tyver, I’d completely forgotten to ask the handbook about frost moths—what they looked like, where to find them, or how to kill them.

  “I can instruct Madison on nets now,” Brad offered.

  The inspector shook her head. “Let’s get the inquisition out of the way.”

  The what?

  Pamela pulled her shoulders back and crossed her arms, squaring off in front of me. “Pursuant to the rights granted me as an inspector of the Collaborative Illumination Alliance, I declare my intent to a formal field inquisition of Madison Fox.”

  “Acknowledged,” Rose said.

  I darted a look from Rose to my boss. Why did Rose appear to be working for Pamela and not Brad? More important: “Did I do something wrong?”

  “That’s what I’m about to find out,” Pamela said.

  “Pamela is questioning everyone in connection with Isabel,” Brad explained. “A warden going rogue is incredibly rare, and the Triumvirate want to understand how it could have happened and ensure no other rogues are lurking in our midst.”

  I let out a breath, trying not to show my relief. Not everything is about me and Jamie, I reminded myself.

  “A field inquisition is recognized the same as a trial in front of the Triumvirate,” Brad continued. “Rose will act in the capacity of Truth Seer, and she will judge your responses for honesty.”

  Truth Seer seemed an appropriate title for Rose. As an empath, she could sense others’ emotions as if they were her own, which made lying to her impossible. Now that I thought about it, her unwilling participation in everyone else’s emotions could also explain her tense posture. Heck, if she were picking up only my discomfort, it’d be enough to put that scowl on her face.

  We all turned when an SUV parked next to my Civic, disgorging distracted parents and disengaged children with noses pressed to phone screens. No one paid attention to our group clustered in the muddy strip between our cars’ bumpers and the fence. Nevertheless, Pamela waited until they walked away before turning back to me. At some invisible signal, Rose stepped forward, expression neutral, and the inquisition began.

  “Did you ever work with Isabel?” Pamela asked.

  “With? No. I worked in her region at the mall, cleaning up citos for several days.”

  “Truth,” Rose intoned.

  I twitched and shot Rose a questioning look. She stared into the space between us, her face the mask of a stranger. I curled my toes inside my boots, resisting the impulse to fidget. I’d done nothing wrong. I had no reason to be nervous.

  Sure. Nothing bad ever happens to innocent people during inquisitions.

  “Have you ever committed an act that caused atrum to accrue on your soul?” Pamela asked.

  “On purpose? No.” I ran my fingers down the outside seam of my pants, not quite meeting the inspector’s eyes. “I’ve been fed on by imps and vervet. And a demon . . .” I trailed off, deciding it wasn’t crucial to list every creature that had tainted me with atrum.

  Jamie shifted, turning to watch a gangly girl lug a tuba case out of a minivan across the aisle. The pooka’s indifference to the proceedings siphoned some of my nerves, and I took a deep breath and stilled my fingers.

  “Listen closely,” the inspector said when my gaze resettled on hers. “Have you ever used atrum?”

  “Oh. No.”

  “Truth.”

  “Do you think you can handle your region without the assistance of Niko?”

  The question caught me off guard. As optivus aegis, Niko Demitrius assisted in exterminating the most dangerous and deadly evil creatures throughout Northern California. He had frequented my region several times since I’d been hired, but each time the threat level had warranted his elite-enforcer expertise. With Isabel out of the picture, he wouldn’t need to drop in quite so often.

  “Yes, I can do this alone.”

  “Truth.”

  Pamela arched a brow at Rose.

  “She believes she can,” Rose said.

  “Well, that’s something.” Pamela turned back to me. “To your knowledge, has Brad ever used atrum?”

  I frowned. “No.”

  “Truth.”

  “What do you think of Brad as a warden?”

  I crossed my arms. What kind of a question was that with Brad standing right beside me? “He’s the best warden I’ve ever worked with.”

  “Truth,” Rose said on top of Pamela’s snort. Brad was the only warden I’d ever worked with, and we all knew it.

  “Are you in control of your pooka?”

  I double-checked Jamie’s location. He hadn’t moved from my side, but all his attention had pivoted to the inspector.

  “Yes.”

  Rose took her time before saying, “Truth.”

  “Do you feel a desire to do evil things?”

  “No.” I bit off the word.

  “Truth.”

  “Does your bond with the pooka influence your actions?”

  I huffed out a breath, uncrossing my arms. Jamie had inflated in my periphery, somehow looming even though we were the same height. I needed to calm down before he decided to step in and “save me” from the inspector.

  “Of course the bond affects me. That’s the point of it. But it doesn’t make my decisions for me, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “Truth.”

  “Would you pass the pooka’s bond to another if you had the opportunity?”

  “Never!”

  “Truth.”

  I balled my fists in my pockets and strove to school my expression. I couldn’t decide which was worse: the thought of handing Jamie to another person as if he were an object and not a person, or the fact that Pamela had forced the question on me while Jamie could hear the answer. If I’d had any hesitancy, Rose would have seen through it, and it would have ruined my relationship with Jamie.

  “What would make you a better enforcer?”

  “Training and experience,” I snarled.

  “Truth.”

  Pamela gave me her first genuine smile, one I wasn’t feeling charitable enough to return. “The trial is complete. Madison Fox, you are free to carry out your duties as an enforcer, barring, of course, passing a purity test.”

  “Great.” The moment she looked away, I shook out my hands, trying to dispel my lingering defensiveness. Jamie studied Pa
mela with the full weight of his power sitting in his eyes, turning away only when a gaggle of teen boys ran past, laughing and shouting at each other.

  Brad checked his phone and announced, “Niko’s five minutes out.”

  My stomach flipped and my heart rate spiked. I tried to pretend my reaction was rooted in dismay. Niko’s presence meant the sjel tyver were as awful as Val made them out to be, and the optivus aegis thought his substantial skills would be needed to defeat them. Maybe I should have been grateful, but so long as Niko was hanging around, he would be undermining Pamela’s perception of my ability to handle my region.

  All those thoughts zipped through my head, nice and logical, but the visceral response of my hormones had little to do with such trivial matters as my safety or my career ambitions. Brad had said Niko and my endocrine system heard sex.

  Pamela checked the clock on her phone, then turned to Jamie. “Pooka, I formally request a prophecy.”

  “A what?” I asked.

  Jamie blinked at the inspector, a slow smile spreading across his face.

  “In private,” Pamela added when he opened his mouth. “Come with me.” She strode down the line of parked cars in the opposite direction of the stadium, and Jamie trotted after her without a second glance in my direction.

  I took a half step after them, but Brad laid a hand on my arm. “Prophecies are confidential.”

  Pamela didn’t stop walking until they reached the end of the row and were almost hidden from sight by the line of vehicles. I leaned to see them better and knocked my head against the chain-link fence.

  “Since when is Jamie a fortune-teller?”

  “Since birth. He’s a pooka,” Brad said. “Didn’t the handbook inform you about pookas and prophecies?”

  “Um, maybe?” I tried to remember Val’s exact wording.

  “Check it again.” He turned to Rose, dismissing me. “Did she—”