Frost Line Read online

  “Minor,” he murmured, closing his eyes again. “Except for that.”

  “Damn you!” She swiped both cheeks with her hands. “You threw yourself in front of me! Why? Why? It makes no sense!”

  Those dark eyes slitted open. “Love you.”

  The words hit her with more power than that she had unleashed on her surroundings. She sank back on her heels, mouth open with wonder. “L-love?” she stuttered.

  “After the temper tantrum I just saw, I’m rethinking that.”

  “Love,” she said, and now her tone was achingly gentle. “The temper tantrum was because I thought I’d lost you.”

  “You still might,” Esma said acerbically behind her, “unless you move and let me tend him. The longer the knife is in his back, the worse it will be. Our knives are specially formulated to cause accumulating damage.”

  Lenna turned her head to look at Esma. The Hunter had regained her feet and stood behind her close enough to touch, but hadn’t tried to wrench Lenna away. She held up her hands. “I swear I won’t harm him. I don’t want you to—” she glanced at Stroud’s motionless body “—do to me what you did to him. Whatever it was.”

  Lenna cast Stroud a dismissive glance. She had no pity for him. She hadn’t lost her temper in such a very, very long time that she’d almost forgotten what it felt like, but she wasn’t surprised that Stroud wasn’t moving.

  “If you can help him, do it,” she commanded Esma, her voice full of the authority of her position.

  Esma knelt beside them, and together she and Lenna eased Caine to a sitting position. He could barely help them, and he ground his teeth to keep from groaning as the movement worked the wicked blade deeper into him.

  Lenna saw how deep the knife was, and she remembered how long the blade was. She blanched. This was a death wound; it had to be. No wound could be so deep and not cause mortal damage.

  But … he was a Hunter, and Hunters were notoriously difficult to kill. She reached for the knife to pull it from his flesh.

  “Wait!” Esma put her hand over Lenna’s. “It has to be removed a certain way, to avoid further injury. I’ve done this before, more than once. I promise, I’ll take every care. Word of a Hunter.”

  Lenna glanced at Caine, and he gave her a faint nod. She looked back at Esma. “Do it.”

  For herself, she trusted Esma, and for some reason always had. But this was Caine, and he had to agree. He knew more about what was going on than she did.

  Esma dug in one of her pockets and produced a slim pouch from which she removed two green pellets, handing them to Lenna. “When I pull out the blade, break each pellet and sprinkle the dust over the wound.” She slit Caine’s clothing, clearing the space around the wound. “Are you ready?”

  Again Caine gave a brief nod. Esma gripped the hilt, slowly tilted the blade in a certain way that made the sweat pop out on his forehead, though he didn’t make a sound. Then she carefully rotated the blade to the right, just a little, and slid it free. Blood all but gushed from the ugly wound. Swiftly Lenna popped one of the green pellets and carefully sprinkled the contents over the wound, then did the same with the other pellet. Almost miraculously the blood slowed to a trickle, and the open edges of torn flesh seemed to smooth and flatten.

  Esma slapped a square of bandage on the wound and it adhered to his flesh. Almost immediately Lenna could feel relief flowing through him, revealed in the relaxing of his muscles. He took a deep, shuddering breath, let his head drop for a few seconds, then he straightened his shoulders and prepared to stand.

  Lenna and Esma both gaped at him. “You can’t get up yet!” Lenna protested.

  He rose to his feet. “I can’t?” Gingerly he rolled his shoulders, but already his color was almost normal, and that hard, glinting light was back in his eyes.

  Esma said weakly, “I’ve never seen anyone recover that fast.”

  But this was Caine, and everything that Hunters were, he was more.

  Lenna and Esma both stood, too. “How long have you realized you were meant to be on our side?” Lenna asked the other woman.

  “Since I decided that it would be foolish to even attempt to kill Strength.” Esma sighed, shrugged. “I’ve never not completed a mission, but … I don’t trust Veton, not with the deck, and not with you.”

  “Good call,” Caine said as he cleaned his knife and slid it back into the sheath. “He is the Tower, you know.”

  “I know,” Esma said. To Lenna, she said, “If you had possessed the entire deck when I arrived, I’d have taken you to your own home, not to Veton.”

  Lenna nodded, gave a small smile. “I should have known.”

  Caine walked over to Stroud’s still body, and Esma went with him. Reluctantly Lenna joined them; if she could do harm, she could see the results. “Is he dead?”

  To her surprise, Stroud was looking up, frozen but fully aware. The sight gave her the shivers. Caine experimentally nudged him. “He’s frozen solid. Can you thaw him?”

  No longer surprised at a Hunter’s endurance, or differences from normal beings, Lenna held her hands out, palm up, and looked at them. “I don’t know how. If I tried, I might cook him. When I lose my temper I don’t … pull my punches, so to speak.”

  “I noticed,” Caine said. To Stroud, he said, “Guess you’ll have to come to room temperature on your own, buddy.” He looked around the ice-covered warehouse, everything silver and blue and drifting in snow, a winter wonderland if one overlooked the destruction. “But that might be spring.”

  Stroud couldn’t even blink, but his wide eyes showed comprehension. Caine shrugged. “Here’s some free advice: never let me hear of you or see you again. Change your name, live on another world, never cross me or mine again and I’ll let you live. Bide by those terms and you’ll be safe. Otherwise I’ll turn her loose on you again, and next time she won’t be merciful.”

  Stroud’s eyes filled with horror.

  Lenna didn’t feel pity for him. He had almost killed Caine. She glanced down at him once more. Maybe someone would find him, but she simply didn’t care.

  She pulled Caine and Esma away from Stroud’s prone body and held out both hands. “The cards you hold, please.”

  Esma reluctantly took the Moon from her pocket and slapped it onto Lenna’s palm. Caine did the same with the Emperor. Lenna reverently added those two cards to the rest of the deck, in the red bag. The glow of the cards brightened. The bag, which had been heavy while the deck had been incomplete, was suddenly lighter.

  She took Caine’s hand and then Esma’s. “We will finish this task together,” she said, and leaned against Caine. “Take us to the Emperor.”

  The Emperor’s castle hadn’t changed in the few hundred years since Lenna had last visited … or she thought it had been that long. Time didn’t matter on Aeonia, the way it did on other planes. Everything was exactly as it had been: the furnishings in his offices, the way the sunlight slanted through the tall windows. Jerrick hadn’t changed, either. Like her, he was forever Arcane.

  Jerrick rose to his feet and gave Lenna a stern, serious look before dismissing Caine and Esma with a wave of his hand and a single brisk command. “Go.”

  “No,” Lenna said, stepping forward. The Emperor wasn’t her superior. He was a … spokesperson, a leader, but in the end she held sway over as much of the universe as he did, perhaps more, because if Jerrick was strong he took that strength from her. “I would like a word with you, and I ask that these two Hunters be allowed to stay until I have done what must be done.”

  Jerrick shook his head, focused on the task at hand. “Hand over the Alexandria Deck—”

  Lenna shook her head. “No, not just yet. I have a request. A number of requests actually.” Convincing him to join her in what must be done wouldn’t be easy, but she needed the cooperation of several of the most powerful Major Arcana, and it all began with Jerrick.

  Jerrick’s eyebrows arched in surprise. What had he thought she’d do, hand over the deck and go home as i