Frigid air gusted in and she went back to the bed and tugged the blanket around her shoulders. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“We Snow Children travel where the snow goes.”
“Yes, but why did you come here, and why now? It must be snowing in hundreds of other places at this exact moment.”
“Only Paris has you.”
She gave him a hard look. She wasn’t in the mood for games. “Are you after more gin?”
He laughed. “That’s not why I’m here, though I wouldn’t say no to a dram. I saw what happened at the Coal Baths.”
Of course—?it had been snowing then, just a few flakes, but enough for Jak to spy on her. Her face warmed with shame and she turned to a cabinet with glasses set out on the top. Sure enough, when she dug through it, she found a bottle of gin. She filled a tumbler and gave it to Jak.
He drained the glass and wiped a finger along the rim for the last traces and then said slyly, “Poor girl. Not a Pretty. Not a witch. Not a thing of wings and feathers either.” He popped his finger in his mouth.
She stiffened. “How did you find out about that? The owl?” She had no memories of that time when she’d been an owl, nothing but a dim awareness of feeling hungry and frightened.
The Dark Thing. The Cold Place.
“As far as riddles go, it was not overly difficult to solve,” Jak said. “I told you, we Snow Children have been around since long before beasties, or Pretties, or witches. We’ve seen it all.” His black eyes glistened.
She rolled the melted bell in her hand. “Do you know what was wrong about my crux?”
“The crux is merely a symbol. The other girl, the one who lived, chose a crux that connected her to her past, to her tragedy, to other witches. Lavender ash.”
“This bell contained my own magic. How could I have found a stronger connection?”
“You weren’t looking in the right place.”
She groaned and slumped into the window seat. “Fine. Speak in riddles. But tell me this: If you’ve existed so long, have you heard of a time called the Noirceur?”
Jak froze, then lowered the glass in his hand. His eyes were still playful, but there was a hint of danger in them too. “What does a beastie know of the Noirceur?”
“Just tell me what you know,” she said, then jutted her chin toward his empty glass. “I’ll give you the whole bottle.”
He leaned in, the snow blowing in at his back. His icicle locks hung in his face. “The Noirceur. You’re wrong—?it wasn’t a time. It was a force. Chaos itself. It’s very old, perhaps the oldest thing there is, from before time, from before life, even. Only a small remnant of it remains: the vitae echo. The rest of it faded away over the ages.” He gave a mirthless smile. “Or so the Haute would have you believe.”
“It never faded, did it?” Her voice was hushed. She thought of the books in the Duke’s library that Luc had brought back, the ancient references to plagues that were happening all over again.
Jak shook his head slowly. “No. It was merely contained.”
“What do mean, contained? Where?”
Jak grinned devilishly. “Do you wish to know badly enough to give me a kiss?”
She scowled. “Your kisses bring death.”
“Very well.” The corners of his blue lips curled up. “I solved the riddle of your origin, and so now it is your turn to solve a riddle of mine. The Noirceur was contained in . . .”
“Yes? In what?”
“Ah, that’s the riddle.” He blew a breath of frost to cloud the window and traced a symbol there, a circle containing two small lines and broken rays, like an incomplete sun.
“That isn’t a riddle,” she said. “It’s a picture. And a nonsense one at that.”
Jak grinned. “The riddle is simple. Its portrayal is not.” He began to fade away with the lessening snow, and she thrust her head out the window, calling for him, but he didn’t return.
“Snow Children,” she muttered under her breath.