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Chapter 47

August

There were many reasons that Oskar Wallen hadn’t been arrested yet.

One of them was that there was no finding him unless he wanted to be found. But there were always ways to get a message to him. It hadn’t quite been dawn when August had finally loaded Nora into the back of a taxi and watched her drive away. Back to her world.

While he went to work in his.

Luckily bakers started their work early. And Madleen Mendler was no exception. She had turned tricks when she was younger. Then Oskar Wallen had come along and she’d started killing men for him. It paid better, enough that she’d retired a few years ago. Became a baker. She was the only person in the city Oskar trusted to make him food he was sure wouldn’t be poisoned.

She took the folded-up bar napkin and promised she’d hand it over with his morning’s batch of rolls.

August didn’t even remember getting home, but it was afternoon when he woke. Apparently he was keeping Holtzfall hours now.

Oskar, ever the gentleman, had replied to August’s bar napkin via a cloth serviette. A nice one too, made of thick white cotton and a monogrammed OW .

On it was written simply:

Officer Eugene Knapp. 2146 Garden Street, Apartment 1309.

He has the ring.

Finally, they had it. The name of the cop they had seen in the photograph taking jewelry from Verity Holtzfall’s body.

August attached the name and address to the emissary bird Nora had repaired the day they met. They were so close now. So close to answers. So close to the story. He made his way to the address to wait for her.

Garden Street turned out to be full of dull gray bricked buildings in an ugly newly built-up part of the city. Too far downtown to have any wealth, not far enough to be actually interesting. August lingered under the awning of the neighboring cobbler’s, keeping an eye on the door since there was nothing else interesting to look at.

There was a newspaper stand across the street.

Constance Holtzfall was dead. Nearly every headline was pinning it on the Grims, just like Nora had said they would. She’d be buried today. August knew his message might not reach Nora before the funeral.

But it would reach her. They didn’t need to speak to the officer today. They’d waited this long. He could wait until Nora was done mourning with her family.

Suddenly the door to the gray apartment building swung open, a man wrapped up in a trench coat against the rain emerging in a hurry. In a split second, August made his decision. He wasn’t going to wait. Mr.Vargene had given them until tomorrow to come up with something that kept them employed. He needed to know now. Today. He lunged, catching the door before it could slam shut behind the man and quickly slipping inside.

Shaking off the rain, he scanned the mailboxes quickly in the entranceway.

E. Knapp, Apartment 1309.

Of course, in a building with no elevator.

Thirteen flights of stairs later, August arrived, out of breath, in the narrow hallway. He paused, unsure whether the rate his heart was racing was from the climb or the anticipation. He’d changed his mind about how he’d approach the man with every floor. If he ought to confront him outright or try to trip him into a confession.

Instead of magimek lightbulbs, the hallway bore the remnants of disabled gaslights lining the walls. Those had been made illegal about two decades ago. They said they were a fire risk, but everyone knew the governor at the time had been under duress from Leyla Al-Oman and her new magic-fueled lights. Passing a law that made the whole city use magimek lights meant more money in LAO and Holtzfall pockets.

The only source of light was coming from an open door, halfway down the hall.

August moved toward it carefully.

He was close enough now to hear music from a vox through the door that was ajar. Some singer August’s mother loved crooning about her broken heart because her love had taken a ship across the sea. Her lilting tones eerily filled the quiet hallway, even as August reached out a hand, pushing the door fully open.

The first thing he saw was an overturned table. A cup was smashed on the ground next to it. He knew then what he was about to find. But he couldn’t stop. He had to see to be sure.

The door squealed treacherously as he pushed it fully open, unveiling the rest of the small apartment. It was cramped and miserable, even by August’s standards. A ragged couch was crammed into a corner. A rug had been used to try to give the room a little bit of warmth but without much success. The kitchen cupboards were a garish peeling teal color. A kettle steamed on the counter, and the vox hummed gently, the crooning singer now giving way to a news bulletin. And in the middle of the room, Officer Eugene Knapp’s body was sprawled across the floor.

Blood was still pooling beneath him.

He had been dead minutes, not hours.

Not dead. August processed. Murdered.

The sound of a door slamming somewhere else in the gargantuan building crashed through the ringing in August’s ears, which was doing its best to drown out any coherent thought. A neighbor, probably, heading out on errands, who was about to discover the same thing August just had.

August forced himself to turn away from the body, fighting a wave of nausea. He couldn’t be caught at a crime scene. He forced himself to walk at a normal pace back down the hallway. Back down thirteen flights of stairs. To not hide his face and break into a sprint as he passed a woman lugging groceries up the stairs.

Somewhere around the sixth floor, his thoughts began to catch up to him.

The ring. He should’ve looked for the ring. Looked for evidence. Or at least if it was a theft. If Oskar knew that this cop had a ring worth a few million, other people must know too. It would be easy to chalk it up to a theft. But August had seen too much to believe in coincidences. The timing. Who else could have intercepted Oskar Wallen’s note to August? Was it someone on Oskar’s side? Or was this August’s doing? The note he’d sent Nora…What if she wasn’t here because it had never made it to her? On a day like today, when her whole family was gathering for a funeral, any one of them could have intercepted his emissary. And if one of them was behind the murder and the setup—

It seemed like an eternity before he made it to the ground floor. Until at last, he was pushing the door open sharply and walking out onto the street.

And he stepped straight into a uniformed body. The police officer staggered back, the normal Excuse me, didn’t see you there forming on his lips even as August prepared to say the same platitudes back. And then the officer’s face changed as he glanced down, his brow creasing.

August followed his gaze.

Suddenly noticing there was blood on his shoes.